Home
Artists
Search
Recent
Random
Posts
DMs
Tags
Random
Importer
Import
FAQ
Account
Register
Favorites
Login
Happy Sunday, a Heart That's Full Up Like a Landfill, and Bruises That Won't Heal. (Patreon)
Content
Hello My Loves.
I owe you other posts, but, yeah. Happy Sunday.
I've been reading your comments on yesterday's off-kilter Thing-Move post, and I'm responding to many of your heartfelt posts and personal sharings, and at the very least, I am certainly reading them all. You all stir my heart so deeply with what you write and share about your own lives.
Knowing what you're going through helps me to move through what I am moving through. Thank you. More than you can know.
If you missed it, it's here. https://www.patreon.com/posts/only-this-is-and-110284676
...........
It's just past noon here and the oatmeal is cold...my neck is tight, my heart is sore, Jason is singing to us over the speakers, Brendon is out getting some batteries, Ash is unfolding his legos, I felt like writing this little folly much earlier this morning, in the candle-light....and I crossposted parts of it to Facebook, and will to IG as well.
When you're me, and your heart is sore, and you're unpacking yet more clothes and dishes early in the morning, and you get some Radiohead lyrics in your head, and you wonder whatever happened to That Video, and you go to look, and you're pleasantly surprised to see that it went viral...it's...well, it's nice.
It's the little things.
I have been thinking so much about my Old Art Offerings and all that has yet to be done and shared and re=pressed...and how I can use the patreon to fund and create those moments, and it's nice. So I'm glad we're all here, and maybe at some point I'll make a beautiful video for Idioteque, and make the album cover for this Ep that it really spiritually deserves, and do a vinyl repressing, and...dig out the old photos from this video shoot and write something up about the feelings...and....all that.
Anyway. It's embedded, or watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAk93YZgTts
A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you.
Bruises that won’t heal.
I forget entire things. I was astounded to see that this music video for my cover of Radiohead’s “No Surpises” has over 800k views. I love this recording, and this video.
A little storytime....
When I fought my way off Roadrunner Recrods after the release of my first and only solo record on the label (“Who Killed Amanda Palmer”, a long story on its own), I was delirious with freedom. I knew that crowdfunding was going to be my path: I had the skills, the philosophical attitude (I was a street performer; asking for money for my art wasn’t hard), and I had the community. I decided to put something out quickly to celebrate my freedom, and since I had just learned to play the ukulele and already had two Radiohaed covers under my belt (and seriously: “Creep” and “Fake Plastic Trees” were the only two songs I could play on the ukulele) I pulled a classic art-ADHD move and decided to just challenge myself to put out an entire EP of Radiohead songs…played on Ukulele. Which I could barely play.
Explaining my career moves had always been hard. Why, Amanda, why? Why, with your newfound indie freedom in 2009, why would you not play songs of your own, that were well-written, and why not, say, on an instrument you actually play? What the hell? And if you were gonna pick any band to randomly cover on an instrument, why RADIOHEAD? Like, pick ANYTHING more obscure than that. You grew up listening to at least 16 bands nobody has heard of whose music deserves celebrating and exposure. Why? Why, Amanda? Why?
I think, in order to understand me, you need to understand my art impulse addiction. Why? Because I had the thought, and because I could. And because I followed the thought to the next thought, and hours later, it was too late. And this freedom of impulse is the entire reason I’ve loved my career and the massive waves of randomness that have defined it. Because I thought of it, and because I could. That’s why.
The more important question is usually…why NOT?
The rest happened quickly. I learned a few more Radiohead songs that I already knew and loved, I got better at the ukulele as a result, I deeply enjoyed the recording process with different friends in different studios (I still think “Idioteque” is the unsung masterpiece of the album, gorgeously produced by Michael McQuilken). This specific track was made in Adelaide, Australia, of all places, with Mick Wordley.
For the EP cover image, I went full irony and hired a hair and make-up artist to do Doris Day drag. My team were like: why, Amanda. Why not make the cover serious? Why make a joke? I don’t know why. I thought it was funny. I do regret that I little bit.
You can get it here:
It's $1, was as cheap as we could make it without it being FREE/Pay What You Want...which we couldn't do without losing our shirts because we had to (and still have to) pay Radiohead their $.50 a record or so for the usage rights of the cover songs.
........
We took pre-orders for vinyl bundles directly off my website and made over $50k in sales in a few days. Eight Foot Records was officially really born. My team had almost no experienced making record and shipping them, and it was a hot mess. But we…managed. Some people reading this might even own one of those vinyls. We never reprinted those.
Hayley, lon time AFP/Team Chaos member, now Patreon staff, commented on the FB post this morning:
You should share one of the alt cover image options on Patreon. The one that was like The Bends!
The album presale was done on Bandcamp, one of the first if not first big music project to use their then new merch feature. I think $60K was sold over night, 1000 cherry red record sold out and we did another limited run of 1000 orange ones, which also sold out.
The merch fulfillment wasn’t a hot mess. It was just 2000 records, plus shirts and signed posters and magnets etc that needed to be mailed out by 3 people in a living room while you were also rehearsing the emcee in Cabaret which also had its own merch and late night cabaret performances. It was…. Everything all at once. And we did it.
I responded:
HAYLEY! The true historian. Always here with the truth. 
The hot mess was minor, but there was a massive load of stuff that didn’t get where it was supposed to go. We…fixed it. My tendency to exaggerate makes me a fine songwriter. 
and you…I’m always so grateful to everything you (and Beth, and Sean…and everybody) brought to the moments of chaos. You were magic.
She responded:
it was, apt to its name, the Team Chaos era after all 
.......
This video was all luck.
I happened to know Ryan Heller, the connector, through playing with his band, Abderdeen City. He suggested the idea. He knew the director Ron Eyal, who was excited about some new rotoscope animation technology, which all wound up being created by Marcos Sánchez after the raw footage was shot by the cinematographer, Eleanor Burke. What you see in this animated video was all based on a real take.
It was inspired by the Radiohead video orignial. If you want to understand the conversation, watch that, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5CVsCnxyXg
Somewhere - in the "Meeting People Is Easy" documentary about Radiohead, I think - there's some BTS footage of Thom Yorke almost suffocating while shooting that fucker. We suffer for our art, you people. My job was no nearly as suffocating.
Here's a side-video on Youtube of the raw footage / reference video that was used...it's cool to see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=air-u1mgYVk
......
The final feels:
Every piece of work I do - with every creator, be they video, recording, painter, or merch-maker - is now pretty much 100% crowdfunded through my 20,000+ patrons. I love working this way, and the non-corporate freedom it affords us all. I appreciate you all so fecking much.
I worked hard to make this cover an homage to the original with my own twist. This back-up vocal forwards the end of the song is one of the most painful and true I’ve ever recorded. I feel it.
Get me out of here.
I love you all.
Exit through the art door.
Thank you for being here. Up your patronage to paid if you're feeling moved.
Thank you or getting me out of here, there and everywhere.
xx
Amanda
P.S.
While I Have You All Here...I should mention I have three tiny solo piano shows this fall in little out-of-the-way places in NY and New England. Beautiful theatres. Songs that I feel like playing and that you ask for. I'll be making that shit up as I go along no doubt. Here's the dates:
Saturday, Sept 21st:
NORTHAMPTON, MA - ACADEMY OF MUSIC
Thursday, October 17th:
FAIRFIELD, CT - SACRED HEART COMMUNITY THEATRE
Saturday, October 19th:
TARRYTOWN, NY - TARRYTOWN MUSIC HALL
Then….with The Dresden Dolls:
Saturday October 26 & Sunday Oct 27:
BEARSVILLE THEATER - WOODSTOCK, NY
Friday November 1 & Saturday Nov 2:
ROADRUNNER, with Gogol Bordello - BOSTON, MA
