COUNTDOWN PARTY & ALBUM TITLE!!!!!

June 03, 2012

PLEASE NOTE: This blog is a nearly-identical crosspost of the backer-only update that we sent out on Kickstarter, last night. If you’re a Kickstarter backer, go read it THERE instead as we’ve omitted the download for “Want It Back” below. Obviously you’ll want to grab that to have yourself a little Sunday-dance-party!

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before the guts of the update (which has a few NSFW pics), a few important things from Team AFP:
• anyone who’s had trouble with their kickstarter pledge going through and messaged us, please hang tight. all is not lost, it can be fixed. we’re going through to respond as fast as we can and will try and help you get sorted within the week.
• WE ADDED A SECOND BOSTON SHOW (open to all, not just kickstarter)!! JULY 31st at the middle east. tickets will FLY: http://tktwb.tw/JXFqai
• BERLIN & LONDON! we’re looking for 4 HORN PLAYERS in each city as well as a STRING QUARTET in BERLIN for the shows in June! hit us w/ leads at horntheft@amandapalmer.net if you’re interested.

………….

we webcast thursday from around 8 pm until…2 am? later? i dunno, i lost track.

first, let’s holy fuck together.

HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, gotta stop that, it’ll get old.

to review the people-who’ve-called list:

rolling stone called, the new york times called, time magazine called, the new yorker called, the wall street journal called, billboard called, and the economist called.

they want their media back.

i might give it to them to borrow, but first i want a picture of 24,883 people holding my naked body aloft on the cover of LIFE.

then we’ll talk.

LET’S DO IT.

but for real, what’s amazing is that all the journalists i’m talking to totally seem to be genuinely passionate about understanding what’s going on.

the strange thing is ripping my life and past apart to try to explain to these people what’s so obvious to us, to me.

………….

i announced the album title yesterday morning:

*DRUM ROLL*

it’s

THEATER IS EVIL

i twittered it.

i was barraged by a tweetstorm of brits, canadians, australians, south africans, and AMERICANS informing me that my title was WRONG WRONG WRONG and should be spelled

THEATRE IS EVIL

jesus! i’m an AMERICAN! only pretentious americans use that RE shit! debate ensued.

so i took a poll on the shadowbox (our forum) and the votes spoke the truth: out of hundreds of votes: 83% wanted THEATRE.

i had to agree, given the many points made to me. i folded.

the phone call to kevin (from my management team) sucked. i was like: we gotta change it. he was like: well, you CAN, but i wouldn’t. all the promo discs have already gone out to the journalists. could cause all sorts of irritating problems.

and i was like….fuck, i still want to. we discussed this for about 15 minutes and wound up changing it.

it’s theatre due to popular demand.

I LOVE THAT.

i am laughing laughing laughing thinking what that discussion would have been like with my old label.

let’s not even think about it. what dark times those were.

*very childish moment*

YAY I’M FREEEEE AND I GET TO DECIDE IF I WANT TO CHANGE SHIT AND THE DECISION IS ACTUALLY MINE YAY

*ok back to being an adult sort of*

let’s hear a new track, SHALL WE?? but first…

……………………………………..

…i need to tell you the secret thing i did on thursday that you didn’t even know was going to happen.

long story short.

i needed a good, EPIC, way to thank all of you.

i wanted to keep it secret, but for the last week or two, with the help of too many people for a braindead musician to list (but A LOT), we put together what i think may have been my favorite idea all year. (we’re doing our best to list everyone HERE. if we forgot you leave a comment on there and we’ll add you)

i am now referring to it as OPERATION SHARPIE PHONE BOOK THANK-YOU TANK.

we had sharpie’d EVERY backer name on single pages of used phone books, filling up DOZENS AND DOZENS of books with the 24,000+ names.

yes, since you asked….it took a lot of people a LOT of time.

we hired a giant fish-tank-like enclosure and towed it to a parking lot in brooklyn.

we got DJs, played crazy dance music, and threw a BIZARRE impromptu countdown party in which the band was more or less locked in the tank all night.

about 500 people showed up and helped us with the spectacle.

we wore swimsuits of the old fashioned variety.

from inside the empty tank, we SHOWED THE NAMES TO THE PARTY, AND TO THE WEBCAST as we counted down to midnight from 8pm…AND FILLED UP THE TANK WITH ALL 24,000+ NAMES.

my dream was that the entire tank would fill up, but once we got to a certain level, with all the people in there dancing and helping, the names got packed down like snow. but man, it was an impressive sight. literally bathing in the names of the thousands of people who were supporting us.

it was….magnificent. overwhelming, awesome, beautiful….you had to be there.

fuse.tv actually explained it even better than my braindead brain can right now:

“Inside a makeshift structure built from rusty pipes and see-through plastic film (it resembled a human aquarium—check it out below), Palmer and co. gathered stacks of telephone books with the name of every donor written out on each Yellow Page. While songs like Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust For Life’ and the Beatles’ ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ blared in the background, Palmer, her band and a group of volunteers tore out the pages and plastered the donors’ names on the static-y plastic for the ever-present webcam to capture.”

people at the party came and helped us show the names, here are pics via Andrzej Liguz and fuse.tv to give you an idea of what it looked like:

THE CROWD!!!

(you can watch the WHOLE mega webcast HERE in a few parts. we’ll edit and upload one big video when we we’re unburied.)

at the end of the countdown we raced down the street, kept the webcast going as best we could and played LIVE in larisa fuch’s loft for an assmebled bunch of high-level backers, friends, and family.

our hearts exploded

it’s all happening.

…………………………………..

tons of pictures:

the very very beginning of the webcast and the beginning of the crowd…trusty hayley holding the web-mac!!

michael and jherek STRIP each other!

when the tank was empty, and the start of four hours of NAMES….

pulling volunteers into the tank to help with the names….

from outside the tank…

from inside the tank….

my DAD came! and i hugged him.

more names….

halftime entertainment!

suits were escaped!

some girls made me a crown!!!

you can read it here!!!

belly was danced!!!

hula was hooped!!!

pirates went ARRR!!!

FIRRRRRRE BEAVIS (provided by our neighbors at @FlambeauxFire)

john reid (of tricky business) came with a balloon dress, unannounced!!!! he put me in it….

my husband came, and i kissed him!!!!

then people popped me!!!!

LOOK MA NO DRESS!

almost done…12 minutes left….

counting down to midnight!

THANK YOU ALL!!!

in the names with the whole GTO (jherek, chad, and michael)….

LIKE A LEAF PILE!!!

THEN

THE loft show!!!!!

neil sang….

MUSIC WAS MADE

eric, who’s been helping you all out….! shirtless!

stoya on a pole!!! a good way to end the night….

then some other stuff probably happened

i don’t remember.
THEN WE COLLAPSED.

i am still braindead.
i am amazing i managed this update.

PLEASE NOTE: This portion of the KS update included song info and a link to download “Want It Back” from the record; We’re leaving that with our backers for now, but we’ll put it out to the general public this week. Be sure you’re following the @AFPwire Twitter to know when/where we post it. To tide you over, HERE’s a video of it being performed in the wee hours of the morning at the #AFPcountdown loft party!

god i love you.

more soon.

today & tonight, epic photoshoot.

TIRED TIRED braindead AFP

p.s.