EVELYN EVELYN PRE-ORDER PRE-ORDER!

HOLA COMRADES!!!

this is a blog-version of the email that went out a few days ago to launch the Evelyn Evelyn pre-order!
once again, if your’e not ON the email list - sign up here. it’s my mainline to you…and the only way to get first crack at concert tickets, etc.

i’m working on a blog regarding all the craziness that’s been happening in oz. i feel like i live a whole fucking lifetime every 3 days and i only get around to blogging every 6 days and i can’t handle the overload of images and thoughts. mostly, i’m turning to  twitter as a constant brain-dump.

eenyway…..this is IT! our little record is ALMOST OUT!!!! 
and this time, we own the rights to sell it ourselves, which is a cause for great celebration.

there is a plethora of options for you!
before you read on, please take a moment to press “play” and enjoy some music by evelyn evelyn, as you read on:


COMRADES! (and curious bystanders!):

we are proud to announce the OFFICIAL LAUNCH of THE LONG-AWAITED DEBUT ALBUM BY CONJOINED TWIN SISTERS, EVELYN & EVELYN (as well as their BRAND NEW HOT OFF THE PRESSES WEBSITE)!!!! for the past three years, jason and i have been working - on and off - on this collection of stories and songs by and about the “evelyn” twins. CO-PRODUCED BY/FEATURING JASON WEBLEY AND I, THE ALBUM IS FULL OF SAD, HAPPY, AND CLEVER SONGS OF ALL SORTS, and it’s READY FOR YOU TO HEAR!!! it’s set to come out march 30th in the US (april 5th many other places around the world), and below you’ll find pre-order options galore. these pre-orders are set to end april 6th at midnight EST. we’ve tried to make things as fun and interesting as possible, all the while ensuring that there’s something for everybody. Please be sure to take your time choosing the right package for you, and hit us up with any questions you may have…then you can go HERE right away and place your order.



you guys often ask me WHAT is the best way to purchase music: THIS is the best way to do it - this will ship directly from us and will not go through some faceless third-party distribution company (therefore leaving the greatest amount of profit for the artist). people have voiced concerns because of the problems we had with the WKAP pre-order, and we all totally understand and want to quell those fears: we are working with a totally different system this time around (including my long-time merch peeps at JSR and miss beth of all trades), and it’s pretty watertight. IF you have any questions about this ordering process, feel free to mention it here and someone from team chaos will get back to you ASAP.

and if you just HATE mail-order completely or don’t have a credit card/checkbook/paypal, the album WILL be released in STORES in the states and canada on march 30th, and april 5th in most of europe, and oz. it’ll also be available WORLDWIDE on the EE bandcamp (soon), and your favorite digital retailers on the 30th/5th. we’ll try to send you guys another mailer telling you exactly where you can trundle off to a bricks-and-mortar establishment and pick up a copy of this fine album, but for now this is THE way to go (especially with the fancy extras).




to thank you for supporting us: we will randomly choose one lucky pre-orderer for a free upgrade to the “Benefactor Bundle” (valued at $1,111)! eleven others will be chosen to receive copies of the original sold-out Evelyn Evelyn 7” vinyl single, (released in 2007 in a limited edition of 1,111 - these have been known to sell on eBay for more than $100.) we’re also giving away a single copy of the 7” and some other fun stuff to one lucky person who RSVPs to the album release event, HERE on facebook. all winners will be chosen by April 6th at midnight EST, and announced within 48 hours on the shadowbox.
oh, and PS…ALL pre-orders will get a digital download code for the album from our friends at bandcamp (sometime BEFORE March 30th.) additionally, packages will ship around the 23rd, and should be in your hands well before the record hits stores (though foreign orders may take longer to arrive.)

xoxo

a

DEBUT CD - $11

The 12-song debut CD by Evelyn Evelyn, produced by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley. Three years in the making, this disc features the talents of dozens of musicians, including a number of exciting guest performers. It comes packaged in a colorful digipak with original artwork by Cynthia von Buhler.


DELUXE DOUBLE VINYL - $22

Collectible 10” deluxe double-vinyl set in a sturdy gatefold sleeve. The records are pressed onto beautiful brightly colored blue and yellow wax, and imported from the Czech Republic. Includes lyric insert AND a copy of the album on CD.


BUNDLE 1 - $25

• “Evelyn Evelyn” 12-song debut CD
• Red pre-order only Evelyn Evelyn t-shirt
• Deck of custom Evelyn Evelyn playing cards
• Two 1” EE/Elephant Elephant buttons
• Two EE stickers (2x9” & 2x3”)


BUNDLE 2 - $66

• “Evelyn Evelyn” CD (SIGNED BY EE)
• Frameable 12”x12” fine art poster
• An “Elephant Elephant” tote bag
• Colored double 10” “Evelyn Evelyn” vinyl
• Deck of custom Evelyn Evelyn playing cards
• Red pre-order only Evelyn Evelyn t-shirt
• Two 1” EE/Elephant Elephant buttons
• Two EE stickers (2x9” & 2x3”)


BUNDLE 3 - $263

• Everything from Bundles 1 & 2!
• Custom “Elephant Elephant” ukulele (These ukes are quality, playable instruments; Made by Mahalo and hand painted by Blake Brasher using artwork by Cynthia von Buhler)
• A personalized birthday song just for you, sung by Evelyn Evelyn


BUNDLE 4 - $1,111

Our “Benefactor Bundle” - Everything from Bundles 1-3, PLUS:
• 4 tickets and a meet & greet with Jason & Amanda at any show on the EE tour
• Watercolor painting by Evelyn Evelyn of “a conjoined twin animal of your choice”
• A small handbound book about that animal, containing an original story by Evelyn Evelyn
• “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” DVD, signed by AFP
• “The Cost of Living” CD, signed by Jason
• Out of print vintage Evelyn Evelyn t-shirt


But wait, you want……..more options?

DINNER WITH EVELYN EVELYN - $11,111: Dinner with the Evelyn twins and their chaperone for yourself and one guest in New York, London, or Los Angeles (within the tour schedule). Dinner and transportation not included. Sushi is preferred.

AROUND THE WORLD WITH EVELYN EVELYN - $11,111,111: An Eleven-week around-the-world trip with Evelyn Evelyn- including a camel trek through the Sahara, hiking in the Himalayas, an expedition to Antarctica, and a trip to the Hendrick’s Exotic Animal Farm Bed and Breakfast in Nickerson, Kansas. ALSO: Enjoy canoeing at Jason Webley’s floating shack in Washington state, and a silent meditation retreat with Amanda in Western Massachusetts. Lifetime supply of Twix candy bars included!

OVER THE MOON FOR EVELYN EVELYN - $11,111,111,111: One trip to the moon (and back) for you, one guest, Evelyn Evelyn, and their chaperone.

Again, pre-orders are LIVE - you can get any of these fine bundles HERE, NOW! Please do not fret about being the first person to order or anything like that if you’re at work…unlike the WKAP pre-order, we aren’t planning on limiting any of the packages. You’ve got from now through April 6th at midnight EST to get your orders in (winners for all prizes will be chosen by this time, and announced on The Shadowbox within 48 hours). That said, you WILL want to order ASAP to make sure that we can ship your items a week prior to release date and get you that early download code.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and also for your support. Hope you dig the record as much as I have, and that you make it out to a show or two while the sisters are touring (tour dates below).


USA:
April 12 - OBERON in Cambridge, Massachusetts   
April 13 - OBERON in Cambridge, Massachusetts   

EUROPE:
April 17 - Oran Mor in Glasgow, Scotland   
April 19 - The Academy in Dublin, Ireland   
April 22 - Koko in Camden (London), UK   
April 23 - Bush Hall in London, UK   
April 24 - Bush Hall in London, UK   
April 25 - Bush Hall in London, UK   
April 27 - L’Europeen in Paris, France   
April 28 - Melkweg in Amsterdam, Holland   
April 29 - Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany   
May 1 - Babylon in Berlin, Germany   
May 3 - Gloria in Cologne, Germany   
May 4 - Arenbergschouwburg in Antwerp, Belgium   

For additional information on all of these shows (including times, ages, and more) click HERE. Please be sure to keep checking back there, too: More North America dates will be posted, soon!

Oh, and one last thing…….please RSVP to the album-release HERE on Facebook, and pass this message on to as many friends of yours as possible? You can also link to it on a friendly little webpage, HERE.
Love,
AFP, Jason Webley, Team Chaos
and of course Evelyn Evelyn

back in the saddle.

in adelaide airport, about to take off for sydney.

i just ate what could very easily have been the worst sushi i have ever put in my mouth at an adelaide airport establishment called billie chu.
it was technically a california roll, by name, but the rice tasted possibly canned and the avocado was possibly picked before it was even born.
i threw most of it away. i am hungry. i am having a coffee now. i ran into a fan in the check-in line who flew from perth for the show. we took a photo on her iphone. the screen was cracked. she had a shaved head. it’s a nice day. i land in sydney and go straight to the hotel to meet with the folks from RAGE TV, who’ll be filming me in bed while i host a day of videos. i have to pick 50 videos out (i’ll do this on the plane, probably) and introduce 13 of them…i love doing this, but it also always depresses me because all of my favorite videos are from 1983 and 1984. i’ll try and remind you again closer to the airing, but it’ll be on march 20th. 

for those of you that have been following my exploits on twitter, you already know a lot about the last week and some of this might read as old news, but it’s a good time to tell you what i was profoundly up to for the last week.

i have, as many of you know, a deep love for australia, espeically during certain months (i.e. september, october, november, december, january, february, march and most of april and basically any other time that’s fucking freezing on the eastern coast of america or in europe).

when i was planning this trip to oz a while back, i emailed mr. ben folds and asked him if he could suggest any recording studios where i could lay down some tracks.
he pointed me to the incredible mick wordley, who runs a studio and a label called mixmasters. 

it’s a wonderful little hideaway, and mick and his wife robyn (and their kids, jack and ginger) live in the big house next to the studio.
my kind of place…mick hand-built most of it from found parts and they’ve got an incredible veggie garden and chicken coop in the back. 
we ate lots of fruits and eggs and drank really really good australian wine made by the italian dude down the street. 
everybody around here seems to know everybody else, and i love that.

the studio itself has a little apartment up top with a bathroom and kitchen and that’s where i stayed…the days started to blur…i woke at around 10 am, tried to do some sitting and yoga before delving into the email, and then we’d work on tracks from 11 am until sometimes as late as 2 am.

koala.

i was working on two projects simultaneously, both of them designed very specifically to allow me to fuck around, have fun, and not stress the fuck out.
the last three times i’ve been in a recording studio for any length (the first dolls’ record, the second dolls’ record, and my solo record) have been nerve-wracking.
i wanted to just have some fucking fun. so i did.

i recorded 5 radiohead songs on ukulele for heavy-duty shits and giggles.

i recorded some of the songs i’ve written in the past year, just to have a document of ‘em.

and i recorded some bits and pieces for a sort-of-silly oz-themed-thing that i’m masterminding for next year.


that’s mick, at the mac. mick mac.

here’s the board set up for IDIOTEQUE, one of the radiohead songs:


here’s me waking up like a lizard in the sun one morning:


here are my worklists:




this is a little south american guitar-like instrument called a TIPLE that i learned how to play (which wasn’t hard, because it’s tuned just like a uke. it has 10 strings and sounds absolutely beautiful):


i webcasted a few times, randomly at partyontheinternet.com…here’s one of ‘em:



one time i put the mac in the back of the piano. 
then tammie edwards from north carolina, who was watching the webcast, made this drawing from the screen and emailed it.
it’s amazing:


then i decided to do an in-studio party, and i recorded while people crushed into the stuffy piano room.
we had lots of fun and i played some of the rough mixes…


(photo stolen from jac cox on facebook)

lots of people brought wine
and some people brought beer
and some people brought cider
and some people brought cupcakes
and some people brought brownies
and lots of people donated real australian money (which is made of plastic, did you know that?) to the studio alms box.

and best of all, a wonderful woman named romana who brought waffle-batter and a penguin waffle grill.
she improvised with the brownies and made penguin-shaped waffles with brownies in them 

and good god

i’m getting a little fatter than usual, and it’s very delicious


(from matt davies’ facebook)


tom and jen from the jane austen argument opened up and got a great recording out of it….they sounded fucking beautiful.
tom’s grandfather had just died. he held it together like the brave and beautiful soul he is. i love the boy.
jen sang and played piano beautifully and we had a good talk out in the road about how hard it is to record in the studio.

i’ve forgotten exactly what it’s like to be sitting at the piano for the first time with a microphone shoved into your mind.
god it’s hard. your brain spins with pain and regret at every miniscule mistake and you want to destory your imperfect self with a sledgehammer.

talking to jen reminded me why i was in the studio in the first place. and i wasn’t really sure why. i’m still not.

i have these vague little ideas and plans but none of them are actually real. 

mostly i just wanted to flex my muscles and force myself to get back into that headspace of feeling like a real recording artist.
when i sit behind a mixing desk and fiddle with knobs and talk to an engineer, even if i’m just working on covers that aren’t coming straight out of my soul…
i feel like i’m WORKING. it trumps everything. it’s that point where i feel like i’m DOING SOMETHING. so i think it was just time.

i listened to all the mixes today. they’re good, maybe even great.
they’re not what i would give the world on a golden platter as my next huge offering.
but they are all little beautiful candies in a large bowl on the hallway table. sweet, maybe forgettable, definitely enjoyable.

i don’t know.


us…..tom. jen. me. a friendly boy whose name i forget who kept holding the mac during the webcast:

(photo from grace frick’s facebook)


(another by jac cox)


(from nick schultz’s facebook)


somebody brought a terrible bottle of evil vegemite….and i attempted to destroy it….


and and at the top of the amazing…

somebody (i forget who) brought the lyrics to the vegemite jingle.


o my god. 




i’ll try to post some more good clips as they come in. i don’t want to ruin all the surprises of the recording itself. life is hard.

meanwhile. moving too fast to work. gotta catch up with steven and mark from the danger ensemble.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
afp


p.s. sydney opera house TONIGHT!



Cross-posted to MySpace.

webcasting from the recording studio in australia tonight

hola!

quick announcement: i’ll be webcasting LIVE from the studio in adelaide TONIGHT (friday), with an audience of freaky ozzy punters, playing a bunch of songs that i just recorded here. we might also have a little listening party. there will be cake, but
if you are watching through the internet you will need to have your own cake since you will not be able to eat the cake here.

at around 8pm [that’s 8pm adelaide time (note the half hour time diff)], we’ll go live at partyontheinternet.com (BTW, you can share the link http://bit.ly/AFPparty on twitter/facebook so your friends can join us, too)
that’s, like, 4freakin30am EST, 9:30am in london, 1:30am PST…..it’ll be an odd mix of people who maybe normally don’t get to see the webcasts ‘cause of time differences. here’s a nifty ‘lil site to tell you what time is is here (where i am), wherever you are in the world: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=5 (to be more clear, it tells you ADELAIDE time, not AFP-time….i just happen to be in adelaide…)


tune in and tell yer friends  -  again, partyontheinternet.com (aka http://bit.ly/AFPparty)

LOVE
AFP


p.s. there’s a new evelyn evelyn song up on my myspace and facebook, jason’s myspace and facebook, and of course the twins’ myspace and facebook (it’s the same song, we just wanted to make sure you all heard it)…….it’s the title track (“evelyn evelyn”) and people seem to love it, so far.
so happy to hear that.
go listen to it at either http://bit.ly/EEfacebook or http://bit.ly/EEmyspace and please help us out: if you love it, share the links!

p.p.s. yes, we were hoping to launch the pre-order for evelyn evelyn today. there are a few last minute tiny bugs we’re fixing in the storefront, but it should be up within the next 24 hours (fingers crossed). last call: if you wanna be the first to hear about it, sign up to the e-mail list!

dear old melbourne house / special in-studio adelaide show FRIDAY NIGHT

i’ve been holed up in a studio in adelaide and working working working 14-15 hour days on new recordings.
the other day i decided to randomly webcast for a while, and did my first-ever on-webcast vocal takes.
if you follow my twitter feed chances are good i’ll do it again.

most importantly, i’m doing a SUPER-SPECIAL-TASTIC little event IN the recording studio on FRIDAY at 7 pm for those of you in adelaide.
for details about how to attend, go HERE. 
there are only about 30 spaces, and whoever comes will be immortalized forever and always on my new material (yes, i will probably make you sing).

AND we’ll try to webcast the show. i’ll pass my mac around.

re: the below….
i started this blog a week ago and never sent it, so while i lose my mind here………i’ll post it. it contains thoughts which’re about 8 days old. keep this in mind while reading.
//////////////////////////////

camping out in melbourne, australia, at the gorgeous victorian home of some of Neil’s wonderful writer friends. fuck hotels. i swear…he sends me to the most incredible people. it’s like i’ve inherited magical guest status in the Best Homes of the Planet.

i’ve posted before about the Clutes in london (that’s where i stay when i’m there) and the Nicholls/Coney faction is sort of the Clutean Oz counterpart…Peter Nicholls and John Clute worked for a long time together on the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, and his wife, Clare Coney, is a legendary editor.

through the strange, quiet chaos of the last week or so, we’ve been sharing coffees, teas, foods and wines throughout the day and night, while clare pays cooking hostess extraordinaire, but the air here has been food for my soul. oh to live in a house instead of on a couch, in a hotel or a chaotic mess of an apartment. meal times. i’d forgotten about those.

we walked the dogs. the university is thinking of putting a nasty bridge over the public park. clare is taking action.

the eucalyptus trees smell when you pinch and crush the leaves. the lavender, which grows outside of the house, has matching butterflies that land in it, they’re gray on the outside and purple on the inside.

there is a cat with me, named duca, and she pushes her face into my head in the morning when she’s hungry.

there is a little patch of cell phone reception on the lawn where i sit wrapped in a blanket over my head at night because there are mosquitos and i talk to neil back in america and i tell him what i see around me and tell him that i miss him and that the bed feels empty without him (and it does).

the mosquitos bite my feet. i itch them in the morning while i’m doing yoga. 

i eat plums and bread.

clare spotted a rare australian stick bug. it climbed on back. 

it, indeed, looks like a stick:

peter has parkinsons disease and has since the 90s. 
the medication makes him a perpetual motion machine. 
he is one of the most open-hearted and charming fellows i’ve ever met. 
i sit on the front porch with him while he smokes cigars. 

we have the same socks.

clare is a miracle of generosity and intellect. she shoos me out of the kitchen when i try to help.
i try to do dishes when she’s not looking.
their two kids - the ones i got to actually know, jack and luke - are fairly awesome (some of you may have met luke at the butterfly club gig: he was the cute tall one wearing the t-shirt that said “nobody knows i’m a lesbian”). 

i stumbled (stumbled? well, neil delivered me) into the perfect household of the moment. there’s a little granny flat in the garden where i’ve been holed away, equipped with a loaner-keyboard care of one of my wonderful melbourne comrades mr. lyndon, whose younger brother sang a capella to me in a cab the other night. if he plays his cards right, he’ll be huge. i need to remember his fucking name now. he astounded me.

mornings and dinners spent shooting the shit about life, sex, controversy, health, mind, body and pretty much everything else under the sun….this is what the doctor fucking ordered.
i really like being adopted.

everywhere there are books and books and this house is like my dear old house (it was built not too far away in time) and so it’s like being a transplant into an alternate universe. 

even the doorknobs match. i listen to them.

i’ve been conducting my days business and phone interviews in the dining room, which is incredibly fancy and silky with old old china and molding and paintings.
there are two paintings on either side of the fireplace.

one is of clare’s mother, who was winston churchill’s secretary.
one is of peter’s father, who was a communist.

they never look at each other.

i played tennis. 
with my taxi driver who i started talking to. 
his name is aaron. 
he beat me 6-love both sets. 
now my arm hurts.



the day after i arrived, clare threw an over-the-top brunch and invited a bunch of exciting people…felix riebl from cat empire showed up and we talked music and recording…a notorious ozzie poet spilled wine on his trousers and walked around all afternoon in a sarong while claire washed his pants. steven mitchell wright, my long lost danger ensemble comrade, showed up as a surprise from brisbane on his way to the adelaide fringe, lyndon chester, my beloved violinist from tour last year, showed up, and the inimitable tom dickins picked me up from the airport (he’s finally named his band: the jane austen argument. they opened up for me at the forum show and SLAYED, as did mikelangelo).

if you happen to be in adelaide for the fringe right now, by the way, GO SEE THEM/THESE SHOWS:
(bookings HERE: www.adelaidefringe.com.au/)

1. the danger ensemble present: 
THE HAMLET APOCALYPSE
if you’d been wondering what steven & many of the members of the ensemble have been up to since they toured with me, this is IT.
they developed parts of this show when they were in boston with me. GO, go, go.


2. zen zen zo presents: 
ZEITGEIST
the one that started it all; this is steven mitchell wrights old company and this show featured one of his pieces.
it’s mindblowing theater. mark hill from the danger ensemble is in this show, kiss his bald head for me if you see him.


3.tom dickins and jen kingwell as…..
THE JANE AUSTEN argument

they opened up for me the other night at the forum and they sold out of CDs and people loved them.
they sing heartbreaking and bitter love songs and use a piano and their voices.


ok…………onward…


the day of the brunch was, i realized only vaguely, valentine’s day. 
the point was driven home quite clearly when i was escorted from the lawn into the living room, told to sit in a chair, and treated to a tit-tastic burlesque dance by two volunteer suicide girls from melbourne known as “Peggy Sue” and “Mad Dame” who had been magically arranged SOMEHOW by Neil Gaiman as a surprise valentine’s gift. they brought flowers. 

here are the girls, and steven, and lyndon. the possible comments regarding food, books, australian pavlova and sexual orientation are endless:


the assembled guests all sat and watched awkwardly as they ka-boomed me with their hottt burlesque skillz. 

i then decided to turn the tables, and steven agreed to choreograph them quickly to a david bowie song while i located neil on skype. we then propped my two-dimensional lover up on an end table while everyone in the room, much less awkwardly this time, watched him grinning like a idiot while the girls performed what may have been the world’s first Web Video Valentine’s Day Revenge Burlesque Performance, complete with Steven Mitchell Wright off-camera shouting “and ONE and TWO and DOWN TO THE FLOOR and GRAB THE TITS and THREE and FOUR and GO FOR THE CHAMPAGNE and ONE and TWO” over the living room stereo blasting “ziggy stardust” (or was is “suffragate” city? now i can’t remember). it was a lovely brunch.


speaking of which, the marmite/vegemite wars have come to a successful conclusion via twitter.
the upshoot….


….and neil has agreed to play tambourine on one of my new songs




EVERYBODY WINS



(and somewhere in here, i’ve been getting ready to go into the studio to record up to 20 songs.)


xxxxxxxxxxxx

AFP.


p.s. if you haven’t seen the new OKGO video, my god….watch it: 



Cross-posted to MySpace

GOOD NEWS WEEK tonight. naked people FTW.

hola comrades!

a quickie reminder to those in oz that i’m going to be on the TV show Good News Week tonight: channel 10, @ 8:30.
here’s a clip from last year when i played a nancy sinatra song on uke, and made paul mcdermott’s night when i bowed, after which a discussion of my muppet underwear ensued:



this time round was incredible…the other guests were american comedians Des Bishop, Eddie Ifft and oz musician Ricki-Lee Coulter.
eddie ifft was particularly ridiculous….we filmed 3 hours for a 90 minute show and it features some of the basest humor i’ve ever had the pleasure of co-creating.
it was a great experience, much more relaxed than last time now that i knew what the fuck what going on and how these strange australians flow.
i also got to hang out with claire hooper (one of the hosts of the show) after the show and get a good long lowdown on All Things Oz and Melbourne over wine after the show. she’s a great woman.

and i also played a violent femmes uke song (rather badly, but it was fun as hell).

and….indeed, i decorated my underwear especially for paul, but didn’t show it on the air, because, um, i have self-control like that, because i’m amazing.
actually, the opportunity simply did not present itself. i feel so mature.

but what do you know, i got a picture: please also note the amazing power ranger dress, hand-sewn out of a bedsheet for me by an amazing fan from north carolina whose name keeps escaping me (if you see this, wonderful girl, remind me and i’ll change the blog).

meanwhile…..i’m hard at work in the studio in adelaide.

i might, just might, need to gather some adelaide locals to come have a little show with me here on the last night.

stay tuned.

ALSO
last call for radiohead ukulele covers is HERE.


xxx
AFP




p.s. i can’t believe i JUST missed this many naked people brought together by photo-hereo spencer tunick in sydney, standing on the VERY spot i did my ninja gig 2 weeks ago. 
CURSES!
for info on his work go HERE: http://www.spencertunick.com/


Cross-posted to MySpace

brand new song. (i fucking hate vegemite.)

hola!

i just left melbourne for adelaide, where i’m holing myself up in an incredible studio. 
will tell all soon.
the melbourne show (and mebourne in general) was just fucking transcendent. unbelievable.

for now…this is a clip of a song i wrote the NIGHT BEFORE the show.

i got the idea for it on a leafy twilight cab-ride home at around 5pm, after doing a piece of radio promo for a station called triple j.
don’t ask me where it came from, my brain just goes places. the melody and lyrics hit me all at once, i wrote the first verse on my iphone, and finished writing the rest before dinner. 

(by the way, the part about being force-fed by the babysitter = FACT).

love, AFP




p.s. if you don’t know what Vegemite is…it’s…just….foul. it’s a black, pasty, salty, yeast-based sandwich spread to which australians have an uncanny attachments.
it was a depression-era brainstorm, since someone figured they could do SOMETHING with the waste-product of beer factories. uccch.

p.p.s. if you’d like to join the #VegemiteWars currently afoot on twitter, do so. 
neil just admitted to owning (no shit) TWENTY-ONE jars of marmite. for REAL. it may be over.

FAITH EVER MORE: the melbourne slam rally

godDAMN i could not have had a more awesome day.

i just came home from a random surprise Melbourne dinner with fucking mike patton and the entire reunited Faith No More.
all incredibly down-to-earth, inspiring guys. i sat next to roddy bottum and we had great talks about bands and music and what it’s like to leave and re-unite again.


me & roddy:


they weren’t at the rally; they’re in town for their own shows & for soundwave (my nemesis festival!), but i literally bumped into a mutual pal (well, our promotor-in-common, michael gudinski, not SO random)
and he invited me out with them. 

we ate delicious vegetarian chinese….

….my plans in life have officially collapsed. and you know what? i’m fucking fine with it.
when huge street protests and vegetarian chinese dinners with amazing people call, you FUCKING GO. you GO.

honestly - my goal in hitting the studio in adelaide was to…i don’t know. make good things happen?
sometimes your plans get fucked up and other things come about. so you make other good things happen.
who fucking cares. you leave your plans by the side of the street, festering in a pile. go, you go, you go.
and then you blog about it and waste more time.

YAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

and so


some great pictures form the rally. i took them all unless otherwise noted:

i heard the count was over 70k people attended. 
it was so, so inspiring to see so many people in a city rally around a cause like this: keeping music thriving int he small club scene. 
not every city would take up arms like this if it’s music scene came under threat from lame liquor licensing.
seriously. would yours?
you can feel the pulse of this city,it beats with art and love. 
that is why i love it here so much. 

here’s a wee lass hanging out in the bar before we marched:
random hot background blonde: paris wells.




the gathering crowd below….

(photo by justin from The Age)



the march.
behind me, the guys from the Drones, next to me, angie hart and missy higgins:

(photo by mark burban. lifted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/giveaphuk/4381823674/)

amanda fucking palmer photographs the press:


best. clown. ever.


the uber-awesome paul kelly, one of my songwriting heroes, in front of parliament…


the crowd in front of parliament….


when we finished the march and took to the parliament steps for the speeches, i found myself standing next to a handsome gentleman i didn’t recognize.
he told me he’d heard of the dresden dolls and liked our music and was happy to meet me. 
then he told me he was fucking MICK HARVEY from nick cave & the bad seeds. 
i almost shit a brick. 
i own tons of his records and have just never known exactly what he looked like. 
i tried to make amends and would have prostrated myself in *worship worship* stance on the parliament stairs if there hadn’t been all those thousands of australians watching.
MICK HARVEY. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

the speeches touched on the really important fundamentals, and i found my head bobbing in agreement constantly.

the basic, overarching theme: MUSIC IS FOOD FOR THE HUMAN SOUL. 
it needs to exist in little, fertile places, not just huge, soulless arenas. 
if i may run with this metaphor: small music clubs are the kitchens of musician culture, where our souls get baked. 
as paul kelly put it (more or less): there are no rule books for being a musician. 
instead: the small clubs, bars and venues are our universities.

a-fucking-men. 

the speeches:

jonnie von go from RRR JVG radio, the Rockwiz BAND, paul kelly, missy higgins, angie hart.



footage from this speech, and some cool random clips of protesters HERE.

an awesome t-shirt, if i do say so myself…

and a song to match…..

i did a mini-ninja gig right after the rally in a hidden nook and someone requested “sing”, which i’ve never learned on uke.
luckily three people busted out their own ukes and started playing it.
and we SANG…all together now.



and there was this little peanut of a fan…

photo by rebecca dickson


i can kind of die happy today. i will sleep like a rock.


x
AFP

down under dispatch.

brain runneth over, but i’m finding space in these few days to write, practice, connect, get ready for tour and do some random recording in adelaide.

i’m tweaking some old songs and finishing up some half-written stuff that i’ve never gotten round to….
….but mostly i’m just playing sad little radiohead covers on my ukulele and avoiding actual practice. 

a radiohead ukulele cover album might just have to be what i do to Shed The Past and Find God. so be it. 
some people ACTUALLY find god and record christian albums. i just find radiohead.

…………..


the evelyn record is going on sale in a few days and jason, team chaos, and i are getting ready to push the launch button on the pre-order, so please stay tuned. again, make sure you’re on the list.

………….

i’m spending a lot of time thinking, researching, and reading in preparation for the summer/fall project…which i can’t officially announce yet, but i can tell you this much:
it’s a full-blown musical, i’m in it, and it’s going to slay. more i cannot say.

from one of our source readings, “the third reich of dreams”…

i can’t wait to tell you.

………….


here are some fantastic photos from the sydney opera house ninja gig, worthy of posting because they’re so beautiful.
all told, i think about 300+ people came, on about 6 hours notice….a ninja gig RECORD.

i was blown away at how fast we were able to get so many people out…
the power of twitter and the power of the internet to gather people is VAST and it is AWESOME.

we didn’t get rained on for the first hour, but then the storm started to make us wet, so (after a request for “umbrella” on ukulele….obvi) we paraded under the opera house steps and kept the gig going.

it was really, really wonderful. 
i felt so happy and at home with everybody. 
i want my life to be a never-ending ninja gig. i do, i do.

the folks who run the opera house (craig in particular) were incredible, so helpful and happy to have us there. i love australia. they love art here.

the book swap idea worked out well, though the rain prevented us from setting up a whole leisurely ninja library.
people have been twittering each other book thanks and love, which makes me really happy.

these were my two donations. i didn’t have anything give-able-awayable so i sauntered down to a great little bookshop in potts point (recommended, it’s a little hole-in-the-wall called macleay bookshop) and bought two of my favorites…

it was one of my most favorite ninja gigs, i must say. 

i took lots of questions and we all talked a lot. 
the best moment was when someone asked “where do we go when we sleep?”.

someone shouted out that we ought to ask neil, since he’s the dreaming/sleeping expert, so i called him & we put him on speakerphone. 
(we also made him promise to come to australia. he did. next year, we’ll invade.)

this moment was caught on youtube and is really pretty adorable: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WArRT1iFLN4


here’s us, while the weather was co-operating…

(all photos by Clare Hawley)

see how dry we are, and how happy?


then it rained….but still we were happy, and somebody held an umbrella ella over my head while i played:

then it got too wet to stay on the steps. 
but we didn’t want to end.
so we had a parade….

…and the parade took us to out new home under the cover of the opera house steps….


…..and as a finale, i did my ralph macchio/karate kid impression:

…………………………

also

if you’re in MELBOURNE: please please come to the 

S.L.A.M. / SAVE LIVE AUSTRALIAN MUSIC rally. 
it’s TOMORROW, from 4-7 pm.

info: http://www.slamrally.org/


i started hearing about this the minute i got in town … 
it’s a tragic bunch of bullshit going down: small clubs all over town (including the legendary venue The Tote) are being forced to close their doors due to new laws insisting on paid/trained security for any club that presents live music (even if it’s an act playing acoustic guitar for 15 people in a coffeehouse).
this is absurd and people are PISSED, and the rally is hopefully going to bring a shitload of awareness to the cause.
most everyone i know in town is very sad about this, and as a hopeful part-time resident of this beautiful city, i’d hate to see it’s vibrant music scene get squashed.


i’ll be there with a bunch of other musicians (including paul kelly….see below), look for me in the back-up singing group when we do the giant AC/DC sing-along.
if you’re there, make sure you’re following my twitter feed…i’ll let you know where i’m at and when.

(there’s also a thread on the box for people who want to help promote the forum show / meet up: http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=10912.0)


ROCK
LOVE
CURES
ALL


AFP.

p.s.s. i started talking to my cab driver on the way back from the airport yesterday. he’s also a tennis instructor. on wednesday, we will play tennis. that is all.



Cross-posted to MySpace

evelyn evelyn drama drama

hola!



jesus. regarding (my last blog link).

listen: i deeply apologize if anyone has been offended by our project.
there is and was absolutely no harm meant, and if harm was taken, it’s obviously worthy of discussion.

i am, as always, very very happy to see super-intelligent conversation cropping up about the nature of art, life, and appropriateness in the blog comments & in other sub-threads.
please keep it up, it is awesome. but please, please, please do refrain from calling each other names. that sucks.

……………………………

neil also called me up slightly out of sorts, because some of HIS fans were upset about the blog.

this ties in with a slight problem i’ve been having lately, which is a whole new wave of neil’s fans coming over the fence to see what i’m about.
and when they see conjoined twins, black humor, and half-naked red carpet photos, they run screaming (and run screaming in neil’s ear. and the screams aren’t pretty to listen to.) 
as i explained in my golden globes blog…a lot of amanda palmer is about context and knowing what i stand for/have stood for in the past ten years or so.

the Evelyn Evelyn project couldn’t possibly be MORE about context. it’s been in development for 3 years, and a lot of people have been watching it grow from the get-go.

our intention with this record was NEVER to hurt. it was made in a spirit of real love and fun, and follows the story of two girls who had an extremely rough life and made a record album.
our intention was not to piss people off, make fun of, or belittle anybody. that is not our style.  

i do have to say, the topics of some of the more intelligent dialogue does make me rather gleeful….watching people yelling intelligently at each other about “tommy” (my favorite comment: “i don’t really know the history of tommy, did The Who try to pretend he was a real person?”), “phantom of the opera” and “the elephant man” is a lot more fun than watching people yelling UNintelligently at each other about, i don’t know, the death penalty. to my knowledge - correct me if i’m wrong - there are no musicals or concept albums about the death penalty. not YET.

…………………..

the most ironic thing is that this is, process-wise, the most lighthearted and joyful project i’ve ever been involved with.
i’d hate to think that any of that has been ruined by the tone of my last blog. 
if it did, i hope the record speaks more for itself, because it really was a labor of love. 

something that surprised me was this: i’ve been telling the “story of evelyn evelyn” to hundreds of people over many wines and coffees for the last 2-3 years. some close friends, some mild acquaintances, some journalists, all to whom i’ve related the story exactly as i told it in that last blog. 

far from getting any kind of “eeek, that’s really icky” or “wow, you heartless bigot” reaction, i’d gotten nothing but pure delight and excitement about the creativity of it all (yes, even the sordid backstory).

so why was the blog different? i tried to put my finger on it.

neil thinks the right tone of voice got lost. beth pointed out to me that people are so used to getting the classic amanda palmer shoot-very-straight-no-bullshit blog entires that this was rather a shocker, since it was a package wrapped in totally different cloth.

i think it’s a combination of both.

after scanning though hundreds of blog comments, there are a few things i’d like to address


1. 

before the shit really hit the fan, this upset blog appeared:

http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/02/09/evelyn-evelyn-ableism-ableism/

…jason, responding to that and the backlash to my last blog, wrote a
blog about it and posted HERE, and i’ll re-iterate what he said in a “we” statement, as he & i share the same opinion on this, to be sure:

offending or belittling disabled people or people who have a history of sexual abuse could not be farther from our intention.
we generally don’t like to offend and belittle ANYONE, but if there is anybody that we especially don’t want to alienate with this project, it is the people who might already feel marginalized and dismissed in our society.  especially when that type of alienation is a major recurring theme throughout the whole Evelyn Evelyn record.

speaking as one who had a step-brother (who was a great artist and musician, and who i worshipped beyond belieif) relegated to a wheel-chair with lou gehrig’s disease (he was hilarious and used to call it “the fucking piece of furniture in which i must live”)  and as one who has connected with tons of disabled fans all over the globe (many of whom wrote in via twitter and this blog showing their support for the spirit of the Evelyn Evelyn project - thank you guys) i find it really heartbreaking to think that we’d be so misunderstood.

i’ve built my life, my band, my career, and my shows and fanbase on a spirit of radical inclusiveness, and one of the reasons i’ve connected so deeply with jason, and with neil come to think of it, is that they function in the same way. love all, include all, relegate none. we all carry too much pain as it is to want to cause any more.

anyone new to the party who hasn’t picked up on this fact should stick around and watch it in action.
if you’re too turned off and would still prefer to run screaming….we’ll miss you at the party.


2. 

there was a girl who commented on neil’s facebook:

“I cried real tears while I read their story. I guess the joke is on me. Usually when a musician invents a fictional character it is all in fun. What is fun about being neglected, exploited and abused? This feels so weird, like I’m not supporting Neil Gaiman, by disapproving his finace’s career choices.”

ho, jeez.
first of all, relationships are relationships and art is art. my fans do not have to love neil’s work and his fans do not have to love mine.
hell, HIS fans don’t have to love HIS work and MY fans don’t have to love MINE. that is the beauty of art. it’s your choice, always. not ours. 

secondly, for sure…there is nothing actually “fun” about being neglected, exploited and abused. 

i believe this very strongly: 

good art often comes from stories.
and often making art from stories is a way of not letting those stories rule and control our lives.

without the ability to do that, we’d be lost.

i remember when i found out the JT LeRoy was a “fictional” author.
i’d read all of “his” books and really felt deeply disturbed by the content (and even cried at some of the passages in “sarah”).
if Evelyn Evelyn’s story disturbs you, and you enjoy being disturbed, i suggest checking these books out. it makes the twins’ lives look positively cleaver family.

anyway, upon realizing that the novels were purely fictional, i felt….not so much duped but rather happy that i’d gotten in on the ground floor, and given a chance to feel the emotion before the curtain was lifted.

but that’s me. 


3.

after reading a lot of the blog comments, i headed over to the shadowbox, where people are less likely to leave anonymous comments (since you have to be logged in with an identity, and therefore accountable to others for your point of view). i tend to take criticism there more seriously, since people really need to stand behind their words without their masks on.

i found this (on this thread):
“….the thing about the child porn was too far in my opinion. But I also think art making people uncomfortable is all right. Also freedom of expression and everything, it’s not like Amanda and Jason are physically exploiting disability or even making a joke at it’s expense; the entertainment comes from way people’s imaginations are captured, the mystery and the confusion.”

jason had actually warned me about revealing too much of the twins’ story on that last blog.
in hindsight, since enough people have gotten ruffled about the unsettling nature of their story, i wish i’d left it for you to discover their story on the album (where the entire epic tale is presented within a much larger, and more understandable, context). 

art making people uncomfortable isn’t a good thing, or a bad thing. it just is. 

4.

as far as people hurling the criticism that i am “hiding behind my art”….(this one has come up several times)

here’s what i consider hiding: producing inoffensive, corporate-penned, vanilla-bean love-story family-friendly made-for-mainstream-radio music that won’t offend a single person. and won’t make anybody laugh, won’t make anybody think, won’t make anybody wonder, won’t make anybody talk, and won’t change anybody’s life.

THAT, my friends, is hiding behind art.


5.

i seriously fueled the fire yesterday when i tweeted THIS:
“setting aside 846 emails and removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery, @amandapalmer sat down to plan her next record.”

i got some serious flack for that, as if i was being dismissive, waving my hand and saying “fuck em, i do not want to hear what the disabled feminists have to say”.
on the contrary, i’d been seriously distracted all morning and thinking about pretty much NOTHING ELSE for about 5 hours … and i had to finally sit down and work on something else.
i obviously DID want to hear what they had to say, otherwise i wouldn’t have been drowning in a sea of reactive blog comments, trying to figure things out.

once again, if you’re not following the whole story and you look at this out of context, it seems really awful. but that was not the way it was meant.

140 characters = subtlety sometimes lost.



6.  the bigger picture.

yesterday i found myself chewing all of this upsetness like a bone in my mind.
i’m also PMSing, and that made things even lovelier. 

listen:
in my life and in my work, i’ve made a lot of people angry. 

people love to judge.
too feminist. not feminist enough. too outspoken. not outspoken enough. too intellectual. 
too dumb. too glam. too underdressed. too funny. not funny enough. too inappropriate. too safe.
wrong kind of funny. marrying my favorite author and now i fucking hate her. fat. irritating. loud.
blah blah blah blah, etc, ad infinitum.

this is something i’ve had to learn to live with.

to get clear, i always have to stop, dig deep within myself and ask: 
were my intentions good? could i really stand behind them? was anybody really harmed? 
if i’ve actually harmed someone (and the harm isn’t just a drama in their heads), have i owned my responsibility?

when i quiet myself down and find the answer within myself, that’s the most important one.
it speaks louder than the voices outside my head and the anonymous voices on the internet.

it is to this voice you must listen, or you’re FUCKED.

i know a lot of younger people read this blog and i have constant contact with teenagers who are always asking me:
“how do i get brave?”

a lot of that answer lies in situations like these. 
when you are forced to sit down, reckon with a situation, listen to people screaming that they hate you, take stock of what you’ve done, look everyone in the eye, tell them what your intentions are, and know that they will either hear and understand you or they will walk away. 

and then your job is to not run after them. 
your job is to stay calm. your job is continue on with your work.  
and the hardest thing, sometimes, is to continue on with your work in a spirit of love, without letting other people’s hate and anger getting the best of you, and turning you into bitter, angry and jaded fuck.

it’s so easy to be afraid. to do nothing. to not make your art, to not follow your calling, your passion, your impulses, to not take any risks for fear of people cutting you down and misunderstanding you.
most people are CONTROLLED by fear, because they’re convinced they’ll do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, write the wrong thing, sing the wrong thing.
those fears are founded. you can see that, here, now.
shit happens, you can upset people.

and you need to do your work anyway, because the world needs you to.

that, i think, is how you get brave.


7. last but not least

for all of you writing in blog & twitter comments saying “FUCK THE HATERS”….please don’t feel like you need to say that to show your support.
please, you need to LOVE THE HATERS.
i have found, in my experience, that fucking the haters will not work. 

unless it’s the loving kind of fucking, in which case, please please for the love of GOD please make sure it’s the consensual kind of loving fucking, otherwise we’re in serious shit…


the discussion = awesome as usual.

please keep it going.

and 

onwards

love
AFP


p.s. as to the “real identity of the twins”, i would like to refer you to jason’s blog, in which he states….”As to rumors that Amanda and I are, in fact, the twins Evelyn and Evelyn, I’m not able to comment on that just yet – but I will point out that on the recordings that have been released so far, one of the twins has a conspicuously deep voice for a 24 year old girl.”

BENEFIT YOGA CLASS in SYDNEY with AMANDA & DUNCAN PEAK!!! this saturday!!

while I work on a response to the Evelyn Evelyn Drama Drama….
it turns out i have to go BACK to sydney from melbourne this weekend because of the Good News Week filming.
while i’m there, i was going to practice in my favorite yoga studio, power living.
and then i thought….i should invite everybody.

SO….

NINJA YOGA CLASS!!!!!
this will be a class that my fav teacher duncan has agreed to teach JUST FOR US.
LIMITED SPACE - SEE BELOW.

saturday, feb 20th
12:15 - 2 pm!!
at
POWER LIVING
1/135 Military Rd
Neutral Bay 2089
Sydney NSW

http://www.powerliving.com.au/

$5 at the door…all the money collected will go to THE AFRICA YOGA PROJECT…a really incredible organization that my particular yoga community has been tying with with lately.
it’s been training yoga teachers in kenya and has been doing unbelievable things for the yoga community down there.
(info HERE: http://www.africayogaproject.org/)

i said it before and i’ll say it again…i fucking love yoga. i do i do i do.
i want everybody in the world to know how awesome it is.
i did this same sort of invite-everybody yoga class a few months ago with another teacher i love, brandon compagnone, on the day of a show in northampton, MA…and a ton of us got sweaty before soundcheck.
it was quite AWESOME….here’s a picture of us after practicing. don’t we look zen? i think we do.

but WHERE ARE THE MEN?
ladies, bring some men this time, for christs sake.

i do yoga pretty much every day, it’s a huge part of my life, and i can’t say enough good things about it.
yoga isn’t just a stretching routine…it’s a form of meditation, a technique to meld your brain and your body back together & connect you the great awesomeness that is now.
it is awesome for creativity and artists and i could go on and on about it. now i will stop.

ANYBODY can do yoga. it is not, contrary to bizarre popular belief, for “flexible” people, “spiritual” people…it’s for EVERYBODY.

i just came back from a 7-day retreat and duncan was one of the leaders…he’s a REALLY fantastic teacher, he’s super real, down-to-earth and i can’t wait to do this with him.

………………………………………

WHAT TO DO:

the studio is limited to EIGHTY PEOPLE, so we’re going to create an RSVP list to make sure we don’t leave people waiting outside.
if you know you’re coming, RSVP to us@amandapalmer.net with your full name. she’ll confirm your place on the RSVP list.
put YOGA in the subject, please, so she can sort.
the class will cost $5 when you arrive.

if you come, important info!:
1.
BRING A YOGA MAT! a plain work-out mat is fine, too. borrow one if need be!
if you have an extra mat, BRING TO SHARE! the studio only has a few rentals.
2.
the classroom is HEATED!!!! bring clothes you can SWEAT IN and CHANGE OUT OF AFTER CLASS.
a plastic bag to carry away wet clothes is a wise idea…
3.
also bring WATER and a TOWEL.
4.
lastly…..it’s very important to BE ON TIME. the class doors will CLOSE at 12:30 when we start practicing…DO NOT BE LATE!!!!

see you there!

xxx
AFP