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about 12 hours ago
Amanda Palmer
Posted project update #7COUNTDOWN WEBCAST PARTY IN BROOKLYN, hold the DATE! and ALL ABOUT "THE BED SONG" BOOK.
hola comrades!
GAAAAAAHwe're CLOSING IN! only 6 DAYS LEFT of this madness.so much to say, but going fast…bear with me.i've spent the last three days totally hunkered down in my boston apartment working on the intro text for the art book, which i thought would take me a single night.BUT, i never know what i want to say, and it turned out i had fifteen pages worth of deep art/life shit to write about, so it took me three days. don't worry, i've made small breaks to go to yoga and drink at night, but other than that my ass has been planted in a fucking chair, trying to organize a lifetime of thoughts about visual art into a single document…FUCK.
in the cracks, i've been working on the LP and CD art with andrew-the-designer and fielding the stragglers coming in for the art book, and HOLY SHIT is this all going to look good.here's a mock up of the large, black, COFFIN-LIKE boxes that the LP and 7" records are going to be housed in. death! life! art! amazing!in order from left to right....7" package house, LP house, CD-housing hardback book:
and here, for kicks, are the mockups for the labels that'll go on the 7" singles series:
MEANWHILE: IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT THE COUNTDOWN PARTY…WHAT COUNTDOWN PARTY???EXACTLY!!!!!!EVERYBODY (YES, EVERYBODY) save the DATE!!! next Thursday night NEW YORK TIME (may 31st), in the final hours of the kickstarter, at about 7pm-midnight, in BROOKLYN (near gowanus), we are throwing the biggest kickstarter countdown street party webcast EVER KNOWN TO MAN!!i've never tried to organize a party THIS epic on THIS SHORT NOTICE but goddam i'm going to try. we're shutting down a whole street in brooklyn!! we've HIRED COPS!! the band will play on a roof at midnight! shit's gonna get NUTS…and to make it even NUTSIER, we need some of YOU to help pull this thing off. for details, visit partyontheinternet.com, and follow @gemini_scorpio on twitta for info and opportunities to volunteer on a SURPRISE THING. everybody who's not in new york, tune in and watch the webcast. but save the night, and expect EPICNESS. we're going to tell THE KICKSTARTER SUPPORTERS, VIA AN UPDATE, ABOUT THE LOCATION BEFORE ANYBODY ELSE. so watch this space closely on wednesday. we plan to give you all a headstart. and for you backers who pledged to get into the gallery VIP parties and everybody else at the $300+ levels, we have an EXTRA-SPECIAL surprise for you that night, so get as close to new york as you possibly can, it's only redeemable in the flesh, that night.
ALSO: on SUNDAY (may 27th) we'll be sending out a musical surprise to backers only. go forth and tell your friends to back this damn project at least at the dollar level , that'll get them in the door for what's about to come.AND: it looks like next MONDAY AFTERNOON around 2/3pmish, i'll be doing a webcast Q&A to be broadcast live from MIT. and WEDNESDAY i'll be doing something on reddit. more to come.if you really want to UP TO THE MINUTE BULLSHIT, you must cave and follow the twitter. it is The Only WAY.I LOVE YOU. COACHELLA HORSE LOVES YOU TOO.
and now………this blog written by neil. i'm stealing it from his site, but i wanted to make sure everyone read it.
i love him. and i love you all so much.thank you for being here.we're making fucking history.__________________MONDAY, MAY 21, 2012A Preamble to a photographPOSTED BY NEIL AT 6:49 PMThis is a very long preamble to a photograph.When Amanda and I were first going out together we would spend a lot of time on the phone, talking about big real things. We don't talk on the phone anywhere nearly as much any more, and when we do talk on the phone we're more likely to be trying to figure out the logistics of where we are in the world and how we can warp space and time in order to be in the same place relatively soon than about our hearts or our lives. That's just the way things are, and when we're together, late at night, in bed, we still talk about all the big real things.But we used to talk on the phone. One night I said something to Amanda about my life, and beds, and the sizes of beds, and she got very quiet. I thought she was crying on the phone, which seemed odd, as I'd not said anything (to my mind) about hearts.A week or so later, she announced on Twitter that she was writing a song. She posted photos of herself after each verse. It seemed like the whole of Twitter was cheering her on.I got to Boston a few days later, and she played me her song, on the huge grand piano in her cramped apartment. She'd taken a tiny fragment of my life and made it into something else, a story about a couple, from joy to death, exhibited, as in a legal case or at an inquest, as a sequence of beds. I cried when she played it.She asked me to give it a title, because I had inspired it, and I didn't want to give it a clever title, and so I called it "The Bed Song", and the name stuck.It's one of the songs on her new album.She's asked a number of artists to make art to go along with the book, asked if I would do something for "The Bed Song". I thought about what I wanted to make, realised it was a sequence of five photographs, mirroring the five verses/exhibits in the song. And that, while I love taking photographs (my lomo cameras are some of my favourite possessions) I did not know how I would take these photographs...Fortunately, a few days later there was a gathering in Barrington Illinois to honour Gene Wolfe, and my friend Kyle Cassidy was there with his beautiful actress wife Trillian. I asked Kyle if he'd like to collaborate on making art: I'd write a script, describing the images, as I would have done if I was writing a comics script. He'd take the photos. Kyle said yes. Then I told him the deadline we were on...And that we'd need people of all ages, willing to be photographed, in couples (all but one), naked in a bed.Kyle set off, undaunted.Kyle is an amazing photographer. We found volunteers through friends and through Twitter. It was relatively easy to find people to pose in their twenties and thirties and forties... finding older models was harder. I was hugely pleased when my friends Samuel R. Delany and Mia Wolff agreed to pose for the last photograph we needed.Many of the people who had their photos taken told Kyle that it was a life-changing experience for them, and I can believe it.The photographs were beautiful. The sequence of photographs worked as a story. We were happy, about everything except... Kyle had taken too many good photographs.Each photograph was a piece of art. Amanda's doing an art book already, of the art that's been made for the album, but we desperately wanted to see Kyle's photos reproduced at the size and at the same quality as they'll be hung in the art galleries they'll be hanging in this summer, during Amanda's art tour. And we wanted the photos that weren't just part of the set of five, that would hang in the gallery and be part of the art book, to be seen.And Amanda was putting together a Kickstarter (it's at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour). It was going to need incentives at various levels. And if the incentive level was priced high enough then we could actually afford to make the kind of book we dreamed of -- something with the level of art and craft you'd find in the impressive oversized Taschen photo books. Although there would be significantly fewer photos than the $15,000 Helmut Newton SUMO book (but then, it also wouldn't need to come with its own display stand).
So that's what we're doing. We're making a maximum of 666 of them (to commemorate the % by which the Evening With Neil and Amanda Kickstarter exceeded its level). If the demand is less, we may make significantly less. We want copies for our models, and a few for ourselves. You'll get one if you support the Kickstarter at the $1000 level or above (so each of the 35 people hosting a house party, for example, will get a copy), and you also get all the goodies from lower levels as well.
Right now we're just finalising the specs -- Kyle wants a lock on the box (or slipcase) it comes in, for example, but we need to decide what kind of lock...There will be photographs, reproduced at the same size (HUGE -- the book is planned to be the same size as the recent oversized Little Nemo Sunday pages) and quality (amazing) as the actual prints. There will be an essay by me about the song, what inspired it and what it means to me. There will be the script for Kyle and the emails. There will be a reproduction of Amanda's handwritten lyrics. And we will sign it, and limit it, and I very much hope that each of the people who winds up with a copy is made very happy by it.Of all of the things in the Kickstarter campaign, it's the most likely to ship last, because the production process of objects like this is always beset with nightmares. We want it fancy and beautiful and unique, but each fancy thing we add means there's something else that can go wrong or delay things, and that printers and bookbinders and boxmakers will simply not be able to do what we're asking, meaning we'll have to find someone who can, or wait, or send something back to be redone.Right now, Kyle is taking the handful of last photographs for the book. And as we were talking about it, I realised, with a creeping horror, that the final photo had, inevitably, to be me and Amanda. Amanda has been in many photographs naked, has no nudity taboo that I've ever noticed. I'm English. I have a nudity taboo.Kyle took several shots of us in Philadelphia last week, in our hotel room. Some of them we had the covers over us, in others (the scary ones -- well, scary for me) we didn't. I held Amanda and did my best to go to sleep and not to think about the camera on a stick far above us.I've not seen any of the photos Kyle took of us without bedclothes, yet. I'm nervous as hell about seeing them, but also certain that we'll find the one to be the final image, and glad it will only be in a very limited edition book. But the photo that Kyle just sent over showing Amanda and me together, under the covers, with me mostly asleep, is beautiful.And this is it.
It's the only one of the photos that's in colour, too. I think we may use it as the image on the limitation page, the one we all sign.And, with Kyle's permission, I'm putting it up here.
Post Comment -
1 day ago
Amanda Palmer
commented on a project@Alejandro Mendez: You can get both the CD and vinyl along with a signed copy of the art book for $150. Additional information can be found on the front page under the $125 reward info! Thanks for your support. - Sean (Team AFP)
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1 day ago
Amanda Palmer
Posted project update #6SMURF-TITS & SCIENTOLOGY OH MY (the KICKSTARTER Q&A part 2)
hola my dear comrades.
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in case you missed it, this is a cross-post from my blog.
same txt, i just wanted to make sure you all saw it since it's more kickstarter q&a (part two to the post i made the other day).
there's another update around the bend (tomorrow, hopefully) so enjoy this while you wait……
xxx
afp
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oi vey.
oi.
at the moment i'm posting this blog, the kickstarter totals:
17,572 BACKERS
$834,377 PLEDGED
8 DAYS TO GO
it's gone pretty well, i'd say. eh?
the weirdest thing right now is that everybody KNOWS about it. i'm now famous for my kickstarter.
which is a little depressing. i wish that i could steal all that enthusiasm and high-fiving i've getting from strangers in the street (literally) and re-route it to the album when comes out.
i don't want this album to be remembered as "the kickstarter record."
i do want this record to explode. and i want this record to explode because it is awesome.
anyway....jesus, i'm not complaining.
this kickstarter is a fucking game-changer.
what i did NOT expect to happen was to come under fire from so many sides.
while 90% of people out there are so supportive i want to cry most of the day, there's a lot of bitching.
the bitching can be broken down into three categories, in order from least ridiculous to most ridiculous:
- people bitching that i shouldn't be using kickstarter and i should leave it "to the artists who need it".
- people bitching that i'm just shameless and tasteful in general and "begging" for money for my record.
- people bitching that my kickstarter campaign is actually a front to siphon money into the church of scientology.
(i love that last one).
some of the bitchings above will hopefully be covered in the answers below.
except for the scientology one, which i'll answer with a naked picture including smurfs at the end of this blog.
the most common question i got was THIS: "are you rich now?? what are you going to do with ALL. THAT. MONEY?"
i already answered that one...and if you missed it, i suggest you read that (link below), then go pee, grab a second cup of coffee, and return here for part two.
WHERE ALL THIS KICKSTARTER MONEY IS GOING, BY AMANDA FUCKING PALMER
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now, to the nitty gritty:
Q: @DDMikeWard
Sounds like 100K was too little. How much did you really need and what were your actual expectations for first week?
Q: @klausfuture
Even knowing how awesome your fans are, did you have any anxiety about not hitting the initial goal?
A: i picked a goal that i was 99% sure we would exceed. if you do the math, and you look at my sales history, it wasn't a big stretch of the imagination.
i knew that we had people excited to buy house parties (we've been getting emails asking ALL YEAR) and i knew that the radiohead EP alone got about $100k worth of orders when I put it on sale. so making the goal $100k was a nice, big, round number that we knew wouldn't look too low or too high but was still, in itself, pretty random. when i met last week with my business manager, i asked him to remind me what i'd sketched in a few months ago as my "realistic estimate" of what we'd hit on kickstarter, so he could know for the cashflow report. i'd told him $480,000.
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Q: @GriffenshireStu
I'm not buying anything until I can at least hear it.
A: HA. i just released a track. fund me.
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Jones, from the blog:
Q (of sorts): Believe me when I say I have a great deal of respect for you Amanda, and maybe I am a huge cynic - but right now I am among a group of musicians within the south west in the UK who living a very different reality to the seemingly wonderful opportunity of crowd-funding for music making/distributing.
I'd be really interested when you've had the time to make and put out the new record to read the blog you write with links to unknown musicians for whom crowd-funding has been their start and success. At the moment, for us, it's a new form of Payola where there is no immediate benefit differential from indepedently funding and distributing our work through any means available to us.
A: payola? payola is BRIBERY. this isn't bribery. this is artists taking control over their own work and distribution. it's NOT a magic bullet. if your band or the bands you know can't crowdfund, it's not because anybody's muscling you out of the game. i'll tell you one really huge thing: you need to have a small fanbase first. if you don't have that, crowdfunding WILL NOT WORK. you can't crowdfund without a crowd. you have to have some sort of audience already built and ready to help you. what you're saying to me doesn't sound that different to any other complaint a smaller band has when it comes to getting shit done. it's WORK. you have to play a shit ton of shows, you have to play for free, a lot, you have to slave, you have music people care about, and THEN...THEN you have to ask for help. nobody is going to fund a band they don't give a shit about.
as for an example: i'll hand you tom dickins. he's teeny compared to me, but i've been watching this kid working his ass off for the past three years. he quit his day job, has been living at the poverty line, playing every gig he can fucking get, getting in his shitty broken down car and driving all over australia to play house parties for his few fans, and growing things bit by bit by bit. he just launched an australian crowdfund for his new record - GO HERE FOR IT - and hit his goal of about $10k in the first few days. and if you emailed him and asked him for advice, i guarantee you he'd answer. because he's a sweet fucking guy who likes helping people. which is a huge part of why people are lining up to help him back, alongside the fact that his songs are great.
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Q: @JariPeltola
Are the donations tax-free income?
A: this is a good question mostly because of the way it's worded.
to answer: no..all the money i'm making on CD and LP (and book, and everything) sales via kickstarter is taxable.
AND
these aren't DONATIONS. that drives me crazy. they way we generally define "donating" is that you are giving something without any return: it's a selfless, one-way gift to a cause. this is not that. every single person who's backed the kickstarter is getting a product or a service (like a show) that they've paid for.
it's more of a pre-order than a "fundraiser." the language here gets important. it makes me cringe to read in the press that people have "donated $600k to amanda palmer's kickstarter." that makes it seem like i'm getting away like a bandit. as you can see above,i have to PAY for and manufacture (and pay the staff to help me create) all the products that are for sale. it's almost as ridiculous as newsweek proclaiming that "people donated over $56 million dollars to apple in order to own the new iPhone 4G". that would sound DUMB. this is a marketplace. an art marketplace, but still. it's a real exchange. i have A Thing (it's A Weird Thing, but still) and people are buying it....via the vehicle of kickstarter.
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Q: @gabakulka
deep/pressing: Doesn't it scare you just a TINY bit? The overwhelming success? (I'm a total chicken, I think I'd have freaked)
A: hi gaba. you're a musician, so this isn't a theoretical question - i know you already know what it feels like to play in front of a thousand people. and you are not a fucking chicken.
I AM AMANDA FUCKING PALMER, I AM SCARED OF NO THING.
well. lies. ok. a little bit. but my scared-ness has to do with one very specific thing, and it doesn't have to do with the kickstarter as much as the success of the record as a whole. it's so good.
i've talked with a lot of my indie-band-comradery who zoomed overnight from 700-seat to 3000-seat venues and found the transition miserable (mostly, you lose your connection to the awesome-ness of your hardcore fanbase, because flake-y fairweather fans who don't know you trample out the old-school ones who hate your new fans and don't want to see you in a 3,000-seat venue because Fuck That). i don't EVER, EVER want that to happen. that's the only thing that slightly scares me. that if i got too big too quick there would be a loss of quality in the fanbase. but i have a feeling i'm clever enough to deal with it well if it happens. my team is strong, i am strong, i think our collective arms are strong enough to open and hold a lot of people and bypass the bullshit.
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Q: @KatWithSword
When was the earliest in your career you would have attempted something like this, and why?
A: if you go back to my grumbly response to jones above, who was in turn grumbling about this not being viable for his band community, you'll see i already sort of addressed this.
if i got back to the dawn of the dresden dolls, this would have been PERFECT for us. i was already crowdfunding back then. i borrowed the money we needed for our first record from six different people (including some relatively well-off fans who'd come to see us play 12 times and were happy to loan us five grand). if i'd been able to simply plug into our boston fanbase and ask them for help, i would have. but back in those days (2003) we couldn't. but it would have worked, of that i'm certain. you're talking to someone who's been passing the hat for various opening bands since the dawn of touring. it ALWAYS works. sometimes it works great, sometimes not so great. but it always works.
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Q: @seb_inthecity
When did you decide that KS could be a viable solution for financing a new record? After or before last year's tour?
A: i tried out kickstarter for the first time about a year and a half ago, when i produced tristan allen's record (you can see it, here). it was funded to the tune of about $8,500 and had only 437 backers (but we ran it for a VERY short time). after that, and feeling the direct connection with the people who'd supported, i was SOLD on the process. there WAS a question about whether to just do a sort of DIY-crowdfund on my own website. i could have done that and saved the 5% commission that kickstarter takes. but i'm convinced that people trust kickstarter as a system and are less shy about jumping on board a big ship than a little speedboat. also, kickstarter in ITSELF is a little community. a lot of my friends are using it, and it's really nice to have a common template, a common language, a common system.
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Q: @MrTubes
Deep question: how long, how much time have you invested, to get to the point where this is possible?
A: i could answer this two ways.
or
1. all my life. for real. everything i've done and made and learned has brought me to the point where something this huge is possible.
2. every minute since 2000, when i started touring in the dresden dolls.
either way: a LOT OF TIME.
this kickstarted is the culmination of YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS of connecting with my fanbase and my community.
some people who read this blog have been following my movements for years, and don't need to hear this part. others are brand new and REALLY need to hear it.
in a nutshell: i have a connect-at-all-costs policy 24/7. brian and i, as the dresden dolls, toured for three or four years SOLID and signed after every. single. show. we hung out with our audience. we got to know people. we stayed in touch. we cared that they cared about our band and we showed it. the internet is an extension of that. the twelve years of blogging i've done and the 25,000 tweets haven't been for strangers. they've been ways of connecting with my crowd...all over the world. every city i've ever played a free show in, every house i've crashed in, every band i've hand-selected to open up for us on the road because i refuse to let the promotors have control over our night. every night off tour that i didn't go out to see a show, or hang out with my friends, or bother with a lover....because i was up to my eyeballs in emails with fans and bands about our next tour. i'd never do it differently, ever. because i was doing what i loved.
you know that 10,000 hours theory? i've spent more than 10,000 hours connecting with my fans, figuring out how to be with them. so i'm an expert in them.
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Q: @cynicalinternet
deep question: didnt you feel guilty asking for handouts? like you should be able to get the money on your own somehow?...why not just do it low budget, release mp3s online, skip the expensive promotion stuff/etc and do it for 20 grand? why 500K?
A: as i said above, i wrote a huge BREAKDOWN of pretty much where all the money is going. if you really wanna know, go look.
as for, you, @cynicalinternet, your name is just perfect.
ask me that question again....slowly. and this time listen to yourself.
"like you should be able to get the money on your own somehow"?
are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?
THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I FUCKING JUST DID.
instead of signing up with a label, taking their advance money and enslaving myself to a contract.......
I GOT THE MONEY ON MY OWN SOMEHOW!
I FUCKING USED KICKSTARTER!
and as far as "why not just do it low budget...."?
well, i could've done that.
you're right.
i could have recorded this on my computer. at home. on piano. alone.
and it would have cost nothing.
and you know what?
i didn't do that.
and you know what else?
MY RECORD IS AWESOME.
IT CAME OUT JUST THE WAY I WANTED IT.
MY BAND IS AWESOME. THEY KILLED IT.
THE RECORDING STUDIO WE RENTED WAS AWESOME.
I AM SO GLAD I SPENT MONEY ON ALL OF IT.
as you see, i don't have many regrets about this matter.
maybe i'll make the next one in my bedroom. if i feel like it. and that one will probably be awesome too. (and if it's not awesome, i'll probably never release it, so don't worry.)
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Q: @sledgecallier
Your Kickstarters have gone really well, but any advice for people kickstarting without an initial fan base to call upon?
A: yeah, see above, don't do it. seriously. not right away. most kickstarter projects that fail do so because people are screaming into a void.
HOWEVER: you may have a fanbase out there that you don't know about, or that you're not thinking about.
if you need to raise $1,000 for a project, and you can call to mind 16 friends or acquaintances who'll pitch in $50, and two relatives who'll pitch in $100, you'll hit your goal.
but really: i maintain that crowdfunding, at least for musicians, is for musicians who've amassed at least a small crowd already.
runaway projects on kickstarter that are offering a gadget, like the pebble watch (which has funded over 10 million on kickstarter) don't need FANS. they just need CONSUMERS who want their product.
but artists and musicians need REAL supporters. people who believe in their work and want to lift them up, who want to see them succeed and want to own a physical piece of the history that goes along with it. i think this is a subject for a longer blog someday, but you get the gist. do the groundwork first, the old fashioned way. in music, that's playing open mics, friends parties, touring endlessly, hanging out, opening up for acts and not getting paid, making decent youtube clips, connecting with your audience online....and so on....the same old story. it's work. and if you're good, you'll gather a little crowd who like you. then go ask them for funding. then check back with me.
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Q: @nicholasbuzzrad
Why the angst [from the outside world]? I think you and your art is great, why do people not agree so angrily?
A: people hate change. this is making a lot of people really uncomfortable...especially because there's a long-standing shame around mixing ART and MONEY.
artists for ages have felt weird about having to mix commerce with their ART....their ART, which is, in essence, un-priceable. i mean, honestly...how do you put a "price-tag" on....MUSIC? it's MUSIC.
it's ridiculous. but we do, all the time. it's absurd when you think about it.
musicians of the past few decades have been especially prone to hide behind tinted-limo-windows and not get their hands dirty with the business of exchanging cash for products. and they haven't had to. a gazillion middlemen at labels, marketing houses, radio stations and record stores did the "dirty" work for them. but it's not dirty. there's nothing dirty about asking to get kicked back for giving someone your art. i made my living as a street performer for YEARS. we're the top of the line of happily taking cash in exchange for our art and feeling not a moment of weirdness about it. and after years of street performing, i can can tell you from first-hand experience how happy i've seen it MAKE people to give money to artists. people LOVE TO HELP. my major label used to laugh at me when i tried to convince them of this.
the music business for years has seen the fanbase as a bunch of faceless consumers who were going to have to be TRICKED into parting with their cash. whereas i see them as people who love art and want to help. attitude is everything.
watch. it's going to change. it's already changed. it's changing right now, in this moment. it FREAKS people out. and i love it. i mean it. i'm really, really, loving watching this happen.
people who are angry at me for doing this because i should leave kickstarter to "the people who need it" are missing the point entirely.
that's like telling U2 not play concerts in stadiums because there are coffeeshops all over the world who need people to go to their open mics.
or like telling an indie record store that they shouldn't stock the beatles because, like, everybody already knows the beatles and why the fuck should an indie store help them out.
EVERYTHING IS NOW POSSIBLE FOR EVERYONE.
THIS IS WHAT IS SO AWESOME.
and people will continue to go to stadium U2 shows (well, maybe) and people will continue to go to coffeeshops to hear acoustic guitar.
it takes all of this to make a music scene work.
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Q: @meganbrophy11 Is it faith in yourself or faith in your fans that brought you this far?
A: both. big time. do you see? neither would work on its own.
music community is an ecosystem.
both.
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Q: @LahnaMouse
your opinions on sourcing music in an illegal fashion? (big fan by the way hello :D)
A: i think music should be shared. all the time. by everybody. i think it's pure insanity to make music filesharing illegal.
and with that said, i have, for years, encouraged my fans to burn, download and share all of my music with each other and with strangers.
and i will never stop doing that. all that sharing eventually comes back to me in all forms of income and goodwill.
Q: @TVSven
how many CDs did WKAP sell in stores? (officially)A: my last solo album "who killed amanda palmer", sold about 35,000 via soundscan, which is the retail-store way of tracking things.
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in reality, if you count all the legal and so-called "illegal" digital downloads, plus the number of plays those songs have had on youtube...it's way way more. 100,000?
200,000? nobody will ever know. it's impossible the way things are set up right now...and that's fucking fine with me. this isn't a race or a contest. it's music.
Q: @SKWillustrator
Let's say that kickstarter works for every musician/band. Do u think theres any reason for someone to have a record company?
A: GREAT. yes let's say that.
YES, i think, but i think the nature of WHAT these labels do, and maybe what they're called, will change.
there's always PJ harvey. I use PJ as my default artist when trying to explain these things.
PJ will probably never blog.
PJ will probably never twitter.
and PJ harvey may never want to crowdfund a record.
but then again, she may look around at what people are doing in three years, when she's done with contract at epic or matador or merge whatever hip label she's on.
and she may ask herself (cue talking heads), "do i need to keep giving this company a huge percentage of my income?" and the answer may be NO.
if the answer is no, and PJ still doesn't want to blog, twitter or create a PJ-tastic tumblr, she still has a chance. YES! she can magically hire someone to take to the internet on her
behalf, cut her a distribution deal, and help her run her own business. which is what the VAST majority of artists nowadays are starting to do.
and you may see the likes of PJ harvey kickstarting a record, with a team not unlike my team behind her, helping her organize the giant task-list.
but she probably will not post naked pictures of herself. WILL SHE SUCCEED? WILL SHE FAIL? WILL SHE DECIDE THAT NUDITY WORKED FOR AMAND PLAMER AND POST ARTY NAKED TWITPICS FROM THE BLEAK BRITISH SEASIDE?? we will have to wait to find out....
meanwhile.
p.p.s. that third-to-last line says "SMURF-TITS". fuzzy iPhone is fuzzy.3 of 43View Previous Comments-
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Akane about 19 hours ago
People should support you because they love you. Your true fans wont think your asking for handouts, instead they will throw money at you because your music is truly priceless. Kick em in the teeth Amanda! <3
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Beckie Tetrault about 17 hours ago
I support Amanda, because she is fucking awesome. I can't even wrap my brain around all this negativity she's having to deal with. Get a life people.
I wanna be Amanda F Palmer when I grow up.
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Michael Foy about 16 hours ago
Wish you'd bring your brilliant madness to DC Metro: 9:30 Club, Birchmere, State, Hamilton, Blue's Alley, etc. Seeing you at the Kennedy Center would be worth whatever your circus bordelo would charge. I hope to see your Unholy Sisters of the Great Cthulu Cult and Garden Club very soon. Maybe we could arrange for GWAR for an opening band/blood sacrifice?
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4 days ago
Amanda Palmer
backed a project
Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger by sam feder
This film is an intimate portrait of an artist whose work has given language and permission to thousands of people to live their lives.
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86% funded $17,209 pledged
- 250 backers
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4 days ago
Amanda Palmer
commented on a project update@ Jeff Gupton: That's in there! "and wait, fuck….i forgot. kickstarter also takes 5%. and so does Amazon (who handle the credit card processing fees, turning pledges into actual moneys). so we have to lop off $75-100k for them." - Sean (Team AFP)
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4 days ago
Amanda Palmer
Posted project update #5all you ever wanted to know about all this kickstarter money & where it's going.
my dear comrades,
GREETINGS FROM my desk in boston, where it's raining and the birds are going crazy and i'm tied to my computer crank crank cranking on the artwork and the tour prep.
lots more to come. we've almost hit 17k backers and i'm oozing with joy.so you know: i'm cross-posting this backer update to my blog as well. i think it's important shit. i'm going to be reading the comments in both places, but the majority of discussion will probably be going backy-forthy over on the blog site, if you want to join the conversation over there. HERE is the link. the text is exactly the same.
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this is a long update, but i have something important i’d love for you to read first.
save it for later if you have to, but READ IT. (a lot of you, especially the music-biz types, probably already have.)it’s a now-famous piece of writing from the early 90’s by producer steve albini, entitled “The Problem With Music.”
in it, he basically explains why a famous touring band on a label is still fundamentally FUCKED once you do the math.click HERE to read it.
everything he says is true. i lived this reality on roadrunner records.
if you compare his numbers to my numbers (below), the similarities are striking, but that shouldn’t be surprising.
it COSTS REAL MONEY to manufacture and distribute a record, to have a staff and a publicist, to promote an artist and tour a band.
that will never truly change.
but now, because we can reach out fans directly without the machine, artists are empowered to call the shots and keep whatever’s leftover…not the labels.…………………………….
lots of people have been asking LOTS OF QUESTIONS. why we set the goal where we did, and who the fuck do i think i am doing this anyway, blah blah blah.
and i’m working on answering A LOT of big life-altering questions for my next blog, including why my kickstarter is actually NOT a front for the church of scientology.BUT
this question from @MaleahArvieux on twitter merits its own big-ass answer, and it’s one of things i’ve been asked CONSTANTLY.
QUESTION:
“so, are you loaded?”
ANSWER:
well, you tell me. depends on your definition of “loaded.”
let’s say this kickstarter hits a million dollars in pledges by may 31st.
TRULY? first i’ll run naked through the streets, yelling hallelujah.
because this WORKED.but financially, realistically?
first i’ll pay off the lovely debt - stacks of bills and loans and the like - associated with readying all of the stuff that had to happen BEFORE i brought this project to kickstarter.
for the past 8 months or so, i wasn’t touring - and therefore wasn’t making much income - but every step of the way, there were expenses. so, during that time, i borrowed from various friends and family who i’d built up trust with over the years.i had to pay my staff and crew to get this album ready as well as keep the ship afloat and headed in the right direction. i also needed to come up with the cost of the recording itself (which was pretty whopping), and any other expenses the band racked up in the meanwhile.
to put a number on all of that behind-the-scenes stuff which just got us to DAY ONE of kickstarter: $250,000.
terrifying? damn straight.
but to do this the way i knew it needed to be done, that was just a bet i had to take against myself.
i’m a truly lucky person to have been able to float myself without having to simultaneously tour and break my back.
i’ve also worked my ass off for years to build the kind of trust that built me that line of credit with people.SO.
let’s subtract that from the $1,000,000 we theoretically make on kickstarter.
that takes us down to about $750k.here’s some very back-of-the-napkin costs to manufacture the goods, with a rough estimate of about what we’d have sold if we got to a million.
7,000+ high-end CD-books & thank you cards cost about $15 a package to manufacture and ship. that’s $105,000.
1,500+ vinyls & cards, at about $20 to manufacture & ship…about $30,000
2,000+ art books (bearing in mind the shipping on those, every time they need to be shipped from the plant, to the distributor, to YOU, plus the signing, is killer) will cost us roughly $80,000.
PLUS we have to factor in about $15-20k to pay our design team to actually design all this stuff, and to make it super-duper amazing and worth your money. those of you who supported mine and Neil’s last Kickstarter know what i’m talking about here. this CD is gonna be a super-deluxxxxxe work of art.
the neil and kyle books are going to cost us a LOT of dough to create…(edited after speaking with kyle) let’s say about $300/copy for about 100 copies…that’s 30k.if we sell about 100 turntable packages: ordering the tables, paying the artists to paint them, shipping all that stuff around: ballpark another $15k.
arts & crafts/7-inch packages, if we sell about 300 of them, adds about another $30k (we’re planning on spending roughly $100 each on the packaging for those, including not only the vinyl but the fun arts-and-crafts activities. oh, and postage/shipping x5)to take the band on TOUR to six cities and install the art shows is probably going to break even, but if they don’t sell out (looks like some won’t) we might eat it a little bit on that art tour. let’s say we wind up not selling out berlin and LA. we still have to pay to fly the band, gear, art (carefully!!!) and crew to each city. that difference might sink us about $10k.
i’ll be able to wrap some of the house parties into a regular tour, but a lot of them i’m going to need to fly to or otherwise get to. 35 parties. let’s assume i crash on couches and with friends and don’t even stay in hotels…and let’s assume the flights are cheap and i only have to fly to 20 of the 35, with average airfare from place to place being $500. that’s $10k.
so.
now we’re down to $420,000.
i have to pay the VISUAL artists who joined this amazing art party. i commissioned them all to paint their art, they own it. i’m only BORROWING the art for the art gallery tour — and using the “likeness” (the digital copy) for the album/book/etc. packaging – and then returning the art to the artist to keep. still, i paid them all. add another $20-25k there. i feel very good about giving them all that money.
which puts us at $395,000.
this is a good time to talk about commissions (get ready to be bored):
me and my management team are doing this all 100% by ourselves (globally). because this IS the way it should be - putting control back into the artist’s hands - there’s a shit-ton of work involved. this is not a bad thing, i am not complaining, but it means a pretty big staff (including my lawyer) needs to be in place to DO THIS.
they’ll take about 15% of everything.
my business manager, who gets everyone paid and acts as the accountant for all my cashflow, also takes a 5% cut of everything i earn (which is very fair. hi patrick!!!).for you business majors, since you’ll ask: some of this commission is after expense, i.e. on the net. some isn’t. good questions. let’s continue.
so do the % math: on a million dollars, give or take, that means that about $150,000 of the kickstarter money will go to the commission pile.
down to $245,000.
we had budgeted about $80k for four to five music videos, which are fun and we all love (and which also provide work for more of amazing artists). i might up that to $100k now that i know we can afford it.
that’d take us to $145k.
there’s expenses i’m not even TALKING about here…the cost of our new website designers, my full-time staff (i have two: superkate and sean), the tour equipment, band costumes, gear cases, stage backdrops, and gazillion other incidentals. the mind boggles. you should see my email inbox, as we try to sort all this stuff…it’s hilarious.
and wait, fuck….i forgot. kickstarter also takes 5%. and so does Amazon (who handle the credit card processing fees, turning pledges into actual moneys). so we have to lop off $75-100k for them.
(are you starting to get the idea here…?)
are we at under $100k yes? why, yes! how the fuck did THAT happen?
not by accident.
but:
all business choices. all art choices.
none of this is surprising to ME.
i can tell you two things for sure:
ONE…we are committed to doing amazing things for all of you who pledged. sure, it’s going to cost more to make things extra fancy (and for us to ship things for FREE all over the world), but making this stuff amazing IS THE POINT. if i skimped on making the packaging and actual products INCREDIBLE, i’d be an idiot.
and
TWO…a LOT of our income for the next year WON’T COME from this kickstarter. it’ll come gradually, over the following year: from the touring show, from the merchandise we sell on the road, from money we get in donations when i make the tracks available online, from the money i get from iTunes from the people who are sometimes lazy (like me), and so forth. it’ll be a slow burn, like it always is.
if we keep our expenses down, and keep the tour pretty practical and the video budget way down, i could probably put $100k of this in the bank personally. which would be great.
but i might just be close to zero as i head off on tour this fall.
and you know what?
seriously?that’s FINE with me. it’s almost even THE PLAN.
if i break even on this project, i still see this as a massive win. do you see why?
first of all, this kickstarter and its success is going to open the door for a lot of other artists, especially major-label refugees like me.
i’ve never denied the value of getting a boost from the old label system. but that was then, this is now.
and we’re being shown PROOF POSITIVE that it’s just not necessary anymore. paying now for value later is what historically would’ve been a label’s primary purpose. now YOU are able to bankroll and finance and KEEP CONTROL WITH THE ARTISTS. showing that this WORKS…that’s simply great art-karma, and awesome for everybody, including me. and all my art-making friends.
and almost DEFINITELY: all the buzz around this kickstarter will mean the record itself will get more attention when it comes out for real, commercially.
and the record itself is AWESOME. it is. it is awesome. which means i have a feeling it’s going to do really well aside from this pre-order.
and that’ll make me real money when i hit the road in september.don’t forget: i’m CHOOSING to spend all this money making the packages fancy as shit….and i’m CHOOSING to tour this way. EXPENSIVELY.
i could send you all cheap-ass jewel case CDs, fire my staff, make a cheap book on xerox paper, and tour just with a solo piano…with no crew, no band….and RAKE IN THE DOUGH.
i mean: i could potentially do that and walk with close to half a million dollars. but the products would suck and the tour would be a solo piano tour. and nobody would ever trust me again.i’ve been running my life this way for years, bouncing up and down financially and just making sure i always had enough money to do WHAT I WANTED, and do it RIGHT.
it may be what makes me different, fundamentally, from a lot of pop artists. i’m almost never looking at the monetary bottom line, i’m always looking at the creative bottom line. the happiness index of my life and creative self, not the amount of dough i’ll have in the bank at the end of a project. (it can drive a manager crazy.)
so
to answer the question:
yes.
i’m loaded.
loaded with awesomeness.and…no.
in no fucking case scenario do i get a check for $1,000,000 and laugh my way to the bank, then book a private jet to ibiza where a limo filled with hookers and blow will be waiting to escort me to a slamming nightclub called “la uno percento” where i then spend my time contemplating my handsome nose job in the darkened mirrored bathrooms (probably weeping).and you know what else? if i wind up truly loaded someday, it means i’ll probably buy an abandoned church somewhere and turn it into a free 24-hour circus brunch bar for everybody. cross your fucking fingers. we’ll all win.
stay tuned.
this is just the beginning.
we’re all investing, dollar by dollar, pledge by pledge.
investing not just in the future of my little record and band, but in an idea whose time has come.
and this is a good thing.
LOVE,
afp
3 of 98View Previous Comments-
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Katie Narduzzo 1 day ago
Looking forward to the 24 hour circus brunch in a church. Just upped my horrendously-poor-art-student-in-debt contribution of $1 to $5 in the vain hopes of someday having strawberry pancakes served to me by a burlesque firebreather or somesuch at 3am probably somewhere near Harvard Square.
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Mary Hill about 18 hours ago
I HAS A QUESTION!
I figured if I wrote it in caps you might see it easier. SO. Since it looks very unlikely that the art shows will sell out, does that mean that when the kickstarter ends you might put the tickets you set aside for the rock shows would be put back on the market? (since the funders who pay for the art show also will get tickets to the rock show)
sincerely,
student who cannot afford the $300 art show no matter how much she wants to go. -
Lewis butler about 4 hours ago
How high does the kickstarter need to go before you get to takl a check for $1,000,000 on a private check to ibiza? Because, you know, that would be kind of awesome. But circus brunch bar could be cool too. I'm in!
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5 days ago
Amanda Palmer
commented on a projectThomas, shoot me an email and we'll figure it out! sean@amandapalmer.net - thank you so much for your support. Look forward to speaking with you. - Sean (Team AFP)
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6 days ago
Amanda Palmer
Posted project update #4news from the front, plus lots & lots & lots of your questions answered...
HOLA everybody.
on we roll, on we roll!!
the phone's been ringing off the hook and strangers are coming up to me in the street and congratulating me on this whole thing. goddamn.
we're doing something so much bigger than i thought it would be. it's becoming about so much more than me, this record, and you. we're making the whole world take notice of crowdfunding and it's possibilities and it's pretty fucking incredible...especially as i see people starting their own projects inspired by this one, AND getting funding. i'm about to go on NPR tomorrow and spread the word...i'll tweet links when it's airing (so FOLLOW THE TWITTER).
i have something in mind to try and show that to you all. i can't say more (yet) but NYC-area people might want to keep may 31st (our last day of kickstarter) FREE. we're making COUNTDOWN PLANS and we might just be doing something inside your fair city...
not in NY? we'll make sure you're involved, too. make sure you're on the mailing list if you're not, already.i want to thank every single one of you so much for continuing to spread the word about what's going on.you are my megaphone, and the best one i've ever had. at this moment in time, we're at OVER 16,000 backers.
WOW.
i'm glad you all dug "Do It with a Rock Star"....it's one of my favorites.
(if you didn't download it yet, you can grab your copy HERE in the last update)TIJUANA TIJUANA TIJUANA TIJUANA.
watching the internet switchboard light up when we dropped it the other night was like a miracle. and to those of you who UPPED your pledge after hearing it/seeing the new $5 "deluxe" download…thank you. that shit means the world, and we're going to do everything we can to make sure you don't regret it.
THANK YOU.first we hit 14,000 backers…
this one was taken in a hotel philadelphia the night before neil got his honorary doctorate (sharpie-ing care of neil gaiman):
and then 15,000…again, sharpie-ing care of neil gaiman. manpower care of the guys at locust moon comics, philly:
speaking of kyle cassidy, neil and i posed for "the bed song" book while we were in philly.
it was neil's first (semi) naked photoshoot. i'd like to take this moment to say....
i never thought i'd see the day.
he was very brave, neil gaiman was. i made him quote things about bravery from his own books while he lay there, terrified. i think it went ok..............................
i've been spending a huge amount of brain-energy fielding the bad vibes, too. there's a lot of criticism out there, and a lot of questions.
i'm taking my time with that and putting a couple of blogs together with my thoughts about a lot of things...i'll link to them here on kickstarter when they go up.
meanwhile, a bunch of the SUPER-specific questions that have come in are answered BELOW. keep them coming...........................
i'm spending LOTS of time going back and forth with the designer, andrew, about the book/LP/CD layout.
the work is agonizing and the choices impossible, but mostly only because we have SO MUCH GOOD art that it's hard to squeeze everything in.
i did a quick photoshoot with kelly davidson, upstairs here in my home (the cloud club, in boston) and we got some EXCELLENT and weird shots i've been seeing in my head all year. here's a pic of kelly shooting me (snapped by matt savage):
...............................yesterday, i had a twitter flurry of madness with a vibrator company called OhMiBod about possibly adding a last-minute vibrator reward.
they'd sent me a box of free vibrators, and i started joking about how it would be an excellent kickstarter product. one thing led to another.
it's unlikely, but cross your...whatever you cross.
i'll let you know....................................
ALL of the rock show tickets released to the public are GONE.
SOLD OUT.
BLAM, thank you.
you CAN still get a rock show ticket by pledging towards one of the art opening/VIP party rewards, but THOSE are nearly gone, too. they've hit the half-way sold out point. and BERLIN is now BEATING LOS ANGELES. wtf? who knew?
for those of you coming to any of those six gallery shows, we're whipping up some extremely special stuff....getting guest performance artists and acoustic acts to join us, dealing with the galleries to get ALL the art perfectly hung and displayed...
AND
we're working on getting a STRING QUARTET (!) - playing arrangements by grand theft orchestrian JHEREK - with us, in every city.
i've been working with the band to figure gallery-only arrangements of new songs as well as what special, special songs we'll play those nights (and probably never again). i'm sourcing a keytar and we're going to hopefully do a new arrangement of "polly"....
EXCITING. it should all be very very special...................................
somewhere amidst all of this, i'm also preparing CLOTHES.
speaking of which: a note from the costume department!
our hot hot girlfriend - the impeccably fashionable jess daly (@jessdaly) straight outta MELBOURNE oz - has been slaving away for the past two months making THE TOUR COSTUMES.here she is measuring chad:
here's her sketches of our tour costumes (including a head-dress she's building for me out of wire and beads):
…some in-progress photos from melbourne including one of jess' seamstress helper-bee elissa hullah (@dyedough) working on chad's belt (click HERE to enlarge):
AND, drummroll, what will soon be a FRACKIN' KIMONO:
jess has been sewing and building everyTHING from scratch, and now she's four days away from boarding a plane with a mega-suitcase and meeting us all in NYC, where she plans to stay and become an icon (we think she'll be fine. but if you see her couch-surfing on twitter, for gods sake give her a place to sleep. she may also need sewing assistants.).....................................
AND now, to your questions...
Q from Robert Daniels: Why is the "NEIL GAIMAN & KYLE CASSIDY: "THE BED SONG" PHOTOBOOK" so expensive? All other prices look alright to me, but this one I don't understand.OK, you also get the album on CD and Vinyl plus the art book. But you can get the additional items for $175 which means the book costs $825. What the...?
Q from Marygrace DeLucchi: Odds of the Neil/Kyle book being made available anywhere else/anyhow else? Would love it, but pledged to art show 'cause I doesn't has $1000 so easy.
A from Amanda: this is one of those situations where we just hoped people would trust us and know what we put together was going to be worth the money. and people who backed "evening with" and got their packages know we aren't fucking around when it comes to that (but i know a LOT of you who are backing this weren't around for that).as i see neil and kyle working on it with kevin (who works at my management company, girlie action, and handles production-y stuff), i know that it's going to be breathtaking. it's not just "a book"…it's not the type of thing you're going to throw on your coffee table and lose under a magazine, but because we needed to see the actual demand for it, it wasn't something we could just drop thousands of dollars on printing up, and then bite our nails hoping we sold them all. this means we can't show you how awesome it is yet, but i'll tell you what: if your heart says you should have it, we're going to do our best to make you VERY happy when it's done.and this is it. we don't have any plans to release it again, and IF we DID, it would be VERY different and not as amazing. we know it's expensive, but we'd rather make sure we get it right for the people who really, really want it instead of cheapening the whole thing for them and everyone.and to clarify: there is a MAXIMUM of 666 available on kickstarter. if we only sell 100 of them, all that means is that the book will become even more limited. we're not going to print a bunch of extras to sell at a later date, it's just going to be for kickstarter backers, friends, family, and those involved in the photography.
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Q from Kate Steneker: This is so great! I am excited, both to back you and to get a CD! Quick question: I sent my pledge through Amazon, but there was no way to specify the mailing address of the CD. How do I do that? It's different than the billing address.
A from Amanda: don't worry, kate (and you're not the only person who's been worried about this). sorry there's confusion, but amazon has NOTHING to do with the kickstarter except for the fact they process the payments when the project is completed. the way shipping works is thusly: sometime after our project ends (which is may 31st at 11:59pm EST) we'll send a survey out via kickstarter which asks information pertinent to the reward you purchased. if you just pledged $1 for a download code, your survey will basically ask where you want the code emailed in september, whereas if you pledged $300 for the art opening in NYC your survey's going to be more detailed and we'll need to know things like your name for the guestlist, and of course where we should ship your stuff when it's ready. THAT is when/where we get your address. as long as you fill that info out when the time comes, everything will be fine. but please do make sure you fill out that survey when the time comes, k? k. (also, sean set THIS up on the message board so y'all with super weird/specific shipping questions can get help.)
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Q from Lizzie: Does anyone know how to request the vinyl option on the $125 option??? :( Happy Birthday Amanda. you made my whole fucking year!
A from Amanda: this is something that will be sorted out when that aforementioned survey gets sent around. the default for the $125 bundle is CD, but we'll ask people which version of the record they want in the survey. if you're one of the people who pledged an extra $25 to get both the CD and vinyl, just make sure you mention that when you fill it out.
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Q from xolotl: Could we get another backing level which includes both the CD and the Vinyl? I know it might seem a little odd, but I often like to have both.
A from Amanda: we made a deliberate choice not to do à la carte items for the rewards under $100, sorry, it just would've been HELL for our fulfillment people. BUT, as mentioned above, if you want the CD and vinyl, get the $125 bundle and pledge an additional $25 and you'll get both PLUS the amazing art book (which i'll be SIGNING).
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Q from Meghann Pardee: Is the art booklet with the $25+ pledge different than the art book with art by all the different artists?
A from Amanda: sorry for the confusion…the ART BOOK is one thing, the inserts that come with the CD/vinyl are another (they will contain SOME of the art from the art book, but not even close to all of it), and the PDF that comes with the deluxe digital download is gonna be a third kind of thing. and don't forget, EVERYONE who pledges $5+ gets the deluxe digital download booky-thing.
the ART BOOK is a massive collection of all of the pieces, lyrics, interviews, behind-the-scenes stuff related to the ART & ARTISTS, whereas the CD/vinyl/digital will be more MUSIC-centric/photos/thank yous/that type of stuff.__________________
Q from RevGra: Does the DIGITAL DOWNLOAD include the Art Booklet in Digital form? If not I'm certainly willing to add more bucks to get it...
A from Amanda: speaking of…we currently are not planning on releasing the ART BOOK as a standard PDF/ebook. maybe someday, but since it's something i really want people to look at and hold and really let sink in, the book is important. that, and it'd be a better experience to do it as an APP, anyway.
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Q from John Card II: When the dust settles, I'd like to know how many $x pledges were for more than $x. Did we all round up a little bit, or was the price exactly right?
A from Amanda: i think this is a neat idea. i'll try and remember to do a blog here and there as we march onward talking about the business-y side of things, and this would be neat to use as the wrap-up.
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Q from Matthew Hemphill: I would love to see some updates featuring the artists you're working with as well. Since these art shows are going to get a lot of press as well this might even change their lives a little. No matter what though I just want you to keep us all in the loop.
A from Amanda: good call. and we definitely have some fun stuff in store that directly involves the art/artists. stay tuned…
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Q from Daniella Koontz: I love hearing about inspiration behind things. The driving force, the meaning, the emotion. I like hearing about the art of designing things besides the music as well, even down to how you express yourself in a fashion sense. Everything comes from something, and I enjoy hearing about the background behind choices :)
Q from HUGO TORRES: I TOTALLY WANT STORIES AROUND THE SONGS OF THE ALBUM !!! ALSO PLEASE RELEASE DEMOS OR EARLIER VERSIONS OF THE SONGS! ALSO PLEASE RELEASE FULL PHOTOSHOOTS!! ALSO MAKE A MAKING-THE-ALBUM DOCUMENTARY!!! THEN ORGANIZE A ONLY BACKER-BASED VIDEO IDEA AND LET ME BE ON IT LIKED YOU DID ON SING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A from Amanda: daniella/hugo (hi hugo!) and others: this is something a lot of people have asked for this time around. it's interesting, because years ago when i started doing a blog series all about "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" (the plan was that there'd be one blog per song) it just…it didn't get the interest and feedback we expected. i wonder if that means that people are more interested this time around, or maybe it's a different set of fans coming along who care about that type of thing? whatever the case, there's certainly no lack of content for this album, and so we'll figure out the best way to get some of that type of stuff out there amongst it (perhaps the $5 deluxe digital download we just announced).
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Q from Boo: Can I contribute a piece of art to the project?
A from Amanda: FUCK. YES. my whole vision was for the art book to inspire an online gallery that would explode once the record came out. if you do AFP-inspired art, EMAIL IT TO US: art@amandapalmer.net
some of the art in the book IS actually from fans who've done just that over the years and who we asked to be a part of this. you never know, if you send us something, it could end up being something more. or a shirt of the month. or who knows what. but we definitely love to see all of your art, and post something new HERE almost every day.__________________
Q from Ellie: Just pledged my $25 :) I'm in the UK, anyone know if we're gonna have to pay any tax when we receive it? I heard the threshold is £15 and this is slightly over in value. Gonna try and find this out so I can brace myself for any stupid charges!
A from Amanda: we've had a couple of questions similar to this. based on our experience/feedback on "evening with", there's unfortunately no way to know the exact answer as it seems to be pretty arbitrary based on how your local post wants to handle it. it's on our notes to discuss with the fulfillment company that's going to be sending everything all over the world, and we'll do our best to make sure you don't end up having to pay import taxes. if you do, i'm sorry, it's out of our hands.
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Q from Mildred Bain: I really like looking at pictures of you all dressed up and fancy like. Mayhaps you could include a picture or two of you being of you being happy/mopey/grief-stricken/overjoyed in some sort of flamboyant garb? Aside from that little personal request, I think that posting discarded tracks/samples is awesome; love the musicmaker/fan collab idea. I basically just want a way to live vicariously through you as you undertake this amazing process.
A from Amanda: we'll do our best. i'm sure you'll get your fill of pictures when this is all said and done.
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Q from Nik: Personally, I'd like to be updated on shows, progress made, and any videos. And most of all B-SIDES! I know there were probably a lot of great songs that didn't make the final cut and I'd love to have them on my iPod.
A from Amanda: since i just mastered the album the other day, i now know what we we have to work with as extra tracks and i'm coming up with ways in which to get 'em out there into the world. one thing's for sure, kickstarter backers will be rewarded most of all. as for the other stuff, i'm sure i'll be blogging and posting insider-y stuff as we release videos and such.
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Q from Canton Becker: "What kinds of updates would you like to see?"
Post rejected / discarded sounds or tracks or takes from the album and invite us to remix them. Reuse, renew, recycle! Post rejected / discarded sounds or tracks or takes from the album and invite us to remix them. Reuse, renew, recycle!A from Amanda: we don't have anything that's been 'rejected' per se, but we might release some stems for remixers down the line. some of these songs are ripe for reinterpretation, so i'll do my best to put some of them into the wild for all you knob-twiddlers.
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ANYWAY, moving on…
LAST BUT NOT LEAST…
a comment from Chris Cioffi: I signed up for Kickstarter just to do this! Can't wait for the CD and book! So happy that you're blowing the doors off your goal. This really is the future of art, now go forth and be awesome AFP!
From Amanda: thank you, chris.
and THANK YOU ALL!!!
…including sean (aka @indeciSEAN), who co-wrote this text with me and is keeping the kickstarter fires burning while i run around.THIS the FUCKING future, and i shall continue trying to keep you in the loop of how it all works since YOU'RE MAKING IT HAPPEN.
i love you guys.
AF TO THE MOTHAFUCKEN P
that was taken a few hours ago in front of the tallest building in boston…16,000!!!!
p.s. if you dig what's happening here/you liked the song, TELL YOUR FRIENDS & SHARE IT…we added it to my website as a FREE download (in exchange for signing up to the mailing list). link away: http://bit.ly/AFPweb
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Candice Westberg 5 days ago
Thank you for letting us be a part of your journey. I backed your "Evening With..." project and the rewards were awesome! I can't wait to get the art book. Woo hoo!!!! (And, you and Neil were amazing in Portland). Thank you for you!
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Kara 4 days ago
Please please please don't wear a head-dress.
As a Native American and a huge fan of yours (in fact I used to intern for the Post-War Trade working with Beth), this actually made me stop being quite as excited as soon as I read it. The wearing of a head-dress is sacred and must be earned in order for one to have the honor of wearing a head-dress.
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/10/02/indigenous-feminism-and-cultural-appropriation/
Please read this article written about Juliette Lewis' use of a headdress in her band.Also I respectfully ask that you read this link as well:
http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.ca/2010/04/but-why-cant-i-wear-hipster-headdress.htmlThe second link may come across as snarky but only because we are kind of fed up with non-Natives appropriating our culture into fashion accessories or as "tour costumes".
A head-dress is not a tour costume. Please don't wear one.
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on May 16
Amanda Palmer
Posted project update #3the VERY FIRST TRACK!! READY?? plus...other things.
For backers only
If you’re a backer of this project, please
log in
to read this post.
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Luke Campbell 6 days ago
I was one of the luckiest to live in Melbourne when Amanda decided to hold the BEST New Years Eve Party EVER and then do (i think 5) $15 shows at The Northcote Social Club (A inner suburb pub in Melbourne) that showcased Amanda and the GTO's new album.......... IT WAS AMAZING!!! THERE IS SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH MORE TO COME!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HEART AFP XOXO
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Reynaldo Martinez Jr 1 day ago
This ONE song was worth every penny! I'm so psyched about it! I love you AFP.
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on May 15
Amanda Palmer
commented on a projectTanja, please send a message here on Kickstarter, then. I'm sorry you're losing your patience, but the codes have been sent to you. - Sean (Team AFP)
Amanda Palmer
Boston, MA
Piano-slayer, ukulele-freak, singer, writer, blogger, lover, freak, co-founder of the Brechtian Punk Cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, currently readying to release a new album in September 2012 with THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA!!
Damm Jesse, that's strong stuff. Thanks for sharing. Love hearing stories about when art intersects life.
I cry my eyes out ever time I hear the bed song, and I started crying again as I read Neil's blog. I am so happy to be a part of this project. I love supporting such beautiful people- and such beautiful art. The kind of art that seems so personal to so many people. That touches so many hearts. Ever since the first Dresden Dolls album I always felt like Amanda could be singing to me and me alone. Like nobody else in the world could possibly have these feelings and these experiences, and what's amazing is that it's not true. Amanda Palmer brought the world to my door through this amazing community she's created. It's so powerful and important to know that you're not alone. We're NOT alone, and I love each and every one of you that gets it. We all have a piece of the same heart that she touches when she sings. Thank you Amanda. Thank you Neil. I was not expecting to sob my eyes out this morning, or write so emotionally, but I'm glad I did. If I had $1000 it would be yours. It sounds so worthy of every penny, and so beautiful. <3
I cannot wait!!!