The State of All Things: April 2022 {official Thing} (Patreon)

• A LITTLE LIFE UPDATE
• APRIL'S TOWN HALL: TIK-TOK FOLLOW-UP & UPCOMING THINGS
• WHAT'S HAPPENED THIS MONTH, WORK-WISE
• ROUNDUP OF PROJECTS THAT WERE RELEASED IN MARCH
• DISPATCHES FROM VARIOUS MEMBERS OF TEAM AFP
• HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING/GROWING
• OTHER ARTISTS TO SUPPORT & FOLLOW
• ART BEGETTING ART
• THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD

......

Hello my loves.

Welcome to this month's ALTHING...and it's so, so good to be here with you all. THIS ONE IS LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most important: I'm heading OFF OFF LINE until May 2nd.

**I AM GOING TO READ ALL THE COMMENTS HERE UNTIL THIS LINE IS DELETED**. I'll read a few tonight, then I'm disappearing! I'll read and respond when I'm back online. Don't hold back. TALK TO ME. There's a LOT to talk about.

Let me kick off with the big basic stuff.....

First of all, it's been a hot second since I did a $10+ tier webcast/chat, and I've just scheduled the next one for MAY 2nd AT 10 am NZ time, which is 6pm EST. 

That's the first day Ash is back at school after the holidays and I'll have a breather. Soon enough, I'll be back on eastern standard time (!) and it'll be all about finding times that work for my pals here in kiwi-land. You can find your local time and RSVP here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/1h8aq8zw  if you're a webcast-tier patron, and I'll be dipping in and out of the chat there until then. Please use the space if you want to connect with one another. It's always nice to see everybody chatting. I threaten and will probably make good: I'll play you the new song (s). You gonna cry. People are already there in the chat...I suggest taking this moment, NOW, to go say hi to each other. (HI!! I JUST POSTED THERE TOO).

I'm going to be going 100% offline from now until then. I keep falling behind, and childcare keeps falling through, but every step behind also takes me a step closer to Ash, and I keep agreeing to the message the universe seems to be sending loud and clear: prioritize the kid and the last few moments here on the island.

We went for a long, long hike today and he explored a lot of mushrooms and bugs and rocks and waterfalls and other bush treasures....this is, for the moment, my art project. So be it, universe. I'll take the job.

I am also about to start the gargantuan project of packing up and leaving New Zealand, and In the run-up to taking off back to the states, I want to maximize my time enjoying the, um, cliff-sides and the blackened shores of this fine country. 

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

I just finished reading the very last of the comments on last month's Althing (and "TikTok Town Hall", and I wanted to write about that before I plough into everything else.

There were about 500 comments to ponder, and I read every. Single. One.

Thank you all, so deeply, for everything you wrote. Every comment helped. 

My god. There's so much to unpack I barely know where to begin, but I'd like to start at what feels to me the biggest takeaway: this community is incredible. The fact that so many of you took the time to sit, think, write, reflect and work through the hard stuff with me is a miracle in itself.

I'm about to turn 46 (on April 30th, and yes I'll be offline, and yes that's by design. I did this last year and it was the greatest birthday ever. :). 

This gets me reflect-y. 

I have been thinking a lot about everything that's happened in my career. Not just the last kerfuffle (about "Surface Pressure") but about, oh, everything. How I use the internet, how we make this community, how we all make the new communities springing up around the internet, I've been thinking and reading about the way people communicate. I've been thinking about what music means and how it works, who artists are and what purpose they serve. Y'know. Lightweight shit.

Reading your comments was like running a month-long emotional marathon.

I always try to tease out the bigger picture, there's always the bell curve. On the one hand, you've got the few people saying "Whatever you do is fine by me, yay Amanda, you're a genius", and on the other hand, you've got a few people saying "Everything you've done is evil and tone-deaf and I came here and paid $1 for the pleasure of fucking telling you so." These comments fall to the edges and off the sides. They don't help much.

But the ones closer to the middle, the ones holding my hand through the confusion and trying to help me tangle through the issues, these are the truly valuable ones. 

I find myself, lately, able to view my own career - and my whole life, really - with a kind of detached and quieter curiosity. 

I've been cancelled so many times that it doesn't feel like I'm actually "cancellable": I'm still here, working and making art. I continue to forge into weird new areas, and I'm always making gaffes and mistakes and trying to learn from them so that I can be a better artist, a better person. It's a zig zag. 

One thing that struck me as the most incredible thing is how goddamn SMART you all are when it comes to the strange intersection of me, my personality, my career, my choices and my path.

This is the thing I think I love so much about patreon. 

I wish I could sit down with EVERY person who commented and have a tea, a wine, whatever.

I want to talk to every single one of you, more. 

And?

This isn't the sort of discussion I can have on any other social media platform (like twitter, instagram, or FB), because the people there are too much of a mish-mash of outsider with no context and the long-term community. There's just too much noise, most of the time, to have a really GOOD conversation. This also makes me simultaneously despair when I see comment after comment about the clonky-ness of patreon's commenting system, and the delay I've had with rolling out a better place to all talk (discord, mostly, and the plans for rolling that out keep getting waylaid due to life circumstances, nobody at the helm of moderation, and other things that need TIME and attention to implement - I've learned my lesson and I'm not just going to open up a bar with nobody at the door or the counter). 

But god, you all know me so well, and you really understand the world, and I'd like to say one thing: I am proud that while this can feel, sometimes, like an echo chamber, it really is not. You all challenge me, you're honest with me in the way my closest friends are. This is a privilege that not all artists have, and I treasure it, and I treasure you. 

And? 

It took me a full MONTH to read and synthesize all those comments. I loved every moment.

And I think this monthly post may also evolve - as it seems to be doing organically - into a sort of ongoing Town Hall where I can bring you questions, or you can bring me questions, and I can really sit and be with you, reading, listening, thinking, developing.

It starts here. 

This is a very long post, and again, I never expect even 10% of you to read these very long posts. 

But for those that do: thank you. You're here, I'm here, and I like talking this way. Slowly and deliberately.

So TikiTok/"Surface Pressure"....where to begin?

This one line in this one (very honest, very challenging comment) really stuck out to me, and it feels like a fine place to start.

This is the sort of thing I used to really bristle at.

But I have to admit, especially in the wake of that few years, that this is the one of the truest true things about me, and I've come to see it for what it is: it is a blessing and a curse. 

In the course of my life - whether it's projects, hirings, or relationships - I have started see the pattern: I love speed, and speed can lead to pain.

The key word I've been mulling lately - especially over the last few years of the pandemic, when plates are spinning in the air, people are unpredictable, and quick desperate fixes are needed - is discernment.

I am an artist, a human, who has often taken pride in the fact that I can shoot the art-gun first and fast, and ask questions later. You can see this across a million projects, and my team would likely grimace and agree that this is true: I get an idea, and before any of the budgets or ramifications are considered, we're already in the studio, or on the film set, or whatever. 

WHEEEE.

This is what gets me off: speed, beautiful coincidence, chasing the synchronicity. Patreon has done nothing but enable this habit: I have a  budget! I don't have a boss! I can do ANYTHING!! But there is a....downside.

I wrote a whole book about this, right? The Art of Asking was all about gleeful and profound trust. It was all about going with the flow, trusting your gut, allowing for help from wherever, trusting strangers, allowing yourself to ask for what you need. 

And the book is a best-seller: the themes rang true with so many people. I still get constant feedback that the book opened people up, unstuck people from ruts, made a whole new kind of sense of the world for people. Yay me.

BUT.

Part two of the book seems to be about the flip-side of the Art of Asking, which is about discernment, and being more deliberate about what you ask for, from whom, and how it can be, indeed, very dangerous to ask for what you need first (even if it's you asking yourself for something) while considering the consequences sometime you will have time for....later. 

There's a saying that often got pulled out by my various crews on tour: "Better to apologize later than to ask permission now." This is, to be honest, often the way to go. 

But sometimes it can really fuck you, and knowing where the line is - well, that's the art of life.

The speed and spirit of the internet has become a tornado. It was always pretty brutal out there: one mis-tweet could ruin a whole day, week, career. And on TikTok, to quote my old friend Dan: "cruelty is a varsity sport". It doesn't strike me as a coincidence that as I type this, Elon Musk is possibly about to spend his 45 billion buying the platform and de-regulating it in the name of free speech. 

But I join many people in the general worry: there's a painfully fine line between free speech and letting the darker trolls of humanity take the tiller unchecked. 

My projects - the ones that tend to end in hot water - could be viewed through the same lens, there's a theme here. I very often "did what I did" just not understanding the potential consequences. 

Sometimes I find myself feeling misunderstood, and sometimes I find myself not having read the room, or understanding the context in which I was singing (or speaking, or tweeting). The "Poem for Dzhokhar" (which I wrote a few days after the Boston Marathon Bombing) is a great example, and follows a kind of general pattern: my audience "got it" and liked it, but once that poem went out into the wider world and lived in a larger context, it was read as a narcissistic and nasty poem that sympathetic to a murdering terrorist, and I couldn't put it back in the bottle. 

Had I released the poem a year (or even a few months?) later, I do not think anyone would have given a flying fuck that I wrote it. But I see this again and again: 

speed can dish up excitement and thrill, and speed can lead to suffering.

The fact that the Whole Internet would read that poem - including the right-wing media, who were aching for a target that week - had never occurred to me. But perhaps the problem truly was with me. 

I mean: why did that not occur to me? 

That's where I didn't have discernment, and where I was indeed thoughtless, and just....went too fast. And where I could have a used more of a sounding board/editor than just Neil Gaiman in a coffeeshop holding a gluten-free muffin in one hand and my laptop on a poem in another and telling me that the poem looked fine. That is not enough. And that wasn't his fault. He was reading it in the same context I was. I should have gone farther. Asked more people, maybe. Mostly: I should have slowed down. 

I should have waited. I think that's the case here, as well.

It's a thing. I am an artist who desperately loves putting out things fast, hot, right from the brain-stovetop. Yet while I'm in the kitchen, I'm not outside in the town square, I;'m not in the world. I cannot be in both places at the same time.

This is where things get interesting.

One of the most helpful comments from one of you was about the DEEPER context of the musical and the song not "in the world", but on TikTok itself. 

TikTok has its own culture, its own meanings.

Thanks to you and your comments, I now understand that all a little better. I had not known that when the musical "Encanto" was released that it had become a gathering spot and an emblematic gathering umbrella for a group of marginalized people who really found solace and resonance in the musical's message. 

And in THIS context, I can absolutely see where my offering was seen as tone fucking deaf, because in this context, to those people...it really was. It was insensitive to that moment. And for that, I should apologize. 

Being a successful white woman spitting (literally) those beloved lyrics into a microphone - and in a way, using them to my own ends, channeling my own pain about my own life - was really a thoughtless move.

And again, I'd argue that one of the upsides of Patreon + Speed and "Yay, How Exciting Is It That I Can Get A Request From A Musical That Just Dropped And Put It Out With A Quartet THAT FAST??" became a downside here. 

Because in doing the cover so quickly after the musical was released and enjoying its own cultural moment: I did not read the room. 

And it isn't even that I read the room "wrong": I simply didn't read the room at all, since I wasn't in the room. 

I hadn't been spending the weeks or months leading up to my cover recording examining the memes, opinions, movements and vibe of TikTok. I just went ahead and did a thing I often do: took a great song, covered it, put it out, lalalalalala.

But this is worth considering, and thinking about, and stay with me for a moment here.....I also had an entire lead-up, announcement, and a whole day recording this song live-streaming on the internet - and many of you were there. This is, I think, where a weird internet and culture gap comes into play.

I have a feeling that if I had chosen to cover something much more egregiously wrong - I dunno, say another song by NWA or something similarly dicey - a whole load of you might have piped in and said "WAIT, AMANDA, NO NO NOOOOOOO..." 

But the vibe in the lead-up to the recording and the vibe on the webstream was encouraging and joyous. I sensed no red flags, neither did the team. When I released the song on the Patreon, it was cheered, and when I posted the little vocal clip to twitter and Facebook and Instagram, it was received and there was no blowback. It was a day or two later when I posted the same clip to TikTok that things went ballistic. 

And for that, I'm sorry. It was a dumb and insensitive move.

This brings up a really peculiar thing that is going on constantly nowadays: what goes where on the net; the how and when of what works until....it doesn't work. It is plain that if I'd avoided posting this to TikTok, I probably would not have ever faced the blowback. Which is weird. Would I change that, if I could turn back the clock a month or so? I'm not sure I would.

I don't think a single one of you is accountable - of course not. It's not my patrons' job to babysit me or my loud art-mouth or warn me off certain projects. 

And you should know this: there have definitely been times in the past when members of the fanbase or my team have looked at a project idea and said "Erm, Amanda, this isn't going to work....", or "Hey, Amanda, this isn't going to go over well, have you considered...?" 

But this wasn't one of those times. What strikes me as ironic is that I thought I was in this lovely safe little zone, as I often do with my little covers projects: not making this cover song with or for the mainstream, but with and for a group of people - you - who actually do act as a kind of a buffer between me and the real world. It's one of the things I enjoy most about patreon: the idea of making art directly for people, instead of for some imagined void or internet algorithm.

I'm reminded of the patron-funded cover I did of "Zombie", by The Cranberries. I called Jherek to whip up a fast arrangement of it when the singer of the song, Dolores O'Riordan, tragically died. It was a song that had always deeply moved me, and I'd even ripped off the chordal structure for The Dresden Dolls song "Half Jack". (Which I happily and openly admit, and always have, and for god's sake, don't go starting an internet kerfuffle. Talent borrows.) When I announced the release, a few people red-flagged me in comments on social media: Amanda, wait! No no no! Did you know that Dolores O'Riordan was anti-abortion?

I did not know that. And I was, at the time, in the middle of a huge campaign to help women in America access safe and legal abortion. OH FUCK! Great. Was I going to be seen as a hypocrite? I could have shut down the release of the song, but that seemed silly, and backwards. Instead, when I released it, I wrote about the mixed feelings. I wrote about the transcendence of music, and about how many things can be true at the same time. "Zombie" is not an anti-abortion song. It's an anti-war song. And so the song came out, and it was well received, and it was one of those moments where I braced myself and....nothing happened.

This release was a bit more like "Poem for Dzhokhar". It was, fundamentally, a flaw or mistake in timing. Many, many white artists are still out there covering songs from Encanto and there's not a lot of pushback. So there is no large, over-arching edict or movement that is declaring that white people cannot cover songs from this particular Disney Musical (or if there is, I haven't found out about it, and again, I often don't know what I don't know). But my timing was poor and that is often the way it happens on the Internet.

And this is where I circle back to the comment, and explore why it hurt. 

"Flinging myself into the world with very little consideration" is one of the things that I am, currently, really trying not to do. And I think a lot of people - especially, nowadays, a lot of white people - are grappling with. 

"But I didn't know...!!" is not an excuse for causing harm. It can be true. But it cannot be an excuse. One needs to look harder, go slower, have more discernment. Guage the room, the moment, the consequences more carefully than we are perhaps used to. This is our job as artists and cultural figures. To change this way. I know this.

I need to go slower, and look harder.

It's also worth saying that my general ability to look around various rooms (in real life and on the internet) has been crippled by having a kid. I have no regrets about having a kid. None. I fucking love him and I love being a mother. 

But it has meant that I rush more, when making my art. I edit even less than I used to, I take even less time, I rush more.

This is not good. 

The other day, someone was baking croissants in my oven for a group of pals, and I was in a rush to leave the house, and give one of the croissants to me, and one to Ash, who was waiting, buckled in the car. I waited for the tops to brown and I stated THESE LOOK DONE! THEY LOOK LIKE REAL CROISSANTS! I AM JUST GONNA TAKE TWO, THANK YOU!!!

The croissants were not done. They looked done. But they were, in the very middle, just.... uncooked dough. (I still ate it. And Ash ate his. We were hungry).

This feels like my art-life, sometimes: I am in a hurry, too often. 

I put things out when they are 95% baked. It is a bad habit.

And is has certainly been a lesson to me, over and over again for the last two years, it is relentlessly resonating: 

less is more.

Wait for the croissant to finish, or: Amanda, just don't fucking eat it.

And as I pull the chair back - as an artist, and as a mother - and explore how I can do better, it's a complicated problem. Making safe, vanilla choices is not the solution. 

Eating zero croissants is not the key.

I have a feeling that even if I tried to do that, I would fail miserably, and everybody would lose. I mean, I figured you could not go "safer" than a Disney song. IT IS DISNEY! But I was, in many ways, wrong about that. So clearly...making the art that calls my heart is still the correct direction to head in. I have never been a people-pleaser (that's for sure), and I don't plan to become one. That's a losing path. But here we are again at discernment, at thoughtfulness.

Not making any art that might be "dangerous" is not an option: but tasking myself and my team - and possibly my inner community, here, if anyone's in the mood to muse with me - with more discernment, consideration, and care certainly is. Doing more research and reading the room ahead of time, understanding the larger historical meaning of the things I'm working on, and dedicating time and attention to the context of projects certainly is something I need to do, and to work on. 

And....will it always work? I mean, I know this from experience: No, not all the time. But is it a reason to stop trying? No no no.

There will no doubt be works that I've put out that will come back around to haunt me. We really cannot read the future tea leaves in the art department. We cannot know what it will mean 20 years from now to have stood naked with a sword on an album cover (it's possible that even that could be seen as a sexual offense, or a glorification of violence that doesn't pass muster in 2045, who knows).

 But for now, I know I have something really, really valuable that not all artists get to have: a community that understands the nuance of things, and that understands I am still a work in progress, trying to serve up art that will move and help and delight people without hurting anybody in the process. It will never be simple, and it will never be 100% correct. It's art. That's just not possible. But we can try. And you can do your best to keep teaching me, talking to me, and believing that somewhere in the mess, there's progress.

This whole thing has led me to one larger-picture take-away: this community is not an echo chamber, it's an inner chamber. Some of your comments really challenged me, and some of them made my heart pound, but anytime that happened and I felt defensive and hurt, I stopped and read more slowly. These people wouldn't be telling you these things if they didn't care and want you to grow and understand. 

I also wanted to thank - singled out - those of you who are trans and people of color, who wrote to me specifically about your concerns and thoughts. And I wanted to thank the people who felt uncertain or critical about the release of the song, who wrote in with your own perspectives about all of this. You comments meant a lot to me. More to me than any others. The fact that you took the time to write means everything to me. I treasure the fact that you are here. Whether you're telling me to tell the critics to fuck off or telling me to fuck off...I think we can all agree that this family table is a beautiful one, where we can all take a deep breath and try to learn from each other. I hope you stay here and continue to conversation with me. I love you. I'm grateful to you. 

I know I am in a position of privilege over here. Thank you for talking to me. I'm listening. Your consideration and the fact that you're still here speaks volumes in itself.

Also: so many of you in general wrote about how HARD it is to sludge into those places on the internet where YOU get shouted down for praising, defending or explaining Amanda Palmer's choices.

This is something I'd really love to WRITE more about, perhaps in the (ahh?!) next book. I, too, like many of you, have found myself caught in the Scylla and Charybdis area when it comes to "defending" my friends, fellow artists, and other colleagues who are in the midst of being questioned, taken to task, piled-on or downright getting cancelled or crucified. The shape of the internet is currently not built for slow and nuanced conversation. Many is the time I've gone "I would say something....but I just....can't. This cannot become my battle, I'm just going to get sucked into the hate." I duck and cover. I always hate it.

"Defending" me should never be your weight to carry, your job. I'm a really big girl, I've been through this time and time and time again. What I worry about, in general, isn't so much me. I've grown a skin thick enough to step back and take certain slings and arrows (and tweets, etc, telling me to kill myself) with the kind of perspective and grace that it takes to make it through to the next part of the growth, the conversation, the learning, the progress.

I want to make sure you all know that your problem - if you are sitting there thinking it's a "problem", grimacing at terrible comments about me, my choices, or my work and knowing that you cannot weigh in - is NOT YOUR PROBLEM. You can duck and cover. You have your own exhausting lives to lead. Know that I will always be fine, and when you're ready, we can always keep talking. Here, on social media, wherever.

I worry nowadays, very honestly, more about the 14 year olds who are on the receiving end of this kind of pile-on, this level of hatred. 

I can take it. I'm me. I am a teflon giant. 

But some of those kids....cannot. And I find myself wondering: how can I help THAT? How can we help THEM? I've learned many of my learnings - this one included - and I can sort of weather it with a studied calmness that I've cultivated after years of hard hauling.

But I hear the stories from my parent friends about their teenagers, and how they are on the receiving end of the same level of vitriol (I know a 14-year-old kid who recently made a dumb Instagram gaffe and literally received texts from classmates telling him to do the planet a favor and kill himself), and I fucking worry. 

More than ever, I think that we, as a community, can take a look at this larger picture and possibly contribute to the whole dismal situation. How can we help cultivate a system, a landscape, a playbook, where the WAY we deal with these sorts of things is more humane? How can we help that 14 year old? This is something I would ask you think about, talk to me about, and help me out with. This is something I care about, a lot. This is a really powerful and hyper-intelligent community, and if I'm going to delve into this sort of wider exploration in my writing and work....I'm going to want your help. Nobody has had a career like mine, and there is no other community like this. 

We're a unicorn. Maybe, together, we can be a unicorn with a cape and a helping hand (hoof?)

Lastly: the overall consensus regarding my ideas around SUMMARIZING the long-standing "Kerfuffle Collection of Amanda Palmer" seems to be that it's a really good idea. But it needs to be done RIGHT.

So? I WILL ASK YOU FOR HELP WITH THIS. So many of your comments are already so wise, and nuanced, and prove to me that you understand things about the internet that I do not, especially because I'm not as "native" since I've had a kid. Your comments about how TikTok functions and the nitty gritty of links, videos, posts and so forth are REALLY FUCKING HELPFUL. Thank you for those.

I need the hive-brain. It's you.

So I may really, truly call on your help to work with me as I craft something really thoughtful, really accountable, really kind, and really honest. Maybe I'll send you drafts. Maybe I'll send drafts to upper-tier patrons and then the whole patreon before I chuck it out to the wider world. This is our superpower, and I am more grateful than I ever have been to have a group of advisors all overt the globe who want to help me figure out how to help the world, let go of my ego, and be a better person and artist. You're golden, my friends. I know it.

All I can add to this is that it's gonna take some time. I'm solo with Ash for the next while, and even finding the time to write this Althing during the school holidays has been a mind-bender. Gone are the days when I would stay up til 4am on twitter or on the forum disucssing things at my own pace. It's gonna happen slowly, and if I've learned anything: it SHOULD happen slowly. I don't want speed and sloppiness to rule the roost anymore. I want to do this slowly, and I want to do it right. So bear with me.

 This leads me to my next Town Hall topic of discussion....not unrelated in the "speed and accuracry" dept:

TOWN HALL: WHAT TO WORK ON AND THING OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS/YEAR.....?

I mentioned last month that we're starting to look back over the Patreon Thing-list, and Things that are stuck in the shoe-box, the log-jam. So now.... I want to take a little bit of time to talk to you - and ASK YOU - about some of the projects we have back-burnering, and find out what YOU are most interested it. 

I'm heading into a real fallow period - this coming next 6-12 months will be heavily dedicated to Ash and getting him into a new-home/country routine, and I myself gotta really spend some time recuperating from the last two years in New Zealand....which means that a lot of new projects are going to impossible to start, and we gotta make time to look back and FINISH some of these motherfuckers that have been on the docket forever.

I don't wanna go too fast and ruin anything. See above.

But what should I focus on?

You know that thing that happens when you take time off, or your'e sick, and the to-do list has piled so high that you become paralytic? I sort of feel like that now. I have started a LOT of projects that I haven't finished, and it's really hard to tell where I can best put my energy. So I'll do what I often do: come to you for feedback and advice.

I'm may post an actual patreon-post poll a little later to see where your hearts are, but for now, here's an overview, and you can sound off in the comments about which things excite you, which things don't excite you, what you'd like to see prioritized. OKAY? Let's do this.

I'm gonna kick off with four projects that are hopefully coming out in the next few months.

........

FIRST OFF: I FUCKING WROTE SOME GREAT NEW SONGS LAST WEEK.

First time in a year. My song-brain was stolen by the year's events. It's been returned.

I feel like a god.

Goddamit, I hope I get to record release them before I leave New Zealand.

You can see me celebrating HERE. 

.........

SECOND OFF: I made a recording with the amazingly loud and talented Austin, TX, indie band And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead....many months ago, and we are getting ready to release it as an Amanda/Trail of Dead yipee-for-us collab. It'll be thinged and if we can get our shit together - WITH A VIDEO.

They are one of my favorite bands. WHY??

If you want to know why I love them so much, go listen to this record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_Apart_(...And_You_Will_Know_Us_by_the_Trail_of_Dead_album)

This album was poorly reviewed by many hipsters when it came out.

I think it's one of the best on earth.

You tell me.

And you're welcome.

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

THIRD OFF:

FROM PODCAST-LAND: MY LONG LOST INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN CAIN!

THE PODCAST LIVES AGAIN!

This project is a little less of a weigh-in from you, and more of a hopeful promise: if all goes well, this one will be coming out in May. There was a bit of scheduling hold-ups and pauses before we could release this one, because Susan wanted to get her book out and it was DELAYED BY OVER A YEAR OF COVID....but finally, the time has come.

Susan Cain is an olkd pal of mine from TED and the author of "Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking"....which she wrote after her TED talk on the same subject went massive. (It's had 30 million views and is one of the most-watched TED talks of all time)

I recorded this podcast chat with her back in the summer of 2019 in Edinburgh, and pretty heavily focuses on her new book, which just came out...

AND IN AMAZING NEWS: the book just hit #1 on the NYtimes bestsller list.

The conversation that we had around the time she was finishing writing this book was INCREDIBLE...and this is going to be one of the best interviews of the whole podcast collection. We went to some incredible deep and important places, and if I recall, brought one another to tears. It was that kinda podcast.

I CANNOT WAIT TO READ the book itself, I just got a copy, and if you wanna delve in and prep yourself so you have a good understanding of her work before the interview, BOOK CLUB!!!!!

So hold the phone....that one's a-comin

......

FOURTH OFF....

IF I can get it together, I want to record a  little SURPRISE "GOODBYE NEW ZEALAND" song with the wonderful Dillie Keane of Fascinating Aida....the original songwriter behind "Look Mummy, No Hands". Here she is, in the middle of FA:

IF WE CAN GET THIS ONE OUT, I WILL BE SO HAPPY. It's a ridiculous surprise, just pray for me that it works.

JUST CROSS ALL YER THUMBS!!!!!!!

.........

AND NOW, THE PAST!!!!!

Here is a long list of back-logged projects. Tell me what you're feeling when you read about these, and what piques your interests and desires.

MORE from PODCAST-LAND: THE ABORTION RIGHTS PODCAST.

I've talked about this a whole bunch in previous Althings, and it keeps getting pushed back due to the fact that it embiggened and embiggened....it's currently three episodes) looking (loosely) at the past, present, and future of abortion. I've been working on it for almost a year with Fannie Cohen (who's been the producer for the entire podcast) and the writer Kelly Welles (who can in as a special script-writer, interviewer and editor to help with this one).

It's gonna take a little bit of time to massage it into its final, publishable form, which means sitting down and listening to drafts, re-recording parts, re- working the scripts, updating for changes that have happened since the last drafts....it's a big ol' time-sucker.

If any of you are thinking what I'm thinking and reading the news lately about how abortion rights are being horrifyingly eroded in the states, you'll know why this is a big one and one not to rush, to get right and not just dash off. I've been finding myself agonizing about having the time and attention to spend on this one. I want to get it out SOON because it's important, and I also want it to be so good that it doesn't just turn into a three-second drop on the internet. Please tell me if you've been thinking about, paying attention to, or working in this area. It would mean a lot to me to know where you're at with that - espeicaly those of you in America. Talk to me.

......

THE MICHAEL DUNAWAY DOCUMENTARIES....

Michael Dunaway is an old pal of mine who I met as an editor at Paste Magazine. He dotted in and out of the There Will Be No Intermission tour back in 2019 (many of you will remembver him as "Father Michael" who ran the filmed "confession booth") including the LA show, and parts of the UK and Ireland tour.

There are TWO FILMS that have come together from this time:

The first, which is basically finished, is a short little 10-minute art-documentary, featuring an interview with me recorded at my house in Woodstock, spliced up between footage of the tour and adventures we got up to on the road.

Here's a few screenshots to whet your appetites...

If all goes well, we can get this baby out pretty quickly.

The second documentary we made is (tentatively) titled APOLITICAL LOBBY, and this one is.... a little more complex.

(photo by Gabrielle Motola)

Part of the There Will Be No Intermission tour took us to Ireland, where the abortion conversation still rages, even though progress has been made.

So....during the Ireland leg of the tour, we invited abortion activist groups to the lobbies of the shows (similar to how we had Planned Parenthood in most of the lobbies the US shows).

Unfortunately, our plan was derailed in a couple of the venues, when we were informed that the venue was unable to allow "political" activism within the building.

You can read a little more about that situation - including a rundown of the very tense tete-a-tete that occurred in Dublin, in this piece that our tour correspondent Jack Nicholls wrote. 

This slightly-longer 20 minute documentary focuses on Cork, and includes some interview footage, some backstage footage with the tour crew, and some lobby footage....and it's REALLY POWERFUL. And weird.

(LOOK WHO IT IS!!! Yes, It's MICHAEL):

Strategizing our plan.....

WE can probably get this out in the next few months, but again, I want to dip my finger in the windy air and see what your appetite for this is right now.

What is so weird is that....this was all filmed pre-pandemic. 

Everything - in many ways - has changed. It feels overwhelming in many ways to revisit this footage. There was so much I did not understand back then, even though this was only three years ago.

But if you want to hear these stories....and maybe you have your own questions, which we can keep in mind while we cut and edit....ask.

......

Speaking of documentaries, we also have....the long-awaited

MONA FOMA CONFESSION-BOOTH DOCUMENTARY

Some of you might remember, back in 2020 BEFORE the world fell to pieces, I went to the Mona Foma festival in Australia. 

While I was there, I tried an experiment - I set up a "confession booth" for people to come along, and just....say whatever they wanted to say, knowing that I would listen, and keep their secrets in my steel trap. 

The plan was twofold: I would turn the confessions into art, by writing a new song....which I did. It's called 

The song that resulted from all those confessions, if you're interested, was "Suck It Up, Buttercup" which was released on the Bushfire Fundraiser Record I titled (and WHEEEEE... as patrons, you can access the download here, for free). 

That song - the whole album, really - was sort of lost in the shuffle.

Moments - DAYS - after it was released, the world toppled with COVID.

But the record and the song are both really wonderful if you haven't checked them out yet.

ANYWAY.....

While I was doing all of this, I also got a local film-maker, Lucy Reid, to come along and document the entire THING. She didn't come into the confession booth (obviously), but she filmed everything around the edges, including my song process and my thoughts and my exhaustion. 

The current draft is about an hour long, and it's full of beautiful stories, thoughts about confessions, little performances, and interviews with me reflecting on my career and my life...and Lucy also followed me with a camera around the festival itself to give the whole thing context.

Plus, the gorgeous scenery of Tasmania...good GOD.

Working hard on the song in my Launnie rental flat....

On stage at MONA....

Talking with the locals about colonization....

THE BOOTH....

I feel like this one is close to the finish line as well.

It probably needs a good dedicated one to two weeks of work to wrap.

FEELINGS?

......

A FULL MUSIC VIDEO: LOOK, MUMMY, NO HANDS

If you've been following the 'projects coming up' section of the Althing for a while, you'll also know that one of the big white whales we've been chasing for nearly 3 years now is the LOOK MUMMY, NO HANDS MUSIC VIDEO.

This one...oh god. The song is one of my faves on the record. (You can hear it here: https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/look-mummy-no-hands-5). (and don't forget, patrons can still download the whole record for free, here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/this-is-it-there-25037722)

This was filmed around the same time as "drowning in the sound", but it got snagged. It was supposed to come out while I was touring the record. Things happened.

Michael Pope (who's directed a whole bunch of music videos for me) was behind the camera for this one.

It looks GORGEOUS, but there's just a few more editing tweaks that we need to fix up before it's ready to be fully launched out into the world.

Here are some behind the scenes photos, taken by Krys Fox...

And here are a few stills from the video itself, so far...

I can't imagine y'all aren't hungry for this one....so I'm gonna try to put it at the top of the list.

It's taken forever mostly because I have not had the headspace to finish it, since Covid and motherhood and lockdowns and other shit keep happening at my life.

Finishing projects is HARD.

FEELINGS? THOUGHTS?

......

There are a whole bunch of things from over the years, that have just sort of.... SAT in the archives, waiting for the right time to be released.

Some of them.....

"BRICK" - from the "There Will Be No Intermission" session 

Yep. My cover of the classic Ben Folds song (about....you guessed it, abortion) was recorded in the studio during the actual recording sessions for There Will Be No Intermission, but at the end of the day the album was maximum CD-length with the 10 songs we chose. But jesus christ, it's good, and it almost made the cut. 

I feel like releasing it with a video and for charity would be really powerful. Maybe at the same time the podcast goes out to keep everything together. There's....a lotta abortion stuff. This, the podcast, the Michael dunaway documentary. It's hard to know what to put first, how to space things, whether to bundle things....and how not to just be like abortion abortion abortion so loudly that everybody just tunes out. I would love advice if any of you got it.

FEELINGS? THOUGHTS?

.........

The Lost ABERDEEN CITY RECORDINGS 

Weird story. So, prior to releasing Who Killed Amanda Palmer, I wasn't sure what exactly my next step was going to be, so I experimented a little. I worked with a local Boston band for a while - Aberdeen City - to see if they'd work as a backing/collab and touring band.

I played 2 teeny tiny shows in New York and Hoboken with the sweet Men of Aberdeen City, where we tried to be a FULL ROCK BAND WITH GUITARS AND EVERYTHING. 

And then we went into the studio and recorded a few songs songs together.....and then the plan sort of got scrapped, they all went their separate ways....and, instead, I went off to Tennessee and recorded Who Killed Amanda Palmer with (THEME!)....Ben Folds. The Lost Aberdeen City songs have been locked in the semi-vaults since then. I'm thinking of making videos for them and getting them out with the fanfare they've always deserved. They're incredible recordings - they totally stood the test of time.

FEELINGS? THOUGHTS?

........

My Early 90s DEMO TAPES.

DUDES.

This is..... about as far back in the archives as the archives GO.

Back in 1995 and 1998, I recorded two demo cassette tapes. Here are a few photos that SOMEONE on the internet somehow uploaded:

The 1995 tape that I recorded and produced mostly MYSELF in my living room. And fun note, the same artwork that would eventually appear on the back cover of the dresden dolls debut). 

Here's the 1998 tape used the same image for the cover, but the artwork is looking.... a little more professional :)

So, we HAVE digitized these tapes..... if you want to see WHERE IT ALL BEGAN, and hear 18-year-old Amanda's faux-British accent.

SOMEDAY, I gotta put this one out. 

It's ..... well, you'll see. It's me singing and playing the way I sang and played before meeting Brian and starting the Dolls, and it's HEAVY. DUTY.

Feelings? FEELINGS? THOUGHTS? BUELLER???

......

Also sitting in the archives while I've been pondering what to do, and how to release it, is The Bed Show.

This was a theatrical show I workshopped loosely with a bunch of Bard College students ....based on a big idea in my head (and also one of my songs....can you guess which one?) back in 2014.

It ran for just a handful of performances - for one week only - at Bard College in Upstate New York, and has just been sitting on the shelf of my creative brain ever since. I KNOW SOME OF YOU WERE THERE!!!!

We have master studio recordings of the "soundtrack" (written by me, and performed by the cast).

We also have a recording of one of the shows, but to temper expectations, it's NOT a professional hi-def, soundboard masterpiece... it's a video camera at the back of the room situation.

But still..... I'm pretty proud of the work we all did. It's very ROUGH, but it's emotional.

Here are some screenshots of the recording...

FEELINGS? THOUGHTS?

This could be a really fun one to dig up and THING.

.......

AND THAT, as she says, is that.

For now.

I'm reading all your comments.

Talk to me about how any of the above projects make you feel. Desire. Despise.

You can help me pick what to work on.

I'm listening.

......

BACK TO THE PRESENT!!

PROJECTS RELEASED IN APRIL...

"JUDY BLUME" from Auckland Library, plus behind-the-scenes documentary

Samantha Bee invited me to perform on her show "Full Frontal", on an episode all about book censorship...most of the context is alllll in the Official Thing post, which you can find here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/64996347

I filmed the video in Auckland Library after-hours, and my new friend and social media hand Aura recorded a sweet little behind the scenes video that we've uploaded especially for you patrons. GO SEE!!!

......

"Dirge Without Music" was my contribution to Universe in Verse, the annual event put together by my friend Maria Popova at The Marginalian (formerly BrainPickings).

I read a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and we had it animated by Sophie Blackall, and scored by her cousin Tom McRae.

You can read all about it in the Official Thing post here!:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/64715112

......

DISPATCHES FROM THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLES OF TEAM AFP...

Alex

Weeeeeeell.

You might remember last month how I said I was (cautiously) going out to events and starting to see what life might look like again after the last two years.

Well..... I got COVID. Surprise surprise!!!

Luckily I just ended up with a fuzzy head for 3 or 4 days, and a throat like sandpaper for about another 5 days... so it could have been worse.

I'm frustrated that despite doing everything in *my* power (which amounts to... wearing a mask, avoiding getting too close to people for too prolonged a time), it still wasn't enough.

I'm trying not to feel too despondent about what this means for society, and how we go on functioning, especially when news of reinfection seems more prevalent, and we seemingly can't rely on "Herd immunity" to get past this. 

Anyway.

During my quarantine, I decided to indulge in a binge-rewatch of Six Feet Under, which was one of my absolute favourite shows as a teenager, and I've been meaning to rewatch it basically ever since.

And god, what an absolutely beautiful show it is. If you haven't seen it..... at least watch the gorgeous opening credits, which in themselves are a beautiful piece of art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5JkGY1qC8Y

The music, the dissonance, the staccato, the imagery... god, I just love it all.

Anyway.

I'm happy to report that after 10 days, I got my negative test and got back on my feet again.

So.... until next month.

Keep taking care of yourselves, my friends.

-Alex

<3

{WE LOVE YOU, QUEEN ALEX!!! Thank you for all your help on this post despite being just out of the sickie ward. I can't wait to see you....soon. - AFP}

........

Michael and Jordan will hopefully send updates next month, they're in the life-crusher at the moment

.........

HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING!

As of this writing there are about 12,200 patrons pledging about $38,000 for the first Thing each month.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NEWCOMERS: you are welcome to (and encouraged to) CAP YOUR PLEDGE! PLEASE.

I cannot stress this highly enough.

Your pledge on Patreon supports me per Thing that I release, but sometimes it's unpredictable how many Things will come out in a month (sometimes it's just 1, usually it's 2 or 3, we have been known to do 6 or 7).

We know this can create financial insecurity and uncertainty - so Patreon allows you to cap your pledge. This is, essentially, setting a MAXIMUM amount that you want to pay per month. YOU CAN BUDGET. Say for example, you're happy to pay $3 per Thing, but you don't want to pay more than $10 a month. In that's the case, you can "cap" your pledge at $10, and whether I release 4 Things or 40 Things, you won't be charged more than $10. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, you will still have access to ALL the things, even if you cap your pledge!!! It doesn't effect access.

You can read all about capping your pledge here.

I go over this stuff in every Althing, but if you're new to all this: Patreon charges you monthly & retroactively, meaning that you get billed on the 1st of the month for all the Things released the month prior.

Because people have their pledges capped (SEE ABOVE), the first "Thing" raises the most money by far, and anything released thereafter raises less and less. I LIKE THIS! THIS IS GOOD! It means I never feel guilty about releasing TOO MUCH!! So really. Please, cap your pledge if you are on a budget.

In March, I Thanged TWO Things:

Surface Pressure release, which earned about $44,094 from 12,176 patrons.

The State of All Things: March 2022, which earned about $19,042 from 6,951 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.)

Them's the numbers.

And remember: these numbers are gross. 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, 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.

These numbers also do not reflect the money I SPENT MAKING THE ART, paying my staff, paying the office rent, paying for crowdcast, getting myself around, getting the team around and fed and slept, all the collaborators, and my actual staff payroll, 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.

......

OTHER ARTISTS TO SUPPORT....

I was invited to take part in a compilation from the German organization "Artists For Peace", who have put together this compilation with a whole bunch of wonderful artists, to raise money to help Ukraine by donating to Mission Lifeline. 

They crowdfunded the original pressing - and raised over €100,000. Now, you can pre-order the CD or vinyl (IN THE COLORS OF THE UKRAINIAN FLAG) from Amazon, or find out more information about the organization here:

https://artistsforpeace.de/

......

Many of you loved the poem I posted the other day in the "Hello, Lungs" post....it's by Johnn Roedel, and he's currently trying to drum up business for his self-published book, "Remedy". If you wanna make his day, order the book...self-publishing is hard, and he's a great poet.

The link to buy it is here.

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

ART BEGETTING ART

a lovely little crochet-amanda by @crochetbroadway....

and a beautiful "there will be no intermission" tattoo on @dollyolioli....

......

THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD

Angel Rosen's second poetry collection is now available!!  

From the preface...  

"The concept of Blake comes from the song “Blake Says” by Amanda Palmer.  To me, Blake means defying convention.  Blake means being loved for being authentic and to love someone’s entirety.  I have always wanted to be loved like that.  Some days, it seems possible that I already am.  

I offer that love, and hope that it comes back to me."  

This book contains poems about grief, suicide, and mental illness but it is a book of survival nonetheless.   

I hope you all order it.

Angel has been one of my most treasured patrons, and she's so, so, so talented.

http://mybook.to/blakesays

That's it for now, my loves.

I'm reading all comments.

See you a little later tonight, and/or on May 3rd when I'm back online.

xxx

AFP

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

1. if you are a patron and new to my work, don’t forget your patronage allows you access to ALL of my patreon releases to date. HERE is the link to download my latest big solo record, “There Will Be No Intermission”, and HERE is a link to download the PDF of the art/essay book that goes with it.

2. if you’re a patron reading this post via an email notification, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol. that's always nice for me to see, so i know who's reading.

3. see All the Things (over 150 of them) i've made so far on patreon:

http://amandapalmer.net/things

4. JOIN THE SHADOWBOX COMMUNITY FORUM, find your people, and discuss everything: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/

5. new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/

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