| Amanda Palmer — Piano Is Evil (December 16, 2016) |
Amanda Palmer — Piano Is Evil (December 16, 2016) 
■ “Let’s say I had a sense of what would be possible.”
■ “I have no fundamental problem with either asking your fans to pay you to make your record or go on tour or play for free in your band or gather at a mud pit downstate and sell meth and blowjobs to each other...The reason I don’t appeal to other people in this manner is that all those things can easily pay for themselves, and I value self-sufficiency and independence, even (or especially) from an audience.”
■ “If your position is that you aren’t able to figure out how to do that, that you are forced by your ignorance into pleading for donations and charity work, you are then publicly admitting you are an idiot.”
Amanda Palmer: author of the book The Art Of Asking.
Birth name: Amanda MacKinnon Palmer
Also known as: Amanda Fucking Palmer
Born: April 30, 1976, New York City
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Album release: December 16, 2016
Record Label: 8 Ft. Records
Duration: 71:25
Genres: Alternative rock, punk cabaret
Occupations: Artist, performer, musician, songwriter
Instruments: Vocals, keyboard, piano, ukulele
Tracks:
01. Lost 4:38
02. Bottomfeeder 6:19
03. The Bed Song 6:52
04. The Killing Type 4:20
05. Smile (Pictures Or It Didn’t Happen) 6:07
06. Grown Man Cry 5:56
07. Trout Heart Replica 7:49
08. Berlin 6:51
09. Do It With A Rockstar 4:35
10. Massachusetts Avenue 5:20
11. Melody Dean 4:14
12. Want It Back 3:49
13. Olly Olly Oxen Free 4:35
Credits:
• Mastered at — Sterling Sound
• Design by — Marisa Velazquez~Rivas
• Mastering — Greg Calbi
• Photos — Kyle Cassidy
• Piano, Vocals — Amanda Fucking Palmer
► Let’s talk about the origins of The Art Of Asking by going way back. Do you remember when you first heard of the concept of crowd funding?
■ Amanda Palmer: As in crowd funding as online platforms? Because before Kickstarter and other websites, there were similar ways of getting money for a project. I mean, I launched my own proto~Kickstarter when I put out my Radiohead record. It was a similar campaign: I simply asked the fans to pre~order the record way in advance, so that I could use their money to produce the record. That’s pretty much what Kickstarter is. And there are artists like Kristin Hersh and Marillion and others who have used the internet to go straight to their fans and get support in the form of money, long before any crowd funding platforms existed. I was aware of all of them and was very happy to join their ranks when I managed to regain ownership of my own music after I got off the major label I had been signed to. But you could even say that crowd funding as a human concept goes back to the dawn of time. If cavemen hadn’t pooled their resources, we wouldn’t be here today. And what is that if not a form of crowd sourcing?
Discography (short):
Studio albums:
■ Who Killed Amanda Palmer (2008) #77 US[when?]
■ Theatre Is Evil (2012) #10 US — as of 12 September 2012
■ Jack & Amanda Palmer: You Got Me Singing (2016)
■ Piano Is Evil (Acoustic version of Theatre Is Evil) (2016)
Live albums:
■ Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under (2011)
■ Several Attempts to Cover Songs by The Velvet Underground & Lou Reed for Neil Gaiman as His Birthday Approaches (2012)
■ An Evening With Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer (2013)
BLOGS:
■ this blog was originally posted to patreon.
■ i wanted to make sure this was actually going to *work* before i announced it as an actual Thing, and i can say now for a fact that it’s actually working, so i’m announcing it. it’s a Thing.
■ i have been in the studio for five straight days (and i have one last day tomorrow) creating a solo piano version of “theatre is evil”…the entire album, played live on piano.
■ this recording has been on my wishlist since we first went into the rehearsal studio in 2011 to start piecing together the epic “theatre is evil”, my notorious kickstarter record.that album, so goddam dear to my heart i cannot tell you, took an entire year and a half to prepare and record…and then a year to tour. when we were originally in the studio in Mlbourne making the record (there were five of us: me on piano, the drummer Michael McQuilken, the bassist & string/horn arranger Jherek Bischoff, the guitarist and synth player/arranger Chad Raines and our illustrious producer & engineer John Cngleton), i had this crazy idea that we’d somehow have “extra”
■ time in the studio in which i could knock out just~piano versions of the songs, so we could gift them to the 25,000 kickstarter supporters as a bonus. i cannot tell you how seriously that DID NOT happen. we wound up in the studio for something like 20 straight days, 10~12 hours a day, and we got out by the skin of our teeth. then life happened. the idea died.
■ not only that, but i realize now i would’ve been crazy to even attempt it. i went into THIS session, having booked six days, thinking i might be able to knock 13 songs out on piano in three days and then i’d take my spare thee days and, like, walk around with a baby drinking mai tais. (just kidding. i fantasized about spending those three days catching up on email).
■ we spent eight hours yesterday on ONE song. (bottomfeeder). this would’ve been the case four years ago, too. the solo versions of these songs needed a lot of thought and work.
■ and plus — this recording has taken on a magic quality…distance, and time, and the fact that some of these songs have morphed on the road. and, as i realized while recording “grown man cry”, these are kind of new piano covers of my own band’s own album arrangements. some of them little resemblance to the original piano demos that i brought to john and the band (and as to those: they’re a perfect thing to dig and clean up someday for the patreon as well — who knows where they are … on a lost iphone somewhere.)
■ the wonderful Kyle Cassidy, my photographer friend, came to the studio yesterday and today and took some photos (and we did a live periscope of some studio time) and it’s happening. it’s a Thing.
■ and it will be called, yes, “piano is evil”.
■ and three of my fingers have bleeding cuts and two of my fingers have blisters from the five days of recording. piano IS evil.
■ this would not have happened without the patreon. the cost of this studio and the pianos and so forth would have made this too risky and weird an endeavor.
■ i hope you like this Thing. i’m fucking thrilled with it and can’t wait for you to hear.
ANI.
NOVEMBER 09, 2016
■¬ this blog was originally posted to patreon. sign up here to read blogs first!
(public post, xposted)
■¬ my friends. life is strange. if you’d told me 25 years ago that i’d be spending an evening talking with ani difranco about careers, writing process and natural childbirth backstage at a venue we are playing back~to~back on the day after donald trump got elected president of the united states i’m not sure which one i would find more unfathomable.
■¬ ani: she is a force, a feminist, a storyteller, a powerful musician and songwriter and guitarist. so much better at her instrument than i am. i did not allow myself to love her as a teenager because i was too afraid of looking in the mirror.
■¬ as an adult, i’ve come to see that she’s my lost sister.
■¬ i listened to her soundcheck, alone, as she worked out some appropriate songs for tonight. the mood is dark. i sat there awash in gratitude and feeling the strains of her consoling music right now the way people will probably feel about me tomorrow in this same space, where i will be sitting at a piano, 24 hours from now, in the exact same place she is standing with her guitar.
■¬ nothing is coincidence.
■¬ this is what we do.
■¬ life happens, politics happen, babies get born, friends die, weather pours, our country snakes left and right and up and down and into a ditch and rares it’s engine and gets pulled out of the ditch by a group effort and meanwhile
always
■¬ there is music.
■¬ there is music, and songs, and the stories we tell each other about what we are feeling, because we are humans, and this is what we do when we’re in pain.
■¬ we commune.
■¬ we feel.
■¬ we rinse and repeat.
■¬ there is music.
■¬ there is going to be
A
LOT
OF
MUSIC.
■¬ i explained patreon to ani. she was intrigued.
■¬ it could happen.
■¬ everybody….
■¬ i love you.
■¬ (and if you’re here in albany at the ani show, tug my sleeve.)
Notes 2:
■ “Everybody Knows” by Vladimir Zimakov. Limited Edition of 150 gallery~quality screen prints, with all proceeds benefiting PEN America, who are fighting to defend and protect journalists, writers and free speech in these upcoming Trump Times.
■ Artwork by Vladimir Zimakov (who will be signing, printing and numbering each print!)
Notes 3:
■ photo by Allan Amato
Website: http://amandapalmer.net/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amandapalmer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amandapalmer
Also:
Katherine Brooks, 09/13/2012 06:22 pm ET | Updated Sep 14, 2012
■ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/kickstarter-queen-amanda-_n_1882302.html
Interview:
■ http://xcents-mag.com/amanda-palmer/
Review
By Nitsuh Abebe; April 27, 2013, 8:00 a.m.
The Amanda Palmer Problem: How Does a Cult Musician Become a Figure to Be Mocked?
■ http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/the-amanda-palmer-problem.html
■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→♣•♦■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→♦•♣■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→
| Amanda Palmer — Piano Is Evil (December 16, 2016) |
■ “I have no fundamental problem with either asking your fans to pay you to make your record or go on tour or play for free in your band or gather at a mud pit downstate and sell meth and blowjobs to each other...The reason I don’t appeal to other people in this manner is that all those things can easily pay for themselves, and I value self-sufficiency and independence, even (or especially) from an audience.”
■ “If your position is that you aren’t able to figure out how to do that, that you are forced by your ignorance into pleading for donations and charity work, you are then publicly admitting you are an idiot.”
Amanda Palmer: author of the book The Art Of Asking.
Birth name: Amanda MacKinnon Palmer
Also known as: Amanda Fucking Palmer
Born: April 30, 1976, New York City
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Album release: December 16, 2016
Record Label: 8 Ft. Records
Duration: 71:25
Genres: Alternative rock, punk cabaret
Occupations: Artist, performer, musician, songwriter
Instruments: Vocals, keyboard, piano, ukulele
Tracks:
01. Lost 4:38
02. Bottomfeeder 6:19
03. The Bed Song 6:52
04. The Killing Type 4:20
05. Smile (Pictures Or It Didn’t Happen) 6:07
06. Grown Man Cry 5:56
07. Trout Heart Replica 7:49
08. Berlin 6:51
09. Do It With A Rockstar 4:35
10. Massachusetts Avenue 5:20
11. Melody Dean 4:14
12. Want It Back 3:49
13. Olly Olly Oxen Free 4:35
Credits:
• Mastered at — Sterling Sound
• Design by — Marisa Velazquez~Rivas
• Mastering — Greg Calbi
• Photos — Kyle Cassidy
• Piano, Vocals — Amanda Fucking Palmer
► Let’s talk about the origins of The Art Of Asking by going way back. Do you remember when you first heard of the concept of crowd funding?
■ Amanda Palmer: As in crowd funding as online platforms? Because before Kickstarter and other websites, there were similar ways of getting money for a project. I mean, I launched my own proto~Kickstarter when I put out my Radiohead record. It was a similar campaign: I simply asked the fans to pre~order the record way in advance, so that I could use their money to produce the record. That’s pretty much what Kickstarter is. And there are artists like Kristin Hersh and Marillion and others who have used the internet to go straight to their fans and get support in the form of money, long before any crowd funding platforms existed. I was aware of all of them and was very happy to join their ranks when I managed to regain ownership of my own music after I got off the major label I had been signed to. But you could even say that crowd funding as a human concept goes back to the dawn of time. If cavemen hadn’t pooled their resources, we wouldn’t be here today. And what is that if not a form of crowd sourcing?
Discography (short):
Studio albums:
■ Who Killed Amanda Palmer (2008) #77 US[when?]
■ Theatre Is Evil (2012) #10 US — as of 12 September 2012
■ Jack & Amanda Palmer: You Got Me Singing (2016)
■ Piano Is Evil (Acoustic version of Theatre Is Evil) (2016)
Live albums:
■ Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under (2011)
■ Several Attempts to Cover Songs by The Velvet Underground & Lou Reed for Neil Gaiman as His Birthday Approaches (2012)
■ An Evening With Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer (2013)
BLOGS:
■ this blog was originally posted to patreon.
■ i wanted to make sure this was actually going to *work* before i announced it as an actual Thing, and i can say now for a fact that it’s actually working, so i’m announcing it. it’s a Thing.
■ i have been in the studio for five straight days (and i have one last day tomorrow) creating a solo piano version of “theatre is evil”…the entire album, played live on piano.
■ this recording has been on my wishlist since we first went into the rehearsal studio in 2011 to start piecing together the epic “theatre is evil”, my notorious kickstarter record.that album, so goddam dear to my heart i cannot tell you, took an entire year and a half to prepare and record…and then a year to tour. when we were originally in the studio in Mlbourne making the record (there were five of us: me on piano, the drummer Michael McQuilken, the bassist & string/horn arranger Jherek Bischoff, the guitarist and synth player/arranger Chad Raines and our illustrious producer & engineer John Cngleton), i had this crazy idea that we’d somehow have “extra”
■ time in the studio in which i could knock out just~piano versions of the songs, so we could gift them to the 25,000 kickstarter supporters as a bonus. i cannot tell you how seriously that DID NOT happen. we wound up in the studio for something like 20 straight days, 10~12 hours a day, and we got out by the skin of our teeth. then life happened. the idea died.
■ not only that, but i realize now i would’ve been crazy to even attempt it. i went into THIS session, having booked six days, thinking i might be able to knock 13 songs out on piano in three days and then i’d take my spare thee days and, like, walk around with a baby drinking mai tais. (just kidding. i fantasized about spending those three days catching up on email).
■ we spent eight hours yesterday on ONE song. (bottomfeeder). this would’ve been the case four years ago, too. the solo versions of these songs needed a lot of thought and work.
■ and plus — this recording has taken on a magic quality…distance, and time, and the fact that some of these songs have morphed on the road. and, as i realized while recording “grown man cry”, these are kind of new piano covers of my own band’s own album arrangements. some of them little resemblance to the original piano demos that i brought to john and the band (and as to those: they’re a perfect thing to dig and clean up someday for the patreon as well — who knows where they are … on a lost iphone somewhere.)
■ the wonderful Kyle Cassidy, my photographer friend, came to the studio yesterday and today and took some photos (and we did a live periscope of some studio time) and it’s happening. it’s a Thing.
■ and it will be called, yes, “piano is evil”.
■ and three of my fingers have bleeding cuts and two of my fingers have blisters from the five days of recording. piano IS evil.
■ this would not have happened without the patreon. the cost of this studio and the pianos and so forth would have made this too risky and weird an endeavor.
■ i hope you like this Thing. i’m fucking thrilled with it and can’t wait for you to hear.
ANI.
NOVEMBER 09, 2016
■¬ this blog was originally posted to patreon. sign up here to read blogs first!
(public post, xposted)
■¬ my friends. life is strange. if you’d told me 25 years ago that i’d be spending an evening talking with ani difranco about careers, writing process and natural childbirth backstage at a venue we are playing back~to~back on the day after donald trump got elected president of the united states i’m not sure which one i would find more unfathomable.
■¬ ani: she is a force, a feminist, a storyteller, a powerful musician and songwriter and guitarist. so much better at her instrument than i am. i did not allow myself to love her as a teenager because i was too afraid of looking in the mirror.
■¬ as an adult, i’ve come to see that she’s my lost sister.
■¬ i listened to her soundcheck, alone, as she worked out some appropriate songs for tonight. the mood is dark. i sat there awash in gratitude and feeling the strains of her consoling music right now the way people will probably feel about me tomorrow in this same space, where i will be sitting at a piano, 24 hours from now, in the exact same place she is standing with her guitar.
■¬ nothing is coincidence.
■¬ this is what we do.
■¬ life happens, politics happen, babies get born, friends die, weather pours, our country snakes left and right and up and down and into a ditch and rares it’s engine and gets pulled out of the ditch by a group effort and meanwhile
always
■¬ there is music.
■¬ there is music, and songs, and the stories we tell each other about what we are feeling, because we are humans, and this is what we do when we’re in pain.
■¬ we commune.
■¬ we feel.
■¬ we rinse and repeat.
■¬ there is music.
■¬ there is going to be
A
LOT
OF
MUSIC.
■¬ i explained patreon to ani. she was intrigued.
■¬ it could happen.
■¬ everybody….
■¬ i love you.
■¬ (and if you’re here in albany at the ani show, tug my sleeve.)
Notes 2:
■ “Everybody Knows” by Vladimir Zimakov. Limited Edition of 150 gallery~quality screen prints, with all proceeds benefiting PEN America, who are fighting to defend and protect journalists, writers and free speech in these upcoming Trump Times.
■ Artwork by Vladimir Zimakov (who will be signing, printing and numbering each print!)
Notes 3:
■ photo by Allan Amato
Website: http://amandapalmer.net/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amandapalmer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amandapalmer
Also:
Katherine Brooks, 09/13/2012 06:22 pm ET | Updated Sep 14, 2012
■ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/kickstarter-queen-amanda-_n_1882302.html
Interview:
■ http://xcents-mag.com/amanda-palmer/
Review
By Nitsuh Abebe; April 27, 2013, 8:00 a.m.
The Amanda Palmer Problem: How Does a Cult Musician Become a Figure to Be Mocked?
■ http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/the-amanda-palmer-problem.html
■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→♣•♦■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→♦•♣■λ→■λ→■λ→■λ→