Self Fulfilling Prophecy: A Zodiac of Songs by Anders Ponders

What I began writing...

...was more of an autobiography than a project description. For many reasons. I wanted you to have faith not just that I am qualified, but that I was born to do this. I wanted you to know how my life has made me just as radical, open-minded and intelligent as you are. I wanted you to believe that I could be one of the pioneers to successfully bring our message to national and international audiences through the medium of popular music. I also wanted you to understand the reasoning behind the type of help that I need.

But then I realized that my life story is probably not too dissimilar from yours, so I should just describe the project before spilling my guts.

I have a musical project that I call Anders Ponders. It began as a solo-act: me singing and playing viola, guitar and piano to sequenced drum beats on a loop pedal. I never expected to stay alone forever, though, and now have a guitarist and a pianist and am working less and less with the loop pedal. When my debut album came out in November 2009, it got a lot of favorable blog coverage and the local press ended their review with "It is a masterpiece," and named it one of the best local albums of 2009. In other words, I write very good music. You can hear it at: http://www.myspace.com/andersponders

The next album has to exceed the high standard set by the first, and based on what I have composed so far, I'm sure it will. I hatched an ingenious plan to release the first album with $5,000 of grant money for small businesses. For the next album, I am going to submit scores to the McKnight Foundation's Fellowship for Composers, which is worth $25,000. I have little doubt that I could be very competitive among the more than one hundred applicants who vie for four fellowships every year.

I used the loop pedal to attain the grandiose, epic orchestral compositions that run through my head. Now with the incentive to actually compose parts for an orchestra and choir, and with the credibility needed to convince musicians to collaborate, I am writing songs that are larger than life.

It's all very appropriate to the subject matter of what is going to be a very epic concept album. The twelve songs will be organized according to signs of the Zodiac, to which I assigned Greek mythological characters whose stories contain a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right now I have five songs finished and the barebones of the rest have been established. Here is what the track-list will look like:

1. Cronus (Aries)
2. Gaia (Taurus)
3. Hermes (Gemini)
4. Oedipus (Cancer)
5. Achilles (Leo)
6. Daphne (Virgo)
7. Orpheus (Libra)
8. Cassandra (Scorpio)
9. Chiron (Sagittarius)
10. Sisyphus (Capricorn)
11. Ganymede (Aquarius)
12. Narcissus (Pisces)

I'm attaching the lyrics to the five songs I've completed because I am confident that users like you will understand the symbolism in them better than most.

The help I need is mostly financial but I am also looking for collaborators, especially in the Twin Cities. I stopped believing in money years ago and thus have not been very ambitious financially. Working towards anything but these goals of ours here on Evolver makes me feel nauseous. Therefore, I am wondering whether there is someone on this board that has a direction for me, even if it isn't in Minnesota. I want a job in this type of activism. I want to surround myself with people of my same beliefs. Please message me if you have any ideas and I can supply you with my resume. But I feel very alone among people who aren't ready to listen and I'm concerned that if I don't get help soon from a guardian angel, this project may never manifest itself.

Thank you!