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it's def not quite right, is it? easy to say nobody's getting hurt because everybody involved is happy, except the professional horn and string musicians who might lose some work over it. seems like a shitty thing to do.

to post about the time i almost played trombone for her. was vaguely up for doing a london gig just for the fun of it, but her management/team seemed to want people to do her whole UK tour, and for free. when i asked about them sorting out transport to do a couple of the gigs, they stopped replying to emails. might have been coincidental, but when you're asking people to do something for free, i think you should be a bit more polite.

i thought it would have been fun to do because she's very charismatic and has very keen fans and the atmosphere would be good, but in retrospect its pretty muggy to do stuff like this for free without a very good reason

(if this hadnt been exactly what the thread was about, i would have gone into much less detail)

funny how she has the nerve to post an article about how it's unsustainable for touring musicians to continue, and then she goes on to deprive other touring musicians (the people she could have paid to play in her band) because she doesn't feel like it. the idea that she needs close to one million dollars to record an album is fucking absurd, i know it can easily cost more but you're supposed to work with what you have, not beg people to pay your credit card bills and sit in a fancy studio for a few months.

a few years ago...for Prefix, I think. The story presented her comments as this noble artist bucking the status quo, gonna take her art directly to her fans...and I remember reminding myself not to editorialize...cos something seemed creepy and weird about it. *shrugs*

http://www.electricalaudio.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=60267&p=1545452#p1545452

her vocal on the rerecord of the flaming lips cover of the first time ever i saw your face is, imho, fucking great:
http://vimeo.com/48139630
(contains her nekkid, work people)

I had been put off by her after I saw her gig at Electric Ballroom a few years ago where she stopped the gig for a good 15 minutes to hold an auction and wouldn't carry on playing until people made bids on various items. Because that's obviously why people have paid money to come and see you Amanda. She has such an elevated opinion of herself its repulsive. Dresden Dolls only released 1 decent record anyway.

and say that I do not believe for one minute that Amanda Palmer's intention is to exploit anyone. I'm in work now and don't have the time to expand on this fully - will do that tonight.

Leadbelly's "Where did you sleep last night", Chili Peppers' "Under The Bridge" and that "Livin' In A Box" song every single night of the tour and dedicate it to the cretins she calls a backing band.

She's like a tech-savvy Courtney Love crossed with the rabid, affluent fans of Tori Amos. I want to compare it to Kristin Hersh, who is one of the best things ever. She doesn't make any bones about writing about her family being close to on the breadline but she comes up with the good again and again and I have no qualms about giving a few quid to whatever kickstarter she is running. Her fans even volunteered money one time when her tour van broke and they hadn't made enough on that tour to fix it. Give her a tenth of what palmer has scrounged up and not only will she live on it, she'll make another great record.

but I don't see a problem with local dopes jumping up on stage with a trombone for five minutes if they're up for it.

(The notion that she can't afford 35k for a whole tour when the kickstarter raised £1.2m is bogus. I also can't believe people willingly paid her anything given she used it for £250k of personal debt).

But this is more exploitation. I think the idea of getting musicians to come and play a gig with an artist they like is a great idea if it's like a one off experience, but this literally just seems like she can't be fucked to pay them. And the £1.2m Kickstarter campaign is insane, obviously her fans are morons.

but c'mon, no-one is forced to buy her records and play for nothing. People are getting way too precious about this. She's an artist earning a living. I don't see the problem.

Kickstarter isn't for making charitable donations, it's not JustGiving. You give money, you get art back, which you presumably thing is worth what you paid.

People giving her abuse need to get a life.

Haven't bought the new one yet, but I will, definitely. There are some really silly comments on this thread.

can Neil not chip in a couple of quid?

because what she does with the money is really none of anyone's business.

bastard. subverting the idea of existing 'outside the industry' to simply treat yourself to an easy life is pretty much the most disgusting thing i can think of in musical terms at this point in time. it's no wonder albini's disgusted with her. she's a terrible fake and all those who buy into it are questionable at best.

1. I think this thread highlights that most people perceive sites like Kickstarter to be for funding a project http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines

2. I don't think anyone thinks it costs $1.2million to record and manufacture an album.

3. I personally felt like she diminished a lot of her talk of the bizniz changing and artists being able to fend for themselves, when she signed to Cooking Vinyl.

4. It seems a bit 'odd' that she raised all that money, yet can't afford to tour.

5. It seems a bit 'odd' that she signed a record deal, and hasn't done what every other band does and asks their label for tour support to cash flow a tour in lieu of receiving fees from promoters and selling merch, etc.

6. It seems like there are a few of double-standards flying around.

money-grabber i'm annoyed at. it's that she pretends, simultaneously to be 'all about the fans'...all this talk of high fives and hugs and delivering straight to her people... the hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Nice tits and rug, but she really should've shaved her pits.

Asking her fans to pay off her debt, give her a couple of hundred k in pocket money, pay for an album, and then play her tour for her free of charge?

Bahahaha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awK0NrgHUbk

...would anybody in this thread that

a) says she is doing something wrong here, either with the Kickstarter or the live shows (and they're two completely distinct things, which is confusing a lot of people) and
b) regularly illegally downloads music for nothing

...kindly put a "this" on this post?

Is she looking for a singer too?

this brilliant bit of manipulation from the blog in which she explains where the kickstarter money goes:

"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."

horrendous.

which is fine, the fact that they willingly donated 1.2m is completely fine. but considering that she had to later explain that 250k went to personal debts, i'm guessing she wasn't clear about that upfront, which is crystal clear exploitation, no matter how you want to justify it.

but really it's not so much about whether she deserves the 1.2m, more that what she's done with the money isn't really consistent with her 'struggling to make ends meet artist' thing that she tries to convey. think how far 1.2m COULD stretch, it's enough to record a dozen albums and sustain yourself for a few years, if the money is really about allowing you to make as much music as you can. you work with what you have, not what you think you should have.

-- kickstarter also takes 5%. and so does Amazon (who handle the credit card processing fees, turning pledges into actual moneys) --

So they made a bunch out of it! :D

http://spinalbap.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/amanda-palmer-demands-trombone-player.html

don't most bands at some point in their career play for nothing except beer money? Don't you do this because you enjoy playing, and building a career from it is an incredibly rewarding bonus? Lots of people do lots of things for free imply because they enjoy them. Not having a go at sean, but I assume DiS writers aren't paid. Is this damaging journalism because there are career writers out there losing out?

good work virgins

she should say it's an unpaid internship opportunity.

There are loads of people out there who think there's some sort of magical difference between volunteering and unpaid internships. She'd have people queuing up to be /interns/ innit. Problem solved.

and paid off the recording costs and living allowances using the pre-order money.

Now she's asking local fans for each show if they want to play her songs on stage, not offering payment but I guess free entry to the show, merch, beer and if you're a fan of her music probably a pretty great experience.

I really don't see a problem with this. She's obviously manipulated her fairly fortunate situation to her advantage, but she's evidently worked damn hard to get where she is and if her setup helps her to sustain herself purely through making records and touring, then I really don't see what anyone is complaining about.

Seems a lot of people aren't really getting all of the details before commenting and are making judgements because KickStarter, despite her basically using it as a pre-order store, comes across as a bit 'slice the pie'/'sponsor my charity run' and has an odd, desperate kind of small-time vibe.

Never heard her music.

But then do a Lisa Simpson during the actual performance

Hypocritical as she might be...she's really only asking for volunteers...as in, "to volunteer"-- you don't have to do it if you don't want to.

If I was a fan, knew how to play the trombone, there wasn't anything really good on telly...I'd probably want to do it.

Beer, merch...actually, in legal terms, this is a form of compensation. Not much, but you know, in legal terms...

And despite Alcxxk's argument, it is experience. And anyone in the music biz will tell you that building relationships with the in-crowd will help advance your own career.

I find her eyebrows more offensive in retrospect.

I have to say I'm glad I've never heard of her.

I think it would be fine if it was just different people turning up at different gigs each night, probably quite a good experience for the a fan, but more than that without paying and its taking advantage, she definitely shouldnt expect people to do a whole uk tour without paying costs/travel at the very least.

didnt the wrens do a 5th member thing, how did that work?

On the one hand, Amanda Palmer is clearly a cunt; on the other hand, anyone who enables her is an idiot, and how else can we remove idiots from the gene pool if not by letting them waste their money and watching them die on the streets? Feel special, Palmerite. Feel special.

/thread.

Now I'm not a musician, so maybe it's easier than I think it is. But if you get a bunch of musicians together who have never met before, and get them to do a single rehearsal, then give them free beer, before letting them play an entire gig on the same day, well, isn't there a danger that they'll be a bit...er...crap?

An interview with Steve Albini about the whole issue:

http://www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk/features/interview-steve-albini.html

Particularly like this answer:

Part of Amanda’s defence of her scheme seems to be that, simply, many fans would jump at the chance to play with their favourite musicians for no money — does this argument seem fair?

On the part of the fans, I totally understand and sympathize with this impulse. That’s starkly different from a millionaire asking people to do things for free, under the guise that she is giving them something by indulging them. It’s cheapness repainted as generosity and it’s gross. Using people in this way, exploiting their good nature for one’s own benefit, is a cancer that taints many enterprises and it always reflects poorly on the exploiter. It’s one of the things I hated most about the old-school record business, the practice of fucking with people who loved music so much they would put up with endless greed and abuse just to be a part of it. A new music business paradigm, if it is worth anything, should strive to be free of exploitation and be honest about its motives.

http://www.collapseboard.com/blogs/its-amanda-palmer-day-here-at-collapse-board/

They print a long and interesting comment there from someone defending Amanda Palmer to some degree.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/5-reasons-why-amanda-palmer-should-pay-her-volunte

especially this bit (this is a quote, you know how quotes go on this site)

-
5.
It Sets A Bad Precedent
"If my fans are happy and my audience is happy and the musicians on stage are happy, where's the problem?," Palmer asks in the New York Times article about her tour. It's a good point, and it highlights the important point that she's not making anyone work for free, and the guest musicians are glad to volunteer their time and effort. But if this model for touring becomes more popular, it opens the door for widespread exploitation of musicians, and drives down a sense of value attached to musicians performing live. Music industry pundits like to point out that if artists can't make money off recorded music, they can still potentially make money by playing live. Is it actually a good and progressive idea to support a model that keeps musicians from getting paid for that too?
-

nope!

"if anybody understands my philosophy and the complicated collision of art, commerce and asking for help…it's the folks at National Public Radio...
and goddamn….i couldn't have run into a better person [than Emily White]. we went to a bar after the show and got to talk a little.
no doubt about it: my band has hit a DEEP, PAINFUL cultural nerve.
many musicians and artists are SCARED right now. the economy is sucking. traditional record sales are plummeting. digital content is rampantly freely shared (and many artists like me are encouraging people to share and copy). big, previously untouchable musical institutions and symphony halls are shutting down. a lot of musicians fear for their livelihoods…and fear often breeds hate and anger. a lot of musicians really don’t know where their next paychecks are going to be coming from.
and everyone has a different approach. this is the nerve we’ve struck. and i am a really convenient target at the moment."

such a narcissistic cunt, jheeeeeez

because that would be better than arnold palmer

before this, obviously.

"for better or for worse, this whole kerfuffle has meant i’ve spent the past week thinking hard about this, listening to what everyone was saying and discussing. i hear you. i see your points. me and my band have discussed it at length. and we have decided we should pay all of our guest musicians. we have the power to do it, and we’re going to do it. (in fact, we started doing it three shows ago.)

my management team tweaked and reconfigured financials, pulling money from this and that other budget (mostly video) and moving it to the tour budget. ?all of the money we took out of those budgets is going to the crowd-sourced musicians fund. we are going to pay the volunteer musicians every night. even though they volunteered their time for beer, hugs, merch, free tickets, and love: we’ll now also hand them cash."

It is a positive thing i think, yet it seems that had there not been such an uproar then it'd not have crossed her mind at all. The comments later clearly show that.

My word.

Two of my younger colleagues have been harping on about this all week in the staff room. I thought it was that nice lady from New Tricks! I have a read a little about it and I don't think it's my kind of thing. Good luck to her though!

http://tunewaffle.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/26/

Have a look if you like

for a person who interacts with fans far better than most artists, and has thus far left behind a body of excellent albums. And the one thing that was perhaps a bit misjudged, she acknowledged and fixed. Some people need to lighten up a lot.