The State of All The Things - MARCH 2018. {official thing, here we go} (Patreon)

hello my loves!!!

my loves, i got to the end of this increidbly long post and i put this as a p.s. but it was good enough to cut and paste up here to the top:

p.s. THIS REMINDS ME OF MY OLD INSANE BLOGS BACK IN 2004 WITH 788 PHOTOS!!!! i forgot how fucking long it took to put these together (this blog took about 4 days to assemble and write)...and it made me realize...i don't blog like this anymore. this gives me a great excuse to get back to my old blogging habits. thanks for that. blogging is like it's own weird jazz art-riff...let it be, let it be. 

okay

this is IT. the first edition of our new monthly STATE OF ALL THE THINGS.

first and foremost: WELCOME to ALL THE NEW PATRONS!!! HELLO!!! HELLO!!!! good god it's been a beautiful crazy week - we've added 300+ new patrons and we're scrambling around trying to make sure the guestlist stuff is all working and getting excited about Art In The Mail (more on that below) and everything is just coming up roses. i did get one tweet two days ago, from a girl named @serpent_sky

here's what i love about this exchange:

she was mad. at me. she didn't realize she as speaking directly to me, not really. she was mean. and i didn't get angry; i didn't react. i listened to and talked to her. she came around. these are the zen lessons of internet-ninja-compassion that i learned and carried away from the Great Internet Kerfuffles of 2012/2013. 

it's a lot like life, people. go out and be kind, okay? you never know what is going on with someone who's being a dick to you.

.............

okay back to the point.

here we go, as promised (and if you're new and missed the discussion, it's HERE), the State of All The Things.

if you remember from the last group discussion, someone suggested we call it Althings, as opposed to All The Things, since it's got a hilarious context:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althing 

"The Alþingi (parliament (Icelandic) and anglicised as Althingi or Althing) is the national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest parliament in the world.[1]...The Alþingi claims to be the longest running parliament in the world.[1][2] Its establishment, as an outdoor assembly or thing held on the plains of Þingvellir ("Thing Fields") from about the year 930 AD, laid the foundation for an independent national existence in Iceland. To begin with, the Althing was a general assembly of the Icelandic Commonwealth, where the country's most powerful leaders (goðar) met to decide on legislation and dispense justice. All free men could attend the assemblies, which were usually the main social event of the year and drew large crowds of farmers and their families, parties involved in legal disputes, traders, craftsmen, storytellers and travellers. Those attending the assembly lived in temporary camps (búðir) during the session."

THING FIELDS!!!  

so apart from the fact that this shit is men men men, COME ON, how awesome is it to name our new monthly patron--only update/newsletter/discussion forum after THE OLDEST PARLIAMENT IN THE WORLD??? and also we all know any and everything having to do with iceland is just fucking cool. björk 4eva. 

here is the OLD Althing:

HERE IS THE NEW ALTHETHINGS:

hayley and the team and i have discussed all month WHAT we think should go in these monthly updates, and obviously, this is our first time at bat, so please be very liberal with the feedback.

as many of you already know, i've had an EMAIL LIST for the past (gulp) EIGHTEEN YEARS. my email list is golden to me. it has over 150,000 people on it (and you should be one of them. really. sign up here).

this is important: THIS is not THAT.

this is going to be a monthly deep-dive, JUST FOR THE PATRONS, into what i am working on.

the mailing list emails, which go out about once a month, are the shallow dive. i have a video out. i have new tour dates. i have a new book. i try really hard to keep the emails personal but also easy to read, short, bare-bones, and less annoying for the people who just wanna know when i have NEW SHIT out and WHEN I'M GOING ON THE ROAD. 

for you guys (my patrons), i'm assuming you're here because you want the whole kit and kaboodle. so this is it. our monthly attempt to throw you the kitchen sink and also, since we are charging the month, a way to show you all the work and resources that go into making our whole system go. it's a lot. 

we decided it would be best to divide the State of Althings up into four parts: What Happened This Month, What's Coming Up, How The Patron Is Doing, and a Community bulletin board (i.e. other things/people to check out and support).

here we go, yo....

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENED

it was march!

it was mostly a new york-centric month for me, and as the snow came and went, i bounced back and forth between being home in woodstock and spending a week down in the city (NYC, that is) with jason webley for the public theater workshop. i had a fucking cold for the entire week. 

last weekend i was on a panel at the woodstock book fest, we webcast it on facebook live, you can watch the archive here:
https://www.facebook.com/amandapalmer/videos/10155732102548375

it was a SUPER-POWERFUL, all-female memoir panel and i got chills a few times. if you have a chance to tune in...watch it. i also recommend you check out tina alexis allen's book, "hiding out", about her experience being the 13th of 13 kids in a catholic family (her dad ran a catholic travel agency that sent families to the vatican), then coming out of the lesbian closet to her dad, who then came out of the closet to HER. and that's only chapter three, before they start escaping the family and going to gay clubs together. this is clearly a must-read. i'm also hoping to get her on a podcast ASAP. she's a truly enlightened being (as my friend elizabeth, who runs the omega center for spiritual enlightenment n stuff, said: she's COOKED). just watch the webcast, you'll see. 

and in book news...my book, "the art of asking" is back on the NYTimes best seller list!

it hasn't been on the list since the WEEK it came out back in november, 2014! it's been back for FOUR WEEKS NOW and is climbing up, it just went from #17 to #15 on the audiobook list. i have NO IDEA WHY THIS IS HAPPENING but i'm pretty goddam psyched. 

if you've never read it....i'd love it if you did. it helps make so much more sense of me and this patreon and everything. you can pick up a copy at your local book store (ask them for it, hahaha) or online in physical and digital formats (including the AUDIOBOOK which features me reading + performing songs): https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amanda-palmer/the-art-of-asking/9781455581078

you can also get the hardcover, signed or unsigned in the worldwide/US AFP shop or signed softcovers from the UK AFP shop. k that's that.

one other tidbit, while i'm here:

if you HAVE read the book, did you know i made a companion website for the book (with a TON of photos, stories, etc.) back when it came out?

I DID. it's here: http://amandapalmer.net/theartofasking/

...........

and before we stop talking about BOOKS....

i just did an interview for this wonderful reading podcast called READING GLASSES.

.....you can listen to it on their website or on iTunes - it's episode 41.
(they're on twitter as @readinggpodcast)

fun fact: the girl on the left is brea grant, and she's currently shacked up with john congleton, the producer of my last huge record (the kickstarter one) "theatre is evil".  more on john below, and it's a tiny world. in the podcast, i talk about how neil and i deal with the books in our house, how i deal with giving away books when i travel, and how my own relationship with my book has changed...it's a really unique (and funny) interview, you'll like it.

it also prompted me to walk around the house and take pictures of me and neil bookshelves. here are ONLY 10 of the goddam 35 pictures i took:

don't ask me why i let neil have marmite in the house. 

i am weak.
................

i wrote a post about it already, but the WHO-KNOWS-WHEN-IT_WILL-BE-READY musical i am working on with jason webley and steven bogart is underway and we spent a whole week in manhattan writing, thinking, workshopping, and planning. the next phases of the workshop will probably happen in june and august, in cracks of the schedule.

i wrote a post about it here...with a ton of photos from the studio workshop.

i love making theater but honestly, i love any excuse to spend time with jason and bogart. they're two of the most intuitive and loving and weird-ass artists i know and it's a pleasure just being in the room with them and talking about what it's possible to do on a stage.

.....

in the isn't-this-awesome-department...

photographer jack lowe, a fellow creator on patreon and a patron, gave us a shout out on the patreon blog

you should read his entire story, it's just beautiful.

he started out with a passion for old-school-style photography and now he's able to continue the project permanently because of patreon.

he takes portraits, using actual victorian photography methods, of the brave UK volunteers of The Royal National Lifeboat Institution. HOW AWESOME IS THIS?

from the blog:

Someone Jack admires greatly — because of what he’s learned from her — is Amanda Palmer, author of the book (and Ted talk) The Art of Asking.

In fact, he pays $1 per month to be her patron so that he can learn from the way she interacts with her audience.

He learned that, when you turn to fans for support, you’re not telling them to give you money.

You’re letting them give you money.

“But she said another thing,” he added, “and it’s that you can’t actually ask money from strangers. You cannot. But you can ask money from your crowd.”

kinda made me cry. thanks, jack. 

..............

and on that note, from the department of asking....

two days ago, i did an AMA ("ask me anything") on reddit to answer questions about patreon. you can read the entire thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/87iomm/i_am_amanda_palmer_ask_me_anything_about_patreon

here's one of the top upvoted questions that i answered:

marudays asked:
In your opinion, how has patreon (and other crowdfunding services, actually) changed the relationship between artists and fans?

my reply:
that's such a huge question...and probably one of the most important questions. i think it's made things more honest. we have had such a distanced, romantic and sort of dishonest with artists (especially musicians) for so long. i grew up in the 70s and 80s where all musicians seemed like these untouchable, otherworldly beings who weren't part of this dimension. it's like going to a super fancy restaurant and never meeting the chef who makes your meal and sharing a glass of wine with them: it's always been the case that as soon as a musician becomes a "professional" there's a giant army of middlemen (labels, publicists, distributors, promotors, etc etc) between the ARTIST and the person EATING THE ART. i think that that distance isn't something we should take as a given; i actually think both audiences and artists are happier when they are connected to one another in a more human way. even when that means that the uglier and more vulnerable sides of the artist (and the audience) come into play...including how the art-sausage gets made. so while i don't divulge every excel sheet and penny (that would be boring), my audience basically knows how my business runs, what it takes to keep the lights on, and i feel like that draws them closer to my art, it doesn't push them away. that's the counter-intuitive part: i think a lot of artists feel that the artist should remain in an unknown, faraway garret. i'm arguing for more connection, more knowledge, more community, more transparency, less "off in the tower" stardom. my audience (but they'd need to speak for themselves) seem to love this. it makes everything real. it IS real. but now it all feels more real. if that makes sense.

scransmellion replied:
As a $5.00 patron with a $10.00 cap, I agree with the heightened sense of realness. And the realness is both delightful and uncomfortable, as any realness is bound to be! If anything, I would say that Patreon breeds more accountability with artists. Not accountability in the sense of "I own this artist" or "This artist must only put out art I adore/agree/underwrite with my approval" or anything like that . . . but more in the way that, because I am directly offering funding to a person and their judgement and their inherent humanity, I examine their actions more. When there were proposed fees for patrons, the entire Patreon community had very strong feelings about the proposed change. I am a patron to two artists on Patreon. I watched how both artists responded. Amanda engaged in even, open, understanding dialogue and gathered view points . . . she listened, I mean really listened, to her patrons. And she advocated for us beautifully, and we all made it out alive. There was radio silence from the other artist. Amanda now has my higher pledge.

my reply:
finger on nose. it's also why so many artists don't necessarily want to tangle with this level of crowdfunding. IT IS A LOT OF WORK to have a real relationship with eleven fucking thousand people. you can't clock off and only take. you gotta give a lot. and you gotta love the giving, because people can smell inauthenticity a mile away.

....today i'm packing and about to get on a plane (monday, since tomorrow is family-and-easter-egg-hunt-day) and on monday i head to the northwest for my four-date tour with jason webley. 

HERE'S WHAT'S COMING DOWN THE PIKE

the past 3 days have been spent holed up in a studio in woodstock....as i posted exuberantly last night....i just spent three days of alone-time with a piano and an engineer set aside forever, and i a list of songs to work on and some fetal ideas (and pacific northwest tour rehearsal to do, since i don't want to hit those shows totally cold)...but i got sidetracked.

i really like getting sidetracked. 

i'll tell the whole story when i release the song (next month!) but i wound up using that studio to co-write a brand new song with these two random british songwriters, jasmine power and matt nicholson. (i'm actually writing this blog from the studio while we do overdubs and mixes).

here we is:

all i can tell you is the song is part musical theater, part tears for fears, and again, like nothing i've ever recorded before. 

i've already gotten a text from one of my feminist writer friends saying For Fucks Sake Amanda Don't Call Your Song "Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now" no matter what the content is. but that's the working title. stay tuned for a hopefully non-kerfuffle release.

here's the three of us (jasmine on far left, matt in the middle) after a long day of vocals yesterday (photo by chris the engineer):

here's jasmine if you want to catch up on her work... https://www.jasminepower.com

the song is going to take at least a week or so to mix and arrange (matt is going to be adding some extra sounds) and hopefully it'll be out ASAP. i don't want to keep this one for later, it's too topical and too beautiful.

we did a photoshoot in a local hotel room yesterday (we checked in just for the occasion, but it was perfect because jasmine, who's been living on the road for weeks, got a nice tub)...the images are amazing. all shall be revealed. stay tuned. 

..............

also coming down the Thing pike: 

the artist/animator david mack, in collaboration with the amazing olga nunes, has been working for MONTHS on a stop-animation video for one of the songs of my collaboration record with edward ka-spel, "i can spin a rainbow".

i won't tell you which song, but i WILL tell you it's beautiful, i am releasing it in a whole new way (with a SURPRISE WRITING COMPONENT) and we are remixing the song slightly for the video release. here's a still from the animation...

....i'm hoping it'll be out this month, too.

..................

i have one other secret project that i've now been working on for over a year (more, i think) that is waiting for the right moment to emerge. it'll hopefully be either this coming month or in may.

...................

i'm going to be on tour with jason webley for the next week, so who knows what nonsense-things could come out of that trip, but we are mostly on the road, so we may not have a chance to record anything new. then i'm at the TED conference in vancouver for 4 days (i'll send word of how people are saving and blowing up world)...and the ninja TED show is shaping up to be magnificent!!! so far we have AMAZING guests confirmed: jaron lanier, maria popova, joseph gordon levitt, adam savage from mythbusters, the amazing spoken word artist sarah kay. I AM GOING TO TRY TO RECORD THE SHOW and release it to the patreon - maybe just AUDIO this time. thoughts? i'll also try to stream it on patreon or FB live. it's wednesday, april 11th. here's a link, the show itself is almost sold out and all the $$ goes to the greater vancouver food bank. here's the poster!! all the poster sales will benefit the food bank, too:

wheee

..............

and then i'll be back in upstate new york for the end of april. i'll try to get some more writing and recording done then....and then i leave for the UK tour with andrew o'neill in may....i wouldn't be shocked if andrew and i try to bang out a recording together. i love working and being silly with him, and it's been a whole since i put out something silly. maybe we'll write and record a ukulele song and brexit....

....................

NEW ALBUM (eeeeeee!!!!) updtate:

DATES ARE LOCKED, BETCHES.

i am officially going to be making my new solo record in september and part of october in LA with john congleton....here's wonderful john in the studio recording "theatre is evil" in melbourne before the album had a name:

(photo by jim batt)

i am so excited, not just to make the record, but to make the artwork and to tour the fucker around the world. 

it's such a comprehensive collection of songs and the more i think about trying to make it a sonic cohesive whole the more excited i get. you'll be hearing PLENTY about this whole process, so hold onto your tumblers and i'll get there.

exciiiiiiting.

......................

okay, and....

HERE'S HOW THE PATREON HAS GROWN

last week i refreshed the patreon page and added the new reward tiers. if you missed the post detailing what's new, read it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/here-we-go-new-17710794

since adding the reward tiers the patreon has grown LIKE WILDFIRE!!

about 300 new patrons joined us!
126 patrons joined the $25 Art In The Mail tier
21 patrons joined the $75 (Signed) Art In The Mail tier
2 patrons joined the $250 tier.

a NOTE about the front-facing number: yesterday, i finally (after some hemming and hawing), turned off the "front-facing number" on the patreon. this means that the public can see the total number of patrons, but not the number of total dollars on my front-page. if you wanna know why i did this....go see the previous (long) discussion about removing the front facing number from last year:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/greetings-from-8664443
always happy to have more feedback and thoughts about that.

i think it's a good thing AND it gives me some more tasty information to give YOU - the patrons, in private.

so here goes, some transparanecy for y'all, because usually this is only stuff we can peer at through our patreon creator dashboard.

as of this writing there are 11,313 patrons pledging $44,645.

you may have noticed that patreon charges you retroactively, meaning that you get billed on the 1st of the month for things released the month prior (for example, you'll get charged for the Things released in march on april 1st). so i don't have figures for march just yet, but there's february...

because people have their pledges capped, the first Thing raises the most money, and anything released thereafter raises less.

the numbers below are gross and not net, meaning it's the money raised before fees were deducted by patreon and is not the total deposited to me. patreon takes a 5% fee (which they use to build and sustain the platform) and then there's a payment processing fee, which varies on a ton of factors and is usually between 5-9% of the total collected.

in february, i Thinged three Things:

the mess inside was the first Thing and it earned $41,450.46 so far from 10,711 patrons

judy blume was the second Thing and it earned $25,613.90 so far from 7,637 patrons

strength through music (2018) was the third and final thing of the month and it earned $19,282.32 so far by 6,018 patrons. after patron and payment fees and the cost to remix the song and video, we donated the profits to support the March for Our Lives rally this past weekend, on march 24th. together, we raised $15K to donate.

note that it is money earned "so far" because patreon is still trying to process some pledges that have yet to go through.

go us, go world, go everything.

FROM THE WORLD OF TEAM AFP:

so you know where ELSE a ton of your money is going: this is hayley and michael, looking bad-ass, hauling a truckload of dresden dolls merch between shows last fall. they are both on full salary with benefits & work pretty much every day out of our new york office in greenpoint, brooklyn, and we can dedicate a whole section of a State of All Things some month to how our office works, that'll be fun.....

and here we all are (with jason) at the weird al yankovic show which i wrote a huge blog about if you missed it: https://www.patreon.com/posts/little-love-to-17625533 

hayley also went to a patreon.com workshop in NYC....here's her name badge :)

ALL THE THINGS.

HERE ARE SOME MORE ARTISTS TO SUPPORT & THINGS TO CHECK OUT RIGHT NOW...

TRISTAN'S NEW RECORD....

tristan allen is an old friend of mine and a spectacular piano player. i created my very first kickstarter to help produce his first piano EP back in 2010...which contained our duet "janos vs wonderland", which remains one of my favorite pieces of piano music ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3ScfLqXlYc ....

(check out my dyed-black-EmCee hair - this was in the middle of the 42-show "cabaret" run at the american rep theatre) 

and now, 8 years on, he is releasing the follow-up piano EP. team AFP has been helping him along in his process. we aren't really a record label, since WTF, but we do have resources and we help our friends (and we spread the word when they have amazing shit to put out in the world).

it is GORGEOUS and if you're into haunting, beautiful piano music this has your name on it. it's great work/writing/painting music....and you can pre-order it now as a digital download or on CD. go listen, at least:

https://tristan-allen.bandcamp.com/album/vi-x

..............

BOOBS ANYONE....?

i just backed this kickstarter. the goal is ambitious and i'm already nervous, given their slow start, that it's actually gonna get there, but I REALLY WANT TO SEE THIS ONE, so i throw myself at your feet - o breastfeeding mums, especially - to support this UK artist-mum who's making an animated song video about breastfeeding:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/superdoodle/big-up-my-boobs

................

OZ ESPECIALLY: HELP OUR PALS in CANBERRA!!

this is a worthy project to help save a venue belonging to our freaky community in oz.....help save the phoenix in canberra, australia! over the last 25 years they've presented over 15,000 bands across 10,000 shows
https://www.gofundme.com/save-the-phoenix,
and they're friends. their crowdfund is on fire (sorry no pun intended) at around $50k of $75k. 

.........................

LISTEN:

this link was emailed over to me two days ago by my friend ann-marie.

it's one of the best songs/youtube videos i've seen in a while...i listlessly opened it & then stood there, transfixed in the kitchen, as neil looked over my shoulder and we both stood, transfixed, by this epic musical-art-capture of gabriel kahane & co. i teared up twice. 

enjoy. 

black lives matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_QaK0dE0is 

............

that's it for now my loves....

before you disappear completely overloaded with the beauty of the bounty of this month - COMMENT and let me & hayley know (she helped me pull a ton of these links and photos for the blog) about how this post hit you. too long? too short? did the state of all things WORK? any and all feedback will be put into the compost pile for next month's post...

and last but not least, i have also been working on this project....

he's phenomenal.

his new thing is counting himself to sleep. it's goddamn adorable, especially when he goes "one...two...three.....SEVEN."

i relate.

one last thing....

i love you all so much. thank you for reading all this, thank you for being a part of this beautiful community, thank you for making me possible, thank you for going on this unpredictable art-journey. thank you for your patronage. 

thank you for.... being here.

LOVE,

AFP

------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------

1. if you’re a patron, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol.

2. see All the Things i've made so far on patreon: http://amandapalmer.net/patreon-things

3. join the official AFP-patron facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/afpland

4. new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/

5. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net