The State of All Things: October 2023 (Patreon)

HELLO LOVES!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, excuse my in the moment photo dump from tonight !!!

(Ash is the robot.)

A twin!!!

Or two

Yours truly, at the graveside Halloween party tonight

And in the sunglasses, kate from the b52s :

Ok!!!!!

For all the new patrons (welcome!), so you know,  this is the monthly "Althing"!

It's a newsletter of all things dolls/AFP/The Community...and we do it every month to keep the bills paid and the dots connected. I usually upload a video (it's embedded! just press play) and....here's the basic contents of this month's Althing, if you wanna scroll around:

• BASIC LIFE UPDATE...
• PROJECT RELEASES THIS MONTH...
• WHAT ELSE HAPPENED THIS MONTH...
• UPCOMING EVENTS...
• PROJECTS COMING DOWN THE PIKE...
• DISPATCHES FROM TEAM AFP...
• HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING...
• ARTISTS TO SUPPORT & OTHER ART TO CHECK OUT...
• ART BEGETTING ART...
• THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD...

......

BASIC LIFE UPDATE

Hi deers.

Well, damn. It's fall. Over here in America: Winter is coming. You can feel it.

It's also HALLOWEEN which also means it's THE DRESDEN DOLLS 23rd BIRTHDAY TODAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, US. PUNK CABARET LOVE.

Here's a couple more shots from the NYC residency this past week. WHEEE!!!!!!......

(photos by Anthony Mulcahy)

MY BAND IS 23.

I'm still sort of in a stupor after the four shows we just slaughtered at the Bowery Ballroom, and I'm still feeling a reeling fizziness for having put out my first demo yesterday. It's all going so fast, and I'm barely able to keep up with my own pace, even though I keep canceling and shoving things into the future. I'm forgiving myself, always, for that which I can't attend to, for that which I don't get time to address, for that which lies untouched at 3pm when I go pick Ash up at the bus stop. I can only do so much, and I'm doing it. I can see and feel I'm doing it. I love it. It's working.

The feeling, the feeling, I got from playing seven new songs for people in New York is mostly what's keeping me tethered to reality. It's the fresh blood keeping my heart alive. These new songs are so scary to me, and they're so scary good, and they're a whole new level of .... something.

So many people approached me asking about this song and that song, and there's a bursting pride that they're so well received, and also a foreboding joy about putting them out into the world.

I talked about it at the NYC shows....but god, when my inner songwriter is unleashed, I'm sometimes FRIGHTENED by what comes out. And how good it is. And also how frightening. I sorta frighten myself. And I wonder what I am unleashing. And then people tell me that my songs have fixed some part of their heart, or made them cry, or made them whole...and I go: fuck it. It's not my place to decide what these songs mean to me. It's what they meant to the world. I'm just some random vessel.

Just as I was lying in bed the other night - faffing on my phone and feeling a sense of artistic pause and insecirty - this post by my friend Maria Popova came up, and the title spoke to the core of my inner waffling:

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/06/18/william-blake-vs-the-world/

As I ask in the video...I want you ALL to read this piece as important "patron" homework.

It's so important, especially THIS:

Precisely because he was his own standard, because he wanted to make exactly what he wanted to make, it was enough for him that a handful of devoted fans became his collectors and commissioned work he was inspired to make. It was just about enough to live on. And it was never what he lived for. (Centuries later, this ethos — which I believe is the natural state of the creative spirit — still raises eyebrows as radicalism.)

In the very act of this choice, he was modeling a kind of moral beauty that reached beyond art, into life itself — an unwillingness to accept the limitations imposed upon any present by the momentum of its past, a winged willingness to do whatever it takes to transcend them, which begins with a new way of seeing: seeing the limitations and seeing the alternate possibilities.

For the Eye altering alters all.

Higgs (the author of the book Maria is profiling in her post) writes:

Blake’s politics… existed in what he created. He may have had great empathy with the poor, but he did not spend his days working to better their situation. Instead, he believed that the imagination was the tool needed to improve society, and… would do more to liberate people than canvassing or protesting.

To do this would take integrity, self-belief, and effort.It is here that we find the strongest expression of Blake’s politics. True politics are not ideologies to discuss, but an attitude to your relationship with the world which is enacted in your daily life.

Your politics are not what you tell yourself you believe. They are not the set of ideas that you identify with, or look to for personal validation of your goodness as a human being. Your politics are expressed in the choices that you make, the way you treat other people, and the actions you perform. It is here that hypocrisy and vanity fall away, as the reality of your politics is revealed in the countless decisions that you make every day. Who you work for, whether you volunteer for charity work, if you become a landlord, whether you eat meat, the extent to which you pursue money and consumer goods — these are the types of decisions in which our true politics are expressed…

Blake needed commercial engraving work to keep a roof over his head.

But he also needed to be free of compromise when it came to his own work.

He produced his art as an individualist antinomian, asking no permission, answering to nobody.

HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH.

....right?

So, I put my cares aside, and went back to the source.

If the work is to my standards, nothing else matters.

And this new collection of Dolls songs is the best stuff I've written in my life.

So there you have it.

......

Meanwhile...from the desk of emotions.

Everyone I know is still kind of in....survival mode. Keeping on truckin'.

Despairing at politics. Despairing at the lack of compassion in every direction.

There's been a lotta people crying at my kitchen table, me included. My friend Holly Miranda keeps bringing up the concept of "saudade" (from wiki:)

Saudade (English: /saʊˈdɑːdə/,[1] European Portuguese/ is an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone. It is often associated with a repressed understanding that one might never encounter the object of longing ever again. It is a recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events, often elusive, that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused. It derives from the Latin word for solitude.[3]

Nascimento and Meandro (2005)[4] cite Duarte Nunes Leão's definition of saudade: "Memory of something with a desire for it."

In Brazil, the day of Saudade is officially celebrated on 30 January.[5][6] It is not a widely acknowledged day in Portugal.

Maybe it's me, but I think the collision of Covid and the oncoming climate crisis are upping the Saudade Index of the world.

I'm feeling incredibly nostalgic and homesick lately. Saudade city.

For feelings of deep, trusting love, which I've missed for too long; for the hands of old friends, for the thrum of human life. And luckily, the universe has been feeding me a steady diet of many of these things in dribs and drabs...I got to spend the entire week last week in New York, as if it was 2004 and my band was newly-minted and ON FIRE.

I feel like I am toiuching the world again, after being wrapped in a cage, wrapped in chains, wrapped in cotton.

The music, the singing, the releasing...it's the perfect metaphor.

I am releasing. In every way.

You all are helping me so, so, much.

You have no idea.

So once again, and always, thank you for your patronage, for keeping me and the team funded,

and for listening.

Without you listening on the other side of the headphones, there is no release.

xxx

AFP

........

PROJECT RELEASES THIS MONTH...

Last week I put out my latest piece of long-form/memoir writing, titled "Hence The Sellotape: What a Nine-Year-Old Kiwi Taught Me About Divorce the Other Day"

You can read it on Substack here.

There are a handful of paid subscribers over on Substack (who I assume are in it JUST for the writing, and not the day-to-day nitty-gritty of Patreon), so as a perk of their subscriptions I record a video of myself reading each piece aloud... and since y'all are here keeping the lights on every month, I like to share that video here with you all too.

You can find the 15 minute video in the Official Patreon Thing post here.

(And a little note..... I actually had a little debate with myself about the piece, and had an extra section at the end. After posting to ask the $10 patrons for their feedback, I decided to publish the post WITHOUT the extra end section. But you'll see in the above video for patrons, I decided to read out the full piece including that deleted section. The substack subscribers only got the true-to-form edited down version that was published.)

......

Yesterday, I dropped the first Dresden Dolls (solo piano, no drums yet) demo, "Houdini" (working title).

The post with the song is here, and here's the slightly beefier $3+ post with the download link.

Patreon changed their system, we noted, and it's actually possible for patrons to download an embedded song...which we hadn't clocked. So $1 patrons....happy birthday. You get an accidentally free download. The rest of the demos will be locked and streaming only on soundcloud for $1 patrons. $3 patrons will get send download codes and extras.

......

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED THIS MONTH....

As mentioned above....The Dresden Dolls have JUST FINISHED our epic 4-night return to New York City. OOF.

(photo by Ehud Lazin)

After a long 7-year absence (wtf) we took to the Bowery Ballroom for four shows, and we left it allllll on the stage, dudes.

(photo by Hayley Rosenblum)

(photo by Ehud Lazin)

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

(photo by Ehud Lazin)

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

(photo by Hayley Rosenblum)

(photo by Krys Fox)

(photo by Ehud Lazin)

Joined by our guest bassist....

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

Brian Viglione DEFYING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

(photo by Hayley Rosenblum)

(photo by Ehud Lazin)

With our guest bassist from Saturday...

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

(photo by Krys Fox)

(photo by Ehud Lazin)

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

(photo by Michael McComiskey)

(photo by Anthony Mulcahy)

(photo by Krys Fox)

We've got SEVEN new songs now that we've been whipping out since last year's Woodstock shows, and across our shows in Denver, Santa Fe, Orlando, and New Orleans earlier this year, and they are KILLINGGGGG.

If you're keeping track, we've been playing (all working titles)...

- Mr. God

- Whakanewha (which will come out in duo/NZ format when I drop the NZ album)

- Houdini (just sent to y'all in piano form)

- Boyfriend in a Coma (dug out from the archives of 20 years ago...)

- The Runner (my...new favorite)

- The Nail (my....other new favorite)

- Another Christmas (demoed here on Patreon last year)

I've started laying down some piano demos, so you can expect to hear some of these soon... more on that below.

These might not all end up on the final Dolls record. Maybe none will. Maybe they all will. We'll see.

Shit keeps changing.

But this album is fuckin' coming together, I'll tell ya that.

......

On the ONE DAY OFF of the Dresden Dolls run, last Thursday, we put on a patron-only party/gathering at Gemini & Scorpio Loft, hosted by long-time friend Larissa Fuchs...

photo by Fernando Pacheco

(photo by Liz Grammaticas)

It was wonderful to sit and talk candidly with you all.

WE gotta do more of these, I LOVE them.

......

And immediately following the Dolls last show on Saturday, I did a last-minute double-show day on Sunday, FIRST popping up at Joe's Pub, for CASETTE ROULETTE with John Cameron Mitchell and Amber Martin:

(photo by @bobajay)

And then headed straight off to City Winery, to take part in this tribute show for Sinéad O'Connor

I gave a short speech and played a cover of "Black Boys on Mopeds" - if you've never heard it you should listen to the original here, and then you can also hear the cover I put out with my dad Jack here.

I am gonna make a separate post about what happened, it's worth it....but here's a teaser.

Here's a couple photos from the evening, by Ehud Lazin:

And here's the full running list and everyone involved in the show...

......

And speaking of Sinéad...

If you remember, a couple months back I released a cover of Sinéad's song The Last Day of Our Acquaintance, performed with The Righteous Babes (with additional backup and production by Jherek Bischoff)

I said at the time that we'd be donating to a cause close to Sinéad's heart, and asked for suggestions....

We eventually settled on donating to ICAP, a service that supports the mental wellbeing of Irish people based in Britain, so we've sent $1000 their way.

Here's some info from their website:

icap is the only specialist British-based counselling and psychotherapy service supporting people from the Irish community facing a range of emotional issues, including depression, anxiety and stress. We have particular expertise in working with those who have survived childhood trauma.

If you want to donate a little extra, you can do so on their site, along with a great guide letting you see how your support will really, tangibly help the work they do:

......

We had another $10 webcast on October 10th...

from my home up here in Woodstock.

I answered some questions, we had some patrons sharing poems (Angel and And), Michael came up and chatted, and I tried playing a new Dolls song...

but the tech gods did not bless us and the sound died.

So I retreated to the bedroom and just chatted.

The webcast page still LIVES, and the chat remains open for eternity... so you can watch the webcast and read through the chat (and leave a message for any other latecomers!) here.

The next webcast is in the diary for November 14th! If you're not in the $10 tier and wanna join, you can up your tier level at any time and come join us.

......

And after last month's insane Robert Smith meeting...... the meeting of my musical heroes continued this month:

Me and Nick Cave, hero to all. I wrote a post about it here. 

.....

UPCOMING EVENTS....!!

I'm hosting a series of talks at the Rubin Museum in NYC next month!

STARTING THIS FRIDAY

This is a huge deal - the Rubin Museum is a beautiful place, and I'm so honored and excited that they've entrusted me with this.

I'll be speaking to three guests - one guest at each talk - on the theme of "Life After..."

I'm sending out a press release for these shows soon and you may see the titles of the talks change. Don't be shocked. Things change. The content will be on fire no matter what.

I'm going to RECORD THESE FOR THE PATREON, so don't worry about your FOMO.

Friday Nov 3rd: "LIFE AFTER....LOCKDOWN", with Tibetan Artist Gonkar Gyotsu - TICKETS

Friday Nov 10th: "LIFE AFTER WELLNESS", with writer Sophie Strand - TICKETS

Friday Nov 17th: "LIFE AFTER TELLING THE TRUTH", with journalist/activist Noor Tagouri - TICKETS

For more information on each guest, the Rubin Museum, and the full long story, go read the Patreon announcement post.

And we're gonna figure out a way to record them for the Patreon, so if you're not in New York, we've got you covered. But if you are local, please come!! These talks are gonna be very special I think.

......

GRAVESIDE VARIETY - our little crowdfunded cabaret/speakeasy venue in the woods, is ROLLING ALONG! more on the $$ bit below, but if you're anywhere near upstate New York, COME VISTI!!! GEt on the mailing list!

https://www.gravesidevariety.com/

Follow the instragram!: https://www.instagram.com/gravesidevariety/

The calendar is packed with awesomeness...incliding TONIGHT!!! We are GIVING OUT CANDY! and just basically making MERRY!

Stop by and say hi!!!

AND.....

(photo by Liz Grammaticas)

I'm doing the next tiny "PRIVATE PRACTICE" - fiddling around with a ton of the new piano/dolls songs - at Graveside Variety, 33 Rock City Road in Woodstock, NY, on

TUES, NOVEMBER 14th, early evening (6pm doors, 7pm show)!!!

There are about 20 tickets left, GO GRAB EM!!!:

Patron only link for tickets: https://afpprivatepractice.eventbrite.com/

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THE DRESDEN DOLLS ARE ENDING THE YEAR ON THE WEST COAST!

Yep, we have a small run of west coast shows in December, tickets flying fast...

Dec 8th - The Belasco, LOS ANGELES, CA - TICKETS

Dec 9th - Observatory North Park, SAN DIEGO, CA - TICKETS

Dec 28th - Aladdin Theater, PORTLAND, OR - SOLD OUT

Dec 29th - Aladdin Theater, PORTLAND, OR - SOLD OUT

Dec 31st - The UC Theatre, BERKELEY, CA - TICKETS

......

And just a quickie reminder, as mentioned above - WEBCAST TIME is coming around again soon!

I'm trying to get better at scheduling these regularly... This one is 90% happening, pending last-minute travel weirdness!

But hopefully we will all go off without a hitch.

NOVEMBER 14th at 11:11am ET - THE DAY OF MY PRIVATE PRACTICE SHOW, so get ready for MUSIC this time, hopefully. You $10 folks will all get an email/post soon with the link.

Be there or be square.

If you wanna join the webcast tier, I recommend it. It's a great group of people, and we always have a blast.

......

PROJECTS COMING DOWN THE PIKE...

There's gonna be more Dresden Dolls demos coming, in solo piano form.

These are songs that I've almost finished writing, that I'm then sending to Brian, so he can start dreaming up the drums and percussion to transform these songs into living, breathing Dolls wonder.....I'm also sending them over to John Congleton, who's going to be producing the next record... (YAY).....so that he too can start to get an idea of the songs, the tone and themes of the album, and put his own magic-producer-brain into gear for any production ideas he has when we head in to make EL RECORDING.

(John is my soul-brother ho produced both "Theatre Is Evil" and "There Will Be No Intermission"... and outside of me, he's also worked with Blondie, St. Vincent, Tegan and Sara, David Byrne...like, HE KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING.)

So over the next few months I'm gonna be sending out some more of these demos to you folks.

Watch for them. I won't be screaming from the rooftops, and I won't be mentioning most of that on social media. I wanna keep it quieter.

......

And also coming up soon...

THE (AS-YET-UNTITLED) NEW ZEALAND EP!

Yep, I'm going to be putting out an EP probably early next year, collecting the handful of songs I wrote during and about my time in Aotearoa New Zealand:

- The Man Who Ate Too Much

- The Ballad of the New York Times

- Little Island (with Julia Deans)

- Whakanewha (with Aura Torkington)

I did a little poll post last week about which NZ image we should use as the cover of the EP.... and it looks like the above image (In The Grass) was just about the most popular option.... closely followed by this one - In The Cave:

SO WE'LL SEE.

But look out for this coming in a couple months time...

And, ahem, pencil in tour dates in NZ/OZ for late Jan/Early Feb!!! I AM COMING.

......

DISPATCHES FROM TEAM AFP

From Michael:

Hello Patrons from a tired and shattered assistant.

I am so incredibly tired and so incredibly full of joy and love for this community and everything that happened this month & especially this week.

Not only were the shows mind-blowingly amazing, but being able to spend time with Amanda, Brian, the crew, and so many of you all in my home town was nothing short of magical.  I love being on the road and seeing new things and meeting new people, but my city is special.  My people are special.  My job is amazing and special.  Getting to experience them all at once. . . amazing.

The shows were FAR from the only thing that went on this month, though!  There were Patron Gatherings, Band Meetings, Benefit Concerts, and of course. . . so so so much coffee.  It's all still a bit of a blur, but a beautiful one and I am feeling very happy and so very fulfilled.

And as always there's so much in the works right now with future Dresden Dolls plans, future Amanda Solo Plans, travel, tour, life!  There doesn't seem to be a significant break before 2024, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I didn't take too many pictures this month because I was so very busy, but here are some fun snapshots and words of wisdom from the life of a busy assistant:

First of all, always stop to smell (look at) the pretty flowers:

A sprinter van WILL fit in a standard Brooklyn Driveway (but only barely):

Keep an eye out for seeing things from a different perspective:

Always celebrate your accomplishments (photo by Anthony Mulcahy):

That's all for now.  I love you.  Sending you all a giant hug and a world of gratitude as always.

......

From Liz:

Helllloo Patrons!

I’ve writing this very sleepily while on the train back upstate from the city.  It was an incredible week in the city and with the community.  I lived in NYC for about a decade up until a few years ago.  I missed it.  Not all of it, but a lot of it.

The Dolls shows were absolutely incredible this week, as was my time chatting with so many of you.  What a brilliant and beautiful bunch of humans you all are!  And holy moly what an incredible week of shows.

I was lucky enough to finally share a meal with dear Hayley (we briefly lived in the same neighborhood of the city…but then pandemic…and then I moved.. so it was long overdue).  I may have eaten too much dairy at the Greek restaurant…perhaps thinking my Greek heritage would override my flawed ability to process dairy..but I digress.  Hayley is awesome, but the odds are most of you already know this.

Last night I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Remembering Sinéad tribute show at City Winery.  Oh the feels.  Oh the tears.  Oh the beauty.  It was such a powerful show.   Amanda, Martha Wainwright, and John Cameron Mitchell’s performances in particular blew me away.  I also love hearing Amanda talk about Sinéad, how we’ve done her wrong, and how we keep repeating these same patterns.  Boy, I cried a lot at this show.   Let’s do better on how we treat women, support artists, and who we make space for.  Let’s take care of each other .

Let’s make Sinéad proud .

I love you all.  Thank you for a beautiful and inspiring week.

......

From Alex:

Well hi there patrons!

It's been a low-key month over here in UK AFP-land, as I gaze longingly over to New York and wish that I was over enjoying the Dolls absolutely rip the city to shreds.

BUT ALAS!

Instead, I've been diving into a bit of archiving, getting prepared for a Secret Project that'll hopefully be coming together early next year... It's involved a loooot of scrolling back through various social medias (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and reliving a lot of Amanda's life, but condensed into me living months and years over the course of a few hours.

It's actually a weirdly nostalgic experience - the first work I ever did for Amanda (back in 2015, jesus) was a deep-dive blog recon, creating an offline archive and checking out all the images that had been lost in the abyss of the internet over the years... So I read the entirety of Amanda's life (2003-2015) in a matter of weeks.

And now here I am, 8 years later, doing the same thing, but only reading through a very specific time period.

Anyway, I now have a 230 page Google Doc that I'm going to be whittling down and curating into something more readable for the rest of the team to get stuck into, and then.... with all fingers crossed, in a few weeks/months there'll be a nice little treat coming up for you!

And.... in personal news from this month: I turned the ripe old age of 30, and to mark the occasion I went to feed a sloth at a local(ish) zoo, and it might have been one of the single greatest moments of my life. So now you can bask in me absolutely living my best life with Noco:

Take care of yourselves, and I'll catch ya next month

xoxo

......

Back to me, AFP....

the crew has been INCREDIBLE this month.

We are trying to do so much on so many fronts and I'm just proud as FUCK of everybody and their ability to keep their senses of art and humor.

Michael - you worked some LONG fucking days. I hope you get some whiskey and some rest this week.

I love my team.

Thank you.

And thank you, patrons, for maing everybody gets paid. :)

xxx

Speaking of which:

.....

HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING

As of this writing there are about 9,600 patrons pledging about $31,000 for the first Thing each month. We are dipping down, but I'm also doing almost nothing to promote the patreon itself lately, because I've been in hardcore band-and-mother land. It doesn't worry me much, but I am having to thing three things a month to keep the costs covered. We have CEASED covering Graveside Vareity (on this patreon, but we are hoping to start a patreon just for the venue)....which means I also have to dig into my own pocket for that (and my pocket is whatever money I make from the patreon, mostly, so it's all connected).

Is what it is. As I always say: these things are cyclical.

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

CAP CAP CAP CAP!!

I sometime release one thing a month; sometimes three. 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 4,400 Things, you won't be charged more than $10. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, you will still have access to ALL the things/posts/links, even if you cap your pledge!!! It doesn't effect your 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.

......

In September, I Thanged TWO Things:

Who Killed Amanda Palmer: 15th Anniversary Podcast, which earned about $34,664 from 9,577 patrons

The State of All Things: September 2023, which earned about $14,383 from 5,264 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 our staff, paying the office rent, paying the Graveside rent and costs, paying for crowdcast, getting myself around, getting the team around and fed and slept, all the collaborators, and my actual staff payroll, etc....you get it.

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.

Right now, because I'm not regularly touring or putting music out, we're just about breaking even.

Which is nice.

......

ARTISTS TO SUPPORT & OTHER ART TO CHECK OUT!!!!

SPECIAL LIVE PERFORMANCE AT GRAVESIDE VARIETY WITH JASON WEBLEY ON 11/11

My sister Jason Webley is popping up at Graveside for a very special performance on 11/11, and I miiiiiight just be popping up to join him. COME!!!!

Accordion troubadour, Jason Webley began his music career in 1998 howling on street corners and music festivals in Seattle. He quickly developed a loyal cult following and became known for his compelling stage presence, whimsical stories and interactive stage productions. Armed with his squeezebox, beat-up parlor guitar, and porkpie hat, Webley has performed in over forty countries. He’s shared the stage with The Avett Brothers, The Dresden Dolls, Regina Spektor, and Welcome to Night Vale.

Webley has released five albums on his own Eleven Records label, as well as numerous collaborations, including the 2010 album “Evelyn Evelyn” with Dresden Dolls singer, Amanda Palmer. In recent years, Webley has kept a lower profile, but new listeners continue to discover his music through his involvement with the Welcome to Night Vale podcast and his continued work with Palmer.

His current primary artistic project is FLOTSAM!, a floating “river circus” of performers who travel on a ramshackle raft giving free performances for audiences in riverside towns,

Doors 6:30 pm, 7:30 show. $30 advanced purchase, $35 at the door.

Get tickets here!

......

SHINTADIO OF AMERICA PODCAST, featuring..... me

I recently sat down and spoke with my long-time friend Manta - aka David Franklin - to talk about Shintaido. A TON of you will recognize Manta, either from putting on Shintaido classes along the European leg of the There Will Be No Intermission tour in 2019, or from Campersand, or from the Dolls shows in Woodstock last year, or.... a whole bunch of other things over the years. He's been a core member of the circus, and he asked me to guest on his podcast.

Here's some words from him about the podcast, and the episode:

Hey folks, Manta a.k.a David Franklin here. Amanda is my guest on the lastest episode of Shintaido of America podcast. Having played numerous roles on Team Dresden Dolls and Team AFP -- video producer, concert videographer, driver, etc. -- when I joined the No Intermission tour in the UK in fall of 2019 and then the Campersand event at Omega this summer, I had the honor and pleasure of sharing the love of my life -- the body movement practice called Shintaido, or "new body way" --with many of you. I was bowled over by this community's passion and compassion and mainly trust when engaging with this unfamiliar practice, which can be challenging -- not only physically.

Shintaido, in case you haven't heard of it, is an amazing body movement practice invented in Japan in the 1960s by a group of artists, actors, and martial artists. It's a dynamic, playful holistic health exercise for all kinds of bodies, and can be a way to open up deeper connections within ourselves and with the natural world.

In the interview, Amanda explains what on earth came over-- *ahem* -- I mean what inspired her -- to invite me to run away and join the circ-- *ahem*, I mean invite me to offer Shintaido practices at pre-concert practices on No Intermission and at Campersand. We talk about inadvertently freaking out her neighbors, as well as what singing and vocalizing and movement can do for our brains, our lives, and our communities.

Listen to the episode with Amanda here: https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-di397-14d2f8d

Find other Shintaido podcast episodes here: https://shintaidoofamerica.podbean.com/

You can join me, David "Manta" Franklin in an online Zoom discussion about the AFP episode of the podcast on Tuesday November 28, 2023 at 11am USA Pacific time / 2pm USA East Coast / 7pm UK / 8pm Continental Europe / 6 am Wednesday November 29 in Sydney and Melbourne Austrailia / 8 am New Zealand

You'll get to talk with experienced Shintaidoists and instructors as well as other AFP fans and satisfy your curiosity about this curious art form.

Link to the Zoom meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84424436674?pwd=IQ7DM9XJrJGjCznN4LUDWcWEONogyT.1

Meeting ID: 844 2443 6674, passcode: 608631

If you prefer non-interactive viewing, or if the Zoom meeting is full, the discussion will also be streamed via YouTube. If you're new to YouTube Live Streaming, once you arrive at the SoA YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@ShintaidoofAmerica/videos

then you look for the tab "Live" - the Live Stream will be here once it begins.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there! Love to you all

- Manta

......

Tristan Allen has a new record out!

In case you're new to AFP history, or have just, er, forgotten, I worked with Tristan Allen back in 2010...

I discovered them while I was back in Boston, and they were a music student at Berklee. Just happenstance. And it blossomed.

I ended up producing their debut album, and helping them create it via Kickstarter (my very first experience with crowdfunding someone else's work!) and we also collaborated on one of the songs - "János vs Wonderland", which still gives me goosebumps when I listen to it....

Their latest project Tin Iso and the Dawn is a gorgeous multi-media story told through puppetry and music... and now the music is getting a proper release.

Here's some information about the project:

Across the arc of Tristan Allen’s epiphanic, four-part journey, Tin Iso and the Dawn, the New York based composer and puppeteer brings sonic life to a fantastical realm of characters whose universal longings mirror our own. In the first release of this mythic trilogy, intricate sound design and spellbinding leitmotifs make sense of loss and what’s beyond.

Tristan ceremoniously constructed the imaginary world of Tin Iso and the Dawn, loosely based on Wagner’s three act opera Tristan und Isolde. Composed and recorded between 2015 and 2022 across apartments from Boston to Brooklyn, with field recordings from locations of vivid sentiment: Upstate New York—where Tristan grew up, Quebec—where most of their close family lives, and Japan—where they lived briefly as a child, each moment of Tin Iso glimmers with nostalgic immediacy and the prescience of new voyages unfolding.

By composing for acoustic instruments, arranging and processing electronically, and performing the music through puppetry, Tin Iso emerged as the project that could finally satisfy Tristan’s desire to consolidate and cohere wide-ranging musical interests and an unyielding fascination for fantasy and myth. Combining music and puppetry allowed Tristan to build an imaginary world from scratch. Channeling their awe of folklore through a love of storytelling and the liberatory potential of musical composition, Tin Iso quickly took shape as a creation myth, a fable of how things came to be for a world Tristan hopes to traverse for years to come.

You can order the record digitally, or on CD or vinyl, here.

GO SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!

......

ART BEGETTING ART

This art was emailed in by Ashleigh, aka @aTinyArtGarage on linktree, insta & website.

This is called "THE LANTERN ROOM WALLS ARE MADE OF GLASS."

I love this.

......

And from @stepsisterugly on Instagram...

......

THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD!!

This section is for YOU - think of it like your local supermarket bulletin board... if you've got a new project to promote, or have an ask for the community, give us a shout at patronhelp@amandapalmer.net and we'll try and feature as many as we can here each month. For now, check out what's up from fellow patrons this month...

KEVIN HOLLENBECK'S MEMORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY GIVEAWAY

This is a weird but beautiful, huge community net-building project, largely headed up by long-time friend, collaborator, art and photography master Kyle Cassidy.

Last year, we lost a huge Dolls fan and member of the community named Kevin Hollenbeck...

When he died, he left a lot of broken hearts..... and a lot of photo equipment, which he left to Kyle Cassidy in his will.

Kyle has decided he wants to pass this gear along to people who will use it to support indie music, so he's set up a fantastic scheme to GIVE AWAY ALL OF THE GEAR.

Here's some more info direct from Kyle:

Kevin was ubiquitous in the Dresden Dolls band scene and so many other music scenes. He was the person that a lot of rock stars relied on to Get Things Done when they came through town. I remember Kevin telling a story of how he ended up in a Volkswagon Jetta, driving it like a get-away car, hunched over the wheel, swerving around ducks and trash cans with Weird Al Yankovic in the back seat, careening dangerously towards an amusement park where there may or may not have been a roller coaster they wanted to ride at 2:00 in the morning. And while this sounds like the fevered dream of many a person, it wasn't Kevin's fevered dream, it was a true story, though I may have gotten some of the details wrong.

Kevin Hollenbeck, aka Shadowcaptain, was a photographer from the Washington D.C. area who passed away of colon cancer in 2022 leaving an incredibly large group of friends devastated. Kevin was a theater person who loved music and spent his career helping indie bands with his photography. His kindness and enthusiasm put him at the center of a lot of amazing experiences with musicians. He left behind a lot of photo equipment and to honor his legacy, we want to give that equipment to people who will continue to support bands and theater.

Amongst Kevin's gear, there are three DSLR kits, two point and shoots, a gopro-style kit, a film camera kit and two lensbaby lenses in Nikon F (not Z) mount.

We'd like to to give the DSLR's to people who do not already have a DSLR — so if you've got a camera already, get out there and take pictures and support bands. Go go go! If you're currently rocking your cell phone, we may be able to upgrade you.We'd like to give these to the people who can do the most to help indie music.

There are some caveats to getting these:

• We ask that every time you post a photo that you took with Kevin's gear, you tag him in the social media: #ShadowCaptain — that way we can all follow along with your career and the new life that Kevin's cameras have.
• You can't sell Kevin's gear. You can only give it away. If you upgrade your equipment, pay Kevin's things forward to someone else who needs them.
• If you're over 40 years old, talk to your doctor about getting a colonoscopy. Colon cancer is curable and this simple procedure could be the difference between a long happy life, and your friends memorializing you by giving your stuff away, even if the memorial is something you would really love (as I'm sure Kevin would be tickled pink about this one.)

ALL OF THE DETAILS ARE OVER ON KYLE'S BLOG HERE - including the full details of what is being given away, and what you need to do to be considered.

This is a really worthwhile and beautiful thing that Kyle has done, so I can't encourage you enough to check out the blog and get in touch if this is something you're interested in, and can continue Kevin's legacy.

......

And one of our Campersanders Caitlin is in an awesome band called Hermosa, and their new single just dropped...! CHIKKKIT:

From Caitlin:

Our first single, self-titled ‘Hermosa’, came out on International Day of the Girl as a feminist anthem against lookism. I just know that the themes of female empowerment, mental health, and self worth will really resonate with the community. We have two more singles to come, followed by the whole album in January. Exciting times!

Link to our debut single ‘Hermosa’:

https://li.sten.to/hermosa

......

PHEW.

This was a long one.

I love you all....

thank you for funding,

thank you for listening,

thank you for reading.

Thank you for your patience with me, with the team, always.

Thank you for being a community.

Thank you for your patronage.

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