Ok, for real now. WHO ARE MY PEOPLE UPSTATE? Make yourselves known. (Patreon)

Hallo loves.

Good MORNING from Bearsville, NY! It's raining and cold.

But beautiful. Here's the porch this morning.

The summer curtains have been all wrapped up and the wind was so mad last night it blew that bench over...and literally blew the front door open. We had to get up in the middle of the night to shut it. GHOSTS.

I've been meaning to do this for a while, and now's a good a time as any. I wasn't gonna post this - though it's been in my to-do list for ages, but this morning I was inspired by an article that came out in the NY times. If you want to understand a little bit about my life here in upstate New York, there’s an inspiring article (I did a quick interview) by Sal Cataldi covering my friend Melissa Auf der Maur - erstwhile bassist for Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, and more, and the woman who lured me up here....thereby changing my whole life:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/03/nyregion/musicians-hudson-valley-catskills.html

The NY times journalist, Sal, just TEXTED me this a.m.- he wound up cutting 2/3 of the article and had these bits edited out but said i was free to share them here on the internetz.....

Musician Amanda Palmer is a longtime friend of Auf der Maur’s, one of the many that she has helped sell on the Hudson Valley lifestyle.

“Melissa and I met in an extraordinary way, when we were both trapped in London in 2010, when air travel from Europe was halted due to an Icelandic volcano eruption,” says Palmer. “Our Twitter followers point us towards each other and we met and spent a night in bed – platonically, of course – speaking about our hopes and dreams and developing a real female bromance.”

“Melissa and I are compatriots, we have kids the same age and she held my hand through my decisions to take a dive into motherhood and to move upstate,” continues Palmer. “There’s not many performance venues like hers, or ones run by women for that matter, so I support her whenever I can by hosting fundraisers, performing there. I’m told I was the first woman to spend the night camping out at Basilica breastfeeding a newborn during one of their 24-Hour Drones.”

“Melissa has incredible charisma and integrity,” concludes Palmer. “She’s an important nexus, a vital connective tissue in the arts, the environment and in bringing a certain kind of creative to take up residence in the Hudson Valley.”

AMEN.

Here's a beautiful shot of me and Melissa, after the Dresden Dolls show @ Colony a couple weeks ago. 

I owe her my life, in many ways.

So much love.

People often ask me why I moved to Woodstock.

I didn’t, really. About 10 years ago, Melissa (who is very fucking convincing) persuaded me - in a bar in Boston - to move to Hudson in addition to getting a place in NYC, so I’d have cheap space to make noise, and access to her fun factory art church to play in. Hudson looked like a teeny Brooklyn-in-the-countryside.

I have to admit, shamefully, I also had a THING against Woodstock. The Dolls' second record, "YEs, Virginia", was made on a mountaintop - in Shokan - about 45 minutes from Woodstock. I found it really depressing and isolating - and I would drive the 45 minutes every day to Woodstock center just to see some humans and get a coffee. It left a slightly dismal impression on me. I've always been a city person. WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE? WHERE ARE THE ART THINGS?

So I moved, solo, to Hudson, and Neil moved to Woodstock, about a 50 minute drive away. It was going to be ideal! He’d have a house and a town! I’d have a house and a town! We would be like Frida and Diego with a river and a 50 minute drive between us instead of just a garden. Then we had a baby and the plan collapsed - it was just impossible not to share a house with a baby to take care of. I moved in with Neil is Woodstock to make things simpler. 

Now we both live here, but separately. Neil lives in Woodstock and I live down the road in Bearsville - we're about a 10 minute drive from one another. Very handy for co-parenting!

So here I am, in the woods. By accident.

I've changed. Motherhood changed me. Covid changed me. Aotearoa New Zealand changed me. 

I embrace this place now, and I'm making this home feel like mine. 

The Hudson Valley is a truly wondrous place that I am only just slowly starting to understand. It’s full of paradox. There are so few people up here, there are so many people up here. The Woodstock history is wildly inspiring and sometimes oppressive (if I see one more Bob Dylan/tie-dye gift shop I’m gonna…dude....)

But now it is home, home, home. And becoming less lonely by the day. It took time.

I still miss city life sorely, but Covid robbed me of my desire to want to spend too much time putting roots down in NYC, for now at least. I think there’s a lot of opportunity to create an alternative scene up here: we have the ingredients. From the massive success of the run of shows the Dolls just did here in this little town (we sold 1,200 tickets in under 2 hours), I think I can safely say that people will COME.

And now that I am out of the closet about living solo up here, I am exploding with curiosity about what - and who - else is around here. I knew about most of the artists in this article - I’ve dined up here with Kate from the B-52s and here awesome wife, Monica, who's a potter. I knew Wreckless Eric from my Hudson days....I’ve befriended Natalie Merchant. Transend-Dental Bruce, who was mentioned in the article, (I mean, c'mon, best dental practice name EVER, but I do feel angry they called him a "One-Hit Wonder", grumble) is my amazing dentist. I’m sorry Dar Williams didn’t get a mention: she’s an amazing songwriter living in Cold Spring. Holly Miranda - with whom I‘be been collaborating a lot - is right here in Woodstock. Elizabeth Mitchell - a great songwriter and children’s music-maker - is here, too.

I’m slowly finding my community here, person by person. In the non-music department, too. One of me favorite old-school patrons, Damian, runs a grocery store not far away. Dahlia and Brian who run fruition chocolate are becoming pals. And the writers Elizabeth Lesser and Sophie Strand are two of my most comforting havens at the moment - especially as I navigate these unsettling changes in my life.

So, my friends, as I settle in and look around - who’s here? Are YOU here?

If so: where do you live? What are you up to? Are you new? Fifth generation? Do you have kids? Play music? Run a bakery? Make clothes? Have a homeschool pod? Know the secret lore of the hills?

It’s time to find my people.

I think it's also very possible that instead of touring this summer, I may try to hunker down here and do more residency work. The shows at the Colony felt EXPLOSIVELY AWESOME and who doesn't want an excuse to come to upstate New York for a night? It's not far from Boston and NYC. I think I can lure people here. We have bears. We have woods. We have chocolate. Maybe I'll buy a circus tent. WHY NOT. 

While I have you here, two more amazing photos of the dolls shows from beloved Krys Fox:

Talk to me. Tell me things. I'm reading all the comments.

Feel free to also suggest things to us locals - eats, coffees, museums, kid stuff, hidden places...a lot of people have JUST recently moved upstate and need friends and guidance. GIVE IT!

Just lately I discovered two incredible local spots: The Widow Jane Mine (WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING THERE!!!!) 

and Sam's Point....where people were praying...

Another planet. even though it's only three hours from my hometown of Boston.

I also just made a THREAD for us Hudson Valley/Upstaters here on the Shadowbox. This patreon post is a bad way to keep a conversation going, but the shadowbox is a great place to have an ongoing thread for people who wanna stay grouped-up and find friends, playdates, coffee meet-ups, whatever. LET'S FINE EACH OTHER NOW THAT COVID IS MAKING THINGS LESS HARD....while we can:

https://forum.theshadowbox.net/t/whos-upstate-hudson-valley/10896

XX

AFP

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