The State of All Things: SEPTEMBER 2018 {official thing} (Patreon)

hallo my loves.

greetings from LA. i am literally posting this at 10:21 with 90 minutes to spare before the end of the month. i am getting my hair done by paul, a hairdresser who came up to me in a cafe yesterday and said hello. he wound up singing on the record. he's the one under the "A". 

as i just posted on instragram: 

“sometimes your life is like this: you meant to get a haircut because you have a photoshoot tomorrow but you were too fucking busy to get a haircut because you are in a recording studio from 10am-8pm literally and what the fuck hair salon could you find that does haircuts before 10 or after 8 and also who the fuck has time to hunt down good hair salons when you’re in the studio making the most important record of your life and then you go into the coffee shop across from the studio and a guy comes up to you and says i am so sorry to bother you but i had to say hello because i love your fucking music and i saw you come in from my hair salon which is next door and you say wait a second did you say hair salon and the next thing you know it’s 10:45 pm and there is wine and someone amazing named paul cutting your hair telling you his life story about escaping florida to come to LA to do music and hair and find his amazing logical family and everyone’s faith in the universe is restored. bonus points for taking a haircut and wine break at 10:24 and posting my patreon “state of all things” from the hair salon. life is still beautiful in so many ways. did i mention that said hair magician paul also sang on the record today because obviously.”

here is paul and now:

this is my first time posting an Althing from a hair salon. (it's across from the studio, it's handy).

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

here we GO. this is the september ALTHING.

it's been a weird fuckin month, i'll say that much.

..........

if you're new to the patreon (and there's a few of you)...WELCOME!!!

every month i put together an epic wrap-up of what is going on, and i also charge for the month - it's like my monthly punchcard.

i also know that not everybody has time to read EVERY GODDAMN POST i put out, since there's always so much going on in our busy lives.

so i do this to recap for those not interested in the minutia. 

if you're new and you want to catch up...here's last month (august's) Althing.

WHAT HAPPENED THIS MONTH...

it was september, my loves. 

i wanna start with the most amazing and exciting stuff, which is 

THE BRAND NEW RECORD ALBUM I AM MAKING.

if i haven't been clear as day about this...it's huge.

i am so, so, so excited.

this is the first BIG REAL record i have made since Theatre is Evil back in 2011. 

i came to LA to record with john conglteon (who also engineered Theatre is Evil, but we did that in Melbourne, Australia, to get away from it all).

and....sorry to get so real so fast, but FUCK. 

what a....time.

i don't think i'm ever going to forget the last week of my life. being alone in LA living like a monk and working on the most emotional record of my life while the entire country descended into....i won't even start.

i can just say none of it feels like coincidence.

this record feels like a personal feminist battle-cry of truth and love.

every day i've been waking up, making tea, watching videos of my son (who's in london with dada), getting in a car, and working in a recording studio from 10 am until 8 pm. then i go to bed.

some of the songs have been worked out and demo'd here on patreon, and some are brand new - i've played them live, but i haven't recorded them for real. and EVERYthing (including "the ride", "bigger on the inside", "the thing about things" and "machete") are getting the royal grand piano and deep profound studio bath treatment.

i am on day NINE.

my brain is starting to melt a little.

i have what i call "studio ears". i cannot hear a song on the radio in the back of a cab without getting sucked into the sound of the hi-hat on the recording, nor can i hear the sound of cars on a highway overpass without hearing their rhythm. i don't know how professional engineers don't lose their fucking minds. i think they actually do lose their minds. this is my engineer, john congleton, who has definitely lost his mind somewhere along the way. i love him so much.

here are some more photos from the studio.

i spent 4-5 days just getting piano and scratch vocals down.

the meat.

there's no band.

this is a solo record.

but i wanted....sounds.

so i've had two musicians working with me.

my beloved friend jherek bischoff:

and here's guest number two...a new friend of mine named max henry, from the band suuns.

he's been doing some keyboard magic with us:

we put a ton of strange objects in the rental piano.

if you are going to make a record to smash the patriarchy...

you need to make sure your piano is prepared.

(ba doom CHISSHH)

........

and most fun of all, a bunch of patrons came into the studio THIS MORNING and three gang vocals on "a mother's confession".

they killed it: as you can see below......TO EVERYBODY WHO SHOWED UP ON ONE DAY'S NOTICE...THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! (i'll email ya)

so that's this.

i will tell you more about the record and what's on it when it's time.

but for now: believe me. it's.....amazingly powerful.

i am going to be here in the studio in LA for 10 more days then i head to see some family in the southwest, then i go to LONDON FOR THE DRESDEN DOLLS, then i head home to woodstock and collapse.

.......

SPEAKING OF THE DRESDEN DOLLS: 

LONDON, BE ON THE LOOKOUT TOMORROW FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE DRESDEN DOLLS WARM UP SHOW ... it's gonna be tiny and hard to get tickets. oct 27th. it'll be announced all over the dolls socials and on the dolls mailing list. join it: http://dresdendolls.com/emaillist/

.........

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED THIS MONTH?

i did a ton of photoshooting for the album cover, and the art book that will accompany the record....

i don't wanna give too much away, but...kahn and selesnik are geniuses.

here's my make-up artist, regina harris

and, um....

seriously.

get excited.

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

AND?

i released the first episode of the AFP podcast, The Art of Asking Everything. it's a really in-depth and beautiful podcast centered around the ideas of ART and TIME. 

i sent patrons ONLY a beta version of it for feedback.... 

if you missed it, you can listen here: 

http://amandapalmer.net/podcast 

patron password: listening 

the feedback has been really useful.

if you haven't yet, HIT ME in the comments of the Thing: https://www.patreon.com/posts/amanda-starts-of-21372381

i also released a song i made with jason webley, House of Eternal Return

link:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/its-new-record-21373945 

it's beautiful.

(if you're a $3+ patron, the download links are here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/house-of-eternal-21534285)

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

HERE'S WHAT'S COMING 

i'm STILL working on booking the US and UK and EUROPE tours for 2019. we are locking down the dates and tour routes right now, and from there i'm planning the tour announcement and ticket on sale times. 

a reminder that patrons will get first crack at tickets AND a gently encouraging reminder to always be on the mailing list in case you drop off the patreon. (you can sign up, HERE: http://amandapalmer.net/emaillist) 

..........

and...

I HAVE TWO VIDEOS ON THE BURNER....

my new song and video with andrew o'neill has been locked, that will be coming out next month.

AND

"electric blanket", which i also made with jason (at ani difranco's house in new orleans) is ready for sonic and video release. hold tight.

......

HOW THE PATREON HAS GROWN....

as of this writing there are 11,994 patrons pledging  $45,995 for the first THING of the month. 

goddamn.

I LOVE YOU ALL.

patreon charges you monthly/retroactively, meaning that you get billed on the 1st of the month for all the Things released the month prior (for example, you'll get charged for the Things released in september on october 1st). 

so i don't have figures for august just yet, but here's august.

i say this every month, but if you're new....

because people have their pledges capped (HAVE YOU NOT CAPPED YOUR PLEDGE? if you are on a budget, you should. here's the tutorial again), the first Thing raises the most money, and anything released thereafter raises less and less. (I LIKE THIS. it means i never feel too guilty).

the numbers below are gross. not net. basic math. 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, which is GOOD) 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. 

also, none of this reflects the money i SPENT MAKING THE ART, running my business, etc etc. 

i don't share that level of nitty-detail-stuff with you because i assume it would bore you to fucking tears. but you can trust me: paying for a full-time staff, office, manager, accountant, and massive team of art-collaborators ain't cheap. sometimes we barely break even. so be it. this is awesome.

.....

in august, i Thinged two Things:

Patron Vérité Journal #001: Rewired was the first Thing and it earned about $46,529 from 11,037 patrons.

The State of All The Things: August 2018 was the third and final Thing of the month and it earned about $25,775 from 7,808 patrons.

(we say "about" because patreon may be still trying to process some pledges that have yet to go through...we never know, you know.)

there's the numbers.

and now.....

NOTES FROM THE WORLD OF TEAM AFP...

i have two full time employees - hayley and michael - who help me run this entire ship out of AFP-central in brooklyn, and they are awesome. part of their job is to check in with y'all every month here on the patreon. there's also Alex the Merch Queen in the UK! and my manager Jordan is based out of Sydney because he's too busy on the phone with someone saying "WHERE'S AMANDA'S GODDAMN MONEY" or something.

from hayley:

It's been wonderful to see Amanda's Patreon grow in community size after her sharing of Rewired. For some perspective on the numbers, the largest patron count Amanda had was in May 2017 when she offered free art cards to any and all patrons, she reached a patron count that peeked at 11,901. As you can imagine, after people got their free signed cards people stuck around but ultimately left a short time after. Amanda's patron count ebbs and flows, and our hope is to grow the community and share this journey with as many people as possible, knowing and appreciating even those that stick around temporarily. Amanda is now at 11,824 patrons at the time of my writing, so keep an eye out for new milestones to be made!

This October I'm going to join Amanda and Brian across the pond to London to help them out with the Dresden Dolls' Halloween shows. This will be my first time traveling out of North America, and my first international show with Amanda. I am so stoked to meet so many patrons and Dolls fans, some I've known for YEARSSSSS from The Shadowbox and the Dresden Dolls online world, and of course - the many patrons I've been emailing with for the last few years.  (Fun fact, when I first started working with Amanda in 2009, one of the first things I did was get a passport, just in case).

Immediately after Halloween, I'm going to fly out to LA to speak at PatreCon, an annual conference Patreon holds for creators. The conference takes place November 1st through 3rd, I'll be speaking in the morning of the 3rd so if you're a Patreon creator and you're attending, please say hello! I am hoping I will be coherent enough for the presentation and not a jetlagged ball of mush!

While Amanda is recording in the studio, and working on album visuals and music videos and all the art that she has in mind of this undertaking, the team is in the background brainstorming up ideas and plans to get the new album out into the world and out to all of you. This is such an exciting time because as you all know, Amanda doesn't do things the way other artists do simply because "That Is The Way It Is Done" - oh no, she does things with care and thought and experiments and basically dreams up things that are meaningful and impactful, and our hope is to follow suit and keep raising the bar in how music is made and shared with this new project. This Fall is shaping up to be an inspiring and ambitious one, so that 2019 can be a fully charged year ahead for Amanda's new music, new tour, and new artwork.

(LOVE YOU HAYLEY.)

........

and from michael:

Hello Patrons,

Wait, wasn’t it just the end of August?  How does this keep happening?! 

In any case . . . Happy Equinox!  Spring for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere and Autumn for all of us in the North.  This is my favorite time of year in New York City when the dreadful heat and humidity finally eases to comfortable days and nights that are just chilly enough.  It also happens to be my birthday month which is always fun (shocking that a personal assistant is a Virgo, right?) and as fun as everything was this month it all just flew by! 

In addition to the really great projects we put out this month, Hayley, Jordan, the whole team, and I have been in full preparation mode.  This is the month where we really took a deep dive into both the short, medium, and long-term planning. We’ve been working on projects like the video for Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now (coming out in just a few days) which is such a huge, moving, important, and powerful project that I can assure you we are working very hard behind the scenes to get everything perfect.  We’ve looked at planning about the rest of the winter and what new photoshoots and video projects we will focus on, and there has even been groundwork on plans for the middle of 2019, the start of 2020, and even beyond.  Rest assured there will be art coming your way for a very long time to come.

In addition to the fun Solo Projects that we’ve been working on there are the upcoming Dresden Dolls shows that I know everyone is very excited about.  There’s lots to be done there with all the travel, lodging, press releases, mailers, rehearsals, etc that has to be set up and organized.  And the Merch!  I can’t wait until we get to show you what some incredible artists have come up with!  I don’t want to spoil the surprise about what it looks like but I can tell you that for the past two months Amanda, Brian, Jordan and the artists have traded a fuck ton of emails, drafts, designs, etc to get everything looking fan-fucking-tastic. 

We’ve also been working on more episodes for the Art of Asking Everything with Amanda Fucking Palmer.  The first episode was a labor of love and we’re so happy that we were able to share it with you, the patrons first before putting it out to the wide world so we can fine tune the next episodes that are all being worked on tirelessly by the amazing Fannie Cohen and the rest of the team.

So Many Things!  But Hayley and I are ready for it.  Here's a picture of us from the office we took for Amanda when she texted us saying that she was going to slay her inbox and send out all the emails. . . we donned our battle gear (from the eclipse last year) and wielded our Wand of Thunder!

Speaking of emails, I’ve got to wrap this up so I can get back into fielding all of them heading our way!  As always, thank you.  This is all happening because of this amazing community and we couldn’t be more grateful for you all.  

Last summer when the 7” for In Harm’s Way and Mother came out Amanda signed my copy and wrote “Without You, No This”.  I pass those words of thanks on to all of you, because all this, everything we’re doing here, every piece of art we help put out is all because of you.  All the Hugs.

(LOVE YOU MICHAEL)

....

SOME MORE ARTISTS TO SUPPORT....

every month i like to shine a light on my friends and collaborators who have their own projects going on...

THIS MONTH i would love to point out that my musician / podcasting friend scroobius pip HAS JOINED PATREON.

he's here.

https://www.patreon.com/scroobiuspip

i've been on his podcast, check it

https://www.acast.com/distractionpieces/amandapalmer-distractionpiecespodcastwithscroobiuspip-41

and if you want to see (imho) the best thing he's ever done...

HERE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrMGXwhFLk 

you're welcome.

……………

UPCOMING DATES:

all the upcoming tour dates are below. as always, you can head to the official show pages for more info: http://amandapalmer.net/shows

i have one upcoming AFP show in october...

poster art by the amazing malleus:

OCTOBER 18th - An Evening With Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman - the rialto theatre - TUCSON, AZ 

this show is sold out. if you're looking for tickets or have extras, head over to the official facebook RSVP event and make a post:

https://www.facebook.com/events/278506856078039

AAAAND speaking of sold out shows in october....
as mentioned above...

OCTOBER 30th & 31st - The Dresden Dolls HALLOWEEN shows - Troxy - LONDON, UK

these shows are fast approaching. if you have/need extra tickets, head to the official facebook RSVP events:
https://www.facebook.com/events/242462789833573

i'll say it again: if you're in london the week of the gig, stand by for more info, we ARE adding a small warm-up show to dust off our chops and get amped for these special gigs. more info soon - those tickets WILL VANISH IN SECONDS. MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE DRESDEN DOLLS EMAIL LIST!!! don't make me have to tell you twice...
http://dresdendolls.com/emaillist

........

please don't forget, my fellow americans, that NOVEMBER 6th is the MIDTERM ELECTIONS. 

DON’T FORGET TO REGISTER TO VOTE. and put november 6th in your calendar NOW. please. go. vote. no matter what. so much is at stake right now. 

here’s a list of voter registration deadlines in the USA if you aren’t registered, it varies by state! VOOOOOOTE

https://www.vote.org/voter-registration-deadlines

......

time to go to bed.

i'm doing a photoshoot tomorrow with allan amato for the album art collection.

we are going to shoot at the salton sea....

who knows what will happen there.

I LOVE YOU ALL

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR BEING MY PATRONS.

more soon.

back to work.

xxx
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