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

@ n/a that's the AFM's definition

fwiw, the $1.2 million she raised on kickstarter is also not "her income"

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/amandas-million

this claims her take-home was $100,000 (which, again, is basically her take-home from the sales of a record, so I don't understand the purpose of using it as a base for determining whether she can afford to spend money on horn players on a tour).

if she's using the kickstarter money for her tour she should have budgeted in the cost of musicians

A big portion of my ire goes towards the people that are leaping at this "opportunity" in the same way I get irked by architects that trip over themselves to get unpaid "internships" at hip firms just for the resume entry and only encouraging the idea that what we do isn't worth being paid for.

I guess it's not entirely clear to me what people think should be done about these situations. Do we want labour legislation to prohibit internships or unpaid gigs? Should we just use the Internet to publicly shame people who choose to offer these opportunities? How would we determine fair compensation for something like this? Whatever the musicians' unions demand? Clearly, Palmer is offering a market rate if people are willing to go for this deal. I'm no free marketeer but I'm actually curious how we'd decide this. What if someone has less money to start out with than Palmer does in the first place? Is it OK for them to pay musicians less?

Btw, afaict, the situation is even worse for composers than it is for performers. At US festivals, it is not uncommon that composers whose works are selected for performance have to pay a fee to have their work performed. Are composers owed a salary or stipend for their work as well?

many xposts I'm not trying to be a dick. I really respect what Owen and DJP and everyone has to say. These are just the questions that this raises for me. I'm not even saying that this isn't a douchey thing to do!

i generally think she's full of shit and the press about her is embarrassing (though unsurprising given that the bulk of her cheerleaders come from the tech press, which never saw a bubble manifestation it didn't think was the second coming of christ) but come ON, the woman has money. this is pt barnum level bullshit under the guise of 'fun'

I'm in a very different boat to Owen, being a perennial no-hoper in the music world - most of what I do I make no money from, if anything I lose money from making music - so I do have sympathy for people who are responding to this positively. If you really like Palmer's work you'd probably be made-up to get to play with your hero. But basically he is OTM - don't cry poor when everyone knows you're not, don't be all "fuck paying a band", don't get your army of fans to do REAL WORK and not pay them, have a little respect for other people, don't be a dickhead.

is there a link to the actual kickstarter thing where she went into the detail, as mentioned in Hurting's link?

So I take it none of you have ever illegally downloaded a record, since music has so much true value that is unrecognized only by exploiters like Amanda Palmer

yes jon back up at the top of the revive

umm i'm not raking in $1.2 million by claiming that what i'm doing is the future, so your analogy doesn't really hold

I guess it's not entirely clear to me what people think should be done about these situations. Do we want labour legislation to prohibit internships or unpaid gigs? Should we just use the Internet to publicly shame people who choose to offer these opportunities? How would we determine fair compensation for something like this? Whatever the musicians' unions demand? Clearly, Palmer is offering a market rate if people are willing to go for this deal. I'm no free marketeer but I'm actually curious how we'd decide this. What if someone has less money to start out with than Palmer does in the first place? Is it OK for them to pay musicians less?

These are all good questions! I don't know the answers either. I brought up the architect thing because when I was laid off and looking for work, it was really disheartening to see so many people leap all over these unpaid internships that made it more and more difficult for me to find a paying job. I understand the benefits of internships for people just coming out of school or even still in school, but I knew licensed architects over 35 that had been working paid positions for many years that took unpaid internships at a big firm because it would be "cool". I mean, I guess good on them if their lifestyle allows them to be able to do that, but it ultimately does the whole profession a disservice by not advocating that we should be paid for our work.

But thats a digression fit for a different thread, so I'll end the rant there.

yes jon back up at the top of the revive

Thanks, wasn't sure if those kickstarted pages stayed up after completion.

So I take it none of you have ever illegally downloaded a record, since music has so much true value that is unrecognized only by exploiters like Amanda Palmer

apples, meet oranges

Also a vast difference in structural make-up of those two issues (theft vs exploitation, consumer vs capitalist).

xposts to Maura & Hurting

Branca...

That's an interesting one, along with 77 drummers... I was gonna say the Network too, but I think Networkers do get paid...

Branca...

Yes, this was in my mind throughout this discussion: no one got paid to play in the premiere of Symphony 13. Was this exploitative?

xpost

So I take it none of you have ever illegally downloaded a record, since music has so much true value that is unrecognized only by exploiters like Amanda Palmer

hahaha have you ever seen me on any of the downloading discussions, I'm assuming no

Boadrum 77 was a free event

Was 77 drummers a free thing though? Don't remember. I think I'd classify that as more of an "art installation" type of one-time event, which puts it in a vastly different category from Palmer's touring, from which she will be making money at each stop.

True, true, valid point about it being free. Also the 'one-off' nature does make it very different - it's not an integral part of the structure of your tour.

Yeah, tbf, the Hallucination City premiere was free for the audience too. I'm not sure that Branca made much money from it.

I was really upset twenty minutes ago and I apologize to anybody for getting so animated. I'm thinking right now about Taylor Swift having her dopey band featured so prominently in her video and feeling real good about that.

Also 77 was an attempt to make something much vaster in scale than regular touring conditions would allow. Palmer is looking for a regular size backup band.

Isn't she looking for horns and strings, without taking those players on the road? And also giving the audience a different thrill than watching a pro touring band?

To get back to Hurting's point a little, no matter the actual economics behind her Kickstarter thing, it makes it a little hard for people to swallow this "poor me, I can't afford $35k for musicians" when she just, mere months ago, made headlines all over the internet for making $1.2 million. I think the perception of this is why there is so much virtiol from certain quarters.

If somebody gave me or DJP or anybody I know $1.2 million I'd hire every musician I know and we'd tour forever

this tour would be so fucking fly

It feels like a situation similar to when a band has musician-friends in a particular city who suit the music being played, as in: hey, come sit in with us on these songs, or sing I Shall Be Released, or if you want to watch the show that's cool too? She's just extended it to her cyber-friends, as I hope ILXors will do on the forthcoming LULU tour.

I have to say that my attitude towards the not-paying-musicians thing has definitely got harsher the more I read about her other antics. It's just building up a picture of general douchebaggery that I wouldn't necessarily have assumed from this single story.

Everybody knows those early days of gigging where it's negotiating cab fare / fuel costs. Most like "prominent bands" still have to worry about that shit, you know, thinking of other thread where Thee Oh Sees are somehow "overrated". But when the cheques start coming in and your income is no longer "one of subsistance" you've got to start taking care of those around you. Even when I'm not feeling like Green Day are my cup of tea, they pay for their crew's dental plan so they are 100% awesome in my book.

I think the lack of regulations or mechanisms in place to protect amateur musicians (i.e. non-Unionized ones) is kind of exciting and awesome. It gives musicians like Amanda an opportunity to Choose How To Act. Should I start a Kickstarter? Should I hire a band of my friends? Should I hire some dudes with chops? Should I collaborate with my fans or should I have them work for beer and hugs? What should I do with this money? Not having the Union involved and instead having it be an intangible Choose Your Own Adventure makes these choices an extension of her art practice. As such, they should be judged as art... by articles in the NYTimes, Tumblr comments, ILM threads...

xp to aero I would bring you along too but your rider requirements are kind of steep, we can do you a roomful of kittens but we cannot do a bathtub of Nivea

this is the jandek tour model. people don't get paid to play with him, do they? and he puts out live cds and doesn't even include people's names on the cd. but nobody ever called jandek an asshole.

Don't think this has been posted yet... Steve Albini weighs in.

xpost I thought they did get paid, actually?

Jandek, you asshole!
lol-ing at the idea of a Jandek kickstarter.

i have long ago given up trying to convince amateur musicians that they should be paid for their time so i honestly cant get all riled up about this. i mean why should i care if these dudes are getting screwed by amanda palmer or by a bar owner paying 4 bands with 3 drink tickets each while their friends pay a cover and buy drinks?

Wait, I'm a little late here and confused. Did Elvis Costello force some amateur musician to kill himself onstage while listening to Amanda Palmer?

i do get the loss of revenue for the potential touring musicians, obv

elvis costello made fun of ray charles' eyebrow tats once, big scandal

people acting like she is taking advantage of the peeps that actually play on these dates however are missing the point imo

even if jandek's ppl don't get paid i don't imagine it involves much more for them than turning up on the day and playing along with whatever vibe he's feeling on that particular night. (same kind of arrangement with damo suzuki's network, i guess?)

Elvis Costello crowdsourced his first few albums from his band and Nick Lowe, true story.

eyebrow tats

I've been meaning to ask. Is there a good explanation of these somewhere?

i mean on the one hand if amanda palmers utilikilt steam punk fans want to play her shitty songs with her in exchange for a beer its fine with me as long as i dont have to be anywhere near it, on the other hand creating a precedent for something like this devalues the labor of musicians the same way huffington post and all the other blog-for-free-for-exposure sites devalue my the labor of my profession. obv there are big differences in the structures of these industries and maybe youre hard line enough to say tough shit but it bugs me even outside the fact that my job is implicated, insofar as reducing the minimum salary to "free" generally means shittier work from everyone all around

Oh man Albini's "view" is the first thing today that's made me consider swinging back over to Palmer's side (but not really).

As usual its not that Albini is wrong, its more that he has to word his proclamations in the douchiest way possible and his fanboys lap up every word as if gospel.

Lol, yes. I think he is kind of right, but he's a dick.

^^ otm

Isn't he kind of like those right wingers who say that the only people who can't find jobs are idiots with no qualifications or something? There's no question the traditional business model of making music is totally different from what it once was. Doesn't make her an idiot for finding a way to make money from an enterprise no longer built to do so. And sure, Palmer could do what she does and be poor or take a day job or whatever, but coming from someone like Albini, who is not poor and whose day job is rather rarified, it's a bit rich to point fingers, isn't it? One way or another, the only way a musician makes a living is to convince people to give them money.

She wouldn't be poor if she paid her workers, though.

not that i'm defending AP, but didn't the walkmen do a similar thing where they got local horn players in every town to be their horn section? can't remember if they got paid...one of my friends played trombone with them at the lollapalooza gig, i'll have to ask him.