Kickstarter Closing

It is the final two days of our Kickstarter to record a new album of James Horner’s early 1980s TV movie scores: A Few Days in Weasel Creek, Angel Dusted and A Piano for Mrs. Cimino.

The campaign ends Thursday night at 11:59PM, May 21, 2026, and we have a little over $10K still to raise—so this may be a photo finish!

We have 471 backers as I’m writing this Tuesday morning. We had 817 to our campaign last year at this time to revamp FSM’s website, do a Best of FSM book and other 35th anniversary projects—so I am desperately hoping that we can get a hundred (or two!) of those donors to join us.

And with that in mind, two memories that I’ve been thinking about these past few days...

One is the mid-1980s when I was just getting into film music, and discovering what were, at the time, my “big three”: John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner.

But this a very different time of film music fandom. There was no FSM, no IMDb—no public Internet at all. Just finding out which movies our favorite composers scored was a lengthy and time-consuming task.

So I did what a lot of us did: went to the local video store and checked the credits of the videocassette boxes—particularly in the sci-fi/fantasy section. (On Martha’s Vineyard, we had Sight & Sound, Captain Video and Island Entertainment—good times! The brown cases from Sight & Sound always had a funny smell to them, which I later learned was from cigarette smoke. Ah, the 1980s.)

And that is how my family rented Krull and Brainstorm—so that I could hear the music! And they did not disappoint. I was completely captivated by this James Horner—whoever he was!—and the incredibly immersive, melodic and compelling scores he created. Then I resolved to track down the soundtrack albums—which is another story entirely.

I have such fondness for this time that when thinking what to record for FSM’s first-ever newly performed album, it seemed natural to pick lesser-known Horner scores from the era. His voice, especially from that time, speaks to me so meaningfully—and, I hope, to you too.

The other memory I have is from the early 1990s when I was starting the newsletter that became FSM. I would have loved to do it for free, just out of affection for the music and the community, but I was in high school and only had some meager savings from my summer dishwashing job. Even if and when the high school let me use their photocopier, I had to pay for the stamps—and the requests for samples kept coming in.

So I set what I thought was a fair subscription fee, which I think was $15 or maybe $22 for the year. And I remember when the first checks came in, collating them and holding them and being in awe that people sent me their money. I was really blown away that so many complete strangers would trust me, a high school kid, with their hard-earned money. And I resolved to work my hardest so that they always got as much value as I could give them.

That ethic, I hope, continued through the history of our magazine, and our CD series and now these Kickstarters. Even when we were doing pricey box sets, I only went through with the projects when I was sure they would deliver. It’s now been 35 years, almost 36, and I take it as seriously as I did then.

If you contributed to the Horner campaign—thank you! And if you haven’t, please see the campaign and I hope you can support us. You can pre-order the digital album for only $15 or the CD for only $25, amongst a variety of other options—including the chance to watch the recording sessions in Prague online.

Thank you!