the "music + mental health" talk + Q&A at berklee, on film! {official thing} (Patreon)

(patron only)

HALLO MY LOVES.

i know i've been talking about putting this one out for a while...it's finally ready....and there's a little bit of breathing room. (but not much. i'm barely recovered from a weekend of tour and already packing up again to hit chicago. FOOF. by the way, st. paul....SAVE THE AFTERNOON, looks like i'll be sneaking in a record-store-day appearance! details ASAP).

anyway, here's your TL;DR:

this is a film, just for y'all, of a great in-depth interview-style talk i gave last november at the berklee college of music in boston, MA. i went to town just for this gig and discussed lots of things like:

-my early history with the dresden dolls
-....and having brian viglione as a cheerleader & early male ally
-how i gradually learned to take care of myself and my mental health as a musician, including discussions about how and when to shut off the internet, and my mindfulness practice.
-how i navigate "writing about other people"....what are the boundaries? gads...it's hard.

...and a dozen other topics. 

i also played three live songs that i thought were good on-topic offerings regarding mental health (wheeeeeee!!!): "runs in the family", "perfect fit", and "in my mind".

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$3 download tier people: an audio-only download is coming in a separate email in a moment.

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it's a good watch/listen...and the questions at the end from some from the young students are absolutely tearjerking.

this is me with the host, leah driscoll

(photo by kate flock)

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the event was covered by the local press...here's a little write-up in the berklee paper (which goes into the topics if you just wanna scan what we discussed)

https://www.berklee.edu/news/berklee-now/amanda-palmer-says-youre-exactly-person-you-want-be

and the boston globe covered it:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2018/11/09/amanda-palmer-talks-songwriting-and-self-care-berklee/9okc1BhuCcD7I9Qz1ROtmO/story.html

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boston is a complicated place from me. i'll tell you more about that soon.

it meant a lot to me to do this particular talk only a few blocks from where the dresden dolls were born, in my old apartment at the cloud club.

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in about two weeks, after the boston (april 19th) and NYC (april 20th) shows, i'll be immersing myself in the "drowning in the sound" video - a huge, expensive and ambitious project that's gonna swallow up many tens of thousands of dollars and take a shit ton of time and people to create. those projects (right now the budget for the video is nearing $60k) are offset by smaller, cheaper projects like these...but i don't feel that the messages carried out to the universe are any less important.....and the impact of art & discussion, of images and words, are impossible to put a price tag on. 

i spent two months preparing my TED talk and didn't get paid. the dresden dolls spent $50-60k on some of our music videos. can i ever look back and say what was and wasn't worth spending money on? or doing for free? if i spent too much time thinking about that, i'd just drive myself up a fucking tree. and the point of this patreon is that you trust me, you wanna hear what i have to contribute, and sometimes it's going to come in the form of an album and sometimes a single song, and sometimes a poem (watch yourselves, i have a plan), and sometimes a podcast, or an interview with someone, or a considered essay that i actually spent time and energy making. 

i suppose it all comes down to time and energy. if i'm spending time and energy on it, it's "content" (a word i actually despise). maybe we should call it "media". if i'm spending time and energy on it, it's media. if you're here because you want media, i got you fucking covered.

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i said yes to traveling to berklee to do this talk because....well, they invited me. but it just wasn't worth the trip, not for the dough they were offering. i just couldn't justify the time and energy to get there. so i asked if i could film and share it on the patreon to offset the time and energy cost. 

and they said yes....they agreed to let me film it and release it to patrons only.

i'd rather that this talk be available publicly. it irks me that it has to stay private. but that was the deal. it's important to me that you guys know that this isn't me trying to pull a fast one and force people to hop my paywall to access content (really: especially content like this, which i feel should be available to young, up-and-coming musicians, many of whom aren't in my sphere and would happily just can this on youtube for free because a friend shared it on twitter).

so, it hurts a bit. 

here's where things get a little weird. 

i announced that this talk would be patron-only on instagram a few days ago and i got this response, from @kingsquirrel (who i am not sure is patron. if you are, hi):

here was my response:

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i share this so you all know the kind of thought (and occasional pushback) that goes into running a patreon. 

i think really deeply about this kind of shit, and as you know, there's no rulebook, no patreon judiciary, no court of patreon justice.

i am literally making up the rules as i go along. 

if i call it media, and i charge you for it, that's the deal. you can give me feedback, you can raise your hand in agreement or disagreement, you can help me figure all this out. 

and you do. this is the way forward. i'm always trying to keep you all as included as possible in the crazy machete-ing into this thick wood, and i try to ask before i leap, and i try to get input before i do stuff.

but mostly, i just trust you to trust me, and i figure you're all here for the long-haul ride.

we've just tipped into 15,000 patrons (but dropped down again due to the usual start-of-month credit card wipe-out) and you should know: as many people have LEFT this patreon as have joined it. there are 15,000 people out there who came, tried, and for whatever reasons - financial, artistic, political...it wasn't for them.

if you're here, it's because you've survived art darwin.

.......

i don't usually go into this kind of nitty gritty during an "offiical thing" post, but it actually does come full-circle.

my mental health includes reading posts like that on instagram.

this is my life's work.  making art, sharing art, PAYING for art....and absorbing the connections between all these things is MY WORK. 

my mental health is so closely attached to my ability to have faith in my course, to learn from my mistakes in business and in art, to ride the boat along the choppy sea of feedback and reality. 

i'm about to release a Thing in a week or so that is very scary to put out. not all of you may like it. this is my work. this is my art. this is the job. this is the risk i'm willing to take using patreon instead of hiding behind a publisher, a record label, or another entity that's there to authenticate my media, my "work" and its right to exist in the public arena

only YOU authenticate my media, my "work". 

only you. this is it

no commercial potential, people.

so thanks.

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HERE IS THE PRIVATE LINK.

as mentioned above....this video is strictly patron only, here's a private link to watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kifnJQNju9c&feature=youtu.be

here are the time stamps for the songs and interview Q&A:

06:34 - The Perfect Fit

13:27 - Runs In The Family  

16:10 - 01:21:00 - Interview

Q&A  01:21:38 - In My Mind

HOWEVER....i'm gonna say this here: while you can't post this to social media anywhere, please SHARE THIS TALK BY HAND WITH ANYONE YOU THINK NEEDS TO SEE IT.

email it to a friend, text it to a friend's kid, email it to your sister, DM it to the musician down the street who's having a hard time taking care of themselves. 

maybe it'll help them.

just tell them, please: don't post this to social media. and if they're moved by it...join the patreon. ok?

okay.

.......

and please use this thread/post to discuss anything that comes up for you while watching/listening.

i'm wide open to answering questions that may arise...i'll check back over the next few days.

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here are some photos from the day....(all photos by Kate Flock Photography).

i love you all.

thank you for your patronage.

x

a

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

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