fire, folds and referendums.... + dublin guestlist if you want it to my talk with laurie (Patreon)

love from a coffeeshop in islington, thursday, 2:30 pm. it was raining in london, now the sun is out, it'll go away again. i'm on my second cortado.

the release of "mr weinstein will see you now" is still rolling along and the press is just starting to come out. the song is finally up on spotify and itunes - it was a little late squeezing into the cloud. it's there now, go add, share, see. those of you on my mailing list (hopefully all of you, and if you ain't on it, get on it HERE) will see that the official e-mailing about it is about to hit your inboxes as well. that mailing goes out to about 160,000 people as opposed to this little patreon list of 11,000 hardcore folk. i use the mailing list sparingly. YOU, however, i pester constantly! HAVE YOU NOTICED?

here are some of the highlights....it was pretty awesome to NOT do a "legit" press release and just see who came out of the woodwork to talk to cover it, and what they're writing:

in The Pool (UK):

Amanda Palmer’s “Mr Weinstein Will See you Now” is the beginning of a new era for #MeToo" https://www.the-pool.com/news-views/opinion/2018/21/caroline-o-donoghue-on-amanda-palmer-mr-weinstein-will-see-you-now 

in refinery29:

Why Amanda Palmer Wrote A Song Called "Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now" https://www.refinery29.com/2018/05/199968/amanda-palmer-song-mr-weinstein-will-see-you-now 

and this one, from a patron here, aimsel:

Amanda Palmer & Jasmine Power release scorching, triumphant “Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now” https://aimselontherecord.com/2018/05/23/amanda-palmer-jasmine-power-release-scorching-triumphant-mr-weinstein-will-see-you-now/ 

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

is it on fire?

hell no. it's just smoldering, wending it's way through the internet, the way my weird material usually does.

reading the comments all over the place from women (and men) who've suffered abuse and been in positions like the one painted in the song is enough for me. you can reach some of the people all the time (like, when you have a patreon :), and you can reach all the people some of the time (like, when you blow up a school), but you can't make the whole world listen to a weird cinematic song about the #MeToo movement. 

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

after sitting my ass in a chair all afternoon to manage the release of the song...and after a few visits to the swings....

...i went to see ben folds in london last night, by accident.

someone at one of the secret patron parties tipped me off to the fact that he was playing...it's so stupid, we were at the same festivals (bath, and norwich,  back to back in some cases) and it didn't fucking occur to me to see when his london show was, because of COURSE he was doing one.

so i dumped everything last night and walked over to the barbican (where i'd never been! what a frightening pile of cement! i get that it's historic and amazing but holy fuck do i hate brutalist architecture so much!)...he was playing in a concert hall that fit about 1,200 people. 

just him and a concert grand piano on stage. and after having a ben hug and a long and painfully necessary chat with his sound guy, leo, about how hard it's been to deal with different-sounding pianos on this UK solo tour because the venues have all been providing different microphones....i got a fat glass of wine and i sat there and watching him slaughter that piano with his ben-folds-style songs and my head spun up and down and around with the fact that he and i are so, so similar and yet so different. ben had just bought himself a new belt and it was too big to fit him. he's skinny. he looked around for leo, who's not so skinny. he figured he could give the belt to leo.

it always amazes me that my fans usually have no idea who ben is, and i bet you'd have been hard-pressed to find more than a dozen people in that room of 1,200 people who could name you a single amanda palmer song. 

and yet, and yet, ben and i love each other's songwriting and are pure art-comrades and really respect and dig each other. why is that?

sometimes i don't understand the world.

if you don't know ben's stuff, listen to "brick" (his song about teenage abortion which was a hit in the 90s on MTV. yes, you heard me correctly, his song about teenage abortion which was a hit in the 90s on MTV.).

and then up the tempo and listen to phone in a pool and song for the dumped. and then listen to the luckiest and try not to cry. it's basically the bed song with the meaning switched around. but fuck.

i also sent ben this text. i also finished up the song we started writing backstage. it's only like 12 seconds long. i'm gonna send it to you bonus content fuckers because you deserve it.

it's true.

he wrote back that he feels the same way. not that i'm a better piano player (we both know the answer to that question) but about how he wished he could spend time on his craft instead of touring around all the time and playing things he's written over and and over again: but that's what pays the bills. i haven't bugged him yet to start a patreon. he'd CRUSH it. but it would make him cranky.

i thought a lot about songs. thought a lot about my tour next year and what i want to do if all i have is 2.5 hours on stage and i want to pack in 7 years worth of stories, sometimes telling them to people who've never met me or seen me. what i'm allowed to do. what's just too much. 

ben's stories were really good, and he measured everything out just right (he also did a few fantastic stunts including playing drums for about 2 minutes and getting the audience to become a perfect choir)...

i covered ben's song "brick" when i was at the norwich festival, in honor of ben having played on the same piano the night before...

and also in honor of the abortion referendum in ireland coming up.

it's a really hard thing for people to write about, and the fact that it was ben's crossover mainstream hit in the 90s is still kind of amazingly mindboggling. i mean: a teenage songwriter writing about his experience taking his teenage girlfriend to get an abortion. 

i introduced it for what it is: fucking important. 

speaking of all that....i will be in conversation with Laurie Penny at the International Literature Festival Dublin this SATURDAY, MAY 26th. laurie is a kick-ass feminist firebrand writer who supports her life and work HERE ON PATREON which in itself is pretty awesome....she's got over 600 patrons fueling her ability to go rogue and write the kinds of things she wants for the kind of outlets she wants.

we'll be talking about the state of the feminist union, especially right on the heels of the referendum...which is the day before.

here's more info on the show....it's at the RDS concert hall at 8 pm.
https://ilfdublin.ticketsolve.com/shows/873587848

i'll try to grab someone to stream it to FB or periscope it (do you guys have a preference?)

AND, for you dear patrons....i have a sizeable guestlist for this one (they've given me like 30+ seats) and want to give tickets to patrons to attend. 

you can request a **single** ticket below, one per patron, please. make your request before 12pm BST friday, the day before. we'll email you to confirm your spot. it should work out.
https://goo.gl/forms/TtJpKjRZaAqtw2UB2

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

if you're in ireland i'm pumping my fist in the air for all of you getting ready to go out and vote. seeing the #hometovote thread on twitter today literally brought me to tears (go check it out) - women (and men) flying home to ireland from all over the world, moving mountains to get to that voting booth. i'm kinda crying just writing this. it's so phenomenal, watching change happen in realtime, watching people exercising their political power. fuck.

i'm working on a special set for my ACTUAL DUBLIN CONCERT, which is my last solo show until EDINBRUGH (where i've also added two shows on august 9 &10th).....i'm going to pull out all the stops either way the vote goes. there are still a handful of tickets left for the gig, which is at the national concert hall on MAY 28th at 7:30...with andrew o'neill opening up for the last time on this tour...

you can get tix for dublin and edinburgh here: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/ 

and please let people in dublin know that there are still a hundred or so seats left, the venue is HUGE....

i think that's it.

i love you.

i'm tired.

i'm grateful for my patreon.

more than usual today.

here is where it's at mofos.

xx

a

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