from under the piano (Patreon)

hallo loves.

if you've been following my twitter/FB/insta exploits, you'll already be bored of this image BUT...i snapped a photo of myself fixing my own goddamn piano day before yesterday, and then mike zug drew it into art, and then i was like YAY ART BEGETTING / BEGETTING ART !!! and then people asked for shirts and posters, and now, goddmitt, i'm thinking about it. i'm pretty sold on FIX YOUR OWN SHIT as a slogan to go along with it, though PIANO IS EVIL is a close second. 

as i posted on facebook: "from the desk of #PianoPorn and #RandomandaTrivia...i don't usually chat about my mad skillz as a piano technician, but most of you don't know that i worked for 6 months in a piano refurbishing warehouse in idyllic fitchburg, MA. i spent hundreds of hours filing hammers and removing a re-gluing key-bed bushings (sounds so sexy doesn't it). anyway, my piano in the Bakehouse Studios rehearsal space is a gorgeously dilapidated Emil Ascherberg (a gorgeous beast, circa 1890) grand piano from Dresden and i managed to figure out how the damper pedal just completely fell apart and re-jerry-rigged it with a piece of folded cardboard. back to work."

it's a true fact. it was such a boring fucking job. i like my job now way better.

i'm writing again. it feels really good. it's slow. but i don't care. i'm writing and i feel like a real songwriter again and even if i only come out the other side of this trip to australia with three or four new songs, and even if i never use them, i consider my songwriting brain fully operational, which is the important thing.

i was just talking to neil about this...both my recent co-writing projects (the one with edward, which comes out SOON, jesus...this april i think if we get our shit right, PLUS A TOUR) and the "jib" music with jason....they both really kicked my ass to think more quickly as a songwriter. in both situations we were really against the clock and only had the time we had. with edward, we had three weeks or so and we knew we wanted to write a whole album. and i remember looking at edward in AWE as he just took the ideas i gave them and didn't hem and haw but just cranked out the next thought, and the next thought, and didn't get stuck, he just kept pottering along and so i matched him, and VOILA a few weeks later we were astounded to find that we'd created ten whole new songs from scratch. (one of them has been released to patrons only if you missed it: https://www.patreon.com/posts/rainbows-end-7353670 ) 

and with jason for "jib", it was sort of the same. we had four or five days to write four or five songs so we just WROTE them because we had no choice. they didn't have to be the best songs in the world, they just had to be songs. and so we stopped being perfectionists and we wrote and we wrote. and i'm actually in love with two or three of the five songs that we wrote. (i'll be honest, the box song  is too good to leave there and i may rework it more. i fucking love it. love it. love it to death. sometimes writing fast makes magic.)

let us not forget the time i got together with some freak friends of mine and wrote and recorded five songs in twelve hours . that was pretty awesome.

so yeah. i'm a fan of fast.

but also...i like slow...i like writing these songs that may take weeks or months to simmer and compost and marinate. sometimes things have to settle in their own time and sometimes it's good to write a whole batch of songs all at once and see how they puzzle-piece together, see what themes are emerging, create a whole wide world.

anyway.

.........

random flotsam and jetsam....:

i wanted to do this back at woodford but i'm just getting around to it....the woodford festival has this amazing festival-wide MAIL system and a few of you who are patrons were there and sent mail to my dressing room!! you sweet fuckers. there was no way to write you back but Anat, Louise, Boaz, and Matt: THANK YOU!! (and matt - your love of the ukulele inspires me). i read all your letters and i love you.

......

ALSO TOMORROW is the first melbourne show. WHO HERE IS IN MELBOURNE???? - show of hands in the comments? i want to find you guys.

the rest of the australian tour is selling out pretty well except the ADELAIDE dates seem to be the slow ones. if you're in adelaide, help me out and spread the word.

all the oz dates are here: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/ 

new zealand, shhhh. i'm coming. hold on.

........

what else.

oh!

if you're not on the official facebook thread, you may have missed this kind of amazing and long/deep discussion about race and music, sparked by a patron named mariana jiminez...you have to join the group to read... https://www.facebook.com/groups/afpland/permalink/366382700388069/  .

but here's a thread on my public page that's also really good:

https://www.facebook.com/amandapalmer/photos/a.10150851738153375.413686.6565888374/10154504605033375/?type=3&theater 

........

ANYWAY back to the under the piano drawing by mike.... if this image really does materialize into a shirt/poster you'll be the first to know. (and you $100 patrons,  heads up, i'll hit you up and send you freebies. i bought you postcards in cuba and have been horrible and haven't mailed them yet but...baby and new songs, so i don't feel THAT guilty yet).

ok goodnight i love you.

xxx

AFP 

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

1. see All the Things i've made so far on patreon: http://amandapalmer.net/patreon-things/

2. join the official AFP-patron facebook group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/afpland/

3. AFP-patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer:

patronhelp@amandapalmer.net