the danger ensemble are leaving the building in an explosion of light

when i was choosing how to tour my solo record, i had options…..i could tour solo with just the piano, i could have auditioned a back-up band.
instead, i chose to bring four actors called The Danger Ensemble and a violinist with me.

a lot of people told me that it was a dumb idea, and that i would lose a shitload of money and that bringing all these “extra” people on tour was crazy.
a lot of people were fucking wrong.

i don’t know what i would have done for the last six months without these people in my life.

i don’t do this to make money. i don’t do this to win approval. i do this to be around people i love. i do this to make art, to feel connected, to make love and not war and art and not pain.
it’s hard to do alone.

we’ve all been through hell and back and we’ve performed ourselves raw and we’ve reached the end….
and we are performing our last show together tonight in perth.

after tonight, everyone is getting on planes headed to different corners of the globe tomorrow.

when steven and i talked about putting this show together and i trusted him to bring a group of people on tour who would be able to handle the lifestyle, the travel, the weirdness, the stress, the close quarters and it was like asking someone to handpick a family.

i feel so honored, so lucky, so grateful and so fucking blessed to have somehow wound up on stage with them, and in vans, and on floors, and in cramped dressing rooms and in airports and in train stations and in squats and in hotels and in clubs and bad restaurants and good cafes and in backs of streets and in europe and in the states and in canada and in australia and in love.

and we did….we made a family.
we’ve relied on the good graces of our audiences for food, lodging and money, and they joined our family.
we made our family big.
this family never ends. this family never dies.

what these guys do, and are going into the world to do now without me - it is way beyond theater.
it is a pure manifestation of wanting to change the world into love through performance.

please, please, don’t stop watching.

with everything i’ve got, and with my eyes getting wet and my throat getting all choked, i want to tell them out loud and shouting here:

you’ve taught me more than you know.
i am so happy that we’ve had this adventure together.
i will miss you more than you know.

i will now be alone in my dressing room, i will get dressed alone, i will put on my make-up alone, i will eat hummus and chips and bad pre-packed vegetables alone, i will drink wine alone, i will drink red bull and vodka alone, i will have to make jokes to myself into the mirror and i will probably cry for the first few shows. i will hear the emptiness like a cacophony and it will hurt.


it is ending, and starting, like it does.

and zoe….i hope i see you again soon, i know i will.
and aideen, and katie and pita (these guys are all danger ensmble/AFP alums)….wherever you are, your spirits are hanging out with us.

so….


good.

bye.


good bye beautiful dressing room full of marks’ shining head


good bye beautiful lyndon and tora and steven


good bye sounds of violin backstage


good bye kat and all the beautiful australian food that overgenerous people brought us


good bye big fancy backdrop (and nigel’s eye)


good bye zoe putting on her corset made of spats


good bye mark stretching


good bye kat stretching


good bye kissing everybody


good bye danger ensemble make-up everywhere


good bye big skirt that looks like the ocean

i love these people and everything they stand for, ladies and gentlemen:





we are all ready






there, my brothers and my sisters.









I FUCKING LOVE YOU GUYS.


FLATTEN OUT THE PREEG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is a tree, not an ashtray.

head. of. mush.

backstage in perth right now…..is gorgeous, sun is setting and jeffmaker.com is at his computer.
this place is real. it’s like a house.



this is my favorite window:


twitter has been my latest smack and it helps me feel connected.

twitter has also proven to be very fucking useful for last-minute gatherings and ticket give-aways.
50 people showed up in perth today after i twittered the all-ages gathering last night.
go figure.
we hung out at a soccer field, ate cake, and generally were. i bought a soccer ball but we never got to that part because i had to go soundcheck.
lots of people gave me long letters, which i’ve been reading backstage while i drink redbull.

choice quote from one of them:

“Meeting your best friend on a psych ward. Then moving in together. Still not sleeping, turns out your friend is addicted to meth. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.”

that made me laugh. sometimes i wonder what happens to all these letters that i read, if they are all living in a certain space in my head and someday they will finally turn into a black hole of pain that frees the universe or makes me explode with anguish. mostly i think it’s just fine. what to doctors do, watching people die all day. they must enjoy it as much as i do, because sometimes they get to fix things. so you trade.

dude.
have i mentioned….that australia is amazing. i FUCKING love it here.
can’t we all agree to just move here?
all at once?

my new plan, for when i’m old and dying:
new york in summers and melbourne in winter…done.

yet sometimes i want to quit this job, you know, the JOB part of it, the travel, the people management, the constant bullshit, the things that don’t get done, the never-ending emails, the never-ending emotional clean-up.
i’ve hit the tour wall and my patience with things going wrong is maxed, so i’m just trying to deal with what needs to be done,
one foot in front of the other.
sometimes i feel like i’m faking my own life.
and i am, indeed, PMSing. ask me how i feel in a week.
i’ll be fine.
a few of my friends are at the end of their ropes back at home and i feel useless to them, with the time difference and the space difference.
tour depletes you, emotionally, physically, spiritually. you are surrounded by people, for better, sometimes, for worse sometimes.
you are helpless when it comes to so many things that need to be done, you are a constant victim of random circumstance.


but

(you chose to do this).

up, down. down up.
around.

anyway.

picamatures:
this is all of us in brisbane with our hosts, chris and ziggy, who were awesome and made us the most amazing breakfast:
go figure.



here are some ace pictures from the show in adelaide, at which i also traded make-out time on stage for cold beer.
i am becoming fearless:

(all photos by matt james unless noted, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/matt-james/)

lyndon:


hot.



have to drive:
(tora and mark)


(kat and steven)


guitar hero



(photo by cheesequake on flickr)



tora in coin-op:


uke:



nigel’s birthday moment, which involved the ensemble coming out with a cake on an almost-naked tora…..
which nigel then proceeded to mush into his own face.

cake on tora:


i love this man:



about to ruin the rental keyboard, which was a piece of fucking shit, at the end of “girl anachronism”…..



ok.


to stage.


xxxxxxx
AFP

p.s. am still backed up on bloggage. working on an epic music-biz-related how-to. and a series about the videos, which are now, by the way, back up on youtube.
start watching/rating them, i need to get the counts back up:

leeds:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

oasis:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

wkap series -
intro:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

astronaut:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

ampersand:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

runs in the family:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

the point of it all:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

strength through music:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

guitar hero:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

another year:

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

epilogue (everybody’s gotta live):

click here to rate, comment, favorite, etc.

all-ages gathering in perth tomorrow

ok fuckers.
perth.
tomorrow (friday).
ninja gathering.
i will bring my ukulele.
bring stuff. i will sign.
2:30 pm (ish, maybe closer to 3)….
freemantle oval (basically at parry & william street)

look around, you’ll find me.

if you’re planning on coming, say it.

bring cake.

we will all share.


x
AFP

sydney opera house, girls all gray, brains on music

night one at sydney opera house was incredible….
right now sitting back at the space getting ready for day two & my good friend lance horne turns out to be the pianist for the show before mine tonight.
he’s playing piano for justin bond, ex kiki & herb
justin is gorgeous & we ate some fish together, i’m going to get to see his show tonight…all karen carpenter covers, god help us



lance was the accompanist for meow meow, who a lot of you saw tour with the dolls two years ago…..
& you may remember him from the wonderful four-handed-mandy-goes-to-med-school at sxip’s hour of charm last year:




so there he is behind me, blurry little lance at the massive piano, practicing….and you can get a little sense of the space…worklights are on so it’s not as pretty as at night when it’s all decked out and lit up….but i decided to play with it in photoshop and make it look arty…

life is beautiful. i love it here so much. i want australia all the time.
everyone here is amped about mardi gras (its the biggest gayest mardi gras celebration in the world) and i am forced to remember hourly why i want to move here.
people are not unhealthy, mean and unhappy. they are, generally, just nicer. you get used to mean people in america.

setlist from last night/….

-on effing 9-foot concert grand piano-
astronaut (with string quartet & danger ensemble)
blake says (with string quartet & danger ensemble)
runs in the family (with string quartet)
-switch to kurzweil-
i want you, but i don’t need you (momus cover)
bad habit
ampersand
coin-operated boy (with danger ensemble)
my favorite things (with violin)
strength through music (with violin, cello & danger ensemble
guitar hero
australia (new song)
-switch back to effing 9-foot concert grand-
truce (with string quartet)
exit music for a film (radiohead cover, with string quartet)
have to drive (with string quartet and danger ensemble)
girl anachromism (with string quartet)
-encore-
half jack (with violin and cello)
leeds united

will post footage as it surfaces. “exit music” was a highlight.
jetlag has abated. two more shows here and then out onto tour the big country.

i just went to the sydney opera house canteen and there are girls all painted gray, who must be performing in the main opera house theater.
i tried to take a covert photo.


i was just having a fascinating conversation with zoe and jaron (our sound guy) about music and the brain….
zoe and i were discussing how we don’t listen to music very much. it takes up room in our brian that we don’t have, especially since our own music needs a place to live.
zoe said that imogen heap (who she plays with) is the same way, and so are a lot of other musicians she knows. we just stop listening.
and everybody expects to be expert music listeners. but i feel like the opposite it true, the more music i make, the less i listen.

i used to listen to music so fucking much. as a teenager i lived with a walkman on. now i’ve stopped.

and when i’m home, i have days of silence and then if i’m feeling ambitious i put something VERY easy to listen to on repeat. and i listen to that CD for days, sometimes weeks.
this last time i was home it was “bande y part” by nouvelle vague. and then occasionally i’d throw on a gary numan CD. but mostly silence.

and it occurred to me a few days ago that our overexposure to SO MUCH MUSIC and SO MANY SONGS is a really recent phenomenon.
it used to be just fine and normal to only know….100 songs. in your LIFE. maybe. max. you lived in a village.

church songs. beat-your-skin-drum-around-the-fire-after-the-hunt songs. and they were all repeated over and over.
and that was fine.
it wasn’t like the village elders flogged the village songwriter to write a new song every day so that the post-hunt villagers didn’t get bored.
no way - the whole point is that you sing the SAME songs as the goat/mastadon/whatever spins there on the spit, and everyone is happy.
everybody KNOWS the song, everybody KNOWS the dance. they’d think we were fucking crazy for changing songs every week.

so i feel less and less guilty.

zoe and i talked about how we’d be happy to live in a world where there are only 100 songs.

we talked about capitalism and how once music is a commodity, everything is fucked.
but how communist music was awful. hm. tough one…

then zoe and i talked about starting a non-profit called MUSICIANS FOR LESS MUSIC.
i think it would function more like a support group for guilty musicians who don’t tune into the radio or the current barrage of tunes.

we had all recently read “this is your brain on music”
(….recommended: by daniel levitin…amazing book

….and jaron was going on about how synapses and pathways in musicians brians are literally different than others. the way musicians hear and feel music is more extreme.
i don’t know where this was all going, but it made me happy to feel not alone and know that other people were having difficult relationships with music.
i was asked in an interview today what my relationship with the piano was like. i mostly feel indifferent about pianos. i feel like they’re tools.
i feel awful about that, sometimes. i feel like there all these “real” musicians out there…the tori amoses and the people who actually play real pianos and have real relationships with them.
i feel like pianos are disposable. sometimes i wish i could just play guitar, because it’s so much easier to carry around. i just don’t care, as long as it makes sound and it can be loud and it can make a song sound like a song.

somewhere in the conversation zoe brought up the experiment about joshua bell, the famous violinist, playing incognito in a subway as a busker to see what people would do.
i found the text below….its so good i just copied and pasted….. i used to think about this all the time when i was a street performer. about how art on a stage is different than art in the street.
how people’s minds change SO MUCH once they’ve bought a TICKET, once they walk into a museum and change their brains around to think: “ok, now it’s time to look at ART.”

art is not special, art IS always, art is everywhere, we should always be in a museum, the world is a museum, the world is a stage, the graffiti is a masterpiece the buskers on the street are more legit than the opera singers, especially if the opera singers are dicks and just phoning it in…this is how we have to see the world.
i used to think that being a street performer (i was a living statue for five years….i should really write a book about it) was the ultimate act of art, because NOBODY would ever recognize my art in any way that was acceptable, nobody would ever applaud, no reviewers would ever come, no critics would ever ponder whether i had a good or bad performance…. and if anybody wanted to take anything away, if they were brave enough, they did. and nobody told them to, nobody told them what to feel, nobody told them anything. it just WAS.

re-posted from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/15/the-things-we-miss-a-viol_n_158188.html


“A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”

right.


it’s everywhere


LOve
AFP

jetlag, butterfly club & chapters

the stray cats show was depressing.
they were great, they brought it…they played from their hearts, they put on a solid show. but the audience would not move. they just stood there. doing nothing.
it killed me. it made me angry. it made me fearful. it made me want to play gigs for 5 years with not a single night off and then go hide and retire so that that never happens to me.
it made me thankful. if i ever feel like my audience is tuning out that much, i swear to god i’ll quit.

it made me really think about the ephemeral quality of bands, and rock, and roll.
something about being OF THE MOMENT and how that moment can never fully be recaptured. if you miss it, it’s gone. forever.
recreating it can lead to pain and emptiness beyond the pale. that’s how i felt, standing there. that this was all an illusion.
everybody was waiting for the radio hits, the crowd wasn’t a tribe, it was a just a random selection of people, all vaguely distrustful of each other.

hotel room in melbourne, jetlagged as shit, having barely seen the sun for 2 days, except sometimes through the window and even then i don’t believe it’s real because my body is telling me it’s dark out.

after the private slumber-party gig at the butterfly club, i collapsed and slept the jetlagged sleep that only the dead or jetlagged do and managed to miss a whole day. i don’t know where that day went. i remember waking up a dozen times and going back to sleep a dozen times and i remember answering emails and reading in bed and i remember doing laundry in the sink and leaving once to get sushi and whacking off, not all in that order. i still hate that i know that my mom reads my blog.

the slumber party was amazing, in a way that words can’t capture, but i’ll try.

i knew i was going to be taking time off in melbourne and i can never be anywhere and not play. (is it a problem? i dunno. it’s a good problem to have, better than smack or some other awful thing.)

and i knew that i wanted to do something special at the butterfly club, which is the most amazing place in the world.
the butterfly club is basically an old victorian house that’s been transformed into a little bar and theater, and every room feels like a living room….the walls are covered in art and kitsch and there’s not a blank space to be seen….total antique shop explosion covered in chandelier remnant gold-frame broken-doll fake flower oriental rug psychedelic mash-up wonderland.

stolen from internetz:









(photos from flickr.com)

i went there last winter and had a crazy night with steven and the danger ensemble….we hung out in the empty little theater and we sang and we drank and before too long it was 7 am and we were all huddled outside the front door, waiting for a taxi that wouldn’t come, watching people going to work. it was the kind of night that i think people assume i have all the time. in reality, i have nights like that about twice a year at best.

anyway, the club is run by two amazing men, david and neville, and they’d invited me to come back.
however, booking a legit show in a 40-seat theater seemed unrealistic.
and i didn’t want to make people pay. so i held a contest, had people draw their dreams and email them in, and 20 people were chosen. they could all bring one guest.

and everybody wore pajamas and looked sleepy-hot.

and we started at midnight and i was ready to fall asleep because i was so fucking jetlagged. but i didn’t.
instead i just took requests, sang on a upright piano with no micropohne, and drank vodkas and redbulls and i felt like i was in my own house.
i want every show to feel like that show felt. it was just…completely real. when we got hot and tired, we took a break.
there were no times, no schedules, there were no plans. there was just me and a room of people. i spent most of the set talking, actually.
occasionally someone would just say something, and i would go off on a random tangent. we spent a long time talking about the music industry and how things are changing.
people shouted out songs and i played them. sometimes i really fucked them up.
tom dickins opened the whole night with a few of his songs (he was amazing) and then i made him sing “point of it all” while i did the piano part because he’d been driving me crazy with the fact that “point of it all” was his cellphone ringtone and i figured it was just punishment. he killed it. i hope a video surfaces….the kid has a huge future and a gorgeous fucking voice.

and at the end of the night i put out an empty champagne bucket and took donations, since the show was free and i’m still bordering on broke.
people gave money.

i wish i could always do that. i wish all tickets were free. i wish my poor fans could always just come and my rich fans could just pick up the tab and never feel the sting.

and you know:
this brings up a really interesting topic, and i’ll go off on it in another blog, about how i think that if we musicians are going to survive, we’re going to have to return to a faith-based
system of patronage.

i got home that night at 5:30, as it was just starting to get light.
i took a bath. as i soaked there, barely alive, i thought about how incredible life is. and about how i can create anything, write anything, do anything.
about how there are no rules.
about how all you have to do is imagine something into existence to make it exist.
i listened to some boards of canada. then i slept the sleep of the dead that i was referring to earlier, and lost yesterday.

now, pictures, all mostly stolen off a thread from the shadowbox: http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=7467.0

this is a drawing that i did right before the show for one of my favorite dreams, submitted by lyndon (not the violin-playing lyndon…another one).
my original plan was to draw every single dream and then hand them out at the party, but i got too jetlagged and took a nap instead.
lyndon’s dream involved a sequence in which his head was shaved and he melted cheese and chocolate on it and couldn’t stop thinking about how attractive it was:



photo care of lyndon, who also had an awesome polaroid camera and took these….





(mr lyndon himself:)




yes, there was a fireplace….

as i said….butterfly club….most amazing place on earth.
if you’re in melbourne, go see something, anything, there. they put on shows constantly:
www.thebutterflyclub.com

……………………………………………


meanwhile….footage and stuff is starting to surface from the reading/signing/singing that mr. neil “reluctant literary sex symbol” gaiman & i did in dublin the day after my show….

if you want a sneak peek at some of the stories from the book, you can hear neil reading them aloud and see video of some of the photos from the book….

there’s a list of links up at
http://chaptersevents.livejournal.com/1201.html

this clip is great….it’s neil reading two stories from the book, back-to-back…..



he reads two excerpts….one is “the two of them”, about the florally-dressed palmer twins drinking tea in their living room and the other is “the sword”, about 2008 amanda palmer slaying 2003 amanda palmer with a parry and a thrust. neil explains it better.

we did a q&a, trading off talking, and i also played the ukulele, you can troll youtube with a search for amanda/neil/chapters and find the best clips, they’re just surfacing.

then we signed for about 4 hours. neil is a powerhouse pro of singage and puts me to shame.

some photos from chapters, stolen from coraline73’s flickr….

the crowd….



neil gets ready to read from the book….


signing….


time to go find lunch.

leaving for sydney tonight.

for those of you coming to the opera house gigs, by the by, special treats in store….we got a string quartet together, featuring zoe keating, lyndon chester (yes, violin lyndon) and two of lyndon’s friends.
practicing all day tomorrow at the opera house, and it should be fucking beautiful….we’re hoping to do a radiohead cover (a surprise one), truce, girl a and a bunch of stuff from who killed amanda palmer.

all three shows are almost sold out. melbourne is sold out.
adelaide and perth and brisbane aren’t sold out, which reminds me…if you know ANYBODY in those cities, tell them to come.
and if you live there and want to trade tickets for flyering, e-mail katrina, who will send you stuff to promote with and hook you up with tickets in exchange.
if you know of any perth/brisbane/adelaide forums or blogs, spread the words.

when i die, destroy this first





February 25th Sydney - Sydney Opera House / The Studio
February 26th Sydney - Sydney Opera House / The Studio
February 27th Sydney - Sydney Opera House / The Studio
March 1st Brisbane - The Tivoli
March 3rd Melbourne - The Corner
March 4th Adelaide - The Gov
March 6th Perth - Fly By Night
March 7th Perth - Fly By Night
March 10th Auckland (New Zealand) - The Studio
March 12th Wellington (New Zealand) - Bodega Bar
March 14th Hobart - The Brisbane Hotel

LOVE
a

AFP blog on huffington post

go look: huffington post picked up the oasis blog.
they edited it down a bit, but go over there and join the conversation, it’s looking interesting

about to get on a plane to oz



xxx
afp

airports. snowmen. catching up.

the european tour was generally fucking miraculous. more news about it below.
yet today was one of those days where I thought I could feel myself aging in realtime.
something about a certain kind of combination of travel, diet, stress and drinking can do that to you.
i ate too much spanish tortilla, drank too much coffee and wine and beer and have done no yoga or exercise for almost two weeks. i finally hit the wall and feel like a squid that has been dried in the sun and then deep-fried and covered in ketchup. my belly is expanded beyond it’s usually fat little dimensions, my skin is broken out, and i am reminded once again that touring life does, indeed, put premature lines on your face no matter how much you hydrate and moisturize.

i was just in the airport in madrid, dealing with the brutal combination of being hungry where there is no decent food and also negotiating with the heaviest day of my period which always means i invariably bleed all over myself and cleaning blood off yourself in an airport is so grace-less. but telling you people about it, that brings all my grace back. now i am hail amanda, full of menstrual blood and grace. i’m sorry if i’m grossing you out. i’m in a sort of shitty mood. they come and go, no?

if i’ve learned anything about myself lately, its that i abhor making plans. i really do. not in the general sense. i like to know where i’m headed in the large picture. up, down, towards the ocean, faster, slower. but the thing about this life that is absolutely nerev-wracking is that you find yourself in january making plans for september. i don’t have a record out now, i’m probably not going to make another one for a while, and i can really just do what the fuck i want. if i tour, i’ll make more money and i’ll be happy to be performing and connecting with people, but i’ll have to deal with things on a daily basis like bleeding on myself in airport bathrooms when the stall has no fucking toilet paper. even madonna probably has to deal with this, when you think about it. she must occasionally have to fly with the plebeians. all airports have bathrooms. sometimes they forget. but she’s got to tour. it’s a trade-off. maybe madonna has a special staff member for this purpose.

but what i’d love, if i could have my way, was the ability to decide month-to-month, even week-to-week, even better, day-to-day what i feel like doing.
id love to be able to wake up every day and say:
“hmmm. today i feel like playing a show. in israel.”
it may be some sort of reaction to the fact that my life is so strictly scheduled when i’m on the road that i crave the freedom. but i think i’m just like that. i’ve never been a structure addict like some other people i know. my favorite days are when nothing has been planned, i don’t know where i’m going, and i start making random rights and lefts into bizarre situations. or i don’t. i sit there and read and book. but it still feels like a spontaneous action. you know?

in this business of touring, it’s just impossible. gigs have to be planned a good six months in advance in order to make everybody happy…the venues, the agents, the promotors. it’s a bitch.

i am currently trying to decide what to do with my summer and it’s driving me nuts. if i plan nothing, i’ll be craving action once it rolls around. if i plan too much, i’ll be bleeding in airports all summer.
i’m trying to carve out a reasonable balance. if i could just predict exactly when i’m going to get my period, then i’d be golden. sadly, such things are not plannable 5 months ahead of time.

whatevs. at least i don’t have to work at a bank or suck dick for a living. jesus.
i’ll stop my bitching, now.

now for the weather:

………………………………………………………………………………………..

DEPARTMENT OF OASIS:
i can’t thank you guys enough for the incredibly thoughtful feedback you’ve all given to the oasis issue.

the most beautiful thing, i think, about all of this happening, is that it is leading people to talk and connect and think about things.
in the wake of the whole thing i’ve been having way more intelligent conversations with journalists.
the same thing happened with the leeds united video and the rebellyon…. technically i’ve had two botched singles, but i think i’m better off for it.

because

i feel like i’m more sure than ever of *why* i’m doing what i’m doing. and more sure of the fact that staying this particular course, working from the grassroots without a lot of help from the top really is a better way to go. it does mean i need to rely on my fanbase more, but i’m becoming happier and happier to do that. i trust the fanbase more than i trust the radio and certainly more than i trust the label.
i’d rather put my future in their hands than in the hands of the machine. and so onwards.

i love finding out that there are so many people out there that feel the way i do about things. it helps me feel grounded.

the guardian did a great piece for the women’s section of G2 the day after the london show called “breaking all the rules” using beautiful photos taken at the clute’s magical house of books,
read it here: www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/06/amanda-palmer-interview

this here was the original uncropped photo from the hard copy of the paper, taken by linda nylind.
those paintings in the background are both by the magnificent judith clute.


a bunch of blogs also picked up the story, including the telegraph…and a little diversion for you…..after writing the blog and reflecting on the nature of how happy songs and sad songs are indeed, very different, i decided on the day of the gig that it would be really funny to actually attempt a SAD oasis.
so i tried it in london, complete with fog machine:


and by the way, if anyone thought MY song was dark, check out this wonderful article from the onion:
“I’m Totally Psyched About This Abortion!”
http://origin.theonion.com/content/node/33680

and favorite feedback moment of a week, from a fan who wrote in saying that until the controversy with the song came up and she actually READ the lyrics, she thought i was singing:

“i’ve had better days but i don’t care
a racist got my letter in the mail”

………………………………………………………………………………………..

so, when i left you, i was in london. right after that i made a snowman with some british children, which as the highlight of my fucking life.
we made his face out of fruits and vegetables. one banana peel mouth, one carrot nose and his eyes are kiwis. that perverse second picture is me shoving the kiwi in one of the the kid’s mouth so he could bite in in half.
perverse.





these photos were taken by andrew o’neill, who let me use his piano (this was outside his apartment).
he also opened up for me in london and is a funny fucking man. whole series of these up at www.flickr.com/photos/destroythedoctor/



the london show was sloppy as shit. trying a whole new setlist with no rehearsal and doing new pieces when we had been off tour for so long was a stupid idea.
everything felt clunky. the sound, i hear, was bad. but still, i think we managed to entertain the people of the electric ballroom and we have some awesome pictures to prove it:


Photo by Orlagh Stevens


Photo by Tylaar


Photo by Sinister PIctures


Photo by Hannah Daisy


Photo by dead by sunrise


Photo by Sinister PIctures

the movements of this european tour were old school plus, traveling in a van and feeling like a punk rock road warrior.
all eight of us moved around like a swarm of tired flies and slugs, depending on our level of caffeine and alcohol intake.
we slept in a beautiful huge apartment belonging to sarah the baker in paris, all on the floor and couches and couch cushions in the living room. in switzerland some lovely british folks named chloe and paul put us up in their spare bedrooms, and in toulouse we stayed for two nights in one room of a squat that charlotte, our opener, arranged at a moment’s notice. somewhere on the drive between switzerland and france we stopped at a warehouse called perce oreille and they gave us wine and olives and a painting that guilluame’s mom made. they also made a helmet for us (as featured on steven, below). i love the french.

AFP & the danger ensemble in the mountains of france….
clockwise from AFP: steven, lyndon, aideen, mark, tora.


arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt in pastel.


with the artist, guillaume’s mum, known as Cat…..


tora, jeffmaker, and me trying to point to mark where i thought we might be located if france was the shape of my hand:


they had a piano. i played it.

(all these photos by guillaume)

the cooks preparing dinner in swizterland at fri-son in fribourg. in foregrounds, amanda and mark having the daily summit of TEFS, The Eyebrow-Free Society:


the best thing about touring in europe is that in some of the clubs they cook real (real, real, real) food at the gigs for the artists.
this is almost unheard of in america.

and in addition to that, like in the states and as we will do in oz, people have also been bringing the most incredible foods.
we cannot thank these people enough, as you saved us tons of time and money and moreover, saved us from the perils of having to try to find edible food at 2am, which is nigh impossible in small towns in europe.

dinner with the ensemble in fri-son, photo by AFP’s mac:


thank you europe, for your food.
truly, my belly is jiggling europeanly in solemn appreciation.

speaking of which, in the…

DEPARTMENT OF PURE AWESOMENESS:

…some students decided to stage a live rebellyon at Louisiana State University.
there’s a ton of photos up on their website but here are some of my favorites…..
more at http://wowrebellyonatlsu.blogspot.com/













YAY.

and
random photo dept DELUXE:

me, signing a frozen packaged duck in toulouse, france.
for some reason, the owner wanted it. his name was herve.

not vegan:


and i saw this giant baby head sculpture in madrid and was so disturbed by it i decided to take a picture.


one day later:
have been putting off sending this blog for way too long.
got to dublin and saw the screening of “Coraline” in 3D last night. it was amazing and i recommend everyone see it in the theater with the glasses…it may get knocked down to non-3D-only showings this coming weekend when the jonas brothers movie opens so don’t wait much longer!

now time for a show

ready for fucking anything
LOVE
afp



p.s. if anyone missed a chance to donate to the danger ensemble when tehy came around the audience, you can pitch into their coffers ONLINE: www.dangerensemble.com/donate
they will be on the road with me for the next month and every bit helps, so thank you.

a snowy night in camdentown

wow

apparently they never get snow like this here.
people are shouting in the streets of camden.

before i forget, i’m PLAYING COACHELLA this april.
yes yes yes! some of the other people on the bill are FUCKING ROBERT SMITH (i die, and i’ll finally tell him we were supposed to get married a WHILE ago), LEONARD COHEN (i die, no words for that), MORRISSEY (i kind of die, but in a sarcastic kind of way), MY BLOODY VALENTINE (die die die die die, don’t forget earplugs), CONOR OBERST (i wither, note to self: don’t drink so much this time and keep clothes on), HENRY ROLLINS (hug reprise please?), AMY WINEHOUSE (she can have my drinks, maybe she’ll attack conor in my stead), ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS (always sublime, the new record is great, by the way) and the YEAH YEAH YEAHS (karen o and AFP celebrity death match, go!)….and many many amazing others…beirut, the killers, drive-by truckers, throbbing gristle (!!!!!), public enemy….it’s going to be INSANE. we should do something fucked up. i’ll think about it. naked parade? naked blindfolded parade? should i finally do a set blindfolded? eh…
we can do better than that. hit me with ideas. it’s the DESERT. there are no police. we can get jiggy.

info here: http://www.coachella.com/event/lineup

i landed and went almost straight to the bbc today and we discussed how nobody will play “oasis” and how british censorship is looking awfully american lately.
i played live versions of “leeds” and “creep” (i know, i know, but they requested it).

but they played “oasis” before the interview started. they’ve gone rogue! yay the bbc. who knew.
the interview is archived here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hc3w6

then i schelpped myself over to a mystery house to practice piano and was welcomed warmly by two amazing folks, andrew o’neill and steph, who let me, a total stranger, pound mercilessly on their keyboard.
and steph cooked vegan curry and fed me some. damn i love the kindness of strangers.

and now i have an MC for my london show because andrew is an amazing stand-up comic (i had to check his shit out on myspace before going over to make he wasn’t totally psycho before pounding his piano, of course. if possible, i WILL STALK YOU)….so if you hit the london show early (and you should, because the opener is also amazing) you’ll see him in all his awesomeness. check him here: myspace.com/destroythedoctor

i practiced til i was a little loopy and until it was getting too late to be noisy.
then i walked back to the tube in the snow. all the british people were falling down.
especially the hip ones in their pointy shoes.

i, with my practical new england CLOGS, did not gloat.

i’m staying at the clutes house.

it’s right in the middle of camden town, where all the freaky/tourist people walk around and buy overpriced punk clothes.
you can’t beat the fucking location. it is approxataely 40 feet from my gig at the electric ballroom on wednesday.

as seen through the camera, through my fingers, through the blinds, and through the snow:


jason and i stayed here this past fall when we did the koko show. it’s the most wonderful and warm place in the world, and judith and john have food and wine and thousands and thousands and thousands of books.

the snow was coming down down down in thick chunks all through dinner.


this is what the clutes house looks like tonight.

john, judy and liz looking at the show with wine and awe:


when i got in from the airport today, judith had the tortellini boiling.
and i sat down at the table in the warm surrounded by all the books and judith poured wine and i ate and drank and we talked about life and love and it is moments like those, arriving from an airport and having someone waiting on the other end with wine and tortellini, that makes life lifelike.

the house of clute is a paradise house because it is a house made of books.
the ceilings all slant. if the books were gone, the house would fall down.

here are some of the books (partial clute on right):


and here are more of the books:


and some more books:


and here are some more books:


and here are some more beautiful books:


and judith surrounded by books and a mirror in the kitchen:


and i didn’t even hit the majority of the books because i don’t know how many pictures of books is appropriate to put in a blog.

i really love judith and john. they welcomed me in like family. neil was the one who sent me, last summer.
i was bored and antsy and in the soulless k west hotel in london and he said:
“hm. go to the clutes. they will give you wine.” and he was right.

john is an author. he is in the SF world, a vast vortexland that i barely understand.
he is very smart and talking to him is better than reading a book, because he talks back.
http://www.johnclute.co.uk/

the stairs upstairs…….


judith makes paintings. you can see them at http://www.judithclute.co.uk


they are wonderful, real, surreal, close, far, home:




one of my favorites….(lifted from her site, i’ve thought about using this for album artwork):



little afp wanders outside to the little garden on the roof….
(beth, look left, merry christmas)


i heard yelling.

this was funny.

the british didn’t know how to make snowballs.

they were trying, but didn’t realize you have to PACK that shit.

while i was taking the roof pictures, i could hear one of them trying to explain the snow-ball-making process to the other while one of the british chicks kept screaming
“hasn’t ANYBODY got an EFFING LIGHT? i need an effing LIGHT. god DAMMIT, does ANYBODY have an EFFING LIGHT???!!!?!?”

ah, the british girls.

i hope he got her.

i am so jetlagged dude

flash self-portrait in clute rooftop garden
snow snow snow snow



sometimes i don’t love london
tonight i love london



x
AFP

europa, wooden vagina-stage, heartplane tattoos

hola comrades!!!

ok, most impo’tent: if you hadn’t noticed, afp & the ensemble are about to come to europe. like, wicked soon, in about two weeks.

i recommend getting tickets online if you know you’re going, you never know.
please forward these dates to ANYONE you think might want to know about these shows. that’s important, i am relying on the fanbase to get the word out on the street.

the dates:
Feb 4 - Electric Ballroom, London, London and South East
Feb 6 - Divan Du Monde, Paris, Ile-de-France
Feb 8 - Gaswerk Kulturzentrum, Winterthur, Zurich
Feb 9 - Fri-Son, Fribourg, Friburgnemn
Feb 11 - Le Bikini, Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénées
Feb 13 - Sala Apolo, Barcelona, Barcelona
Feb 14 - Caracol, Madrid, Madrid

tickets are on sale now for all these shows at:
http://amandapalmer.net/tour
buy in advance! some of these places are small and will hopefully sell out.

……………………………………….

TEA & SYMPATHY & PIANO in LONDON?

i’m heading to london early (around the 31st) and am actually hunting for a place to practice….
so if you live near camden and have a piano or a decent electric keyboard with speakers,
will you have me over for tea? seriously. i need to practice and am without gear. within close tube-range of camden would be great.
email beth and give her the scoop: beth (at) amandapalmer (dot) net.



………………………………………….

LODGING IN EUROPE

this has been working awesomely so far, so here we go again.
yes! yes. the danger ensemble and i are looking for crash pads throughout europe.

like our punk ass forefathers….doing it on the cheap and keeping it real - so we are looking for a comfy crash space for 5 sassy australians, possibly a hot tour manager/lighting designer and one lonely little AFP.
we don’t need a palace.. but a bed to rest our heads, get a cup of tea and check our emails would be AWESOME. (if you live near general humanity, life, stores, art and parties - we like that too. and we love pianos.)
we will repay you with love, merch and concert tickets (for you and whoever is helping out).
and will regale you of stories of how rock and roll it is to check your email all day when you’re on the road.

these are the cities and the dates we are looking for:

in or near Paris, France. - Feb 5th and 6th.
in or near Winterthur, Switzerland - Feb 7th.
in or near Fribourg, Switzerland - Feb 9th
in or near Toulouse, France - Feb 10th and 11th.
in or near Barcelona, Spain - Feb 12th.
in Barcelona or somewhere en route from Barcelona to Madrid, Spain - Feb 13th.
in or near Madrid, Spain - Feb 14th.

if you can help or know someone who can please email steven (at) amandapalmer (dot) net!  He loves you already.
if you write and you DON’T hear back, please don’t poke. we’re sending this call out so late that steven will probably be barraged. please be pateint.
thank you thank you.



……………………………………………

FOOD IN EUROPE

as for food, yes….we’re still hungry.
imagine that. you guys fed us brilliantly the last time around, and now i can’t even imagine not doing this.
we love you and will trade you love and tickets for food. and you can hang out backstage and drink our beer and wine.

if you can bring food to ANY of the shows, please e-mail food (at) amandapalmer (dot) net and we’ll give you instructions.
dessert foods kill us, so please don’t bring us cakes and cookies and evil foods.
last time around in europe, everyone brought cake and chocolate and we got fat.
loving the belly is one thing, but for christs sake, keep us healthy.



…….

that’s all for now in the touring department.

no, wait, one more thing.

we’ve confirmed support for london and paris and it’s a WONDERFUL band i’ve been itching to play with for YEARS.
they’re called detektivbyrån and they sound like a wonderful tripping movie soundtrack come to life.
they gave me their CD at a gig ages ago and i’m happy i finally snatched them…go listen….

http://www.myspace.com/detektivbyran



…………………….

in the life department, i feel incredibly productive.

i have no feelings.

i will have some feelings in the spring, maybe.

i took a bath last night.

it was 4 degrees outside.

when it’s that cold, my tub refuses to actually become warm enough to feel like a real bath.
the water is just not hot enough.

so i boil two pots of water on the stove plus the kettle and i run back and forth between the bath and the stove for the entire
duration of the bath and it’s a whole activity.

i can’t even take a bath without doing something else at the same time.

something is wrong with me.

but.

i have written over 500 emails in the last 4.5 days.

i have played the piano.

i have broken 3 bass strings in 2 days.

i have done my dishes.

i am on fire.

but it’s freezing here, dudes. it’s just unfair.

jason webley came for a visit. we emailed TOGETHER.
we did take a break and got some dim sum and looked at the dead fish in chinatown and walked around and ran into an amazing old lady in an antiques shop who showed us her photo
album for 45 minutes. she used to tour with her sister in the late forties and early fifteis. they played guitars and wore dresses. she had a picture of her and her sister with FRANK.
i wanted to quit everything and stay with her forever. there is no evidence of their group (the hickory sisters) on the internet. they only toured for
six years and then came back to boston (in the early 1950s) to run their parent’s store. and she’s still there. she’s 85, i think.

………………………………………………………………………..

olga, who designed the lovely amandapalmer.net site, made me a necklace of wooden wings because i coveted hers so badly.
but i decided it worked better as a belt (or as we’ve been callin git around here, a vagina-stage) and beth took a picture of it for me.

i get mad compliments on it.



…………………………………………………………………………

hayley wrote:
I was wondering though, if you ever got your New Years Eve kiss. At the Grand Ballroom last year (NYE 2007) you mentioned that you are always on stage at midnight and that it is frustrating because you never get to kiss anyone (while everyone around you does) - This year’s show was post-midnight so maybe you got lucky? ;)

afp answers:
um, no. i didn’t. another year.

…………………………………………………………………………….

katie wrote:
there’s been a few rumors floating around the interwebz; is it true you were in a porno when you were younger?

afp answers:
TOTALLY true. kim airs, who ran a great local sexuality boutique for women called “grand opening” used to host an amateur porn film night at the coolidge corner.
there would be a bunch of entries and all the tapes would get burned after the screening. my friend sandy and i made a great lesbian porn called “voodoo dykes”, in around 2000.
my screen name was Conni Lingus. hers was Jumbo Lila. it was terrible, and great. i have a copy of it somewhere. when i’m feeling really desperate for attention in
my late hundreds, i’ll post it to the internet for laughs.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Steve wrote:
On the subject of questions, tattoos and the interpretation of art: where, oh where, did the heart/plane/arrow/pen symbol on “Yes Virginia” come from and/or what does it mean? I really like it, am considering getting a tattoo of it, and don’t want to find out after the fact that it’s a Crip tag. Not that I think you’re gang affiliated. Just curious.

afp answers:
it’s not a crip tag, dude. i drew it myself. we call it the “heartplane” logo when using it on things.
i like to think of it as an interpretable symbol that combines the battle spirit of art and love.
there’s a picture of me drawing in the Virginia Companion….let me see if i can find it…..

ah, here we go.
it was on the NIN tour, (you can see the little NIN tour book on the table).
brian took this picture.


and there’s a few other lovely tattoos on the dolls site featuring said drawing….
all the dolls tattoos live up at http://www.dresdendolls.com/closet/couture/index.htm, by the way, and if you have one, you can email it to beth (at) amandapalmer (dot) net


(david)


(amanda)


(meghan)


(emily)


(leigh)


(shelly)


(amy)


(hayley)


you’ll be in fine company.


………………………..

love
afp

very many lots of THINGS.

well. i am full of feelings today, but i am not going to talk about them. fuck it.
i’m home after a really wonderful trip to new york and am collecting evidence to show you how amazing new years was, for those of you who missed it, which is a lot of you.

today, i am simply going to get all these THINGS that have been accumulating.

1. FREE HUGS.
one of the girls who was giving away free hugs in harvard square the other day when i had my nice little public weepfest read the blog and wrote in.
apparently they are a legitimate organization. who fucking knew:
http://www.freehugscampaign.org

2. SEAN’S DOG & ALL OTHER DOGS AND FOUR-LEGGED THINGS IN NEED OF HELP
it has been brought to my attention that my friend sean (indecisean on the shadowbox) - who many of you know as one of the secret internet ninjas behind my myspace/facebook pages - has been trying to collect votes for an animal shelter called the addison humane society, where he got his beautiful dog, stella. apparently they could really use the help and are filled to the brim with animals who need help and love. all you need to do is follow this link and click and vote. sean’s story and the link to vote are up HERE: http://www.thesilentorchestra.com/achs.html

3. MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT OF U.S. TOUR CAUGHT ON YOUTUBE.
this is us, in aspen, colorado, playing to like 32 people. we decided to go for broke and make people sing “the rose”.
no joke, we have proof.
my favorite part was steven miming slicing his wrists during “some say love, it is a razor”.
classic:


4. JASON WEBLEY MAKES AN AMAZING TECHNO SONG.
i am not shitting you, we heard this in the northwest and we made it the end-of-tour anthem.
so. amazing…..”do you want to throw the discus FAR?”


5. ASK AMANDA:
ana wrote:
I am so sorry to hear that people you lived with in college are dead. This might be too forward of me, and I would totally respect your choice not to answer, but what happened to them?
afp responds:
i lived in a house called eclectic. strangely, lots of people that went through there died after moving out. my boyfriend, matt booke, died during my sophomore year over christmas break.
it was heart failure, or something slightly more mysterious. he was an incredible artist. it’s his voice you can hear in between the songs on who killed amanda palmer. my friend chuck also died shortly after we graduated. aneurysm. another girl who lived with us, shannon, drowned while swimming. my step-brother, karl, who was my idol - he played bass and was a writer and a painter, also lived there (but 6 years before me) died when i was 21, a few months after matt booke died. he died of a neurological disease often referred to as lou gehrig’s disease that struck him randomly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis). that was also the year both my grandparents on my mother’s side died. 1996 was a deathly year. thanks for asking.

natalierose wrote:
I was really, really disappointed to hear that the sheet music book for WKAP won’t include stories, etc. about each song the way the Dolls companions do. Was it a time thing? Or is this album too personal? Or at least too recently personally…
afp responds:
all of the stories and additional information that i felt like sharing is actually up on whokilledamandapalmer.com. a lot of the songs don’t need stories. they just are.
i had thought for a while about combining the Neil Gaiman book (which, btw, ended up simply being titled WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER) with the sheet music.
but that seemed silly. people who want sheet music don’t necessarily also want to put 100 dead photos of me on their piano’s music desk, it makes things bulky and hard
to turn. and certainly, not everybody who wants 100 dead picture sof me won’t necessarily want sheet music that they probably can’t read. if you have a specific question about a song, ask. post a comment. i’ll probably answer you. but if you simply ask “so what are astronaut, leeds united and guitar hero about?” i’ll ignore you. just listen to the shit, man, or go join the conversation over on songmeanings.net. i love reading that site. sometimes people are so right. and sometimes they are so, so wrong.

6. POST-WAR TRADE….
check out the new shit up at Post-War Trade… we are discounting some items that have been around a while and we’ve added some amazing new handmade THINGS, including the infamous Text Me t-shirt. also, orders of $75 or more get free US shipping… now check out this HOT shirt (hot girl not included):


and some other cool things….
the 8 ball!


these resin pendants have been flying:


and i think we have a few left of these cuffs…


we’ll be adding a ton of new stuff to the site soon, will post photos of STUFF when we do.

7. RANDOM PHOTO DEPT.
one of my favorite shots from this entire tour….
mark & tora during the climax of “have to drive”:

(photo by lazyinternet: www.flickr.com/photos/lazyinternet/3103519387)

some amazing photos from LA….
neil. reading.


the intro.




blake says.


guitar hero.




lyndon.


zoe.


the crowd.


ella. ella.




leeds united.


lonely little afp.


………………..

stuff-be-gone!

feelings later.
fuck that shit.

LOVE
AFP