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11/6/2009 3:34 AM

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By Brad Hundt

Staff writer

bhundt@observer-reporter.com

After marching through the major-label system and seeing the independent imprint she was signed to close its doors, Jill Sobule decided it was time to return to the patronage system.

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Rather than go hat-in-hand to yet another label, the 44-year-old singer-songwriter turned to her fans to finance her next album. Like a public radio pledge drive, Sobule promised her donors a range of goodies for their dollars, from a mention in the liner notes to the use of their name in a song. People who gave at higher levels were flown out to Los Angeles to appear on the disc.

"I just wanted to do a record and pretend I had my own label and have enough for marketing and promotion and a little publicity," she said. "It was really a barter system."

Sobule thought $75,000 might be able to cover it, but she ended up raking in even more.

"It kind of took me by surprise. ... I finally had to cut it off," she said. "It's been used prudently and wisely. It was pretty incredible, I must say."

The album, "California Years," Sobule's eighth, is a conceptual look at her life in the Golden State, which she decamped to in order to do the score for the Nickelodeon series, "I'm Fabulous." There's a song about country singer Bobbie Gentry on the disc, along with an autobiographical song, "Nothing to Prove," about enduring the slings and arrows of what she derisively calls "the industry."

"I always have to put myself in the song somehow, even if it's not about me."

"California Years" closes with "The Donor Song," which Sobule basically made up on the spot. It cheerfully lists her donors and, as she noted on the phone from Los Angeles earlier this week, getting all the names pronounced correctly was a challenge.

"I didn't want to mess that up. That would have been a bummer."

For her next project, Sobule is contemplating writing a musical. She's not sure when or if she'll make another album - there's the possibility she might release a handful of tracks here and there digitally.

"At this time in my life and this time in the industry, it's not like the old mode of, you put out a record, you put out a record and you tour. There are other things."

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