When the Daily Dot last wrote about 20-year-old Allie Goertz and her D&D-singing ways 22 days ago, she had only two songs uploaded to her YouTube channel CossbySweater and was playing in front of a cheap camera with bad sound and lighting.
Now almost a month later, with the help of donations from the YouTube community, Goertz has upgraded her camera and microphone, and is saving money for studio time.
“I’ve gotten donations of anywhere from $0.50 – $100 for my mp3. I can’t believe how gracious people have been!” wrote Goertz in an email.
As for her YouTube handle, CossbySweater? Goertz explained that it comes from a scene in her favorite movie, High Fidelity.
Her latest and fourth song, also inspired by actor-comedian Patton Oswalt, is titled “Song for Ulvaak.” The lyrics for “Song for Ulvaak” come directly from a chapter in Oswalt’s book, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, and features her friend “Megan” as accompanying vocalist.
Goertz said “Song for Ulvaak” took her longer than any of her other songs:
“I wrote it in about 3.5 weeks and would sometimes write through the night ’til morning. The poem in his book is a favorite of mine and achieving the right tone was incredibly important to me; I wanted to do it justice. “
Since Goertz fired up her YouTube singing career, her videos have been linked to by the Huffington Post, Topless Robot, Buzzfeed, National Lampoon and Kotaku, to name a few.
Patton Oswalt has even noticed Goertz’s songs, tweeting two of her videos and responding to her on Facebook, writing that “this is the most validated I’ve felt in my entire career.”
Goertz “was completely taken aback by how favorably he responded.”
Two of Goertz’s songs are available on Bandcamp, a site which lets artists offer free and paid downloads directly to fans, for free—“I’m happy to provide free downloads.” “Song for Ulvaak” will be available “shortly,” Goertz said.
Will Allie Goertz be the next great singer to emerge from YouTube? The Daily Dot will be watching.