queens of the stone poop VS coldpoop: a new dolls documentary (….amanda reflects on aging)

hola comrades!!!!!!!!

i’ve left you hanging once again. too much life. always a good sign. HI.
i’m in a cafe in hermosa beach LA, about to board a plane with mr. neil for a good long stretch of couple-time in melbourne…
…we’re doing christmas together this year, with our wonderful friends the nicholls/coney clan.

as usual, businessy-shit first:

the dresden dolls shows in sydney and melbourne are almost SOLD OUT….
you can find all of the tour dates we have coming up in oz and new zealand HERE on my site. and if you have tickets, but want to help spread the gospel o’ punk cabaret, the wonderful karina cetin is heading up the reconnaissance (our street team) this time around, and doing a kickass job with promo and organization.
you can find the main hub of promo materials (posters, handbills, facebook profile pics, etc) right HERE (download, print, SHARE): http://bit.ly/DDstreetNFO
and go HERE if you have ideas to promote/questions for karina/want links to organized promo romps………such as FLASH MOBS!! ahm…awesome.
“why street team? i bought a ticket, why do you want me to do more?” some may ask…first, we love you. thank you for buying a ticket. but when people help promote – which in turn helps make sure all the shows sell out and we can wave those fancy figures at people who help map out where-in-the-world-amanda-palmer-should-go-next and come back soon – we try and do some cool exclusive stuff, in return. soundcheck passes, special meet & greets, that kind of thing.

on a similar note, me & neil’s new years in melbourne is ALMOST sold out and i’ve never been more excited for a party in all my fucking life. we basically rented a huge space, hired all our friends to throw the ultimate party, and will hopefully at least BREAK EVEN. but the bill is just SICK, SICK, SICK….meow meow (!!) has just been announced as the special guest and we’ve also got the bedroom philosopher, the jane austen argument, mikelangelo and saint clare, lyndon chester, and lance horne on the musical bill, along with aussie comrade jim batt doing bizarro film projection and steven mitchell wright and the various members of the danger ensemble providing theatrical treats. neil and i will both do some of the weird shit we were doing on the tour. best new year’s ever, most likely. the venue (revolt) looks just AMAZING.
GET YOUR TICKETS HERE WHILE YOU CAN!!!

speaking of the tour: here are some more amazing photos from the Neil&Me tour, including some from the incredible photoshoot we did with Wayne Hoecherl & Mikala Taylor in vancouver, with a stage set-up provided by Jessie van Rign & Heidi Wilkinson:

…burlesque dancers and me from neil’s birthday song in seattle…

(more photos at backstagerider.com – burlesque/afp solo/neil solo via paige k. parsons)

the kickstarter packages are going great….neil and i are going to be listening to lots of the material on the plane to oz (hooray for headphone splitters, and wine) and choosing what’s going to end up on the disc. we’ll also be sending out some updates to backers there, to keep you in the loop. we’ve already created the CD packaging and the posters that’ll be going out to the kickstarter supporters, and it’s all looking BEAUTIFUL!!!!! we made posters with VELVET!!! here’s me signing a load of the merch, before leaving NYC for mexico last week:

…the cute intern in the tie is named ben.
and so, from NYC, i flew away, and the dresden dolls reunion show in MEXICO CITY WAS FUCKING SICK.
i cannot tell you how ON FIRE the show was, and how beautiful it was to finally get the band down there after being shouted at by mexico city fans for the better part of TEN YEARS.
it was worth the wait, the orgasm was ALL THAT. we played to a sold-out house in a CRAZY OLD THEATER called teatro fru fru…..

then we did a ninja gig in a playground to about 300 people, the next day.
during the gig (it was about 6 or 7 pm) a fucking 6.8 EARTHQUAKE hit the city. we considered it a nod of approval from god, and contunied on our ninja-way. it was wonderful…the playground shook, and the park lights went out, and everybody felt even more alive and closer. i fucking love ninja-gigging. brian borrowed two drumsticks from fans who had caught them at the show the night before (and had brought them to the ninja gig to be signed) and played the playground equipment while i strummed “Map of Tasmania” to a whole group of mexcians screaming FUCK IT!!!!!
then we covered some smiths songs, rocky horror (with shout-backs), and ripped together an acoustic version of the old dolls classic “bad habit.” it was an astounding ninja gig…..

played on national TV, did photo shoots with rolling stone and nylon, and generally just made out with the entire city.

here’s some pictures from the ninja gig….people took SO MUCH VIDEO, and there were so many pictures….VIVA BEING THE MEDIA!!!

via arimountains on instagram

seriously, the whole experience down in mexico was a thing of extreme beauty for the dolls.
on our last night, we hit the town with our promotor reps (CHIIINOOO!!!!) and alejandro franco, the host of the TV show we’d played on.
we ate tacos, drank mescal (“tequila’s rougher country cousin” as the times once called it), danced til 4am in a goth club called “the real under” that played the cure, tones on tail, peter murphy, sister of mercy, and all the other AMAZING SHIT I LOVE TO DANCE TO…

dancers on 2nd floor:

girl drawing in bathroom:

awesome!!!! who DOES that??

and then got in cars at around 4:30am to a huge public square called garibaldi, where at least two dozen mariachi bands compete for your love while thousands of people carouse drunkenly. i’d never seen anything like it at my life. it was FIVE IN THE FUCKING MORNING, and the entire city was lit up and alive, drinking and dancing to music played by street performers. HEAVEN.
brian smoked a cigar….

i danced with chino to a mariachi band:

i made out with cassandra in the real under (her boyfriend took this picture):

and the WHOLE crew bought AN ELECTRIC SHOCK from the man who was selling cigars.
why have i never done this before???
it’s probably illegal in the states.

we all stood in a circle, holding hands, letting the current run through our fucking bodies….becoming one.

IT WAS AN EXCELLENT NIGHT.

…………………………………………

we just posted two episodes from a long-ass documentary (the first two of FIVE) shot and directed by jessica fox and edited by sara wolkowitz (aka story sisters productions), that’s been sitting in the can since two thousand FUCKING five-ish.
many of you probably saw one of those shows.
my bright idea back that was to hire jessica to come on the road with us for the entire tour, film EVERYTHING, interview EVERYONE, and then put the footage up.
but time and circumstances squashed us, and we never did. it’s finally ready to get unleashed.
i hope you watch it. (embed and links below)

it was shortly after our tour with Nine Inch Nails….we were on tour with devotchka and faun fables as our openers, along with my circus pals jonas woolverton and krin haglund.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
devotchka is famous. still touring: devotchka.net
dawn has a child and is still rocking and making beautiful music: faunfables.net
krin started her own company and also got married and had a baby: krinhaglund.com
and jonas i just saw in vegas, he’s been a permanent part of cirque du soleil for the past few years, and is in a new band, candy warpop: candywarpop.com
HOLY FUCK – our life.

anyway….i went back and watched the entire documentary this morning. it was wonderful and terrible, it made me laugh out loud at least 5 times (“queens of the stone poop?” my god, i’d forgotten about that….)

but the weirdest thing i felt was….vain? superficial? but happy-making.,..,.
i kept looking at my face and body, and feeling like i’ve become so much more attractive and powerful in the past 7 years.
my face looks blanker back then..like a little tadpole waiting to become a fish.
i don’t have my permanent forehead crease and my smile lines.

i will NEVER figure out how to wear my hair. but back then it was even more of a disaster.

i look so tired. i remember being in the throes of constant touring. living on a bus. shows every single day. very little off time.
very little day-to-day enjoyment, it was just GO GO GO GO FUCKING GO all the time – we were on a warpath, and it’s almost painful to watch that footage and remember what it felt like to be in that body. i was constantly exhausted. i never really stopped to look around. i look at my life right now, the fact that i’m about to take 3 weeks off in australia to go on walks with, make love to, and eat with my husband… and i just want to give myself a cosmic fucking high five. back then i tried so hard to start relationships and they would just crash and burn immediately. my lifestyle couldn’t support it. i’m glad i’ve changed.

everyone much older than me keeps telling me that time seems to start flying at an unimaginable speed when you get older.
my friends and their friends are getting sick and dying. it only serves to draw me closer to each moment, to enjoying each coffee, to sipping my wine with more fervor….
i feel like i don’t want to waste a single second of this precious time on earth on the wrong things, the wrong energy, the wrong people.
it’s like i’m gaining an allergy to negativity and anger in other people that’s actually serving me beautifully. i don’t fight back. i say less. i listen more.
i try to see the pain behind people. it makes it possible to love everybody all the more when you know that everybody is striving to be happy, striving to be peaceful, and trying to bulldoze everything in the way in order to get there.

there are no wrong choices….but i feel a stronger and stronger pulls towards the light, and away from the darkness.

i find myself taking care of my health – not because i know i should, but because i can actually do the math and see that my life, my brain, my thoughts improve when i take the extra time out of the day to not work and to sit, reflect, write, take care of my body.

i look at myself in this doc and almost see a stranger, even though i lived in that head for so long.
still: looking at the dresden dolls playing gives me goosebumps. i felt it at the show in mexico. we are a fantastic fucking band.
and brian viglione is one of the best drummers on the planet. holy fuck, some of the stuff he’s doing.
if you’ve never experienced his power live, i hope to god you get to someday. the man is a FORCE. an. unparalleled. FORCE.

here it be (or, well, a playlist of what we’ve posted so far):

(click HERE if that embed’s giving you guff…)

if that embed’s giving you a trouble, sorry…youtube’s being a bitch for some as well, but here are direct links…
youtube: episode 1 | episode 2
vimeo: episode 1 | episode 2

more when i get to oz……

i love you guys. and i’ll see some of you very soon if you’re coming to the shows…

onwards, onwards, onwards.

xx
a