amanda palmer's open poem to jonathan chait (and other crimes)

just listened to this, fuckin' A is this aggravating music kickstart my balls

basically this seems like a pretty gross move but doesn't seem like that big of a deal overall, and the reaction to it is kind of gross too because if it was someone other than amanda palmer (i.e. someone with cred) doing it i doubt the response would be as venomous

I wish it was someone higher profile! Like Bono and U2, that'd be great.

Well you know n/a there are some teachers that are on strike too right now and some people describing them as whiners also

She also didn't, I'm assuming, get professional musicians, she got somewhat skilled amateurs. Which is a difference

From her own post:

http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/20120821/

you need to know how to ACTUALLY, REALLY PLAY YOUR INSTRUMENT! lessons in fifth grade do not count, so please include in your email some proof of that (a link to you playing on a real stage would be great, or a resume will
do. just don’t LIE…you’ll be embarrassed if you show up for rehearsal and everyone’s looking at you wondering why you can’t actually play the trombone.)

If all she's looking for is "somewhat skilled amateurs", why is she asking interested people to have a performance resume or proof of yourself playing to an audience on a stage in order to do it?

Not even going into the "they're amateurs, they must have made mistakes" thing because that's not even relevant to this argument.

Well you know n/a there are some teachers that are on strike too right now and some people describing them as whiners also

― nabiscuits otm (Ówen P.), Thursday, September 13, 2012 4:40 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think we've hit our quota on the use of the phrase "apples and oranges" in this thread or i'd respond to this

just listened to this, fuckin' A is this aggravating music kickstart my balls
don't think i've ever written this before but irl lol

Owen P., what do you think are the biggest lies in that kickstarter run-down?

like, a "somewhat skilled amateur" could tape themselves playing in the bedroom, if she REALLY just wanted to make sure ppl had a rudimentary grasp of their instruments, but that's rather conspicuously NOT what she asked for

NO ONE asks for a performance resume from amateur musicians unless they're being asked to produce professional output.

I'm guessing she would just play with her stripped-down band, but since she had the option of adding a bunch of talented fans she went with that.

I actually disagree. I think to even have the idea you want strings and horns means you've already thought about the arrangement for the songs, and if you suddenly lose half your "band", you don't just decide to change all the arrangements, when it would be a quick, albeit more expensive solution to just get some more players. Cheap ones even, college students, etc.

That's the thing about this -- it's not like it would be *that* expensive for her to hire, say, 5 more players cheaply and bring them along. What you lose by doing that (other than a little money) is all the PR working w/new people in each city. After this tour, she'll have worked with dozens of new musicians, each of whom is apparently happy enough to play for free w/her. Maybe they do it again? Maybe they network w/their friends and tell them what a cool person AP is. (and full disclosure, I know the guys she worked with last time she was in SF, and they have helped her network w/players in other cities)

@ n/a I'm sorry, again, if I'm winning the game of Who's The Biggest Asshole. But I make music on a pay-what-you-can basis, I'm rewarded 95% of the time. Sometimes it's "a fat cheque" and other times it's "an archival recording and a hug" but it's always rewarding. The other 5% of the time it's talented musicians who are also grifters. And, as Sund4r mentioned upthread, there isn't really any method of protecting oneself from these grifters except internet chatter.

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/7aced6fd1013cc9fdc7288d0dde7faae/o184889.jpg

Re: the teachers' strike maguffin, it was actually a reaction to the "her music sucks" and "how much should she really make anyway" talk because it reminded me of this article http://coreyrobin.com/2012/09/12/why-people-do-hate-teachers-unions-because-they-hate-teachers/

ugh, this is the part that annoys me most about that breakdown:

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.

no one cares that you decided not work for the last 8 months, and if the kickstarter had 'only' made $100k, she wouldn't have been like, "thanks guys, i paid off my debts! now i'm going to make the record in garageband and do a solo tour via greyhound bus!"

many xps

also and this was mentioned upthread, she's married to neil gaiman, who is wealthy? right? so fuck her and her $35k

haha okay I guess we REALLY have nothing new to say about this

but 95% of band-related kickstarters seem like lazy, entitled approaches w/inflated budgets to me. this is the same thing on an insane scale.

xp

you need to know how to ACTUALLY, REALLY PLAY YOUR INSTRUMENT! lessons in fifth grade do not count, so please include in your email some proof of that (a link to you playing on a real stage would be great, or a resume will
do. just don’t LIE…you’ll be embarrassed if you show up for rehearsal and everyone’s looking at you wondering why you can’t actually play the trombone.)

Reading this tips it. She really does seem to be looking for professional competence. (Dominique's point is pretty salient too.)

She strikes me as too idealistic to be a grifter (though of course that is the ultimate level of grifterdom), but she may be surrounded by sharks who can hear "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." being typed from half a continent away.

Haha on the other hand "oh yeah I have lovely creditors who have let me run up $250k of debt which this Kickstarter target doesn't even cover" might push the needle back over to grifter.

Great Cthulhu, the rest of this year is going to suck eggs if every artist now has to issue an editorial response every time Albini, Palmer, Lowery, Lefsetz, or an NPR intern says something.

IIRC, the Dresden Dolls have always relied upon fans to bolster up the circus cabaret part of their show and I believe that from Palmer's POV, this tour isn't any different. There's absolutely a lot of jealousy embedded in this current backlash - are there any articles that don't refer to her now as "Amanda Palmer, Kickstarter Millionaire?" The musician union hasn't criticized Green Day for perpetually hauling people out of the audience to play with them on stage. Perhaps Louis C.K. should be picketed for doing everything himself - he's putting important writers and editors out of work! Do I now have to worry about being called a scab every time I help out a friend?

What bothers me greatly is seeing how the Web 2.x economic model (pump-and-dump venture capital, unpaid labor disguised as "great career exposure," royalties paid in useless stock options) has muscled in on the old system. In no way do I want to go back to the old days, but it bears repeating that crowdsourcing A&R may not be your best entertainment value. Maybe Palmer can pay her backing band in TED conference tickets?

(accumulated x-posts in there)

Dude, the thread is basically fractal at this point - you can read any ten posts and they'll have rebuttals to that.

I was in a band over the past few years which had like 14 members, costume changes, dancers on stage, toured in a school bus. They were all drama students and art students and whenever i brought up "Where is this money going?" they attacked me and went on and on about how they weren't doing it for the money and there's something wrong with me if i need to rely on them to pay my bills. Needless to say i quit.

the reaction to it is kind of gross too because if it was someone other than amanda palmer (i.e. someone with cred) doing it i doubt the response would be as venomous

^^^^this is what is really turning me back towards Amanda Palmer at this point because no matter what my feelings are about her work, I think that some people ITT are really being quite nasty about her in a totally uncalledfor kind of way.

The thing is, I don't think it's unreasonable, what she asked for. "Provide some kind of proof you can play an instrument" is not that great of an expectation, considering people are presumably going to be paying something for this performance and should be able to expect it not to totally suck.

The whole "learn the song and turn up for soundcheck" - I mean, that is just basic courtesy if you are sitting in with anyone's band! Both to the pseudo-session player and the artist! It's the barest minimum, even if you're a volunteer. If I were getting paid for a gig, I'd expect at least 2 full rehearsals and a soundcheck. Even on the gigs where I've done something as little as backing vocals for kicks or for free, turning up for a run-through at soundcheck is a bare minimum. I can't believe that even a professional musician would be OK with just turning up and getting onstage without so much as a run-through, let alone an amateur.

And once you get into slagging off who a woman is married to, and the whole "she made Neil Gaiman jump the shark and suck now!" this really isn't anything to do with music or musicians union fees at all any more, so you can fuck right off.

Albini, Palmer, Lowery, Lefsetz, or an NPR intern

The Traveling Wilburys 2.0

so they all had rich parents, huh?

xp to adam

I was in a band over the past few years which had like 14 members, costume changes, dancers on stage, toured in a school bus. They were all drama students and art students and whenever i brought up "Where is this money going?" they attacked me and went on and on about how they weren't doing it for the money and there's something wrong with me if i need to rely on them to pay my bills. Needless to say i quit.

Other than that, how was life in GWAR, anyway?

"Provide some kind of proof you can play an instrument" is not the same thing as "send an artistic resume or video of yourself onstage playing to an audience".

"A list of gigs you've played or a video of a gig" is really not that massive an ask to provide.

The thing is, I don't think it's unreasonable, what she asked for. "Provide some kind of proof you can play an instrument" is not that great of an expectation, considering people are presumably going to be paying something for this performance and should be able to expect it not to totally suck.

The whole "learn the song and turn up for soundcheck" - I mean, that is just basic courtesy if you are sitting in with anyone's band! Both to the pseudo-session player and the artist!

No one is saying that these are unreasonable expectations, just that if you expect professional-level competence, the honourable thing to do is to pay someone accordingly.

She strikes me as too idealistic to be a grifter (though of course that is the ultimate level of grifterdom), but she may be surrounded by sharks who can hear "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." being typed from half a continent away.

Based on this interview she strikes me as Dame Darcy + "The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People."

(That distinguishes this from the Flaming Lips example.)
xpost to self

"has been on a stage before" != "professional-level competence."

Yeah, rich parents. Not that they all had rich parents, but the one in ultimate control did, and it showed. And DIY artists tend to be really great enablers for that type of behavior, as we are seeing here.

I was in a band over the past few years which had like 14 members, costume changes, dancers on stage, toured in a school bus. They were all drama students and art students and whenever i brought up "Where is this money going?" they attacked me and went on and on about how they weren't doing it for the money and there's something wrong with me if i need to rely on them to pay my bills. Needless to say i quit.

Sounds similar to the way a cult works. Or Burning Man.

WCC, can you provide specific examples of the uncalled for personal attacks on AP you've read itt? Other than a misguided comment someone made about how she affected Gaiman's work (as you noted), I really didn't get a feel for that kind of thing going on.

"has been on a stage before" != "professional-level competence."

Hm, perhaps I was reading more into that than I should have. I do think Dominique's point is a good one.

How can something like this not be personal though? There's no nice way to say someone is behaving dishonorably without calling them a dishonorable person.

Well that's an issue of semantics but I'd infinitely prefer to describe a person as "has cancer" instead of "cancerous"

"Other than that, how was life in GWAR, anyway?"

i actually knew one of the guys who started gwar. he worked at a prosthetics company down the road from me and i saw him all the time. he was very bitter about gwar and gwar money/rights/credit.

The Pete Best of GWAR!

"A list of gigs you've played or a video of a gig" is really not that massive an ask to provide.

And $50 - $100 isn't unreasonable to ask as compensation for your talent.

I admittedly know a disproportionate number of conservatory kids but the vast majority of them who would have regular gigging experience on non-rock instruments would not do this.

Distant xpost to Dan (I think?) but I brought up her take-home as compared to teachers not to say that teachers are getting paid too much but that I don't really consider $65,000 a year a shit-load of money. Maybe it is compared to what I make, and certainly it is compared to average salaries in America, let alone to the 20% of Americans living on $20,000 for a family of four, but really, $65,000 is not Scrooge McDuck swimming in cash loot. It's a very good living for a moderately popular act, which she has earned through years of work, and frankly if that's all she's making I'm shocked, given her profile. But this is no whatever the name of that band was that audaciously wrote a much-mocked Op ed about how expensive it is to be a hot young new band living in NYC. Palmer seems to work pretty hard (unless you don't consider what she does hard work at all, in which case, bring it up with the full-time touring musicians on the board) and she's entitled to make money any way she can. It's hardly exploitative to take volunteer fan musicians and put them on on stage, no more than it would be to ask fans to help carry equipment to the van.

BTW, I saw Springsteen twice last weekend, and both times the asshole brought some kid on stage to sing part of a shitty song while he took a break. Child labor, past their bedtime and not even paid! The nerve of the dick. For what he makes he really should be shelling out some clams.

And $50 - $100 isn't unreasonable to ask as compensation for your talent.

Yeah, this makes sense to me if you're asking for even a reasonable level of competence (as opposed to just a fan shouting into a mic or somesuch).

can you provide specific examples of the uncalled for personal attacks on AP you've read itt?

http://twitter.com/#!/search/amanda%20palmer%20sucks

Why is everyone acting like the money left over from her Kickstarter is definitively the only money she's making this year? She's not even halfway through her tour yet; she could lose or gain much more still.

Also, in her own words, she said she'd be happy to break even on this; currently she is $100K ahead and still short on musicians for her tour, claiming she can't afford them. The numbers don't actually add up with the rhetoric.

If her whole thing had been "I want to network with and reward fans with an experience" rather than "I can't afford $35K" this would be an entirely different conversation.

She should have held a contest/auditions for fans to comprise her band, then taken a group of them on the road for a while. And paid them. That would have been pretty cool, too, like some old school MTV contest.

http://twitter.com/#!/search/amanda%20palmer%20sucks

Oh, sorry, let me explain that itt = in this thread.

Did Bruce have the fan send in audition tapes & resume, show up early for rehearsal? Bring an expensive instrument that may be in danger of getting messed w at a rock concert?

No, the dude just grabbed the poor kid out of the crowd! Conscription!

there's a difference between a magician spontaneously asking a fan to come on stage to be part of an act and asking the fan to be the leggy assistant that actually secretly performs the trick, and asking for vetted backup instruments does feel more in the leggy assistant category.