a surprise secret download for you....neil reading his piece on the dresden dolls (Patreon)

HOLA COMRADES!

i come to you today with a sekrit surprize....

first: at the moment i'm in london, on my first off day since starting on the edward ka-spel recording...which is going smashingly. we've written a few songs from total scratch and are working on sounds and percussion loops and plinky piano parts and throwing poetry back and forth. fantasy accomplished. (if you want to check out more of edwards work, which some of you have asked about, stay tuned...i'm going to try to blog a roadmap to my favorite music of his.)

(NOTE: to $10+ patrons...i know i'm overdue for a chatty-everything-webcast. now that i'm settled with internet, i'd like to do one sometime within a week or so, so stay tuned and i'll post to you guys.)

also a reminder that my latest tour is now on sale:

june 3: LONDON, koko

july 16: WASHINGTON DC, 9:30 club

july 18: LEXINGTON, MA, first parish church (teeny tiny!)

july 19&20: NYC, le poisson rouge

july 23rd: HUDSON, NY basilica hudson (very special show)

all tickets: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/ 

now then: neil has a new book coming out in exactly a week (may 31st!) called "the view from the cheap seats" (not to be confused with the regina spektor album "what we saw from the cheap seats", which neil was unfamiliar with when he came up with his book title, and you should have seen the faintly grumpy expression on his face when he proudly announced his title and i was like "like the regina record?" and he was like "eh? but I did it first")....

it's a collection of the last 20+ years of his non-fiction writing (from journalism about refugees to tori amos liner notes to introductions to works of sci-fi to memorials for terry pratchett....and on and on).

he's been SLAVING on getting this collection together for the last two years. i know, i've hadda watch.

i was really really happy when he decided to include a review of a dresden dolls halloween show (NYC, irving plaza in 2009).  we weren't married yet, and he wrote it for SPIN magazine....and it touched me deeply at the time. 

neil spent three or four days when we were in santa fe this past winter recording all fuckin 500 pages of the book in audiobook form....an undertaking he usually enjoys but the altitude was killing him and he'd come back from the long studio days confused and exhausted, and he kept being nervous about how he was going to deal with narrating his Lou Reed interview. i still can't wait to hear that one.

ANYWAY....i asked if i couldn't maybe steal the audio from his audiobook (just the piece about the dresden dolls) and give it to you guys, just the patrons, AS A PRESENT because what the hell else is this patreon for if i can't occasionally do fun weird things like this....

AND THE PUBLISHER SAID YES....

so i nabbed it, and here it is, a download for YOU GUYS only.

(it's a wetranfser download link)

**please, please don't share on internet/social media, i'd get in trouble**

...but feel free to tell people you got to listen to this before anyone else did. 

patron bragging rights.

LINK: http://bit.ly/AFPCheapSeats

password: iM@patron

ENJOY. 

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

AND IN EXCHANGE....because of course i must pimp his book....because i think it's fantastic. IF YOU LIKE IT, go order THE WHOLE BOOK! 

it's available for pre-order in audiobook and hard copy format....

Audible / digital audio edition:

http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B01DMUKO2S&source_code=AUDORWS0428169GW9          

link for the audio CD:

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062417190/utm_source=aps&utm_medium=hc&utm_campaign=aps

UND

here's the amazon link to pre-order the digital or hardcover BOOK BOOK, like the kind you hold in your hands:

https://www.amazon.com/View-Cheap-Seats-Selected-Nonfiction-ebook/dp/B00RLRLB26?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&redirect=true&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect

here's the back o' the book text:

An enthralling collection of nonfiction essays on a myriad of topics - from art and artists to dreams, myths, and memories - observed in number-oneNew York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman's probing, amusing, and distinctive style.

An inquisitive observer, thoughtful commentator, and assiduous craftsman, Neil Gaiman has long been celebrated for the sharp intellect and startling imagination that inform his best-selling fiction. Now, The View from the Cheap Seats brings together for the first time ever more than 60 pieces of his outstanding nonfiction. Analytical yet playful, erudite yet accessible, this cornucopia explores a broad range of interests and topics, including (but not limited to): authors past and present; music; storytelling; comics; bookshops; travel; fairy tales; America; inspiration; libraries; ghosts; and the title piece, at turns touching and self-deprecating, which recounts the author's experiences at the 2010 Academy Awards in Hollywood.

Insightful, incisive, witty, and wise, The View from the Cheap Seats explores the issues and subjects that matter most to Neil Gaiman - offering a glimpse into the head and heart of one of the most acclaimed, beloved, and influential artists of our time.

and lastly (if i'm not boring you) here's some rah-rah blurbs:

“Full of devotion and erudition, this is also a glorious love-letter to reading, to writing, to dreaming, to an entire genre.” -Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“If this book came to you during a despairing night, by dawn you would believe in ideas and hope and humans again. This is a beautiful, beautiful book.” -Caitlin Moran, journalist and New York Times bestselling author of How to Build a Girl

LOVE and enjoy, my wonderful friends.

xxx

a

p.s. neil has an official bandcamp page now! it's https://neilgaiman.bandcamp.com/