Amanda Palmer

BRAAAINS: the artist, divided, and a zombie wedding (NSFW - nekkid photos)

Sun, 13 May 2012 04:36:00 -0400

HOLA dear comrades,

a note about the blog for the next few weeks: i’m putting up production updates about the record, the tour, and the album on the kickstarter page, some for backers only.
i’m not going to drive everybody crazy and double-post all of those photos and stories on the blog. if you want to get in on it, go to the kickstarter and pay a dollar.
otherwise i’d feel like i was repeating myself over and over and over and over and over and over.

…………….

dividing my brain between business and art, between art and survival, between thinking like a flake-ass poet and thinking like a bad-ass business-person…forget about it, man, i’ve been doing it since day one.

and seriously…..every artist has been dealing with this hilarious conundrum from the dawn of time.

i’ve been imagining the earliest cave painters were like (in caveman language):
“URGH. DUDE, i’m TOTALLY on a roll here and i’m STARVING, can you do me a solid favor and go out and just grab, like, two handfuls of nuts and berries for me? please? one handful? just like, a couple of nuts?? one nut? listen, if you do i SWEAR i’ll give you a sneak peak of this SICK hunting scene before the rest of the cave gets to see it.”

and thus, direct artist support patronage was born.

crowdfunding kickstarter is hopping on long-standing bandwagon, it’s just giving us better tools.
artists are now getting to pass a light-speed hat of infinite depth.
that’s progress.

……………………………..

BRAINS.

……………………

it’s been a crazy, crazy, crazy 13 days since i last blogged that the kickstarter was up.
this shit has gone MENTAL. and i gotta say….i’d hoped it would. i expected nothing less.

at the time i’m writing this it’s got over 12,00 backers and has topped $600k.

i could say i’m shocked but i’m not.
i’ve been waiting years, YEARS, YEEEEEAAAAAARS for this moment.
and it came, and you guys have not disappointed me.
you’ve made me so, so, so proud.

my mentor always used to tell me this thing his italian dad used to tell him (please imagine thick boston-italian accent):
“it’s one thing to believe in the horse, it’s another thing to buy the ticket.”

i’m the horse. you guys bought the ticket.
big time. lotsa tickets.

the whole world has been paying attention to what’s going on here.
this shit’s been all over the news, people are arguing left and right about all sorts of things relating to it…and i’m not even going to go into it. i’ll post some of the links below if you wanna read further.
but i’m not getting involved in the arguments on those blogs and stuff. i can’t. i don’t have the energy, not now. i’m so, so, so tired. all i’ve been doing (wait for it…) is WORKING ON THE FUCKING RECORD RELEASE. i’ve barely had time to stop and breathe. i’m not going to use the energy i could be spending on my record on some nitwits who think that using kickstarter is “shaking my fans up and down for change” or that kickstarter should be reserved “real struggling artists.” man alive. who are these people and where have they been? i’ve seen so many people in the last week MISS THE POINT COMPLETELY that i just have to turn away and hunker down - i can’t even look any more.

this is the fucking future.
the old label system is DYING.
artists are going to ASK YOU FOR DIRECT SUPPORT.
that’s the reality.

as bob dylan so clearly put it in a great song:

please get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand, motherfuckers.

the times, they are a-changing.

…………….

the nutso-est thing about the last few weeks has been that i’ve been fielding all of this kickstarter energy right alongside everything else careening into full speed: band photoshoots, video prep calls, packaging meetings, hiring crew for the upcoming year, dealing with all the things i’d be doing if the kickstarter hadn’t happened. my brain is exploding.

one of the first days of the kickstarter campaing (day 3 to be exact), i did two weird gigs in one night.

one was to sing as a guest at jherek bischoff (bassist of the grand theft orchestra)’s big deal show at BAM, the brooklyn academy of music, for the “crossing brooklyn ferry” festival. a bunch of other acts played, the walkmen, st. vincent, on and on. i missed most of it.

jherek’d given me a beautiful bitch of a song to learn, with tons and tons of lyrics.
it’s on his new album that comes out later this month (pre-order linkies can be found HERE). the song’s called ”counting” and the original features carla bozulich.

i’m usually pretty good at memorizing lyrics, but this was a barrage of gorgeous stream-of-consciousness that i had a really hard time with: a non-stop three minute art-poem that i had put off til the last minute to learn…thinking i could get it into my brain in an hour like any other song: WRONG. it’s been a long, long time since i’ve been that nervous to go on a stage. i didn’t want to fuck up jherek’s beautiful orchestra show by sucking. i literally stood there about to go onstage thinking: holy shit. i don’t actually know all these lyrics. i might really, truly fuck this up. by then it was too late to grab a lyric sheet. i raced for my phone and loaded the lyrics, to take onstage as a crutch - somehow forgetting that a phone requires scrolling and looks stupid and i’d honestly rather royally screw up than be a person scrolling an iphone in front of an orchestra. so i just had a strange glow emanating from my left hand throughout the song.

background: i spent the two days before the guest spot fielding kickstarter press, watching my inbox explode, sitting in meetings, answering the phone every five minutes…..and hiding in bathrooms practicing the song. my head really was overwhelmed those first few days. i can never learn a song in just one sitting. i need a dozen for something that complicated. but art and business had collided and i’d put it off until the last two days (i was a HOPELESS crammer in high school)….and then bam, voila, i had to undergo the ultimate 48-hour collision of song-brain and business-brain. it was hilarious.

the day of, kate came with me on the subway to the gig as i put on headphones and sang the song over and over again on the R subway from brooklyn, looking like a crazy person making wild memory-linking hand-gestures. she probably looked crazier than i did, because she was sitting with me as if nothing was amiss. god bless her.

and so…in the end…..it was fine. i pulled it off and only mumbled about five percent of the lyrics. david byrne was watching (he guested on jherek’s record) which totally bugged me out and made me even more nervous.

we made friends and we got pizza later. i think even making a million dollars on kickstarter is not as good as going out for pizza with david byrne (and his awesome daughter, who, it turns out, is an artist in her own right and forging her own creative path of joy).

here’s me on stage at BAM. that look? emotion, yes. also sheer terror that i’m going to forget the next line:

and for good measure, here’s david byrne & jherek a few moments later:

(photos via David Andrako for brooklyn vegan)

then, later that night, i went and played at my friend lance horne’s bizarre variety show at “the players club,” a private old-school anachronistic joint for broadway and new york theater people.
it was founded by edwin booth, used to house a drunken mark twain, and WAS very useful back in the day as a private club during prohibition when going to bars wasn’t really an option.
lance paid me one crisp $100 bill to do a set of three songs. bolstered by my new-found thrilling kickstarter success and my (breathe!) non-butchering of jherek’s song earlier in the night, i was in such a crazed mood by that point in the evening that i gave a totally I GIVE NO FUCK screaming-ukulele performance in this weird hunting lodge for old new york broadway theater people who had no idea who the fuck i was. it was awesome.

i mostly enjoyed the club members, most of them over 60, who approached me after my set, clapped me on the shoulder, gave me their business cards, and told me that i “really had talent and could make something of myself someday if i stuck with it.” i nodded and, in the bizarre mood i was in (and maybe because i was surrounded by strange, strange act-y broadway musical people) started playing this strange version of myself i’ve never seen before, saying things like “well, gosh darn it…shucks! i will stick with it! thanks!”

and i will, goddamit. that wasn’t no lie.

here’s me, at that thing (photo by lance horne):

…………………….

then i went to a very very special fucking wedding.

the bride: julie atlas muz, reigning performance-art-burlesque-stunt queen of new york, old pal of mine.
the groom: mat fraser, long-time beau of julie’s, long-time coney island regular as “seal boy” (he has phocomelia of both arms).

here’s a notso-nekkid couple photos of them:
you know all you people who tweet “OMG neil and amanda are such an inspiring couple”…?
this is the most inspiring couple *I* know.

(photo via the age):

(photo by matt turner, via adelaide now):

and here they be, on all their nekkid glory:

that picture’s actually from an older performance, but could’ve been from their more recent show (i’ve seen it, it’s brilliant) “the freak and the showgirl.”
which was, when i think about it, kind of like “an evening with neil gaiman and amanda palmer” except with more nakedness and more circus stunts and less reading

their wedding was a colorful explosion of love and SERIOUSLY the most eclectic bunch of people you’ve ever seen in your life.
the combination of coney island freaks and buxom burlesque girls and new york circus composers and family and friends and children and people of all shapes and sizes and colors put even the boldest multi-cultrual benneton ads to fecking shame.
words can barely describe it. it was a fucking love gathering of epic scope.

we got there about 4 hours before the wedding for zombie-schoolgirl bridesmaid rehearsal….and rehearsed our zombie entrance with the wedding party.

julie wore a giant blue gown (here she is, getting ready)…

here’s a few shots of me, best-zombie assistant ever superkate (@_superkate_), and my good friend alina simone (@alinasimone) backstage just after zombie-ing ourselves:

the scene backstage before the wedding was EPIC:

(can you spot ex dresden dolls brigade wrangler jen gapay? hint: look for the one with the champagne)…

i want a Pulitzer for this one:

that 12-year old girl looking at herself in the mirror looks like the effing BAD SEED, no?

here’s me with burlesque grande dame and fellow zombie bridesmaid veronica varlow:

more post-wedding bliss….me with alt-porn queen stoya (on right) and her friend justine:

the bouquet catcher, who i was standing RIGHT NEXT TO:

and more awesome attendees:

the party (photo by larisa fuchs):

i have no idea who this is, but she is definitely an ALLY:

and this (from later in the night), because it fit in with the current crowd-funding theme so perfectly, is mat & julie’s old-school live & physical honeymoon Kickstarter box:

………………………..

the ceremony itself:

julie entered to a SQUEALING & DEAFENING metal-guitar-solo version of the traditional wedding march.

the groomsmen did a SEXY swagger dance around mat. everyone got WELL INTO IT.

after everyone was seated, we, the assembled an costumed 30+ zombie schoolgirls, broke through a door into the theater, screaming BRAAAAAAAIIIINS while attacking and trying to eat the assembled guests. it was very beautiful. after about 3 minutes of this surreal spectacle, we took our seats with the rest of the congregation (quieting our brain-lust until we were unleashed at the end of the ceremony).

i wish i had footage from the front of all thirty oozing zombie-school-girls…out of character….WEEPING.

the best part of the wedding was the vows.

mat had a special formal scottish kilt made for him with custom-sleeves that fit his teeny, disfigured arms.
julie brushed back her giant mermaid-net veil.

as they exchanged their rings, mat and julie took turns saying “DO YOU ACCEPT ME?!?!” to each other, and as they accepted each other, saying “GOOBA GABBA,” the entire auditorium was led in the “freaks”-inspired chant of:

ONE OF US!!

ONE OF US!!

ONE OF US!!

ONE OF US!!

ONE OF US!!

ONE OF US!!

i’ve never cried so much at a wedding in my life. tears. buckets.

love is love.

…………………………….

i’m about to work on answering a shit-ton of kickstarter questions. brace yo-selves.

LOVE
afp

p.s. on friday, our summer tour WENT ON SALE and SOLD THE FUCK OUT for almost every single one of the shows. you can get the lowdown HERE on where we’ll be and how to get the remaining tickets. if you missed it, it’s because you’re not following the twitter, backing the kickstarter, or on the damn mailing list. if you’re not on the damn mailing list, GET ON IT, HERE…

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY AND HERE'S WHAT I WOULD LOVE

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:44:00 -0400

good MORNING my dear comrades

guess fucking what? it’s my birthday!!!!!

i’m 36. happy birthday me. la la la la la.

guess what else?

while many of you slept soundly, SHIT WAS AFOOT. my team slaved over the weekend. packages were tweaked and re-bundled.
videos were edited. text was edited and re-edited. art shows were booked and rock and roll spies in every continent synchronized their watches.

then - last night/early this morning - me, the grand theft orchestra, and a group of about 30 album-art artists started our very own midnight ride on the interwebs.

yes, it’s true.

like a rock n’ roll paul revere with tits, i launched my brand-new-album-pre-order on kickstarter in the wee hours of the boston-night.

so before you ask me WHAT YOU CAN GET ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY, um, here’s a hint:

FOR
FUCK’S
SAKE
BACK
THE
KICKSTARTER

this is it, it’s time. for as little as a dollar, you can back me.

this is my FIRST REAL, STUDIO FULL-LENGTH release is FOUR YEARS.
i’ve been working in secret with the artists for MONTHS to get all this shit ready.

i cannot tell you how much it will mean to me if you’re broke but you still choose to give me a dollar to back the project.
if you can’t even do that…spread the link.
and if everybody does that, we will win.

HERE IT IS: http://kck.st/GrandTheftKS
….go, back it, grab the limited edition packages before they ride off into the distance, and seriously, if you don’t even have the minimum to back (which is a dollar) - YOU CAN STILL HELP ME OUT BY SPREADING THAT LINK.

that’s almost more valuable than giving me a dollar. tell EVERYBODY.

it starts NOW…

…let’s DO THIS!!!!!!

if you have QUESTIONS that you know only i can answer (like, ABOUT MY FEELINGS), hit me here in the blog comments.
if you have questions about the kickstarter packages and details, use the addresses provided in the FAQ of the kickstarter.

here we GO here we GO GO GO. this is the big one.

love from cafe pamplona,
xxxxx
AFP

on recording, marriage, and the problem with first world problems

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:19:00 -0400

i’m in dallas, mixing the record at john’s. (i may NINJA somewhere outside next week. follow the twitter.)

my head is still spinning from five weeks straight of rehearsing-and-recording all day every day….then shooting a video (more on that soon).
then flying here.

i owe melbourne a big, long blog. i miss you.

at any rate:

the record is a masterpiece.

the band and all the guest musicians KILLED IT….the grand theft orchestra lived up to its majestic name.
michael, chad, and jherek were the most incredible, patient, intuitive musicians to work with, and john congleton, producer extraordinaire, captained the ship with mind-blowing genius.

i think it’s the best thing i’ve ever done.
and i’m starting to get sick of it already. like you do. too much listening, too much thinking.

i can’t wait to fucking put it out.
the kickstarter to preorder the record will launch sometime within the month.
one thing i do regret: that i didn’t kickstarter the record before commencing recording.
but there was a really strategic reason, and unavoidable: people who supported the “evening with neil & amanda” kickstarter campaign still haven’t gotten their stuff - it’s en route pretty much as we speak (download codes are coming in the next 24 hours or so and the physical goods are being readied to ship now, too. updates to neilandamanda.com are on the way).
i thought it would be tasteless to ask for support for project #2 before delivering on project #1. and i didn’t want to step all over the dolls’ tour in australia - that would have been in really bad taste as well. so i let it be.

but i definitely felt lonelier in the studio. i stayed active on twitter, but other than that, the whole process was just a mysterious mystery to everybody. so be it. maybe it was better to work that way. old school. in isolation. the record certainly didn’t suffer any.

……………………………………………

a story.

…………………………………………….

when i was about 7 years old, i used to walk to one of next door neighbor’s houses to be babysat after school.

she (let’s call her mrs. marcy) would take care of me and her own two children, who were both younger than me, until my mother came home from her day job in the city and picked me up.
i have a lot of musty, plant-y vivid, memories of mrs. marcy’s household…she was more of a health nut than my mom, and she served us really strange snacks that involved carob and other foreign substances.

but one moment blares out of all of them. mister marcy was home, and the two parents were looking after us three kids. i burst into the bathroom on the first floor and mrs. marcy was sitting there, fully clothed, on the closed toilet seat. she looked at me with an expression that was a bizarre mixture of anger, terror, and just….utter exhaustion.

i was really confused about what was happening. she shooed me out of the room with two words that made ABSOLUTELY no sense to me at the time:

“I’M MEDITATING.”

i did not know what mediating meant, and i did not understand why you did it sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, and i did not understand why i couldn’t be in there while she did it.

……………………………………………….

when i went in to record the album that i’m going to put out this fall, all i wanted was to have nothing else to do but Make the Record.

i meticulously planned my escape for MONTHS.
i wanted to do as nothing as possible, to give up as many mundane responsibilities as i could.
that included being a boss, a friend, an emailer, a blogger…and a wife.

it wasn’t that i didn’t have the time to do it.
i could have easily set aside 2 hours a day to do those things. easily.
but i didn’t want to. i wanted to go down the hole.

i told everyone i was going. and then i left.

my friendships, bless them, withstand a lot.

my really good, strong deep ones have learned to exist like plants in drought climates.
they sometimes go weeks, months, years in some cases, with no rain.
then, when it’s time, there’ll be a flood of love and attention.
the friendships that can’t survive the pattern…those ones die, i guess, or turn into acquaintanceships.

looking back on the last month i realize how important it was to me that i put up the long-distance wall.

amanda-in-person embraced life with a passion.
amanda-on-email-and-phone put up a Don’t Disturb sign.

the paradoxes.
i set up an autoreply, but i still checked my email.
i didn’t want to feel responsible for answering any of it.
i would have marathon conversations on twitter, but not commit to having lunch with anyone.
i wouldn’t email people i knew well, but i would stop and have coffee with a stranger in a cafe.

and neil?

it amazes me how much i’m able to love someone simply because they accept that i want to be alone to work.
that, in the true ironic twists and turns of love, is the ultimate turn-on for me.
the ultimate turn-off? clinginess. neediness. damnation.

i’ve always been this way.
pretty much every relationship i’ve ever been in has walked through this fire and mostly come out scorched and defeated.

i can’t believe sometimes that i found him, and that he found me.

two weird artists, flying in tandem, landing and fueling, flying again.

we barely stopped long enough to GET married. it’ll still take ages for us to move in together.
none of this seems strange to me, though.
it only seems strange in the company of other people who look at me with compassion and horror, as if i’ve had a limb amputated, when i say i haven’t seen my husband for three months.

but it works.

he wrote a book, i made my record, now we get to be together for a while and share what we’ve done.
and we’ll finally return to being in the same bed, where i’ll play him the day’s mixes and he’ll read me pages that he typed from his handwritten drafts.
and this, to me, this is paradise. this is the dream of a relationship i always had in my mind…and thought i may never find.

and there’s a kind of compromise in every chafing moment, and we’re both learning, bit by uncomfortable bit.

but i’m enjoying the work of love.

i think he is, too.

……………………………………………..

i never really wanted to be a wife.
it wasn’t on the list.
i never even really wanted to be an adult.

i just desperately wanted to get to the part where people stopped telling me what to do.

i never really wanted anything but to be as much in love as possible at any given moment.

love defined by the moment, not the movies.

…………………………………………………………

when i think back on mrs. marcy, and her teeny household teeming with children, and her desperate search to grab 10 minutes of silence to herself in the bathroom (and failing…let’s not forget that bit), i look at my life and i just have to fucking laugh. i don’t have children, don’t have a household to run…i’ve deliberately built my life to be free of those sorts of responsibilities.
my idea of freedom is RIDICULOUS, right? i live about the most independent life i could have possibly constructed, given the art i wanted to make, and still…..AGGGHHGHGHGH I FEEL STRANGLED.

and mrs. marcy, in her suburban home with healthy children and plenty to eat, would probably stack up pretty lucky next to a mother and her kids living close to starvation in the sudan. but we don’t work that way, as humans. we compare ourselves to those around us, we compare ourselves to the selves we thought we wanted to be, to the selves we thought we didn’t want to be.

………………………………..

i think it’s funny that people are constantly saying “first world problems”…bashfully excusing themselves, as if to dismiss their own emotions as invalid compared to the next person. because of course these problems, the problems stemming from our privileged lives pale in comparison to the problems of real-ass starvation, war, extreme physical suffering.

well, of course. of course. things could always be harder - everything’s relative. and it’s never good to lose perspective. it helps. it does.

and OF COURSE the problems of those in the first world are first world problems. if you’re HAVING them, chances are….that’s where you are.

starving people have starving people problems, dying people have dying people problems, overweight people have overweight people problems, white people have white people problems, black people have black people problems, rich people have rich people problems, gay people have gay people problems, straight people have straight people problems….are we detecting a pattern?

everybody’s got them, period.

you can’t measure human suffering with a yardstick. those who try to do it end up vindictive, even when they’re trying to be helpful.

because the minute you start measuring suffering, you invalidate somebody’s suffering…and that just never works. that’s where the whole shit starts getting ugly.

anyone who says “my pain is bigger than your pain” is speaking from fear.
anyone who says “my feelings are more valid than your feelings” isn’t speaking from empathy.

the song don’t lie: everybody hurts. everybody suffers, everybody feels pain. and everybody feels it for a different reason on a different day in a different way. and it’s all real….there’s no pain that isn’t valid, there’s no pain that isn’t “real” because somebody has it worse off. pain is pain. all you can do is feel it, accept it, move on and know that everybody else on this spinning ball of dirt is in the same boat, and we all need to acknowledge each other’s pain, no matter what the package, and no matter how big or small that package appears.

when we do this, that’s what keeps us compassionate brothers and sisters on earth.

will i occasionally still use the “first world problems” joke the next time i find myself complaining that the coffee in this bistro is over-roasted?

eh, probably.

why?

because it’s a funny fucking joke.

……………………………………………….

fuck the critics.

……………………………………………….

here’s me the day after we finished tracking the record.

looking at the sky above fitzroy gardens and thinking

FUUUUCCCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in a good way.

everything lately is just pointing me towards a more simple gratitude.

sometimes i can’t contain the amount of luckiness around me, regardless whether i’ve built the net to catch it or not….i have it.
i have it, and i think the only thing to do when you have it is stand in awe of it…make yourself a study in stupefied wonder.

see above

LOVE,
afp

p.s. speaking of fucking the critics….i made a comment on twitter a little while ago (“haters exit stage right, pursued by a bear”) that lots of people liked. so i asked the twitterverse if someone wanted to design it into a shirt. and someone on twitter, namely Félix Marqués (@felixmarques), mocked something up at that very moment, and lo and behold, we ACTUALLY made the shirt. limited edition. exclusively at post-war trade. PLUS there’s a special right now where you can get $20 off ANY/ALL orders of $75 or above with the coupon code “tomato”. go buy a shirt before they’re gone, the design is hilarious.

there are so many incredibly artistic people on twitter that i’m thinking of making this idea an ongoing thing and having someone random once a month design a limited edition shirt…..why not?

What I Do The Day Before Recording & The Shit I Am Currently Digging.

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:38:21 -0400

hola comrades!

TOMORROW, we record.

today? today.

• miles biked: approx 6
• people hugged/visited: approx 7
• visits to LUSH to obtain soap gift for producer: 1
• meetings with said producer: 1
• massages gotten from tom’s mum robyn: 1
• texts received: approx 18
• voicemails received: 3
• texts read: approx 18
• voicemails listened to: none, yet
• number of st. clare’s seen in debutante ball gowns in the band apartment while everyone shot a video for jherek’s new record: 1*
• number of nick cave songs listened to: 4
• cathedral candles lit in st. paul’s catherdal: 1**
• tea towels for mother purchased in same cathedral: 1
• yoga classes attended: 1
• liters of water drunk: approx 6

ready to make record?
READY TO MAKE RECORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so. fucking. ready.

it’s funny when you go to make a record.
your brain starts thinking things like

“i should be careful crossing this street with my bicycle. i am making a record tomorrow. if i died it would be bad.”

brains are crazy.

the last show at northcote social club was out of control. people are loving the new songs. it’s terrifying and wonderful.
david j. from bauhaus guested with us and we did a FULL BAND BALLS OUT RENDITION OF “BELA LUGOSI’S DEAD” with him playing bass. when footage arrives, i will share it. it was insane.

we celebrated michael’s birthday. the band got him A UKULELE (photo by Mary B. aka @RockLust):

….and everybody pitched in & signed him a card which was brought at designed by wonderful & helpful sebastian (who also cooked an AMAZING meal for us the other night)….
cake was had, singing was sung.
it was all beautiful.
here’s everyone backstage right after the show, mao-tse-tounging the cake:

too many awesome people in the photo to name, but see if you can spot david j, kim boekbinder, and astrid from Die Roten Punkte in there.
(they killed it, by the way. best opener ever.)

so

the band is ready. i’m ready. we’re all ready. we start at noon.

FUCK.

YES.

…………………………………………………………..

meanwhile……

i haven’t checked in for a long while about The Shit i’m Currently Digging…and it being New Album Springtime and all that, i figured this was a good time.
plus i’ve been getting turned on to all sorts of hip local art in melbourne, and am happy to spread the word about Things I’m Finding.

in life: i’m feeling an extreme calm-before-the-storm weirdness.

i’ve been doing the equivalent of…nesting? or something.
cleaning my head out, preparing my brian and body for record-making, getting the email inbox down to a minimum, un-piling my kitchen table.
but for someone who is so perpetually busy this process actually makes me absurdly anxious.
freedom from the to-do list can feel ironically imprisoning, as the busy distractions that usually keep my mind occupied create clearing for the bigger questions, the thing that always easier to put off because there’s SHIT TO DO. when there’s no SHIT TO DO my brain actually enters a state of confused panic.

i’ve been becoming increasingly flakier…mis-reading things, forgetting things. mind. in space.
the other day i left my keys in my bicycle lock in the inner city.
but it’s all a good sign, i think. it means things are getting done in the background, it means my subconscious is a whirling dervish of songs and music, and my focus is shifting to things i don’t usually take such extreme care with…like, how exactly does my throat feel today? it’s the first thing i think when i wake up in the morning. i croak out my first utterance. good vocal day? bad vocal day? and my mood rests on that little one-centimeter band of vocal cord flesh. oi.

yesterday i gave us a surprise off-day, and while the boys in the band went to the Future Music festival to see Die Antwoord & Aphex Twin, i stayed local and went to red bennies to see local drag/burlesque legends. dallas de la force is my new hero. there’s so much bad burlesque and drag out there.
this shit is the OPPOSITE OF bad. brave, sexy, fucked-up. smart. theater. incredible. go see him if you ever get a chance (photo by Eric Manukov):

(photo by salacious sydney, via flickr):

……………………………………..

MUSIC-LAND:

instead of rattling off a list of NEW things i’m listening to….i thought i’d give you guys a weird treat and create a digital mix-tape i gave to the boys in the band to listen to on their flight from the states to australia a few weeks ago. i wanted to fill their heads with mood sounds that would make up some of the sonic building blocks of this beast we’re about to record.

with the exception of a few things (like kaiser chiefs and tegan and sara), the list basically reads EXACTLY like a mixtape i would have made in high school or college….around 1995/1996.
i’ve been listening to the cars, A LOT.
gary numan. my roots.

i don’t know what this record is going to sound like, but i know how it sounds IN MY HEAD.
and i know i want to make the record sounds as much like that as possible.
and the band, john, and all the techs and engineers….they’re all creative midwives.

anyway, the mix is below, and i hope you enjoy and i hope you find things you haven’t heard before. if you have a massive music-library and just wanna put it together yourself, have at it. or if you’ve got spotify, click HERE…(as a side note, what’re you using for listening to music/sharing playlists…maybe i could start doing this more often…spotify? rdio? MOG? thisismyjam? grooveshark? leave a comment/tell @indeciSEAN where you’re at and what you’d like to see, and we shall…see)

this is some of my favorite music ever, ever, ever.

• plainsong - the cure
• cars - gary numan
• only shallow - my bloody valentine
• every day i love you less and less - the kaiser chiefs
• will you smile again - …and you will know us by the trail of dead
• my sharona - the knack
• 2:1 - elastica
• love of life - swans
• prince charming - adam and the ants
• my best friend’s girl - the cars
• 10:15 saturday night - the cure
• in my room - yaz
• come in alone - my bloody valentine
• sweetest perfection - depeche mode
• london calling - the clash
• stand and deliver - adam and the ants
• the golden boy swallowed by the sea - swans
• my coco - stellastarr
• the con - tegan and sara
• nobody’s diary - yaz
• ocean size - jane’s addiction
• bittersweet symphony - the verve
• jerk it out - caesers
• institutionalized - suicidal tendencies
• total control - the motels

……………………………………..

BOOK-LAND:

when i did Marieke Hardy & Michaela MacGuire’s “Women of Letters” event a few weeks ago in melbourne, they gifted every letter-writing woman on stage with a book.
this book was my gift, and i just finished reading it. it’s fucking fantastic…

Butterfly, by australian writer Sonia Hartnett.

it follows the story of a painfully insecure 14 year old suburban australian girl through the intimate trials and tribulations of teenage cruelty.
it’s great and graphic….a scathing look into a teenage head. it’s brutal, painful, honest.
the story-camera occasionally wends away from her, painting the darkness of the suburban emotional voids around her…the disconnect, the weirdness….
think david lynch as young adult fiction, without the surreal. it’s a short read, you’ll fly through it.
if anybody reads and likes it, i’ll recommend the book it really reminded me of. tell me.

and speaking of marieke, HER book is also amazing.
it’s a memoir - honest as fuck, and just hilarious. and also very australian….very melbourne, in fact.
she writes shit i’ve thought a million times and have never had the bravery to even accept.
read it if you can.

…………………………………………

i meditate every morning and i try to read before i do. i find it helps clear my head of garbage and gets my brain chewing on the right thoughts.
i figure: if my brain is going to chew on anything - which it will, of course, endlessly, like a puppy on speed - i can at least redirect it away from merchandising problems, and the email to-do list.
so i read a book, very slowly, usually 2-3 pages at a time. then i sit. it means i can hack away at a single book for a few months, and if it’s a good one, i’ll read it even more slowly.
the book that i’ve just finished eating is this one…Lovingkindness, by sharon salzburg:

sharon came through the insight mediation center in western massachusetts, the same joint where i’ve done a lot of mediation retreats, and practices and talks about a kind of mediation known as vipasana. if you’re into meditation/yoga/that sort of thing, this book is a great read…not a bad book for beginning meditators either. lots of anecdotes about how we drive ourselves to distraction and how we beat ourselves up relentlessly. she’s funny, too.

………………………………………………….

FILM-LAND:

even though this film has about as much attention as it could possibly need….i’m going to recommend it anyway. it was simply genius.

we went on a band field trip to see it the other day, and we all fucking loved it.
i won’t tell you any more about it, you probably already know the gist, it’s a silent movie with superb acting and a killer, killer script….just go see, “the artist”:

……………………………………………………….

SOAP-LAND!

well, this is a new category, isn’t it.
i have been a fan of LUSH for a few years.
they make handmade soaps and all variety of cosmetics and bathroom THINGS.
(when we started dating, i was very pleased to learn that lush actually named a bath bomb after a neil gaiman book, stardust. i was like LOOK AT YOU FAMOUS BATH BOMB MAN YOU GO GIRL)

you can read more about them and their cool history on their website, lush.com (follow your flag!), or on your social media of choice:
• facebook
• twitter
• pinterest
• youtube

in a nutshell…
they’re an incredible company, with really fantastic ethics. despite being worldwide (with all of their recipes coming from the UK founders), their stores are fairly-independently-run, and generally pretty “indie” in how they go about doing what they do. the products are all handmade, they use truly organic materials, keep packaging to a minimum (they’re “anti-packing” and anti mass-production), never test on animals, and have basically taken soap and such to a high-art form (that smells and looks wonderful). all that with a direct-to-the-public, damn-the-man ethics. (phew, that’s a lot of hyphens, but ‘tis true.)

a few years ago, i started regularly visiting the harvard square lush store in boston when i was off tour. the people who worked there were really friendly, i made pals with a couple of the girls in the shop (while i was working on Cabaret). when my dresser in the show (steven) asked me why i smelled delicious, i told him i was using a tuca tuca massage bar to soothe my aching throat. i went the next day and bought him a tuca tuca perfume stick. he was thrilled. i find that buying people lush soaps is an excellent way of expressing love.

THEN my friend max melton (who you would recognize from his many bizarre appearances in the Who Killed Amanda Palmer photo book) wrote me from the UK to tell me he’d gotten a job at lush, and has found true happiness working there and hocking soap.

this is max:

and that, above, from a very intellectual man who was angling to be an embalmer/undertaker just months before. this news made me ecstatic and made me love max more.

the point?

the point: neil and i went into the LUSH in melbourne (their twitter/facebook) right before christmas and bought ALL SORTS OF SOAPS for people, and a couple of the girls there were really happy we’d come into the store. one thing led to another, and i kept going back to get more soaps and massage bars for my aching throat (from too much singing lately). we started getting all too intimate. everyone who works there is just so fucking NICE.
so, logically, i started trading show tickets and guest list spaces for soap.
then i brought jherek and michael from the band in. we all got soap. i got more massage bars for my aching throat.

here’s me, jherek, and michael, in the store, with Alicia, who is awesome…..

finally i got an email from ‘em saying that they’d be happy to hook us up with free soap and things for the band for the rest of the month because they loved us so much.
but not just that. they’ve been actually following what i’ve been doing in town and watching me crowdsource food, and help, and bikes, and rides.
and they were like: we can help. we’ll give you soap. i can’t tell you how deeply moving it is to be a city with your band, and to have people offer to just take care of you like this.
it’s everything. it’s amazing.

alicia came to the last northcote social club show night before last…..and HAND DELIVERED me two new massage bars in little yellow paper bags.
i biked over today, and got some soap and shaving foam for our producer, john congleton, which i then biked to his hotel for our we’re-starting-to-record-aaaghhh meeting.

here’s me in the melbourne shop today, getting john’s soap.
that’s alex on the right. she was one of the first people at the melbourne lush who was nice to me & neil.
extra points if you can decode my t-shirt:

this is natasha…..

and here’s seren, natasha, alex, and terri….who call work in the store.
they are doing what they refer to as the “UNICORN SALUTE”…
honestly….these people are just my favorite:

side note, just for kicks. here are my all-time favorite lush products….the ones i regularly use and restock (and some pictures of a few of ‘em):
• face wash: angels on bare skin (lasts forever and is awesome for travel)

• massage bar: PEACE (the story on this is amazing…in short, this is the first of their products to be made w/ fair-trade cocoa beans. they’re sourced from a small village in Columbia where they refuse to participate in the turmoil around them and strive for peace…ahm, yes.)

• face mask: BB seaweed

• bath bomb: IMPOSSIBLE TO DECIDE (HERE’s all of ‘em)

• shampoo: seanick (blue and full of seaweed. rocking. also amazing for travel…comes in a little silver tin and fits in a pocket. perfect for touring)

• conditioner: veganese

and neil uses: the BIG shampoo:

(he claims it tames his wild locks. i don’t know if i’d believe him.)

i’ve told the girls at the store that the only problem i have with all of their amazing handmade soap products and shower massage bars and shower jellies and excitement is that i am now wasting water by showering longer than usual. in australia, this is a problem. they’re running out of water. i’ll figure it out.

i’ve never endorsed a company outright like this, but damn, these guys deserve it, and it’s all the right things, done the right way.
so, GO LUSH. unicorn salute to the maxxxxx.

this whole record-making process is going to smell incredible.

wish us luck in the belly of the beast.

not sure how much blogging i’ll do from in there, as i’m going to try to be very focused and very off email and the net….
but i’ll probably be twittering, so if you want to catch up on the antics, that’s your best bet.

massive love and gratitude, more than i can say…
xxxxx
AFP

* st. clare & the ball gown:

** cathedral candles:

dispatch from an international low-maintenance diva

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:44:03 -0500

hola comrads!

i send you love from the bathroom of the northcote social club, where me & the band share mirrors and toilets with the peoples….as we ready ourselves for the Task Of Rock.

in melbourne, it is turning fall.
it’s been a long, long time since i’ve been in a not-hometown city for long enough that i smelled and felt the change of a season.
but it’s happening. summer was.

i feel almost privileged, if you can understand that.
like the way a new yorker probably feels secretly proud the first time they get mugged outside the subway.

local, man.

i feel a deep love for melbourne, for australia, it grows the way the love for a person does….i fall more and more in love with the people, the street culture, the cafes, the art, the fucked up heritage and brash attitude. i feel like i belong here. that said…it’s getting to the point where i’m getting homesick.

not for my city, but for the people in my life who keep me stable. my husband. my friends. it feels a little lonely here, even with all the love.

but

i’m making actual friends here. me & the band go out a lot with kim boekbinder & her main squeeze jim batt, who’s a great filmmaker…i can’t walk down the street without running into mikelangelo’s immaculate quiff, and jess daly and anthony cleave (yes, the ones who did the strip act at northcote, if you saw it) work in the shop downstairs and are first-rate allies.

when you’re a rock star on the road, you don’t think very much about making friends.
you don’t really have the wherewithal to do it like a normal person.

you live on the road, with your crew and fellow musicians, and you make friends with your crew and your fellow musicians. you make fleeting pals with the other bands you play with and the people you encounter on the road. you collect a lot of emails and amass a lot of people to stay in touch with, but you don’t get too many opportunities to create depth. depth takes time; staying in one place, watching people go through the shit of their life while you go through the shit of yours and you share the unfolding story. that’s what creates a friendship, a real one. simultaneous plot-following.

………………………

i’ve been spending my days locked up in a rehearsal space working on getting these new songs right with the band.

and loving it. i’m so fucking ready to make this record.

the band is amazing. i couldn’t not have picked three more incredible people to flesh out these songs.
i was talking about the birth of the band with michael and the many many coincidences that were necessary to bring us all together at the same place at the same time to make this record.
i just feel so lucky, so grateful.

they get me. they work hard. they’re beautiful souls, all three…all curious about the world, all hearts out, all brains up.

we’ve been having a blast experimenting with the songs…..who’s playing what, how to intro, how to arrange, how things should feel, sound….how to use the horns, where to add strings, if to add strings, what colors go in this palette. we joke a lot. we’re learning each other. jess from the costume shop drops into our lives and brings dress-up clothes. this week, we went deco.

i touch base with john congleton, who’s about to get on a plane to join us in the studio (we’re 6 days away…..AAAGGGGHHHH) on a regular basis….i send him shitty iphone recordings of our rehearsals and he listens with a critical ear, doling out praise and criticisms.

everybody’s doing their job.

i keep remarking to my friends:
things are going a bit too well, and i’m not used to it.

………………………

this is what the DJ in the bar/cafe has played in the last twenty minutes since i started typung this, and i think i’m love with him:

wire
new order
my bloody valentine
the pixies

he’s four for four.
i can’t wait to see what happens next.

………………

melbourne, and especially the neighborhood i’m living in, is full of hip people wearing beautiful creative clothing.

i somehow vowed in my head that i would become a different person one day, the kind of person who wears really exciting clothing and does my hair.

i never do it.

………………

mission of burma. five for five. and a BOSTON band no less. i fucking love this DJ.

…………………

i never do it because i always want to do something else. sleep. email. eat. sit. write. talk. anything.

i always imagine that i’m going to get to this point in my life where i exert more effort and i walk down the street shining like a well-coiffed freak.

instead i feel like i’ve been procrastinating for a lifetime….wearing practical flat shoes, sweatpants and the same rotating 5 dirty t-shirts (laundry is another thing i find really horribly painful….i wear shit into the GROUND. i’m a mulitiple-day underwear wearer and i’ll wear a t-shirt until it clears a room, and pants until they are VISIBLY filthy).

i considered it a heroic effort when i actually started wearing a bra on a daily basis about 3 years ago (i actually do like the way my tits look rounder, and i sort of like something cradling them at all times, it actually feels quite nice and comforting….) and applying black eyeliner on a regular basis. this adds a full 2 minutes to my daily activities and it makes me feel HIGH FUCKING MAINTENANCE. i just do not know how girls who spend a full half hour doing full-on hair things and full-on make-up things. the patience. the commitment. i’m always fucking impressed and jealous, and baffled.

i think i am just going to have to accept my fate as an international low-maintenance diva and leave it at that.

i’ll make up for it when i sit in a make-up and hair chair for 3 full hours sometime this year to do a magazine shoot or some other high-glam undertaking.

i’ve been meaning to get my hair cut and colored for a month.
i just don’t do it. i’ll do it when i get home.

oh my god.

fuck it.

…………………

the DJ is playing blur.

………………….

here are some fabulous photos from the shenanigans of the last week or so……

i’ve recruited superkate, my fucking incredible assistant, to start pulling more photos from the web and the archive to beef up the photo content of my blogs, espeically as i start careening toward s year of touring…when i always get too tired to pull photos for blogging. she may even upload a batch of photos if i’m too far down the rabbithole.
if you have photos, share them, always. send links to us at photos@amandapalmer.net and we’ll keep everything on file. if you ever see a credit wrong or mis-spelled on the blog, hit us in teh comments or email the photo address and we’ll fix it. we’re trying to get better at this.

this is an amazing shot from my “balcony” ninja gig above rose chong’s costume shop.
i sang out the window to the people in the street below and tired to do my best “evita/don’t cry for me” impression.
it went quite well….

this girl brought flowers.
i love this picture (by Theresa Harrison):

and…

here’s tom dickins guesting with me at the spiegeltent, last week (photo by Carbie Warbie):

his killer melbourne band, the jane austen argument, released their first huge record and were the #1 selling band on bandcamp for a while.
go get it at bit.ly/jaaBandcamp or by clicking the cover-art, below:

my beautiful new friend mark winmill guesting with me on aerial for a version of the tigerlillies “flying robert”, at the same spiegeltent show (photo by Carbie Warbie):

kim boekbinder with me at the spiegel show (photo by Carbie Warbie):

me & mikelangeklo at the tent, covering a paul kelly song (photo by Carbie Warbie):

…………………………………………………

THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA……the birth of my little band, in pictures….

chad raines, on guitar (photo by John Carney):

jherek bischoff on bass (photos by John Carney):

jherek & chad:

michael mcquilken, on drums (photo by Forever Violet):

jherek, chad, and moi (photo by John Carney):

photos by Forever Violet:

chad on trumpet:

….and on keys…..

the HORNS…..sourced from melbourne:

they’re going to be playing on the record with us.
they are FUCKIng FANTASTIC.
the blue trombone to the far right is made of lightweight plastic.
chad is amazing.

yours truly….trying to find a magical place between Erté and Siouxsie (photo by Bridget aka @sidsthename):

…and rocking out on jherek’s bass during “missed me”….in which we EXPERIMENT WITH SOUND (photo by Forever Violet):

it’s all happening.

LOVE,
AFP.

p.s. we didn’t allow any video/audio at the show, but we did have our friend guy filming & if you wanna see the c;ub we’ve been hiding in, and band in action covering radiohead (specifically, “idioteque”), here’s a peek:

p.p.s. my moxy’s taken to giving relationship advice on his tumblr, specifically on how one might try to seduce a writer…have a look by clicking on alreadypre-knownknowledge’s awesome picture…

Neil Gaiman: As requested by too many people: making the last post rebloggable

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:35:01 -0500

Neil Gaiman: As requested by too many people: making the last post rebloggable:

much more on the topic of writer-seduction can be found on neil’s tumblr…

neil-gaiman:

birdartpoetry asked: Mister Gaiman, you’re kickass. I was just wondering, what do you think is the best way to seduce a writer? I figured your answer would be pretty spectacular.

In my experience, writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads and imaginary people,…

pictures of the new band, and i warn you, they are hot.

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:41:26 -0500

hola dear comrades…..

the grand theft orchestra has been officially born.

i’m…..feeling awkward and record-terrified. nothing unexpected.
i’ve been spending my days working and thinking of nothing but my songs, the shows, the thing ahead.
i’ve become obsessed like you have to.
it makes me a bad friend, a bad wife, a bad blogger, a bad housekeeper, a bad street-crosser, a bad appointment-rememberer…pretty much a BAD EVERYTHINGer, and possibly even a bad musician: that part remains to be seen. god i fucking hope not. i hope that all these lost items gain one good record. i dunno. i dunno. i dunno.

we hit the studio in twelve days.

DUN DUN DUN.

getting ready for a record feels like being an athlete getting ready for a race except nobody trains you, nobody tells you what and what not to do, you just have to find your self-discipline and pray that you make the right choices so you don’t walk into the studio a distracted, broken, unorganized mess. you can suggest to the people around you that you need to be undistorted, undistracted, and focused, but nobody will go out of their way to not bother you.
so you basically have to start an ongoing duck and cover tactic, even with the people who you love, who are, of course, the exact people who assume they are exempt from distracting you.

i’ve been slowly but surely peeling myself away from emailing. twittering is nice because twittering is all joy and no responsibility.
i may give up email completely and just twitter and phone for two weeks. the Fleeting and the Huge. everything else, the mundane business of life, can wait.

rock is not sport. but sometimes i feel like it’s exactly the same. you train, but then you make it all up.

there are, however, no rules. making a rock record has no manual. i know a little about a little now that i’ve made three huge ones, but the most i’ve learned is that every studio, musical situation and producer and engineer is different, and your job is to enter in a zen state of mind ready for fucking anything to happen. ANYTHING.

i’m terrified of anything.

it doesn’t help when you haven’t made a real record for four years and the pressure of all that extra time sits on your shoulders, whispering DON’T FUCK THIS UP in your ear very loudly all day long.

so anyway.

……………………..

the first two warm-up shows were incredible….no footage, no setlist, no photos….all secrets. well, almost…ERIC’S BACK TO BLOGGING. hot gossip from the engine room, friends…check out his newest tour blog, HERE.
the rest of the residency shows are all SOLD OUT (1500 tickets, BAM! GO US, and thank you everyone who twittered and helped spread word, WE DID IT…..) and we’re going to keep working on the material and adding new songs & surprises.

DJ DAMEZA is my new favorite person and has been spinning us on and off stage every night.
my favorite moment of both shows has been dancing & freaking to this guy spinning records. he’s a genius. i’d love to keep him with us for the whole year.
and i found him IN TASMANIA. who knew?

we had a beautiful surprise opener the first night: georgia fields.
she played beautiful songs on the uke AND THE CASIO. here she is:

and as for me & the band….we rehearsed for 5 straight days before taking stage.
(here’s a good one of chad in our rehearsal space in carlton, writing down lyric notes…..):

i, predictably, lost my voice. i spent today in bed, not talking, waiting for it to come back.
it’s hilarious.

i can’t sing half the new shit i’ve written.

it’s a wonderful….sinking feeling.

everybody was high-fucking-fiving after the first show and i sat there in a stupor, looking despondent, thinking HOW THE FUCK AM I GOING TO SING THESE SONGS ON THE ROAD FOR A YEAR. I AM FUCKED.

it’s like that EXACT moment when you’ve taken a sip of a scalding hot drink without realizing how hot it was, but it’s too late to not take the sip and yet before the moment you start doing crazed mouth acrobatics to try to minimize the damage done to your tastebuds. you already know, in a split second, that your tongue is going to be a fuzz-ache for the next 24 hours. i feel that right now.
it’s just like that.

i’ll figure it out.

but the new songs sound….amazing. more than amazing. scalding.

they don’t even feel like i wrote them. which is how i know they’re probably good.

they’re all in G.

how did that happen?

i don’t know, but it happened.

not ALL. but the VAST MAJORITY.

G. G. ALL G, ALL THE TIME.

i find solace in the raveonettes.

the story goes that they recorded their first EP (“WHIP IT ON”) under the self-imposed “guidelines” of all songs being under three minutes, and all in B-flat minor…i think maybe they just realized (while recording, i presume) that all of the songs they’d written were in the same key…(their followup album was a sister-set-of-songs, tongue in cheekly almost entirely in B-flat MAJOR, btw)
so they simply celebrated these facts on the covers:

……………………………

seeing as i’m pretty much living at a costume shop in melbourne, we decided to plunder it with the help of jess daly, my friend who works here.
some of you may remember her from around this time last year…she and her beautiful friend anthony were the SURPRISE STRIPPING KOALAS at my melbourne forum show…
and after that, she went on tour with peaches for a while doing all sorts of rad things including costume design:

she’s also a wig stylist. jherek had a fantasy. as you’ll see below, we obliged. how could we not?

the band is going to do a different evolving outfit every week.
things will morph, though we did get slightly attached to this week’s outfits.
this week’s evolution was inspired by …. um, guess.
(i’ll give you a hint…a recent tweet ‘o mine)

jess took some photos backstage right before we went on the first night.

i want baseball cards.

JHEREK BISCHOFF | @jherekbischoff (bass, guitar):

MICHAEL McQUILKEN | @quilken (drums):

MOI | @amandapalmer (piano, screaming):

CHAD RAINES | @radchaines (synth, guitar, trumpet):

jess applying make-up to michael:

chad, jess, and jherek:

GOD DAMN I LOVE MY FUCKING BAND.
there they are, the core members of the grand theft orchestra.
(and HERE’s a twitter “List” of all of us)

they sound…..like gods.
they plunder, they sleigh.
they’re all beautiful & kind human beings, generous souls, and musicians, every one.

the local melburnians have been feeding and caring for us and making us feel so so so at home.
we never want to leave.
i’ve been walking around in disguise glasses during the day. they make me feel invincible.

neil thinks they’re sexy. i knew it.

i’m so fucking lucky.

so. fucking. lucky.

more more soon.

x
afp

p.s. i’ve talked about the amazing book “You Must Go And Win” by my dear friend alina simone - in fact, HERE’s a whole blog about it - but since last i wrote, more exciting stuff’s happened…neil (in collaboration with audible.com and the audiobook creation exchange) launched “neil gaiman presents” and picked it as one of the very first books to put out!!

SO…because it’s a REALLY funny (and very emotional, deep, and honest) book, and more people should check it out, alina’s posted an entire chapter to give you a sampling:

set aside 40 minutes, make yourself some tea, and enjoy…(the above widget is also HTML5 friendly meaning it’ll work on most mobile devices if you wanna start it playing before a drive somewhere or something)…
neil posted about it over on his tumblr, too…if i haven’t persuaded you yet, check out his post.
if you like it (and you will), you can get the whole thing HERE on audible.
one last thing: you can also find alina’s MUSIC on her bandcamp. give it a listen, too.

p.p.s. i did a guest spot with MIKELANGELO at the old bar for SLAM DAY.
here is a video of us playing “before too long”: vimeo.com/37226698
photo by konrad lenz on flickr:

the whole band is headed to see him and his group The Black Sea Gentlemen at the spiegeltent. get more info/RSVP HERE on facebook and check HERE to see if there are still any tickets available…but it’s a show you don’t wanna miss if you’re in melbourne.

threw my bad fortune

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:56:00 -0500

hola hola.

in quick melbourne show news: about 500 of you in Melbourne got an email yesterday from The Wheeler Centre telling you that this friday’s talk with meow meow (“FRANK”) was cancelled & that you’d be refunded. lots of people tweeted asking what was up…there was confusion, and i’m sorry you didn’t hear it straight from me. meow is sick but alive; no alarm. we’re definitely going to reschedule; just not sure when.

i’m so sorry about it; nothing to be done EXCEPT…
for those of you who were flying to the event, i’ve added a ninja gig Saturday morning unlike any other!!! i’m going to play AT A GARAGE SALE at ROSE CHONG’S costume shop where my friends Antony and Jess work. come, sift through elvis jackets, buy koala suits, try on powdered wigs, and hear ukulele. what could be better on a Saturday afternoon in melbourne? the event/more deets are on FB (RSVP here). i’ll be on around 1pm.
come play…?

also: stay tuned to the twitter feed for a possible show to be added Sunday night (the 26th) - it’s looking probable.

SO……………

it’s been a busy week in melbourne, gigging and working my ass off while simultaneously quieting my head and voice down and getting ready to record the album. some of the things i’ve been doing have been deliberately chosen to prep my album brain…like the songwriting talk to mac.robertson girl’s school in melbourne:

…the public letter-writing-and-reading forum held every few months in melbourne called “women of letters,” curated by the incredible marieke hardy…at which i wrote and read aloud a letter that made me cry….here we are (wendy harmer, virginia triolli, georgia fields, moi, and nicki greenberg):

…or the foreward that i crammed out last night for a book called “live through this,” about art and self-destruction, about to go into its second edition. the more i try to write the more respect i have for neil. Jesus it’s hard.

but some things have just been sheer abstract distraction…like the random idea i had to collaborate with chipmusic artist Dot_AY to sing Lana Del Rey’s “video games” with my wrists tied up at the BLIP festival a few nights ago. i don’t know what it is about that song…but ever since the first time i heard it i’ve wanted to sing it tied up. it just seemed like the right thing to do. i fucked up the first entry and some of the lyrics. but it’s still pretty awesome.

(click here for the vimeo upload)

the band is all in town and we’re getting bikes for everyone…and getting settled, and getting ready to create what i want to believe is going to be the best and most creative record i’ve ever made. we picked the right city.

melbourne loves us, and we love melbourne. i’ve never felt so much love for a city in my life…not quite this way. introducing my band to the city and watching them fall in love as i nervously coax them from spot to spot is like the feeling of introducing the person you’ve fallen madly in love with to your friends. you want them to fall in love too. you want to know it’s not just you. you want them to feel the same fever. they do.

pj said it perfect :

and i feel like
some bird of paradise
my bad fortune
slipping away
and i feel the innocence of a child
everybody’s got something good to say

g’night people of the world
afp

my earth-shattering news, by amanda fucking palmer.

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:11:00 -0500

hola comrades!

first of all….thank you all SO so very much for all the positive response to the “polly” video. holy shit. it had more impact than i’d imagined, for real.
thank you all, deeply, for sharing the link and tweeting it around and generally helping us spread it far and wide….it’s getting tons of views and love online.
nirvana posted it to their official facebook page (which in my opinion is a seal of approval far superior to getting it played on MTV). thank you, thank you.

now for the news: yes, you guessed it.

all signs were pointing this way for ages.

i’m pregnant.

not with a child, but….

….WITH A MOTHERFUCKING RECORD ALBUM!!!!!!!

that’s right: i’m about to give birth to a COLLECTION OF SONG-SPAWN that’s going to blow your domepiece off.
me and the new band (the grand theft orchestra) are going to hit the studio in almost exactly one month, in melbourne.

i have about 20+ songs ready to record.

almost all of them have never been heard.

they’ve all been written, slowly and in secret, over the past 3 years.
i’ve never made a record anything like this. it will be like….me. but different. the songs are amazing. i’m really, really incredibly proud of them.

the producer/engineer is going to be the fabulous john congleton, who’s produced a ton of amazing indie stuff…including the past few st. vincent records.
(you can geek out/drool over his production credits HERE)

i hope he forgives me for stealing this particular photo from his fan-run tumblr:

i’ve been waiting to make this new record for a long, long, LONG, LONG time.
not the run the pregnancy metaphor into the ground, but it does feel like i’ve been carrying this thing around for longer than is necessary or comfortable.

the last time i went into the studio and made a “proper” studio album was back in 2008 when i recorded “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” in nashville with ben folds wearing the producer hat.

since then, my life has been a mishy-mashy wonderland of bizarre side-projects, theater detours and…other things.
like finding my wonderful husband (he’s nice) and getting married (several times).

and writing songs when they came, and tucking them away….sometimes playing them live and testing them out, mostly not.

waiting for certain things to settle. trying to put the right band together.

and, knowing that this time would eventually come (and that i’d have to work on this record for about two years solid): running full force in my own free, random ninja directions (which is my version of “resting”).

and most importantly (and kind of most boringly; i never talk about this shit) i’ve been re-configuring my behind-the-scenes team and management until i felt i had a team capable of helping me BIRTH this BEAST. and i do now, and we’re ready.

you might have seen one of the little under-the-radar shows i did (when i didn’t allow ANY FOOTAGE to be taken) this last spring or summer with the new band…michael mcquilken on drums (and bass, and more) and chad on guitar and synths and trumpet (and more), with a variety of guest musicians on stage with us…..

here we is (photo by Rene Huemer):

and then on stage, with superkate leading us in AEROBICS (photo by chrisdonia via flickr):

breaking the sound barrier of DANCE with superkate (photo by Bryndís Blackadder):

drew forrest - who filmed us lots in the UK last summer - put this together:

(visit youtu.be/ZZMgRyKDK_c if that embed doesn’t work…)

the edinburgh iteration of the grand theft orchestra before taking stage at the HMV picturehouse……with DREW on camera duty:

AND AND AND…
we’ve added a new thief!!
under cover of night, Jherek Bischoff has joined the band….he’ll be mostly on bass guitar duty, but he plays a ton of instruments:

jherek is a true musical genius….he’s been jason’s touring bassist for years, and i had the pleasure of playing onstage with him and michael at the pre-halloween LA show.
a lot of you already know him. in impressive news: he just finished up a huge night at the ecstatic music festival presenting his own incredible avant-garde-beautiful-classical compositions….with collaborators no less fancy than David Byrne and the dude from Deerhoof.

so that’s the band: me, michael, chad and jherek. and one more thing:

you.

all y’all.

we’re calling this band AMANDA PALMER & THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA because we plan ALL YEAR on doing what we did over the summer: stealing local musicians everywhere we go and getting them onstage with us. besides the fact that it’s impossibly expensive to tour around with a string section and a ton of horn players….WHY WOULD WE when we can STEAL THEM? so be prepared: we are coming for you. once we cut this record, we’ll be seeking musicians EVERYWHERE WE GO. it may not be limited to brass and strings.

we also want to push the limits of HOW WE CAN INCLUDE people in our art-making as part of the live experience. it’s exciting. we have PLANS. well….maybe not real plans.
we have IDEAS. (there is also an INCREDIBLE ALBUM ART PROJECT secretly underway….and i’ll tell you all about that soon.)

tour dates, release dates, and everything else will all be in the pipeline in the coming months….the first glimpses of tour will be starting late spring/early summer, once the album’s totally finished.

ho my god.

…………………….

as you know, i’m independent, free of my major label, tra la la!

i don’t have a stock-pile of capital hidden away, and i am going to have to crowd-fund huge parts of the record and the tour….and given everything that’s been going on in internet-land, i’m excited to do it.
anything we make: the recording, the videos, the costumes, the strange live internet tools, the touring engine, it’s ALL going to have to be either crowd-funded or covered by loans from people who have the spare cash to front me: the scope of the process and the size/scale of the tour will truly be dictated by the fanbase and how much money we can come up with.

i have a good feeling about it, but who the fuck knows: it feels like the first moment of sticking out your thumb when you decided to hitchhike A LONG DISTANCE. terrifying and exhilarating. no idea where this is going to take you, but you’re ready to jump.

we’ll be crowdfunding the majority of the money we need around april by doing a giant outreach and pre-order for the album.

so i’m not asking for anything now, except just….be happy for us!

i sure the fuck am.

……………..

and yes….MELBOURNE, you win.

we thought about making the record in a few other cities (mostly in the states), but i decided, hell….i’m already over here from the dolls tour, and there’s a ton of resources here for the band.
we’ve already had 3 different people volunteer to make us dinner. (if you want to…email us@amandapalmer.net. we’ll take it. no joke.)

the band is meeting up in melbourne in two weeks. we’re going to REHEARSE OUR ASSES OFF, then play run of small shows to get the songs perfect perfect perfect in front of a crowd before putting them down on tape.

thus, our UPCOMING MELBOURNE RESIDENCY at the NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB!

we’re going to do FIVE shows. audio/video recording will be forbidden at all show.
special guests will be rampant (and unconfirmed at the moment).

we tried to make the shows as CHEAP as humanly possible.
they’re all $10 ($15 day of show). they’re all 18+ and doors are 7pm.

tickets for all five shows are on sale NOW! here’s the info:

• FEBRUARY 28th
BUY TICKETS | RSVP on facebook
w/ DJ DAMEZA (one half of ACUMEN/@dameza on twitter)
DJ DAMEZA is my favorite new DJ - i danced my ASS OFF to one of his late night sets at the MONA FOMA festival a few weeks ago, and i’ve manged to convince him to come up and DJ us into a dancing FRENZY for these two show. hopefully we can convince him to come to some other nights, too…he’s checking.

• FEBRUARY 29th
BUY TICKETS | RSVP on facebook
also w/ DJ DAMEZA

• MARCH 6th
BUY TICKETS | RSVP on facebook
guests TBA

• MARCH 7th
BUY TICKETS | RSVP on facebook
guests TBA

• MARCH 12th
BUY TICKETS | RSVP on facebook
w/ DIE ROTEN PUNKTE and more TBA
die rotten punkte are one of my absolute favorite fucking acts, and i’ve been trying to do a show together with them for AGES!!!
here’s a clip of me joining them for a very bizarre song/interpretive dance in edinburgh a few summers ago:

do not fret, every single night is going to be UBER-SPECIAL…these are bascially open rehearsals with the band…anything goes.

dress to impress….your mom.

if you want to help spread the word about these shows, here’s how…
i am personally going to be wandering around melbourne, handing out these flyers and leaving them on the benches of many an unsuspecting vegan record shop.

i’ve missed doing that. i’m never in town long enough before a gig to be able to.

but i could always use help…we put up a download link for the poster (and handbills) up on the shadowbox, so please: grab the assets HERE (or click the thumbnails below), go get some printer ink and tape, and hit the streets……and if you don’t live in the area but know people who do, let them know? just link ‘em to http://bit.ly/NorthcotePromo

………………………………

also, MELBOURNE (and this is getting dorky) if you have any of this GEAR or a music shop/rental hook-up, we need you!!!!
you can save us tons of money if you have any of the following we can borrow (or rent for cheap or barter!):

- a Kurzweill PC3 keyboard
- a Nord Electro 3
- really, ANY kind of sequential-circuit synthesizer

- a Juno 106 synthesizer
- a Moog Voyager
or
- a Korg ms20 synthesizer

and maybe maybe maybe one of you has…
- 2 x Technics 1200/1210 turntables

(would definitely also need the cables, etc to all of the above, but we could source our own in a pinch.)

and this one i really need NOW (before the shows):
- a digital piano (of any kind), with a stand and some sort of speakers for practicing. anyone? we’ll happily trade you show tickets and get you a coffee. or tea. or water…whatever your little heart desires.

if you’re in melbourne have leads on any of this gear, or you think you know someone who can help us….email! us@amandapalmer.net.
(& if you think you have something comparable, talk to us! we’re open)

………………………..

yes, virginia….there are going to be synthesizers on the album.

………………………

i am so excited.

i am so, so, so excited.

i am more excited than rebecca black on a thursday night.

i am so excited i just rubbed one of my eyebrows off by accident.

THAT’S HOW EXCITED I AM

here we go, here we go, here we go

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE,
AFP

new video for "polly" (nirvana cover)...with some explaining.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:57:00 -0500

hola dear comrades……

greetings from sunny melbourne, I’ve decamped here for the next few months and have some incredible news forthcoming about my new record, stay tuned…will be letting the magic shit hit the fan in the next week or so.

better yet, get the blog emailed straight to your inbox: HERE.

SO…

i already wrote a blog about the recording of this song back in june, but the video is another matter, and i’d like to do some explaining.

first of all, the reason we decided to make a video for this song AT ALL was because we were so fucking thrilled with the way it came out…and it got a hugely positive response when SPIN magazine released it on their “nevermind” tribute compilation. i cut a deal with SPIN that we could release the song ourselves (HOORAY NO LABEL) after a few months went by, and that time has come. so we’re releasing it - a brand new master with some cleanups to the mix thanks to chad and michael - direct through my website/bandcamp for cost + donation. this is always the deal with cover songs since we need to pay about 50¢ a song for royalty rates plus the paypal fees to charge ANYTHING AT ALL (which is, indeed, weird). and yes, it’s also up on iTunes, amazon, etc. but i won’t see as much from any of those places so as always, DIRECT=the best way.

when i was first asked to do a cover of a song from “nevermind,” SPIN sent me a list of tracks that were still available (i think there were 5 left) and eric sussman, in my management, wrote back immediately saying “WTF NOBODY’S TAKEN POLLY???” and that set my brain on the track to think about how the band could possibly cover the song.

the band is an important part of this….

….i’m about to make a huge, new solo record with these guys (chad, michael, and jherek) under the moniker of AMANDA PALMER & THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA and this cover song was a chance for us (minus jherek, who hadn’t come on board yet) to get into the studio and start feeling each other out. everyone in the band plays a variety of instruments….chad plays guitar, keys, and trumpet, but for the “polly” cover he picked up a banjo. jherek’s going to be playing the bass (mostly), and michael will generally be on the drums (but for this “polly” recording michael played bass, and you can see him doing so for about .96 seconds in the video). michael’s also (among other things, he’s a total renaissance hack) a great director and an engineer.

rule number one of modern bands: make sure everyone can do AT LEAST FIVE JOBS (seriously, look at the credits on this thing when you watch the video).

so, i decided it might be a fun idea to make a low-budget video for “polly” with michael in the director’s chair & his pal sarah lasley behind the camera.

i wrote the treatment one night in san francisco, while i was on tour with neil (and, coincidentally, waiting in a bar for noah briton to bring me my passport, which i’d left in…..boston…..long story…dude saved my ASS) and emailed it over to michael. he got a crew together on a shoestring budget, cast the actors, and we were good to go.

…………………………………………………..

here are some of the best stills & behind-the scenes shots from the day we shot…

getting The Face done, by the incredible make-up artist justin tyme, at a gas station:

blake getting done up out of the back of a truck:

sarah shooting the escape (click to enlarge):

before we got to new haven, we were trying to twitter-source a rad vintage car…
then we get to the gas station we’re shooting some of the video at, and michael noticed THIS:

…AND THEY LET US BORROW IT. I DIED.

look at ‘er…she’s gorgeous (click to enlarge):

and it’s just PERFECT in the video…you’ll see.

here are some gorgeous stills of jillian from the video (which if-you-so-choose, you can use as alternate cover artwork when you download the song):

…………………………………………………..

before we recorded the song itself, at yale, where michael had free access to a studio, i had a couple chats with him beforehand about the direction of the cover.

i’d been googling and found out things about the song i’d never known…
from wiki:
Bass player Krist Novoselic remembers Kurt Cobain writing “Polly” after reading a newspaper article about the abduction, torture, and rape of a 14-year-old girl who had just finished attending a rock show in Tacoma, Washington. In June 1987 Gerald Arthur Friend picked up a 14-year-old female friend after leaving a concert at the Tacoma Dome. Upon trying to exit the car the girl was handcuffed and held hostage at knife point. The girl was taken to a mobile home where she was tortured and raped with various objects for two days. She was also threatened with a blowtorch.

the story continued and the google trail led to strange places….
apparently there was a guy (a nirvana fan) who bragged about raping a girl while the song played, and kurt spoke out against it publicly.
kurt was, after all, a feminist.

i wanted the song, and later, the video, to focus on the terrifying experience of being….trapped like that.
the video, seen without any knowledge of the backstory, would probably come across differently, and i wondered for a while whether to spread the story behind the song along with the clip.
i think it makes it better.
i’d recommend watching this when you have a quiet moment, and with headphones (trust me):

(if the embed gives you trouble, click HERE to watch it on youtube)

and if you want the song, go download it HERE.

& as always….please share if you dig it. you are my record label. thanks.

love
AFP


p.s. yes, that’s blake in the woods. THE blake. if you’re a-twtitter: he’s @electroblake. michael is @quilken & chad is @radchaines. follow the thickening plot.

finding peter jefferies (a long story, with a soundtrack to guide you)

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:17:00 -0500

hola comrades!

i’m gong to embed some songs for you to listen to while you read this one. try it.

……………..

newses & shows first……..skip this if you’re not in melbourne/australia.

it’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you, you citizens of melbourne:

i semi-apologize, but you’re about to get REALLY SICK OF ME.
i’m moving in for a few months. i got my visa.
you will not be able to get rid of me….i am going to do so much shit in your town that avoiding me will be as difficult as avoiding that steve jobs biography in an airport bookstore.

here’s all the random melbourne events i’ve just announced, and there’s another big surprise coming, so don’t get too bored yet:

feb 17th: FREE & SUSTAINABLE
i’m playing in FEDERATION SQUARE, all ages, FREE show as part of the sustainable living festival at 9:30 pm…more info/RSVP HERE on facebook.
the same night, a few hours later at 11:45, i’ll be popping on-stage for ONE song in the spiegeltent as part of club spiegel. if you’ve never been to the tent, use this an an excuse, and make a night out of this whole deal. federation square and the spiegeltent (in front of the arts centre) are about a 5 minute walk from each other. the club spiegel show is $10 at door (HERE are pre-book tix with supper/HERE’s the RSVP).

feb 19: WOMEN OF LETTERS
i’m doing WOMEN of LETTERS with the wonderful marieke hardy, which is a series of events in which people get together, drink wine, and write postal letters to people. it sold out immediately, but if you can score a ticket through illicit means, i recommend it.

feb 24th: ME & MEOW MEOW GET “FRANK” IN A SIT-DOWN THEATER
me and my long lost cabaret friend MEOW MEOW are TAKING OVER THE ATHENAEUM THEATER and doing a live, on-stage “talk about everything in our lives night”….
we’ve decided to call it AMANDA PALMER & MEOW MEOW ARE: FRANK.
it was inspired when i saw neil and tom stoppard doing the same venue presented by the wheeler center and they told me they’d love to have me as a speaking guest. i saw meow for dinner the next night….and since meow and i have the habit of staying up and talking about life until 3 am ANYWAY, i figured we might has well get on stage and share.
come and talk with us. we’re going to banter back and forth about love, life, relationships, touring, being women, and then take questions from and chat with the audience. the venue is BEAUTIFUL, and the tickets will go fast. we kept them as cheap as we possibly could, and the event is all ages. buy tickets and spread the word. it’s all ages and $20.
go HERE for tickets.

…………………………………….

so….

i found peter jefferies.

i’d been looking for a long time.

this past few weeks has been such a strange and ongoing musical christmas. i’ve been meeting and playing with so many heroes & big influences in my life.

peter is different. peter is different pretty much nobody knows him. he affords no bragging rights.
but he’s the biggest one to me.
his music did something important to me, something hard to explain.

i was 18. i was walking down a cold winter harvard square street on christmas break from my freshman year at college, where i was miserable and alone.

here. play this while you read….

…and i was wearing a tri-cornered hat.

this one…it’s seen a lot of use. this was a dolls photo shoot with scott irvine from about 10 years later:

i remember.

there was snow on the ground and i was walking quickly, with my head down, along mount auburn street in front of schoenhof’s foreign bookstore.
frozen brick beneath my feet. probably feeling relatively depressed and friendless, because if memory serves me correctly, i was.

a man with dark hair passed me.
he turned around. i turned around.

he said: “you poor girl, who made you wear that hat?”

i raised my hair-full eyebrows, started him down, and said: “it’s MY hat.”

we chatted and exchanged numbers. we parted. i called him that night.

by 2 in the morning we were having the sort of sex i’d never had before….and still can’t forget.
he had walls and walls of CDs. thousands of them. he was a dark-eyed, keen-eared, super-opinionated and obsessive music listener, collector, reviewer, and small indie-label-starter.
he had a fanzine. he drew ridiculous comics about his manic mind. my favorite of all was a cartoon of a handwritten “list of things to do today” which looked like this:
REPRESS
DENY
REPRESS
DENY
REPRESS
DENY

REPRESS
DENY
REPRESS
DENY
REPRESS
DENY

he turned me onto the magnetic fields, a UK band called statuesque (i’ve always wondered what happened to them…they were good) and all sorts of other teeny indie bands i hadn’t known. he not only fucked me, he fucked the dresses i would wear. he said things to me in bed i’d never heard. i was beside myself; it was a passionate affair. i trusted him.

i played him my demo tape…i didn’t do that with most people. i’d just recorded it.

he heard the way i sang and heard the way i pounded the piano and he said: “you need to hear peter jefferies.”
and i said “who’s that?”
and he lent me (back when we lent music….ha) copies of “the last great challenge in a dull world” and “electricity”…

….and my head exploded/expanded. it was like when i heard kurt weill for the first time: i thought I’M NOT ALONE HERE….someone else thinks about and plays music the way i do.
his music was a cross between atonal punk and song-melody, a simple, energetic missive of emotion and commentary, with every note unapologetic. the songs sounded so fucking honest.
i felt like i was hearing a kindred soul-brother. he sounded like a distorted, male version of how envisioned myself.

this was 1994…way before the internetz.

it’s hard to remember when there was no information. just what was on the back of the CD.

i knew nothing about him. nothing. (i didn’t even know where new zealand was, i was a fucking idiot…but i knew that’s where he was from.)

i collected his music disc by disc, as i could find it in the indie/import sections of the record stores. i collected the other projects he was related to: this kind of punishment, the music of his guitar-playing brother graeme jefferies.

he was the heavy soundtrack for those years….1994 and 1995 were filled with peter jefferies, those two albums, on constant repeat (along with philip glass, swans, current 93, death in june, and a few other records). “electricity,” “dear boss,” “by small degrees,” and “on an unknown beach” provided the backdrop to my whole difficult and pained life in a cement dorm surrounded by strangers. somewhere in new zealand, someone was playing like me. things would be fine.

here’s “electricity.” play it:

…………………..

the passionate affair ended quickly.

i moved on to a painter boyfriend with glasses who didn’t fuck my dresses and was shy about sex.

at least he also had excellent taste in music.

i feel like that’s always a deal-breaker.
i got an idea for a song the other day called “i’m thinking about breaking up with you because you don’t like elliot smith.”

it would be a truly sad song.

…………………………………………

anyway

about 15 years later, i was a Real Musician, touring in new zealand.

everywhere i went, i started asking around for him.

does anyone know peter jefferies?

i sort of expected peter jefferies to be a new zealand indie rock hero, known to every radio personality and promotor.

i mean, if i knew him in america and i wasn’t all that plugged in, clearly he’d be huge over here.

untrue.

almost nobody had heard of him…..but those who knew him….understood.
piece by piece, gossip by gossip, i gathered that he had pulled a total syd barrett/JD salinger move and completely removed himself from the world of music.

google was useless. there was no trace of him on the internet. his music wasn’t available anywhere either (and still isn’t).

someone told me that he’d moved back to where he’d grown up and was teaching music in a local school.
figuring that would be an easy way to track him down, i emailed the school where i found out he was teaching.

i never heard anything back.

i blogged about my love for him when i released my cover of his song “on an unknown beach” on the “amanda palmer goes down under” album.

then i sort of gave up.

i almost took a strange pleasure in the fact that there was a final frontier. just the fact that there was Someone Who Was Not On the Internet gave me some strange hope for mankind.

and then last year, i was at the webstock conference opening dinner in wellington, NZ. i mentioned my epic peter jefferies search to the dude sitting next to me; someone overheard me and told me he knew how to get a hold of him…that they’d been roommates. one thing led to another and a got a hold of an email address and dropped him a line, including a link to the video for “on an unknown beach.” i included my eternal gratitude and phone number. i didn’t expect him to ever write back. i kind of imagined him living in an internet-less cave of solitude with a tea kettle and a cat, listening to old records on a crank record player and reading books by dead authors and never conversing with a single human.

he called the next day. he told me about leaving music. he told me that he never answered anyone, ever, but that my blog and my cover song had convinced him that i was worth answering.
he told me he loved the cover, and the video, and that he loved galveston texas, where we’d shot it.

he told me that the only music he ever played live anymore was to the special needs kids at his school, once a week.

he told me he didn’t regret his decision.

i was still touring in new zealand at the time, but he couldn’t come to any of my upcoming gigs but he did say that if i was ever in new zealand again i should stop by and visit him in new plymouth (which is in the middle of nowhere, on the west coast of the north island). i said i would come.

so this year, i went.

(if you’re done with “by small degrees” for your blog-reading soundtrack, move on to this:

it’s called “the fate of the human carbine”)

i told peter i’d love to see him for a meal…and told him i’d probably do a ninja gig somewhere outside while i as there, because that’s what i do…and i figured i’d have at least 6 fans in town (i was about right, actually).

a new record store called vinyl countdown had just opened up in peter’s town (new plymouth is a teeny-weeny place) and peter mentioned i was coming and maybe gigging. they offered up the store. peter wrote and asked if i’d not the ninja gig there, to which the answer was a hell yes of course.

then he asked “am i playing?”, to which i answered “of course, if you want to, i’d freak.”

when he responded and told me he hadn’t played out in 9 years, i felt a stab of weird accomplishment.
so me, i thought, and my musical hero are going to appear in a record store and play in front of a bunch of random new zealanders. it’s perfect, kind of.
i suggested we do something together.
a cover song or something.
he suggested a bunch of covers that started with W:

• wonderwall (oasis)
• walk on the wild side (lou reed)
• working class hero (john lennon)
• whole wide world (wreckless eric)

…all of which i magically knew and had covered before (some really recently, as some of you who saw the neil tour know….it was uncanny).

he didn’t seem to notice that he’d picked all W songs.

i pointed this out and he suggested we add “wild thing.”

then i suggested we add “we’re happy little vegemites.”

that’s 6.

i drove up to his house from wellington and over that night and the next day, he told me his story.
it’s his to tell, not mine, but i’m glad i heard it, and i’m glad, for everybody’s sakes, that he decided, after about 8 years of non-performing, to return to the light.

talking to him was almost surreal. i’m so attached to the stage. talking to someone who’s deliberately given up what i live and breathe…
talking to someone who would quit touring and performing is like discussing with someone why they chose to….i don’t know…amputate that useless arm.
there’s a level of suspending disbelief for me.

but.

he’d been at it a long time, he pointed out….longer than i have. you hit a point…..

other people have hit the point. i’ve met them. i know them.

i wonder if i’ll ever hit it. i suppose you don’t know that you’re going to hit it, you just do one day, and then you’re done.
everybody either stops - or dies - eventually. things change.

we talked about our songs. he asked me about the story behind “the point of it all” and i told him.
he picked up a guitar and told me about the night the power went out and he picked up his girlfriend’s guitar, figured out some strange chords and wrote “electricity.”
he showed me how to play it. now i know a guitar song.

he took me for a walk by the water in new plymouth, and told me about the story behind writing “on an unknown beach.”

i took a picture of him standing in front of the ocean.
he looked out.

then he took a picture of me standing in front of the ocean.
i looked up.

he told me a lot of things…about writing, about touring, about music in general. he told me funny stories about opening up for HIS hero, john cale. neil would have loved it.
i wanted to listen. everywhere i go lately, i feel like the universe is conspiring to educate me, in a deep way, about music and what it does to us and why we do it.

he took me to his school and i hung out with some of his students, including hayley and bailey, who played us a song they’d written on the ukulele.

we made them watch our Band Rehearsal. peter agreed to play tambourine on “we’re happy little vegemites.” i agreed to play drums on “wild thing.”

he asked me to play “astronaut.” he said he wanted to see how i played it.
and he played some of his songs for me.

i watched his hands and he watched mine. he says he liked the way the three fingers on my right hand shot up into the air when i did octaves.

can you understand why this guy was my hero?

he plays like THIS:

meanwhile, on my buzzing iphone, a nice gal named felice from the govett-brewster museum/ in new plymouth tweeted an invite for us to stop by.
new plymouth being the booming, sprawling metropolis that it is, the museum was about a 2 minute walk from the record shop.

i told peter over lunch that we could go. he didn’t get it. “she twittered,” i said.

he seemed slightly baffled as to what we were doing. who? why?

it was in that moment that i realized how much weird normalcy i’ve found in my constant, virtual crowdsurfing via the internet. i literally take for granted the fact that i survive on the road through these little 140-character invitations….invitations to enjoy life in all its various shapes and sizes, from food to accommodation to museum visits to ninja gigs to beers to spare guitars, it just makes obvious sense to me. someone invites: you go. you need: you ask.
it’s gotten to the point where i feel like nothing is unobtainable. if we don’t have it: we twitter for it. and it appears.
this is how i live now.

to peter, who doesn’t have a website, much less a social networking obsession, this must have seemed very strange.

we waltzed up to the gallery and got a quick private tour of the joint, including the beautiful and disturbing underwater vincent ward photos
(for size perspective, the photos are on a wall about 30 feet away from the balcony we’re standing on):

here’s one of my favorites….”rebirth”:

…..and then we left, and played our record-store gig.

the store, vinyl countdown, was perfect and full of old records and shirts and children and good feelings. full of lots of people came and we had a blast. peter played a handful of his songs on guitar and i played a handful of uke songs, and we played our set of silly cover songs….brought to you by the letter W. i’ll tweet the only video footage i got once the time is right. peter killed it.
watching him play the songs i knew so well felt so powerful in so many ways. just knowing that this was his first outing in that many years and that our random collision had made it happen felt like something beyond my comprehension.

when we were done, peter’s wife stef told me she’d never seen him happier. peter looked like he was….in a dazed and happy state. we hugged a lot.
then we all went back to their homestead for drinks, but peter stopped me in the driveway before we went into the house. he asked if i wanted to hear one last song.

yes.

it was getting chilly out….in the dim light of the bug-clustered driveway lamp, he pulled out his guitar from its case and played “don’t look down,” a song that i knew from the “electricity” record as a solo piano number. i found the words spilling onto my brain-tip, that same motor mechanism that was running when i played the violent femmes gig. the music and words all in my blood & veins, even if i haven’t heard the song in years. it’s etched on some permanent card catalogue of emotions in the recess of my soul. i sang along, quietly, in awe of the moment. i watched myself in that dark driveway from age 18….there you are amanda, getting a private concert from your soul brother. yes. you’ve found him.

inside, there was a small, warm celebration of the day going on, beers being opened, laughter and cigarettes…a half dozen people gathered on peter and stef’s porch.

peter picked up his guitar and i followed him inside. we walked through the house and found everybody.
then, for the collection of people sitting on the porch, he played the song again.
this time, i asked him i could film…..it was too dark to get an image, but i almost like it like that. it’s an audio recording only, which is better. you can hear the cars passing by.
it’s not until now, listening to the lyrics and thinking about everything that was happening in that very moment….peter sharing his stories with me, his playing in public for the first time after 8 years of silence, the collisions, coming home…..that i realize how fucking perfect and profound this song was.

maybe he knew, too.

in reverse, it feels like the question to which “in my mind” was the answer that came….15 years later.

“don’t look down”

i’ve been drifting round this circle for so long
and now i’m not sure what it means to me

i thought this kind of shelter would be strong
but nothing stays unchanged indefinitely

and where are we now?
there’s so many faces
it’s so hard to see

and what would you like yourself to be?

there’s fire in the field but it doesn’t try to come inside the door
and anything it yields casts a shadow on whatever’s gone before

and where are we now?
there’s so many faces
it’s so hard to see

and what would you like yourself to be?

…………………………………..

peter asked me to play “astronaut” one more time for everybody at the end of the night, on the upright in their bedroom.
i did. my voice was broken, but i don’t think i’ve ever been happier to deliver a request.

then i left. i drove back to my crashpad in the middle of rural new zealand nowhere, with my brights on…feeling a sort of feeling i’d never felt before.
different than playing with heroes, different from meeting mentors, different from being acknowledged.

like…..
…..i’m doing what i’m supposed to do, and maybe for the first time i feel like i’m doing it right.

the beach is ever changing

love
AFP

p.s. if you want to hear the studio version of “don’t look down,” here you go:

wellington journalist absolutely trashes our gig, misses point of music completely.

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:50:00 -0500

….or…..
“amanda palmer looks back on her press clippings from age 73”

scene:

the room is dimly lit by faded, fringed lamps with real incandescent bulbs of a past era. the collected clutter, observable when one’s eyes adjust to the Blanche DuBois-level lighting, looks like a cross between the set of “Sunset Boulevard” and “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”.

*she coughs violently. you wait patiently and empathetically as she lovingly fingers a folder of faded press clippings*

oh, YES, honey….of course. of course. back in the day it was so much cooler to hate the dresden girls. do you remember? we had the “automatic boy” song.
oh, that was a cool song.
we used to say “cool” all the time, you know. that was the word we used for EVERYTHING.

*she coughs violently*

yes. we were on top of the world then. journalists despised us. we even had a section of our website where we collected all of the…the…best of the worst press. hate mail, too.

*tightly and nervously wraps her torn and wine-stained kimono around her waist, fills glass with straight gin*
(it is 10:30 in the morning)

yes, yes. we were the “punk cabaret” lana del rey of our day.

*takes a benson & hedges deluxe ultralight 100 from a straw bag on the table*
(you also need to imagine that my voice has transformed into what i called my “retirement accent.” it’s from long island and full of holes.)

but then…we faded. we faded from hatred.

*sighs. flattens and smooths dog-eared computer matching print-outs of the dresden dolls first album review in pitchfork, which are encircled by red lipstick heart drawings*

and then….we were just a little cult touring band that nobody had energy to hate anymore.
we tried creating artificial scandals, we married controversial science fiction writers, we even BOTH got that horrid upper lip plastic surgery that was so popular.
none of it worked. and brian looked horrid.

*lights second cigarette. hacks*

but…for a brief moment there, a flame of hope lit in our hearts. we had new zealand.

*puts out cigarette in glass of gin. pauses. strokes cancer-ridden cat in lap*

yes, dear. thank fucking christ fornew zealand being a decade behind the times.

*hacks up a huge ball of greenish phlegm streaked with ash, which lands squarely in the middle of the pitchfork print-out*

yes

*wistfully*

new zealand…..

(scan via the journalist’s facebook page for his blog)

LOVE
afp

p.s. the wellington show, in reality, was one of the best of the tour.

p.p.s. to sweeten the deal, here is a youtube clip of this same journalist “experimenting with percussion.”
god i love my life here in new zealand. i swear…it’s starting to give australia a ride for its money:

rocky horror, church, and abortion. (and new plymouth ninja in-store gig w/ peter jefferies.)

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:44:10 -0500

hola comrades….quickie-hot-of-the-presses-info for MELBOURNE: this february (sunday the 19th), i’ll be joining MEOW MEOW, georgia fields, wendy harmer, and virginia trioli for Women of Letters’ LAST-EVER show at the beautiful Thornbury Theatre before their big move to Northcote’s REGAL BALLROOM!!!

it’s an afternoon celebrating female talent whilst simultaneously raising funds for an animal rescue shelter. $15 in advance, $20 at the door (but it will probably sell out early go GET YOUR TICKETS NOW)…RSVP on facebook, tell your peoples, and we’ll see you there………

now, ze blog…

________________

this morning i woke up and rolled around in bed grinning like an idiot and went back to sleep and woke up again and went back to sleep again and repeated this action approximately 6 more times and thought, every time i woke:

fuck i’m happy.

tour’s over, and i’m starting a new music chapter. here we go.

closing show of the dolls in wellington last night and it could not have possibly been better….i swear, it’s like someone dug into the deep fantasy area of my brain and tried its best to deliver everything in there on a fucking platter with rainbow edible garnishes in the past week or so.

playing the violent femmes with brian ritchie, john parish, and mick harvey. meeting PJ.

running into richard o’brien in a juice bar and duetting “time warp” and “science fiction” with him on stage that same night. yes, it happened, there’s proof on youtube….

jonathan, the bassist from the opening band (princess chelsea - who were stunning) learned the song in record time and also joined us for a rousing version of “fight for your right (to party)” by the beastie boys, which we’ve been doing almost every night on tour with a borrowed bassist (the best one was in adelaide, when a shy girl showed up to lend us her bass and we wound up coaxing her to play the part. magic.)

i’m only sad that youtube will never contain the rest of our night with richard o’brien, holy creator of rocky horror, which included him dropping non-stop wisdom and anecdotes about everything from the history of women’s suffrage in new zealand to his stance on the music history importance of “rawhide” to his theories about how “the rocky horror picture show” follows the form of a classic fairy tale; frank-n-furter as wicked queen, brad and janet as goldilocks. my god. the blessed man is almost 70, rocking STRETCH PANTS and absolutely rock and rolling through life, non-stop embracement of joy.

hero worship. except i want to be rocking kimonos and not stretch pants when i’m that age. who knows, maybe i’ll change my mind. here’s me and richard and brian backstage at the powerstation in auckland before the show…..

richard as riff raff in the original movie, 1975:

and no small feat: i got to make neil gaiman jealous, which i NEVER get to do. he’s a total fanboy for richard, and had interviewed him 25 years ago back when he was a teeny weeny unknown journalist writing for any porn magazine that would have him. i told richard that, and he beamed with joy….he’s a neil gaiman reader. life=love=life.

the next night in wellington, we decided to rip through “time warp” a final time, now that we knew it.

no richard to sing the part of riff raff, i took over, but we had about 50 people on stage time-warping-out and it was absolute heaven. holy christ i love my job.

here’s a clip of the mayhem:

and we made national news in the new zealand herald, whoo. photo by Roger Grauwmeijer:

……

and from the Hero Department: i have one more thing to kick off the bucket list.

peter jefferies (another teenage hero of mine who belongs to the POUND YOUR PIANO TO PIECES club….

is coming into my life. i finally got in touch with him Last Year in new zealand…he wrote “on an uknown beach” which i covered for the “amanda palmer goes down under” record.

long story short, he quit making music and touring about 10 years ago and became a teacher. i reached out to him when i booked this new zealand tour, and he invited me to do a workshop with the kids he works with at a music school in new plymouth, new zealand. so i’m renting a car and driving up to meet him in person for the first time.

he also chatted with a new local record store (yes, that is what i said. a NEW record store. a NEW. record. store. those are about as rare nowadays as a NEW rotary phone installation company) called Vinyl Countdown…and they thought it would be fun to organize a ninja gig, so i’m going to be playing there on tuesday at 5 pm. 109 Devon St. West, New Plymouth. COME. it’s FREE. click HERE for directions from the google.

peter and i have been emailing back and forth about it and he sent me an email saying “am i playing?” and i wrote back saying “holy shit, of course, if you want to, i would die.”
i’ve never gotten to see him play live. i know him only from my two beloved and played-to-death-as-a-college-student albums “electricity” and “the last great challenge in a dull world.”

if you’re interested in grabbing those two albums, sean suggests:
• amazon
• musicstack
• cduniverse
• ebay

unfortunately, there’s not an easy way to get the records wherein peter will actually see some money from ‘em, most everything out there for sale is second hand…whatever you do, just make sure to listen and spread the word.

SO, he said he’d play with me at the record store.

he hasn’t played live in 9 years.

what the fuck is going on around here?

just kill me.

something astounding happened in auckland as well.

zanni.

zanni’s a beautiful free-style-style-rapper girl who’s accosted me at every signing and gig i’ve done in auckland to the point where i’d be sad if she DIDN’T show up and do a beautifully filthy dirty little rap for me at the end of the signing line. we saw her at the library ninja gig, where, by the by, i crowd surfed for the first time on top of a group of SEATED people. I discovered that while it WORKS, it doesn’t work QUITE AS WELL as doing it with a group of sweaty-crowded-standing people, as people aren’t able to shift and use their legs to support your weight. (LIBRARY NINJA GIGS ARE EDUCATIONAL…photo by sarahisinsane):

zanni found me at signing and delivered a very disturbing but very hilarious and well-executed one-minute song (think le tigre meets die antwoord) and i told her she should perform on stage with us, that i’d just slip her in-between songs during our set. then she pulled me and her friend aside; said she wanted to talk. she thanked me for my support of occupy. and she told me that in three days she was getting an abortion. i felt a deep connection with her and we talked a while, me about my experiences, her about hers.

and this would all be a brutal breach of trust if she hadn’t down something absolutely astounding: she took the stage that same night and by way of introducing her song, told the assembled crowd of 700 people what she was about to go through.

it didn’t smack of attention-getting or poor-me drama, it just felt like a bold statement, and she mentioned how the song “oasis” had helped her. then she delivered her song to the crowd. bam. i felt so many things in that moment. proud of her, because it takes extreme fucking guts to get up in front of a group of 700 people and say something so personal, but also proud of the band, and proud of the audience….because we’ve collectively created a space where something like that can happen. this really is a special fucking things we have, it’s a collective of people who really trust each other. i see it again and again at the shows….people take care of each other JUST BECAUSE they’re THERE, and they’re dolls/amanda palmer fans, and there’s a moral code of honesty and sharing and awesomeness.

also, it was thrilling and profound to have richard o’brien in the audience for that moment.

if you don’t know anything about “the rocky horror show” or the community, it’s hard to explain. but that film and the tangled, ongoing community are unlike anything else. and it was HUGE to me as a kid. i remember watching my older brother and sisters putting crazy make-up on in the bathroom to “go to rocky.” they were teenagers. i was 9, and too young to go. and as far as i was concerned, they were headed to xanadu, to paradise, to heaven, to whatever place there was where people get made-up and dressed-up all crazy-like and bring bags of toast and rice stuff to a movie in order to throw shit at the screen. i knew who i was, i knew what i wanted, and i knew it was THAT. i couldn’t fucking wait to join a world where shit like that happened. one of the most devasting moments of my life was convincing my parents to let me out alone at night on our family summer vacation to london when i was 15. i’d been fantasizing about going to the live, LONDON, rocky horror picture show for MONTHS. in fact, it was the only thing that excited me about going to london, because other than robert smith, it was the only thing i really cared about in the UK. i took the tube by myself, found my way to the theater….and the show was fucking sold out. i was, as they say, GUTTED.

rocky horror has been a universal umbrella under which generations of punk rock theater freaks have bonded in weird solidarity.

it’s the closest we get to a religious experience, a shared myth, the epic story we know by hear…it’s church.

more importantly: a haven where all is possible….where you don’t dream it, you be it.

when zanni got up and told her story at our show, with richard there to bear witness, making her statement and singing her crazy song, i felt it all coming together.

the church gets passed down, finds its own soundtrack, but the general rules and regulations stay the same: a space where the outsider is the insider, where the unusual is celebrated instead of judged and mocked, where we crush fear and worship at the altar of Get Your Freak On. all the shit of life, the pain, the sorrow, the loves lost, the health issues, the relationship problems, the jobs lost, the friends and families dying before our very eyes, we don’t come to this holy place to FORGET about it.

on the contrary, we come to celebrate, to yell at the top of our lungs about it, scream-share it, throw the burden on the ground and dance around it….finding solace there among our brethren.

all the pain and all the joy all together in one beautiful mishmash puddle of This Is Life and We’re All In It Fucking Together.

and this is why we do what we do.

do i sound like a hippie?

let me fix that

FUCK YOU.

this is it.

x
AFP.

tit-free newspapers, masturbating in hotels, meeting richard o'brien + gifting paul kelly

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:21:00 -0500

hola dear comrades!!!!!

here’s the best news of the day…..i’m on page three of the main tasmanian newspaper (photo via @newrosehotel):

(here’s the uncensored original photo…and here’s a mirror in case twitpic pulls it down, since in the past they’ve seemed anti-tits)

…dianna graf took the picture in front of city hall.
here’s the article, online.

i wish the people at this newspaper this understood the hilarity and irony of their censorship, given what song they’re referencing…

THEY DON’T SHOW THE TITS IN THE NEWSPAPER!!!!

THEY DON’T KNOW THAT WE ARE THE MEDIA!!!!!

as many people on twitter said:
THAT’S WHY PRINT MEDIA IS GONG DOWN THE TUBES.

……………………………..

o new zealand, new zealand, wonderful country of magic-green-rain-rolling-hills….today i woke up and walked randomly through the city of auckland…we play the powerstation tonight.

after browsing in a fantastic bookstore called Unity (i always take a secret perverse pleasure in photographing the neil gaiman section

and emailing it to neil. i’m like a international publishing spy) i passed a little juice bar, thought twice, backtracked, and walked in. i’d already eaten a banana and was like: i just had a banana. maybe a juice is just over the top. you think these things and think nothing of them. the man in front of me ordered and sat at a little table and right after i ordered, he asked me if i was going to see the dresden dolls tonight.

why yes, i am.
i always do this to people. it’s kind of mean. but i get the feeling that i might learn secret information from them if i pretend to be a dresden dolls fan. like there’s some secret brotherhood or handshake code that the fans just haven’t told me about, and i might finally learn it. or someone will lean in and whisper “confidentially…we all secretly cannot stand when she plays the ukulele, but we all PLAY ALONG UNIVERSALLY, HOPING that someday she’ll come to her senses.” or something like that. so far it’s never happened. so far i just let people talk to me about bullshit for 30 seconds and then i say “guess what” and they’re like “what” and i’m like “i’m the singer.”

so this man, he says “well, it was your eyebrows. i figured with eyebrows like that you’d be going to the dresden dolls.”

and i was like “yeah.”

long story short: this man was richard o’brien, creator of “the rocky horror show” (aka “the rocky horror picture show”).

i die.

i’m not going to say anything else, other than YOU SHOULD COME TO THE FUCKING SHOW TONIGHT IN AUCKLAND. magic is a-fucking-foot.

what is it about coming to australasia and meeting my fucking soul heroes?
stop, already. if i bump into robert smith at a water fountain while jogging in wellington, i’m going to just kill myself.

does robert smith do his hair like that when he jogs?

DOES ROBERT SMITH JOG??

i wonder these things.

……………………………………………………..

speaking of heroes, i want to plug a BOOK and a TOUR….
if you’ve been following my twitter feed you’ve been seeing me constantly referencing and quoting paul kelly’s book, “how to make gravy.”
who is this paul kelly, you ask? i’ve mentioned him in the blog before….he’s a sort of australian folk/rock/mongrel (he’d enjoy that) legend….
a writer of songs that are part cohen, part dylan, part his own fucking thing. he’s a huge deal in australia but when he tours the states/europe he’s lesser known.
his book was spawned from a string of shows he decided to do some years back called the “A-Z” shows. he played 100 of his songs over the course of four nights at the spiegeltent (BELOVED) in melbourne…all in alphabetical order, and with accompanying behind-the-music tales of life and love.

the shows were a hit and he decided it might be fun to create a book around the concept, and “how to make gravy” was born. it wound up taking him several years to write and it’s an EPIC collection of brutally honest, funny, bizarre ingredients into what makes a songwriter’s life. the format of the book itself follows the A-Z concept….he starts with A songs and tells out-of-chronological-order stories of his life, his family’s immigrant heritage, the romantic and unromantic perils of heroin abuse….you name it, he goes there. it’s a brave, bold book, and it’s chock full of creative inspiration and insight….i found myself thinking YES YES YES a lot while reading his deep-soul-baring thoughts and embarrassing notes on the writing process itself…on stealing, lifting, the strange experience of giving birth to songs.
i’d recommend it to any songwriter, it’s a gem…or any artists…or any person, really. grand fucking book:

meanwhile….his songs are bloody good, too. brian and i used to cover “winter coat,” one of my favorites…HERE’s a great clip of paul doing it live in ‘07….

and HERE’s one of his most well-known more politico-folk songs, “from little things big things grow” known to almost everyone in australia; it can make you cry if you’re in the right mood.

he’s going on tour in the states and europe and since i know he’s playing teeny places, i asked his management if we could give away some tickets to his shows to help promote them to my fanbase. stay tuned to the twitter and my site for updates if we’re able to get a few…
i’m always shocked that NOBODY knows him….here’s your chance…..tickets are on sale NOW for ALL of the shows (except a few have already sold out)…grab yours/see the full list of where he’ll be around the world at his site: paulkelly.com.au

here’s where he’s hitting in the states:

February 28
AUSTIN, TX
Cactus Cafe

February 29
AUSTIN, TX
Cactus Cafe

March 3
PITTSBURGH, PA
Club Cafe

March 4
CHARLSETON, WV
Mountain Stage / Cultural Center Theatre

March 6
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

March 7
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

March 8
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

March 9
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

Sunday, March 11
VIENNA, VA
Jammin’ Java

March 12
VIENNA, VA
Jammin’ Java

March 14
PHILADELPHIA, PA
World Cafe Live (upstairs)

March 15
PHILADELPHIA, PA
World Cafe Live (upstairs)

March 16
CAMBRIDGE, MA
Club Passim

March 17
CAMBRIDGE, MA
Club Passim

March 20
LOS ANGELES, CA
Largo at the Coronet

March 22
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Swedish American Hall

March 23
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Swedish American Hall

March 25
SEATTLE, WA
The Triple Door

March 26
SEATTLE, WA
The Triple Door

again, tickets can be found HERE. GO!!!
……………………………………………………………

i’ve been obsessed lately (in that sort of jonbenét ramsey fascinated kind of way) with lana del rey.
her face stares out at me from posters in the street and ever since her saturday night live debacle, i’ve been following the story and the news with an uncharacteristic-for-me fervor.
that “video games” song has been stuck in my brain like a tumor and there’s something so disturbing and spooky about her whole deal.

here’s an interesting piece i read last night that touches on some of the issues:
“can lana del rey survive in the age of adele?” - read it here, via spinner.com

i have fantasies of covering “video games” in a full 60s sparkly-gown nancy sinatra bouffant get-up….at an old-school microphone, standing stock still while some credible-looking black dude plays the piano.

then the camera pans down and my wrists and ankles are bound in heavy-duty bondage rope. IMAGINE THE CLIP. i need more off-days.

there’s something about it that seems to mean something bigger, about culture right now, about talent and artifice, about….i dunno. i’m still putting my thoughts together, but i feel like a big blog about performance/lady gaga/lana del rey is percolating in my domepiece. if you have any pre-blog thoughts - hit me in the comments, below.
the whole thing’s very strange but very of the moment.

i think the main key is that the artifice-without-acknowledgment-of-artifice might be OVER in these post-modern days of ours….or maybe that’s just wishful brechtian thinking.

comments, go.

………………………………………………………….

i like masturbating in hotels, and i also get a special-weird extra boost of pleasure when i know people in the next room can hear me.
i added that part to the subject of the blog to get you to read it.

which reminds me….so many journalists have been asking me “what won’t you blog about?” lately that i think i’m going to blog a list of “what i won’t blog about.”
blogging about liking to masturbate in hotels will not be on that list.

…………………………………………………………..

speaking of masturbating but not that he has anything to do with masturbating but i like tying the sections of my blog together so just deal with it:
neil is home and working and clearing out his headspace to start his own New Big Things. he and i are almost on the same creative menstrual cycle….probably not by accident.
i think if you marry an artist who makes Big Things and you’re an artist who makes Big Things, chances are you’ll start grooving in the same cycle…hunkering down at the same points and mining your souls simultaneously in different corners of the same room. i love his so very much and can’t believe how fucking lucky i am to have found a man who actually wanted a rock star for a wife: not the image; the person. rock stars are so easy to love from a distance. up close it’s like hugging a time bomb made of vapor. but he does it.

and in a few weeks, or maybe sooner….i will reveal my hereto secret brand-new-music plans to you.
Big Things are afoot.

LOVE,
AFP

p.s. thank you for all the comments on the blog in general. i do read them all, even when i’m on tour and not responding as much. just…thank you. you guys are collectively amazing. even the dickish person who keeps calling me a dirty scientologist hooker….keep it coming….i love you all!!!!

playing the violent femmes & meeting PJ

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:51:00 -0500

first up, a bit of ninja-gig-newses: AUCKLAND!!! it’s official….DRESDEN DOLLS’ LIBRARY NINJA GIG! 2pm this friday!! ALL AGES…FREE…follow @Auckland_Libs or visit aucklandlibraries.govt.nz for more info…

_______________________________________

hola my dear comrades….

writing to you from the depths of still-earthquake-devasted christchurch, new zealand, where i was supposed to play last february 22nd…the day the big quake hit.
it feels very good to finally be here, after having narrowly missed the quake itself (i was on the way to the airport in northern new zealand when it happened) and having seen all the fall-out and devastation from a relatively close perch…as well as being in touch with tons of fans over twitter who had been impatiently & happily waiting for the show (some even traveled from far away), only to get their lives turned upside-down and no fucking rock show, to boot.

the city is down. people are moving away. the economy is in the shitter (in far worse shape than australia). there are lots of piles of rubble on the ground…lots of empty frames and half-collapsed iconic churches. it looks like a warzone. went for a walk today and took some photos….

this is my favorite…everything’s in it:

i twittered this one to neil, as i knew he’d love it. it’s a book-exchange refrigerator someone built in a ground zero pile.
take a book, leave a book.
love:

journalists from the area have been telling me that rock bands and touring artists have been canceling and/or skipping christchurch due to fear and the economy.

that’s so sad and so backwards.

yesterday, brian and i did a free gig in the park along side Occupy Christchurch, a humble but brave occupation that only contains a few dozen tents, mostly housing the homeless. (note: occupy auckland was shut down a few days ago.) we had hera come and sing with us…she’s an old friend by now.

by show of hands we asked how many people would come to our show if they could afford it….and a sea of hands went up. we put a shit-ton of people on the guestlist, but i have the sinking feeling i should have tried harder to make this concert free…or donation-only. people here are broke. i’d rather eat it and lose a little bit of money and bring music to everyone who wanted it. ticket prices here are prohibitively expensive, it’s always a struggle with the promotors. i try to keep my tickets in the states about $25. here they can reach $60. i have limited control. it’s something i’m working on trying to change.

photos from the ninja gig:

(via asstdgoodies.blogspot.com

the world buskers festival is on and i went to see three shows last night (a burlesque variety with my old pals in the daredevil chicken club, the ladies stand-up hour, and a fantASTIC show by The Boy With Tape On His Face) with hera and her partner hjotur. they’re an icelandic art power couple.

the combination of what we newly dubbed “Park Cabaret” and wonderful vintage tits (including a great act with SHEEP PASTIES!!! i love creative burlesque costumes) made me feel hopeful.

there’s a kind of ghostly restlessness and sadness in the christchurch audience, or is it my imagination? or were they always like this?
but they seem to come alive fast. and good lord, they need laughter, energy and escape more than anyone around here.

the tour has been slamming. tasmania KILLED me with joy….four days of non-stop art and inspiration at Mona Foma and the museum. the violent femmes supergroup was beyond perfect and is streaming HERE. our team (and the mona foma guys, and our pal guy jukes) went above and beyond the call of duty to make this webcast happen. we thank them DEEPLY.

it was an absolute dream, i felt like i was living out my teenage fantasy for a full 45 minutes. i kept likening it to a hairbrush-microphone-on-the-bed dream come true: like i was playing a true-life-scale karaoke fantasy game. feeling those words i know so well, listening to brian ritchie playing THAT BASS and THOSE BASS LINES right behind me…with brian playing along with clockwork precision, channeling every subtle roll and fill from the original record….those lyrics that have been pumping through my memory and blood for 20 years come spilling out of my mouth to a crowd of thousands….it was unreal. perfect. the band was tight as shit after just a single hour of rehearsal.

the rehearsal was held above a tea house run my brian ritchie and his wife. all acoustic. we played through every song once. that was it.
we drank green tea and ate fresh fish and rice cooked japanese in our rehearsal break. sometimes i want to move to tasmania.

(photo by dianna graf…who along with her other half mark was the hostess with the mostest for our whole hobart trip…)

i was talking to the band after the show and tried to put into words how much baggage i have to get over to be an instrument-less front-person, wielding nothing but a mic.
i always feel like such a fraud. to me, holding or playing an instrument has always been the EXCUSE for the embarrassment of wanting to run around and be a singer who can’t really technically sing very well. take away the instrument and you’re exposed for what you are: a child on a bed wielding a hairbrush, singing into the mirror at top out-of-tune volume.

maybe, though, there’s nothing wrong with that. maybe that’s where the problem originated (GET OFF THE BED AND GET REAL, LITTLE GIRL.)

me:

(dianna graf)

our “SIDE A, SIDE B” sign swimsuit model:

we got the idea last-minute. brian ritchie called the museum and MADE IT HAPPEN. bless him.

brian:

john parish and mick harvey:

the man of the hour, brian ritchie & his magical acoustic bass.
this is actually from the dolls set, that’s brian on electric guitar….

(all these photos by Duncan Giblin, stormboyphotos.com)

i also have to tell you about meeting PJ harvey, it’s the most embarrassing and beautiful story ever….

she was watching our violent femmes show from side of stage.
i’d asked her band (my band, for the violent time being) beforehand if she’d maybe want to guest. they gave me that OH BOY look …and told me she never does that sort of thing unless she’s dragged out on the spot. they said supposedly nick cave used to do that….just spit “AND NOW LADIES AND GENTLEMEN PJ HARVEY” into the mic and she’d be like….um. ok. sheesh.
i’ve done that to neil a couple of times. i think. actually, maybe i haven’t. maybe he just says i have. he usually enjoys me “dragging onstage”, but more to the point, i can usually tell the difference between “dragging” and “encouraging”…it’s usually the latter. when it’s the former, i can sense it, and i back off. i don’t like dragging. it’s a drag.

so at the encore of “blister in the sun” - we played it twice, once at start and once at encore - i caught her eye and ran over to her while brian ritchie explained to the crowd what an ACTUAL encore is (in old school days: a repetition of a favorite song…not a whole new batch, PREACH).

i asked her if she’d come on stage and sing with me. she was so sweet and said “no, no, no, you’re doing wonderfully….go ahead without me, i couldn’t possibly, etc etc”. and in the fever of the moment, i literally threw myself on my knees, looked up and said I’LL GIVE YOU MY FIRSTBORN CHILD! PLEASE?? and brian vilgione, who was watching this whole thing from the stage and laughing his ass off, says she looked wonderfully terrified. ultimately, she (so politely, so humbly, so kindly) refused. i don’t think she wanted my firstborn child. i don’t blame her, i don’t think i would either.

but once the show was over, i felt like a grade-A asshole. why’d i pressure her? eesh. when I ran into her the next day at the mona museum, I begged her a second time: this time for her forgiveness. she granted it. golly, she was so nice. Queen Peeg. THE PEEG. how i love her. how very, very, very different we are.

me in my sloppy unrehearsed bra-and-underwear, get-everybody-on-stage-and-see-what-happens attitude and her in her tightly choreographed, ultra-controlled, laser-like intensity.

it takes a village.

her show was great - she and the band performed much tighter and bolder than in perth and the festival wrapped with a bang.
i took this shot of her from side of stage…in a particularly animated moment.

She Is Class.

onwards to auckland and wellington.

LOVE
afp

an open letter to washington about SOPA (from amanda palmer, trent reznor, the lonely island & others)

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:59:00 -0500

We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.

We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.

We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.

We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.

We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.

Respectfully,

Aziz Ansari
Kevin Devine, Musician
Barry Eisler, Author
Neil Gaiman, Author
Lloyd Kaufman, Filmmaker
Zoë Keating, Musician
The Lonely Island
Daniel Lorca, Musician (Nada Surf)
Erin McKeown, Musician
Benjamin Goldwasser (MGMT)
Andrew VanWyngarden (MGMT)
Samantha Murphy, Musician
OK Go
Amanda Palmer, Musician (The Dresden Dolls)
Quiet Company
Trent Reznor
Adam Savage, Special Effects Artist (MythBusters)
Hank Shocklee, Music Producer (Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad)
Johnny Stimson, Musician

To help protect Internet innovation please visit: stopthewall.us

via stopthewall.us/artists/

THE DRESDEN DOLLS, MICK HARVEY, JOHN PARISH & BRIAN RITCHIE play THE VIOLENT FEMMES first album LIVE...this friday @ MoFo

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:44:00 -0500

warning: if the following record album

didn’t change your life, ignore this blog. my enthusiasm will make no sense to you.

everybody else, read on.

we announced this about an hour ago…..hot off the presses. so you know, this is news that has our inner teenagers feeling kind of like THIS:

here’s the way low down.

brian ritchie (the original bassist for the violent femmes)…

….is now the curator for a festival called MONA FOMA that the dolls are about to play….this thursday, in hobart, tasmania. mofo.net.au / http://on.fb.me/MOFOrsvp

the femmes haven’t played together as a group since 2009, and if you look at the wiki, looks like that might be the end of the story. (especially if you read the “LAWSUIT & BREAKUP” section.)

brian and i are no strangers to brian ritchie: we both WORSHIPPED the violent femmes as kids and were more or less beside ourselves when they let us hop on stage and guest with them at a festival in wisconsin in 2005 (ish). brian played washboard and i played tambourine. or something like that. it was SYMBOLIC for christsakes. let me google image that….

ok. i was on melodica. BRIAN was on washboard. there we are. that’s mr gordon gano singing.

back to the story.

i played the tasmania MoFo festival this same time last year, and brian and i hit it off. he was a model curator and impeccable host; he threw the dinner party where neil and i got to break bread with nick cave and grinderman. the whole town was lit up by the festival, it was heaven. i’d really wanted to return and was delighted when the dolls got re-invited. it’s rare for a festival to let an act come two years in a row. but this is MoFo and the curators do what they fucking want, which is what makes the festival amazing.

so, it’s three days ago, saturday. brian ritchie called up and told me that one of the acts for this friday (the day after our slot) had canceled…would the dolls feel up to playing a second set? we’d scheduled ourselves to stay in town an extra few days so that we could catch PJ Harvey and tUnEyArDs and the other incredible acts that MoFo usually serves up. (plus do some secret ninja gigs about town and go to the legendary MONA museum - one of the most fascinating places IN THE WORLD).

sure, i said, but isn’t it kind of weird to have the band come back the NEXT DAY to the same festival and play again, even if it’s a different set of music?
we should do something more interesting.

we thought about it. errr.

i started imagining a bodypainting party and parade. but still - ho hum. naked tasmanians. who HASN’T SEEN THAT?

we thought some more.

i asked brian what the line up for the rest of the day was. were there any musicians we could poach and do something bizarre with?

well, he said, there is a bagpipe band.

BAGPIPES?
totally sold. call the bagpipers, i said. at least a couple of them.

i imagined putting a shout-out to all tasmanians over twitter for a commando-parade, with kilts if possible, but with underwear verboten. i had to think fast.
ok, i said, we’ll have a dresden dolls-bagpipe showdown. and naked parade. that’ll be SOMETHING, at least. hm.

i got off the phone feeling like there MUST be something more interesting we could do.

then it hit me.

brian ritchie. bass player. idol.

i texted brian: do you want to play bass with us?

he said sure.

eeeeeeeeeeeee.

and i thought some more.

i texted brian again, holding my breath this time: don’t take it the wrong way, but how would you feel about playing bass on THE ENTIRE VIOLENT FEMMES FIRST RECORD?
brian and i know it COLD.

i sat there staring at the phone, expecting a brian-ritchie-shaped hand with a gun to reach out of the black screen and shoot me for even asking.

the longer the clock ticked, the more embarrassed and tasteless i felt about asking.

brian texted back.

he said yes.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

i ran to find mr. brian viglione. he exploded with glee.

i will play the drums, he said.

now all we needed was a guitarist.
the femmes were always a trio: drums, guitar, and bass. since i was going to sing and can’t play any of those fucking instruments, we were going to have to dig up a fourth player.
i texted brian ritchie back: this will only work if you score a guitar player from tasmania.

he said he’d see what he could do.

nail biting.
brian and i went to the beach and ran around like crazy idiots, squeeing with all our might.

then we went to see PJ harvey, who’s touring at the same time as us down here.

as i mentioned on last blog: her back-up band for this tour includes the incredible mick harvey (also known for his solo and nick cave & the bad seeds work) and john parish (who produces a lot of PJs stuff).
they both play everything: bass, guitar, keys. they did a lot of musical-chairing in the PJ set. after the show we went backstage to say hi to mick, who i know from a few years back in melbourne.

i was like….
it’s worth a shot.

they both play guitar.

eek.

so, i asked.

they said yes. john parish and mick harvey will both play guitar with our violent femmes cover supergroup.

if you could only hear the screams that were emitted in the backstage area of the perth concert hall.

so, my comrades,
WE HAVE A BAND:

Brian Ritchie - Bass (and possibly xylophone)
Brian Viglione - Drums
AFP - Vocals/Piano
Mick Harvey - guitar (and possibly bass)
John Parish - guitar (and possibly bass)

and we have a setlist:

THIS WHOLE FUCKING RECORD, FROM START TO FINISH.

“Blister in the Sun”
“Kiss Off”
“Please Do Not Go”
“Add It Up”
“Confessions”
“Prove My Love”
“Promise”
“To the Kill”
“Gone Daddy Gone”
“Good Feeling”

YOU HAVE EXACTLY THREE DAYS TO BOOK A PLANE TICKET FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE GET TO THE MONA FOMA FESTIVAL IN TASMANIA.
the historic event will take place at 10 pm on friday on the MONA FOMA mainstage. tickets (festival passes and day passes) are still available at http://bit.ly/MOFOtix and you can RSVP on facebook here: http://on.fb.me/ViolentMOFOrsvp

THIS IS WHAT FESTIVALS SHOULD BE ABOUT.

RANDOMNESS!!!! HERO WORSHIP!!!! CLASSIC SONGS!!! DANCING WILDLY!!!!
TOTAL SPONTANEOUS EXPERIMENTS THAT MAY FAIL MISERABLY!!!!!

and…..

holy fuck.

i can’t believe this is happening.
on stage, with three of our musical heroes, playing OUR FAVORITE RECORD EVAR.

somebody pinch me please.

xxxxx

AFP

p.s. ALWAYS. ASK. YOU. NEVER. KNOW.

anatomy of a hickey

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:25:38 -0500

the continental australian tour has come to a close….brisbane, melbourne, sydney, adelaide, and perth have ALL BEEN KILLED DEAD BY THE DRESDEN DOLLS.
the band is in the best shape we’ve ever been in. every city has been reduced to rubble by the drum power of brian viglione.

photo by holijade, via instagram

right now we’re holed up in perth, enjoying the 90-degree heat and dipping our toes in the beautiful shark-infested waters.

last night we went to see PJ harvey at the perth concert hall and the grand dame was in fine, if not slightly subdued, form. we’re about to head out to a PERTH NINJA GIG, taking place on the fremantle esplanade. by the time this blog posts…we’ll be done with it. so if you missed it, it’s because you’re not following the twitter goddammit. we’re planning on playing ukulele, guitar, and soccer.

there’s some AMAZING HISTORIC shit gonna go down when we get to tasmania. i can’t tell you exactly what, but i can tell you this:
if you were on the fence about flying from melbourne/coming to/getting a ticket (they’re only $25) for the MONA festival in hobart, tasmania: DO NOT HESITATE.
the dolls play thursday and there’s some hijinks planned for friday night that are off. the. fucking. charts.
then stay saturday to see PJ Harvey and TuneYards. and your life shall be complete. go HERE and click “download the program” to see the whole MONA schedule…
ALSO: they are doing a giveaway for tickets/to meet us, on facebook. RSVP and get info HERE (it’s REALLY easy to enter)…

tasmania and new zealand: we’re coming for you next. we have SHIT TONS OF PLANS to be EVERYWHERE in tasmania so follow the twitter for a blow by blow (also follow @AFPwire & @DresdenDolls, while you’re at it).

and in the planned-out NINJA GIG department….i know, i know, i’m getting too organized:

we’re getting set for auckland and christchurch….
AUCKLAND: 2 pm, day of show (jan 27th), we’re hoping to hit up the AUCKLAND LIBRARY. details in the twitter feed to come.
CHRISTCHURCH: the afternoon before the show (the 24th….show’s the 25th) we’re scouting a few joints. stay tuned and keep the afternoon free!
WELLINGTON: stay tuned. not sure if we’re going to ninja your asses but we MIGHT.
tickets for the actual gigs are NOT sold out, we’re playing GIANT-ASS venues. help spread the link and get tickets if you’ve been putting it off: HERE.

……

and now, i’ll give you a blow-by-blow of my recent hickey.

i’ve been venturing out into the audience/balcony lately during the encore, usually trying to take some unsuspecting folk by storm.
i often sit on people’s laps, grab people’s faces, kiss random strangers, and more or less molest the audience at my discretion.
here’s a photo of me in the audience in sydney, by nick b. photography:

that night, lo, the tables were turned. a very drunk chick tailed me, attached to my neck like a succubus, and literally would not let go.
you know that feeling you get when you know you’re going to have a very dark hickey the next day? i had that feeling.
happily (?) the entire night was WEBCAST in fucking fantstic quality. so if you feel like watching the succubus, or the whole show for that matter, YOU CAN, HERE.
it totally reminded me of one of my favorite shel silverstein poems, “the yipiyuk”:

The Yipiyuk
In the swamplands long ago,
Where the weeds and mudglumps grow,
A Yipiyuk bit on my toe…
Exactly why I do not know.
I kicked and cried
And hollered “Oh”—
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
I whispered to him soft and low—
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
I shouted “Stop,” “Desist” and “Whoa”—
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
Yes, it was sixteen years ago,
The Yipiyuk still won’t let go.
The snow may fall,
The winds may blow—
The Yipiyuk will not let go.
The snow may melt,
The grass may grow—
The Yipiyuk will not let go.
I drag him ‘round each place I go.
This Yipiyuk that won’t let go.
And now my child at last you know
Exactly why I walk so slow.

eventually, she did let go.
jaron, my immaculate sound guy and sometimes security-savior (@jaronsound on twitter) managed to pry her off my neck, and claims he had to use pressure points to her sides to get her to detach.

here is the hickey, post-show, in its fresh red state:

(photo by mandy hall)

i have to admit, i was kind of proud of it. like the way i’m happy to be sore after a yoga class, or hungover after an unparalleled night of partying, or faced with a callous on my finger after a long day of ukulele-playing.

i considered this hickey a very bizarre badge of honor.

after people saw the footage of the succubus vs. amanda, a lot of people tweeted at me, expressing shock that i was so non-chalant.
if you look at the footage, you’ll notice that my actual tactic is not to MAKE HER STOP, but to MOVE HER FURTHER DOWN MY BODY to give me a more stomach-centric hickey which would have served three purposes: 1) stomach hickeys feel better 2) they are also less visible come morning and 3) she was BLOCKING me, goddammit. i thought it would be wonderful to give the audience a wonderful hickey-show but for fuck’s sake not if you can’t see my face ME ME ME ME ME ME and so forth. i found myself, for the second time in a week, unconsciously channeling meow meow and saying “you’re blocking, darling, you’re BLOCKING.”

as jaron said, the smell of alcohol was fierce. girlfriend was PLASTERED.

that’s always disappointing. when someone attacks you like that and doesn’t really want to collaborate because they’re so far gone, it just stops being fun.

i’m always very lax about security. it’s something i’ve learned to really love and appreciate about the dresden dolls/AFP crowd in general: i trust everybody to an almost masochistic degree.
but i love doing that. i love crowdsurfing, literally and figuratively, into the arms of people i don’t know. i love the the feeling of being held aloft and looked after by a collective of people who are connected in that moment only through you and your choice to take the fucking plunge. sometimes, late at night, i crowdsurf on twitter. it gives me the same feeling.

here is the hickey the next morning, fading to a nice purple:

it’s been over a week now, and the hickey is now gone:

…and i sort of miss it.

this is not an invitation to randomly attack my neck like a blood-thirsty yipiyuk without asking.
if you do, i might zen-karate-chop you.
but ask first, and i’ll probably say yes just to reward your bravery.

and here’s a couple of amazing tour shots….this tour has been fucking epic.

from our ninja gig for occupy melbourne (via pulloutmyinsides on instagram…YOU CAN SEE THE HICKEY, EVEN FROM 15 FEET AWAY):

photo by forever violet, via flickr:

beautiful beautiful shot of the band taking stage at the enmore:

(shot by pete dovgan, via tonedeaf.com.au)

….and thank you to everyone who’s come so far.

we love you so much.

LOVE
AFP

crowdsurfing my ass off last night at the melbourne forum...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:41:47 -0500

crowdsurfing my ass off last night at the melbourne forum dresden dolls show.

photo by @DimmiKos

i hate amanda infinity net

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:38:00 -0500

some exciting news for you before the blog…

our friends at moshcam are webcasting the show TONIGHT in high-quality-multi-camera-glory…find out what time it starts for YOU (wherever in the world you are) HERE, RSVP on facebook HERE, tell your friends to watch with you, tune in at partyontheinternet.com and we shall see you all on the internetz…or, well, you’ll see us.

(be warned, the player might not work on mobile devices/tablets/etc so try and get to a computer ASAP)

onwards…
_________

thursday night in brisbane was the first night of the australian dresden dolls tour.

the night before

i went into one of those AHHH I’M FINALLY ALONE youtube/internet holes i often find myself rapidly jetting down when i have my nights back to myself, cuddle-free, post-neil. useful, isn’t it?

all that wiki-ing MUST BE GOOD FOR ME SOMEHOW. maybe it is.

the internet can poison you. but then provide the cure. watch.

i stumbled upon something totally unexpected that wound up jerking me around - the way it tends to. there was a thread i hadn’t noticed before on the band forum with a full 29 pages of discussion, so i clicked on it. i don’t post on (or read) the forum as much as i used to…i used to post daily. i still go there from time to time to share news or see how everybody’s getting on but twitter has become a much more immediate place to connect with folks, and the forum seems to have become its own self-sustaining community.

the thread was called “I hate Amanda”. as i read it i found myself being forced to examine, with fascination, along with a few dozen fans, the last 3 years of my life and career. all my choices and how they have and haven’t sat well with people. everything from my ukulele playing to going independent and constantly trying to raise capital via merchandising….all of it.
i forget that people have opinions sometimes. i think it’s a very good thing, that forgetting. the opinions are good, no doubt, even the negative ones…without them the fanbase would be an intolerable mass of sycophants, instead of a bunch of smart, funny people that i genuinely love most of the time.

the girl who posted it was complaining about how she misses the old incarnation of amanda, how she hates the ukulele, how she’s lost her connection, how she doesn’t like my choices.
i watched myself, my projects, my business choices, my social skills….my life being academically discussed and batted around, defended by many, examined like a phenomenon. i’m always impressed, i have to admit, by the extreme intelligence and sheer civility of these fights on the board. there are multiple voices of reason who keep the debate relatively grown-up and on track, and people who simply whine end up looking like whiners, while everybody else engages in spirited batty-aroundy-dialogue. i’m always very proud of the people who write there. they’re smart.

it was important to me that this girl wasn’t a troll from out of nowhere, posting that i was an evil scientologist gorgon (those people do exists, and they’re very, very easy to ignore), she was a long-time fan who just isn’t into me anymore. there’s been a lot of these people. i’ve changed. my music used to be angst and piano-driven, and i’ve spent the better part of a few years traipsing around writing three-chord songs on the ukulele.

but that’s what i’ve wanted to do.

if you’re famous: i advise you to never read these fucking discussions. in the words of my best friend and mentor: don’t be like me. i’d (ironically) JUST been having the dont-read-the-critics-discussion with neil. for certain kinds of information, it can be wonderful and connecting, but it’s far too easy to fall down the bottomless pit of your own mirrored ego. anyway….i didn’t read all 29 pages, just skimmed. but it was enough to irk me.

it’s funny: sometimes i forget that people are judging me. most of the time i’m so fucking high on my own ideas and impulses that i forget someone might disagree with a single one of them.

this is, i think, the only way to ever move forward.

this is, i think, the only way to make art.

not good art. not bad art….

ANY art.

i always feel lost as an artist.
i actually have come, in a twisted way, to enjoy the lostness. sometimes, even, to enjoy the criticism. more and more i get that the criticism is a very real and important part of the story.
for every and any choice i make, there are a million i don’t make.

do i make the choices to … make people happy? to make money? to stroke my own ego, or have it stroked by others?

to fill some deep inner need to make art for no reason?

well….all of these, actually. in some impossible-to-measure combination.

you have to work without critics in your head. otherwise you turn into a pleaser.
which is boring to be. and boring to watch.
i know that, deeply. to the core.

it didn’t matter.
i was irritated with myself for letting the hungry ghosts of other peoples egos penetrate my night.
i went to bed feeling soul-poisoned and grumpy and wishing i hadn’t read the argument.
tomorrow was the first night of our tour, and i was feeling knocked off center.

i was in a terrible mood as i drifted off the sleep, and woke feeling icky and distorted.

…………….

the day before, zea barker send me a link the day before the brisbane show, about an installation in the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art.

the japanese artist yayoi kusama, known for her obsessive polka-dotted works, had set up a blank white room….

(these photos are by mark sherwood from the blog zea sent me)

…and let children loose in it, with stickers.

….and it was opened to the public, who HAD AT IT. soon it was this:

…..the obliteration room.

i was entranced. i shared the link on twitter and immediately someone at the museum named dan tweeted me back, telling me they’d be happy if i stopped by.
i sent him a direct message: can i invite people and play ukulele? he replied: absolutely.

and a ninja gig was born for 1 pm the next day. BAM.

sean (my secret blog-poster and internet-helper) wisely suggested that we ask everybody to wear solid colors if possible (hi-five sean) and i tried to rustle up something white. someone on twitter offered to bring some white thigh-highs.

it was the night before, and i’d just gone down the stupid i hate amanda late-night ego-hole, i lay in bed, reading up on yayoi. this is where the hole can take you beyond the ego-trench and into a land of beauty.

yayoi has been making art since the 60s and is considered a pioneer of performance art (lots of naked) and conceptual art.
she’s struggled with mental health issues from a young age, and her polka-dotted theme is pulled from the dots she would see when she had obsessive visions.

she calls the dots “infinity nets,” and says they are taken directly from her own hallucinations. she says:
“…a polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement… Polka dots are a way to infinity”. (from her wiki)

i read more and more. she loves naked. she’s influenced yoko.

and she lives, by choice, in a mental institution, and walks down the street to her studio.

she’s often quoted as saying:

“if it were not for art, i would have killed myself a long time ago”.

oh, yayoi.

art, and artists choices, are all subject to criticism.

it’ll never go away…it’ll never end. we’re in an infinite hole of criticism.

but we must, as artists, we must never, ever listen.

you listen to the critics: you die.

dot on. dot on. dot on.

outside the museum….brian leading the ninja crowd in a game of RHUMBA SIMON SAYS:

(photo by erin smith)

me singing “amazing grace” with my friend gypsy on slide guitar…..

(this and the next few photos by dragonkatprincess)

brian and gypsy…

and a few more…

….then we piled into the gallery, and i let everybody HAVE AT ME with the fucking stickers….

(photo by charlyn cameron)

and played ukulele in the kitchen….

(photo by natasha harth)

and played the piano….

(photo by charlyn cameron)

(photo by @betsybookwork)

(photo by charly cauchi)

and jumped into the arms of my beloved….

(photo by megan andrews)

and right around that moment….my bad mood was lifted.

and it was like

take THAT past self in bondage of critical academic discussion

I OBLITERATE YOU WITH PEOPLE WEARING TOGAS AND PROM DRESSES

yayoi
yayoi

if only an option like this was available on a daily basis…….
that room healed me.

i went to the show that night with a reminded heart, and the show was fucking fantastic.

(this, and the next few photos by erin smith)

and there was THIS….a secret surprise performance from captain kid of the boy-circus troupe BRIEFS!!!

this also improved my mood. sparkly cock ALWAYS does.

but: the final breaking of my bad mood came with a moment brought to me by our incredible opener, justin AKA the bedroom philosopher:

he’s known in australia for a song he wrote called “northcote”, a very fucking funny ditty that makes fun of hipster stereotypes in melbourne.
at the brisbane show, instead of the usual verses, he informed the crowd that he’d recently gone into a terrible 3 am youtube hole reading the comments on the “northcote” video.
he decided the only way to combat the evil was to incorporate the comments into the song.
so he sang “northcote” and replaced the standard verses with a recitation of long, stupid, un-intentially hilarious youtube comments read in a mlebourne hipster accent.
i don’t think i’ve ever loved anybody more. us and our internet holes. infinity death.

thank you grumpy fangirl.
thank you discussion board.
thank you zea.
thank you dan.
thank you museum.
thank you people who came to the museum.
thank you brian.
thank you justin the bedroom philosopher.
thank you gypsy.
thank you dogs and children and people lying down.
thank you everyone who loves and does not love me.

thank you yayoi…..through staying alive you have made me more alive.

this is art.

this is what we do for each other.

this is how it works.

do you see?

go into the bathroom
secretly crouch in the white bathtub or shower
get out the rainbow magic markers
you can DIY it in a pinch.

OBLITERATE

XXX
afp

p.s.
here’s a youtube clip of brian’s rhumba simon says line….if you want to see a bunch of people wildly running around in a park with confused onlookers….
http://youtu.be/UqDD9t2PD-s

also….if your’e in brisbane & want to see the room for yourself, get your ass to GOMA. it’s FREE: qag.qld.gov.au