"WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER" at 15: a patron-only talk w Ben Folds, the rare photos, an ask me anything....& merch. (Patreon)

Hello Loves!

Short story: it’s the 15th Birthday of Who Killed Amanda Palmer, my first solo record, and to celebrate, I’m surprising y’all with this long, deep interview I set up and recorded - just for patrons - with Ben Folds last month. Ben not only produced the record, he also played synth, drums and a ton of other instruments on the tracks, and he shepherded the songs into existence.

I got on a zoom with Ben, who produced the album for me, and we chatted for about an hour about the album - the conception, the recording, the instruments....and so much more.

The audio of our chat is embedded in this Patreon post - but you can also hear it and download it from Soundcloud here...that's a privtae link just for y'all.

As usual, you can share this with whoever you want privately...that's fine. Just no post-y to the internet.

I’m also reading all comments on this post, and I’d love to hear your memories - of the songs, the record, the tour - and I'd love to answer your questions about all things Who Killed Amanda Palmer: the songs on the album, the videos, the story, the process…hit me. Upvote the questions you’d really like to see answers. It may take me a few days to respond to everything, but I’ll refresh the post and re-send it when I’ve addressed all of your heartfelt missives. I love you all a lot.

I also wanna applaud Alex Knight for his work on this post. A lot of things got eaten and went wrong and this queen killed it. No pun intended. Thanks, Alex. xxxx

……….

Right now...

Long story: It’s a birthday BLITZ. I’m writing to you from Albnay Airport, where I’m finishing up this epic post while also packing for the biggest show of the century, while just having finished up co-ordinating ice cream and cake for me wee one and musing that this record was, indeed, born on the same day as my son, little Anthony David Karl Palmer Gaiman…7 years earlier. Also 

September 16th.

Today, my son is eight, and my first solo album is 15. (It’s also Michael’s birthday - my and the Dolls’ beloved assistant - and it’s a good time to remind you all that without him, this artist and this band wouldn’t be able to do our jobs. I love you, Michael, and I’m so grateful that you’re such a stand-up fuckin’ human being and take such beautiful care of me, my family, my friends, and this community. Happy birthday, bubba.)

I'm at the airport, people. I also am ON MY WAY to Chicago for Riotfest.

It's that kinda week.

Fucking 40,000 people. It’s the biggest gig the dolls will have every played, right before The Cure no less (my heroes), and everything is feeling very full-circle indeed.

So to celebrate this momentous occasion in style, the team decided to put together this special post.

Take a breathy.

If you’re never heard “Who Killed Amanda Palmer”, it’s my first solo record, and you can listen to it HERE on bandcamp....or HERE on spotify. 

.......

(The "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" Sheet music book - now out of print, and apparently going for $211 on amazon, which is so dumb. Photo by Kyle Cassidy).

Story time.

Before I made this record, I had released THREE major studio albums, all with my band, The Dresden Dolls - “The Dresden Dolls” in 2004, “Yes, Virginia” (2005), and “No, Virginia” (2008).

In 2007, The Dolls needed a break as a band (very badly, we'd slaughtered ourselves and one another on the road for far too long), and I had a handful of sad solo piano songs that I wanted to record. At least, I through they were solo piano songs.

Ben and I talk about it at length in this conversation, but very few people know that my first solo album was Not supposed to be a huge, promoted, toured bellls-and-whistles major label rah-rah big deal.

I was tired. I was sad. I was watching my band fall apart. I was lonely. I had these sad piano songs that didn't really feel like they needed drums.

So, I originally thought that I was going to head up to the home studio of the most recent dolls’ producer, Sean Slade, and spend a week or less recording five songs (from memory: “Ampersand”, “Point of it All”, “Another Year”, “Have to Drive” and “Straight”) on Sean’s rickety old piano…then stick them on a limited edition run of CDs and Vinyl, do a few shows, and that was gonna be that.

A tiny solo record. I think my working titles was "Amanda Palmer's sad solo piano songs EP" or soemthing like that.

But then Ben Folds, who was a Big Fucking Deal, and whose work I admired a ton, met up with me one day in Melbourne after seeing the Dolls play at Hamer Hall, and he offered to produce the record.

I was floored. He not only offered to produce it, but he offered to produce it in Nashville, at his huge fancy-ass recording studio - the old Sony Records studio on Music Row. Where, like, Elvis, Dolly Parton and Frank Sinatra and stuff recorded. It was massive. He had pianos, he had every possible instrument, he had skills, he had … everything.

I said yes, cracked my knuckles, and, instead of making a little solo piano record in a weeks' time in maine (sorry, Sean, I owe you a beer), I wound up spending the next two years of my life deep in the throes of a record that wound up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, endless sessions and decisions, much woe, a cast of dozens (hundreds?) of musicians and engineers, and then boom, Roadrunner Records (my label at the time, I was not a fan, but that’s….another story, which I tell in gruesome detail in “The Art of Asking”) put out the album with full fanfare in 2008.

That September, I hit the road for a global tour with a handful of friends (Zoe Keating played cello, Lyndon Chester played violin, and The Danger Ensemble provided heart, performance art, and theater) and the rest is history.

On the second day of the global tour, my foot was run over my a car in Belfast, Ireland. That set the tone for the next dozen years of my life, basically.

I learned so much from this album.

It humbled the shit out of me.

I know this record - and the songs on it - mean a great deal to a great many people beyond me, and I hope this post finds its way to those people.

Some of these songs have become solo favorites of mine, and even been re-arranged by the Dolls ("Astronaut" and "Runs in the Family"). Some of them have been exhumed and reconsidered ("Guitar Hero", whose lyrics got a new wash in the machine). One of them gets pulled out, depressingly, every time there's a school shooting ("Strength through Music").

Some of them I haven't played live since that tour ("Another Year"). Some of them have been played live with The Boston Pops  at Symphony Fucking Hall with full treatment ("Have to Drive").

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

(The sheet music for "Astronaut", which I hand-noted, ahem: "IMPROVISE ANY WHITE KEYS OVER ROOT NOTES")

SO.....

Please enjoy the SHIT out of this conversation with Ben, and the outtake photos, and more below.

We also made a NEW LINE OF MERCH, here below - reprinting some old favorites - and that’s going up on sale RIGHT NOW. So....enjoy this all. These images (espeically the "Bloody Pianist") were really popular back in the day, and a lot of people have asked for it, and it’s hoodies season in the USA and Europe, so there ya go....

It's all up and available to pre-order now:

US STORE

UK STORE

My soul is ready.

I’m here for more questions. Please ask.

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More from the archive:

Because the album was recorded in 2007, I was in FULL-FORCE BLOGGING MODE.

Here's one written right in the midst of recording - "The Art of Noga"

Ben Foldses studio is like a huge church, and Im sleeping in the choir loft/where the pipe organ might be, up on a big wooden balcony. we moved a bed and a boxspring and a light up there and voila Instant Home.
there’s also a little adjoining kitchen and bathroom area and this is where i make my morning tea and sit. i shower at the yoga studio. i don’t make it to yoga every day. but every day is a valiant effort.

joe, the mixing engineer, shows up every morning to let the piano tuner and it’s always this embarrassing joke. he and i are always the last ones in the studio at night and as he’s packing up to leave and as we’re talking about the next day’s schedule i always proclaim i’m going to make it to 9:30 yoga in the morning. then i inevitable stay up til the wee hours doing some random thing. then he shows up again in the morning to let the piano tuner in and he sees me blearily staggering down the stairs and trying to croak hello and be social to him and the tuner. he assesses the situation, nods his head and cries out with his arm up, like a sports announcer declaring a touchdown: “NOGAAA!!!” these are what we call “Noga” days. the yoga intention was there, yes, and it was very strong. but o well fuck it. last night i stayed up til 4 finishing a brand new song. i am writing again, a lot. it’s all coming back. im so fucking happy about that.

......

From the archives - here's the original list of songs I had to ready to go in March '07.

1. Ampersand - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

2. Another Year - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

3. Assistant - This was eventually released as a Kickstarter bonus track for Theatre Is Evil in 2012... you can hear it here if you haven't

4. Astronaut - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

5. Blake Says - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

6. Grown Man Cry - This was canned and re-recorded for Theatre Is Evil in 2012 as a full-band dark-wave song...you can hear it HERE.

7. Guitar Hero - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

8. Leeds United - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD...and finny enough, we used the DEMO that I recorded for Ben in Scotland instead of re-recording it with a full band in Nashvulle. That's why my voice sounds like I've been up all night smoking cigarettes. I was.

9. Living Room - This was once again released as a Kickstarter bonus track for Theatre Is Evil in 2012... check it out here if you haven't heard it

10. Night Reconnaissance - Ben & I recorded this, and then just decided... it worked so much better as a Dresden Dolls song, and was included on the Dolls' weird B-side and outtake collection No, Virginia.

11. Point of it All - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

12. Runs in the Family - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

13. Oasis - THIS MADE IT ONTO THE RECORD

14. Chinese Food - This one is still in the vaults. It's a fucking weird song. Maybe one day we'll put it out.

15. Never Be a Lady/Berlin - This one got transformed into "Berlin", and appeared on Theatre Is Evil - with the full-on big-band treatment.

16. You May Kiss The Bride - This one got cut in the end, but my solo demo is available as part of the Who Killed Amanda Palmer Alternate Version that was originally sent to people who pre-ordered the WKAP book, and now lives forever on Bandcamp...

17. Flowers - This one has been recorded a couple of times now, but has never felt quite right... Maybe one day. Maybe This one goes onto the new Dolls record. It's a great, strange tune.

.....

Here were my other notes for the record:

North Chengtu - ??? (I never finished this one)

Gigantic - ??? (I never finished this one either)

Dr. Valentine - ??? (I don't even know what this fucking is)

Have To Drive - Wow, this one made it onto the record and was not even in the original list.

.......

This was my list called "COVER SONGS FOR MYSPACE ONLY" (holy shit, remember 2007?)

Hold Onto Your Friends - MORRISSEY (I think the chances of me covering this song nowadays, given Morrisey's politicas, would be about zero. But it's a great fucking tune. I never did this one.

I Will Follow You Into The Dark - We did actually record this one - again, it's available on the WKAP Alternate Version (and a ukulele version also appears on the Evening With Neil & Amanda record)

Cat Stevens?? (Didn't get to it...but I did wind up doing THIS on the beach with a ton of fans)

Cyndi cover?? (Sorry, Cyndi....we never did it)

......

Being 2007, there are also a bunch of grainy 2007-era digital camera and webcam photos from the time...

Recording vocals...

The recording set-up...

The stairs up to the makeshift pitch black bedroom (you'll hear more about this in my chat with Ben...)

Making notes with Ben...

Mixing...

Me and master string arranger Paul Buckmaster...who has since left this plane of existence.

MY DAD, getting ready to record his choral vocals for Have To Drive...

Me and Ben and cellist-extaordinaire Zoë Keating...

At the piano...

We also created a little VIDEO BLOG of the entire recording process - which still lives in perpetuity on YouTube as a mini 44-part documentary (that sounds like a lot, but... each clip is only about 30 seconds, so don't feel too intimidated)

You can see a playlist of the whole lot here

......

If you want the full story of the record, we created a little website to house the entire story, and it still lives:

www.whokilledamandapalmer.com

I share thoughts on the whole process, if you wanna really dive DEEP.

Alongside the making of the album, the site also has a page for each song featuring its lyrics and some inspiration moodboard artwork - here's a look at Blake Says:

Also included on the site are the full song credits and thank yous - which weren't included in the album because (as you'll know if you own it) the physical CD and vinyl were released in super-minimal packaging... no booklet, no lyrics, and limited artwork. Everything lived ONLINE - which means you'll also find on the site some outdated pages on the videos and the book....

......

WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER: THE VIDEO SERIES

Yep, not content with simply recording the label-instructed music videos for a handful of songs, I decided to make an entire video series, with a vague narrative running through, using (almost) every song on the album.

There's a YouTube playlist featuring the entire 9-part video series:

Part 1 - Intro
Part 2 - Astronaut
Part 3 - Ampersand
Part 4 - Runs In The Family
Part 5 - The Point of it All
Part 6 - Strength Through Music
Part 7 - Guitar Hero
Part 8 - Another Year (Credits)
Part 9 - Epilogue (Everybody's Gotta Live)

And as a bonus at the end of the playlist, are the 'standalone' music videos for Oasis...

and What's The Use of Wond'rin', the song I recorded with Annie Clark of St. Vincent.

The video wound up starring Cassandra Long, one of my fave friends. She had no professional acting resume...and I think she killed it (no pun intended).

And just for kicks - I also made a weird little video for Blake Says along with the Danger Ensemble, my tour-comrades for the record.....most people don't even know we did this....it's a deep cut.

......

The last video we need to talk about from the record is Leeds United...

And OH DEAR.

With this video also came the birth of THE REBELLYON....

From a blog I posted just after the video went live, in November 2008...

i sent a mailer about the video mentioning that the label i’m on (roadrunner records) had wanted to pull shots from the video so that my bare belly wasn’t exposed. they thought i looked fat. i thought they were on crack.

dude. i’m a vain motherfucker. i know when i look fat. i had beth hanging out on the set of the pope videos, keeping an eye on my figure as i pranced around in my slip in case pope was getting a particularly pregnant-looking angle. i hate shots of myself where i look heavy with child.

but THIS?? this was just nonsense. i thought i looked HOT. i really, really didn’t see where they were coming from. at all.

so i didn’t budge.

they weren’t happy, but then again they’re not very happy with anything i’m doing lately (including putting out a record that has “no commercial potential” and is impossible to promote, since nobody will like it).

the video was left as is.

It's completely unfathomable to me today that I was ever beholden to these people that would SAY SHIT LIKE THIS TO ME...

Especially when I look at the cover of my last record, and think about the 'commercial potential' of an album about grief, miscarriage, and abortions.

ANYWAY.

After I wrote this, a ton of fans then congregated on the Shadowbox, and began to post their OWN belly photos.

Celebrating the belly.

Someone titled it the REBELLYON.

The media picked up on it - including the GUARDIAN.

(I love this fucking community. Some of you are probably still here).

I blogged about it again.... and reading this again just feels like a completely different Amanda in a completely different world:

a few weeks later i had a meeting with the owner of the label. he said he thought it was a shame that someone as smart and talented as me could not make a commercial record that they could sell. and he thinks that someday i’ll see the light and write some better songs.

i told him i made exactly the record i wanted to make.

more than exactly.  i think i’ve made an INCREDIBLE FUCKING record.
i really do.

he shook his head and felt sorry for me.

I'm so grateful to be where I am now, with this Patreon, with all of YOU, making more of exactly what I want to make.

......

For those who have made it this far (congratulations), there were also the "interstitial recordsings"....the recordings I made of my then-boyfriend one terrible night, that I have a lot of feelings about. I talk about that on this podcast episode of "Conversations with People Who Hate Me",with Dylan Marron, if you're curious to go deep.

I'll talk more about that one someday. It's too hard, for now.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/episode-27-i-hate-amanda-palmer/id1257821731?i=1000428614905

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WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER: THE BOOK

As mentioned above, the physical packaging for the record was absolutely minimal - no booklet, barely any artwork beyond the front and back covers, so we had to get creative with how to release the artwork (and the concept behind WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER) into the world.

So....we made a book of photographs and stories.

The photographs were taken by a bunch of different photographers (but Kyle Cassidy constructed the bulk of them) from all over the world, over the course of months and years, each one showing me dead, in various fashions and various locations.

(photo by Kyle Cassidy)

(photo by Malka Ressnicoff)

(photo by Kyle Cassidy)

(photo by Ron Nordin)

and by the way..... in case you ever wondered what happens to my dresses after photoshoots....

...yep, that's me just this past weekend, 15 years later, wearing the exact same dress.

It all comes around...the best kind of dress is appropriate for both death photoshoots AND kids entertainment.

Anyway.... Back to the book....

Alongside each of these photos were stories written by Neil Gaiman (who I'd just met at the time), each one detailing a different "death" of Amanda Palmer.

Since this was a totally self-funded project (Roadrunner sure as shit wasn't going to finance this, and we were in the pre-crowdfund days...) it was alllllll put together by me and my team at the time, with my assistant Beth Hommel doing all the design work.

A note to you patrons, while I have you here:

I've been wanting to re-print a new edition for YEARS now, and that would be a very fun use of patron funds - we could do a patron-only pre-order edition?.... maybe for the 20th anniversary. It'll probably take us 5 years to get our shit together and get it in our hands.

I'd love to pare it down a little, get the best stories and photos, put a better cover on it, and include a new preface by a not-dead, stronger, wiser, mother, divorced Amanda Palmer.

......

And speaking of photos.... just for fun, here are a few of the outtake shots from the day we shot the album cover, all by Kyle Cassidy at my apartment in the Cloud Club in Boston:

(you might also recognise this kitchen from the Girl Anachronism video...)

And fun anecdote time: the album cover was not originally meant to be the album cover.

We weren't even meant to be SHOOTING the album cover that day.

We had an album cover shoot scheduled for an entirely different day, but after taking that photo on the floor... it just fit so beautifully.

Wanna see what the original cover was going to look like?

Here you go.

This was the orignal album cover concept.

Can you spy the sneaky cameo in this photo?

(Hint: it's the drummer of The Dresden Dolls and he's in a wig).

......

THE TOUR

I toured this record for almost two years with a rotating cast. There was The Danger Ensemble, a performance theatrical troupe from Australia (directed by Steven Mitchell Wright), and I was often accompanied by Lyndon Chester on the violin and Zoë Keating on cello. For a while, we would open the show with my "funeral", with a eulogy - either the pre-recorded version read by Neil, or sometimes read by a special guest - and then I would ascend to the stage...

It was a merger of theater and music, and truly fucking beautiful

You can see a clip of this funeral scene recorded from the Paradise in Boston here.

And here's a live clip of Have To Drive which was included a bonus feature on the Who Killed Amanda Palmer DVD release - complete with gorgeous string accompaniments from Lyndon Chester and Zoë Keating, and the Danger Ensemble adding some gorgeous theatrics.

We also made a whole bunch of documentary videos about the tour, and they live forever on YouTube if you want to dive down that particular rabbit hole of nostalgia...

......

I'd love for you to comment below - especially if you were around back in the day - to share your memories about the record, the tour, the rebellyon... anything.

And don't forget, you can click play above to listen to me and Ben Folds talk about the record - or get it via Soundcloud here.

And get yourself some WKAP merch here:

US store

UK store

......

Happy birthday, little record.

Ask me questions. I'll answer as much as a can,. especially the upvoted ones.

And....wish the dolls luck tomorrow at Riotfest.

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