Said the Gramophone is now around six years old. Six years is a very good age to be. We know how to walk, run, jump and crack jokes. We know the words to a few songs. We've invented code-words, made some friends, and we are learning how to draw shoelaces.

Six years ago, there's no way Dan, Jordan and I could have imagined ourselves here in pistachio-green, saying, "Hi again, all you".

This is the third annual Said the Gramophone Funding Drive. It's when we ask for your generosity.

Last year the three of us played you more than 500 songs and wrote more than 250 posts. Each day we threw one, two, three hours of our lives at this silly, sometimes splendid thing. It doesn't take much more than that to keep all this going. But it does take something. (That something is: money.)

Said the Gramophone does not take advertising. You may have noticed that most websites, and certainly most mp3blogs, do. Words that have been used to describe this decision: "stupid", "silly", "naive", "nice". Every week, someone new asks us if we want to put up ads - a few days ago I was even stopped on my bike. But our foolhardy decision has stuck, and this means that not only are we a little poorer than we might be - once a year we have to come to you and say Please give.

If you enjoy this site, please give. TIME magazine may like us but still Said the Gramophone is never going to be the biggest mp3blog in the world. We are too set in our weird, woolly ways. We try to do just one thing - writing with spirit about the songs we love, - and to do that one thing well. Our audience is you. That's it. There's no one else. You small, strange gang. We cherish our rare contacts - and every spring we ask for your help.

This year there are two funds for donations. Both will be open for just one week and then we will go back to our quiet noisiness.

1. Donate to Said the Gramophone's robotic underpinnings.
   




2. Donate to Said the Gramophone's people.
   

These are some of the things we did in the past year: introduced you, perhaps, to artists such as Ponytail, Withered Hand, Sister Suvi, Tune-Yards, The Whiskers, Carl Spidla, Jumbling Towers, Adam & the Amethysts, Lykke Li, the Dodos, Women, the Soul Stirrers, the Instruments, Diamonds, Babe Terror, Kasai Allstars, Wild Beasts, Hologram, Sibylle Baier, Kleerup, Young Coyotes, Abe Vigoda, Karl Blau, My People Sleeping, Wale, Forest Fire, Freak Paeans, Rye Rye, School of Seven Bells, Lord Dog Bird, Jib Kidder, Gossamer Albatross, Titus Andronicus, Witchies, Styx Tyger, Nico Muhly, Passion Pit, Esau Mwamwaya, Pretend You're Happy, Francois Virot, Buraka Som Sistema, Eternal Summers, Eagleowl, Land of Talk, Meursault, Doug Randle, Marvin Pontiac, Nneka, Fever Ray, Parlovr, the Phantom Band, Twin Sister, Micachu and the Shapes, the Daredevil Christopher Wright, Clues, Emperor X, the Best Show on WFMU; wrote stories about rusted butterflies, "Kokomo" in the subway, listening to Percy Sledge, seeing the Silver Jews, having a crush on Stephen Harper, Mikaeus Andante, Mayo Thompson at the library, Bruce Springsteen surveys, and oh hundreds more; offered guest posts by Ariel Kitch, Amber Albrecht, The Whiskers, Adam & the Amethysts and sort of the Silver Jews; shared our favourite songs and favourite albums of 2008.

We did a lot with little, but it was only worthwhile because of our readers' kindness of spirit, eagerness of ear, and dope handclaps. Thank you so much for all your comments and clicks, your hoots and chides, your tips and toodle-oos, your back-blogs and back-rubs. Thanks for telling your friends, your uncles, your sisters, your thesis advisors about us. Thanks for adding us on Facebook. Thanks for playing our favourite songs to your lovers. Thanks for having patience with our bullshit. We understand that not everyone can afford to donate to a silly website. Regardless of dollars or cents, pounds or zloty, thank-you thank-you thank-you all again for continuing to make this one of the most rewarding things in our lives.

And a great song to send you on your day, to paint yr walls a heart's watercolour blush. I mentioned it before in passing, but it deserves more. (via shake yr fist)

Burning Hearts - "I Lost My Colour Vision"