Kickstarter Highlight: Amanda Palmer: The new RECORD, ART BOOK, and TOUR

[wraith808]

Amanda Palmer has had many success stories, including her celebration of the fact that she finally got dropped from a record label two years ago. She's gone against the grain, and done so quite lucratively, going where ever she wanted and having a lot of fun doing so.  But she decided it was time to do a "traditional" studio album again, and put together a full orchestra to help, while also planning to make the physical package she sells totally and completely worth buying by including all sorts of original artwork with it.

So... of course, she turned to Kickstarter to help put together funds, seeking $100,000 in 32 days. Instead, she got it in SIX HOURS.

	Amanda Palmer: The new RECORD, ART BOOK, and TOUR
	Kickstarter Highlight: Amanda Palmer: The new RECORD, ART BOOK, and TOUR
Goal	$100,000 ($265,114 as of this posting)
End Date	2012-05-31
Project Creator(s)	Amanda Palmer
Excerpt	hi folks, it's AFP. this is my first BIG, LEGIT studio album undertaking since breaking from a major label. i've spent four years writing the songs for this record, and more recently, putting together the perfect band, The Grand Theft Orchestra, comprised of genius musicians/arrangers/programmers MICHAEL MCQUILKEN, CHAD RAINES, and JHEREK BISCHOFF. in march, we locked ourselves up in a studio in Australia and, with the help of producer/engineer John Congleton (who's worked with a zillion amazing people including St. Vincent, Modest Mouse, and Xiu Xiu), we made what I believe is my best fucking album to date. it sounds...BEYOND EPIC. we laid down "The Bed Song", "Massachusetts Avenue", "The Killing Type", "Trout Heart Replica" and a slew of other tracks...some solo piano, but many featuring HORNS (locally sourced in Melbourne, Australia!), SYNTHESIZERS, GUITAAAARRRRR, and BIG BAD-ASS ORCHESTRAL ARRANGEMENTS that will blow your domepiece. we're working on finalizing the arrangements and mastering as i write this text. i expect great, big, giant things to happen when this record comes out in september. the band & i will be touring it across the globe ALL YEAR. since i'm now without a giant label to front the gazillions of dollars that it always takes to manufacture and promote a record this big, i'm coming to you to gather funds so that i have the capital to put it out with a huge fucking bang. i think kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms like this are the BEST way to put out music right now - no label, no rules, no fuss, no muss. just us, the music, and the art. i'm also making sure EVERY PRODUCT sold through this kickstarter is unique to this campaign, to reward all of you who KNEW ME WHEN and were willing to support me from Day One.

[tomos]

Wow, if you go to back it, you see that

• one person has donated $10,000+
• Eight people have donated $5,000+

Nice to see someone very creative doing well. But I guess that's why she's doing so well, because she's so creative, not only in the music.

[wraith808]

Nice to see someone very creative doing well. But I guess that's why she's doing so well, because she's so creative, not only in the music.

-tomos (May 01, 2012, 01:14 PM)

That's what the RIAA don't get.  Look at her donation levels.  The digital version of her music (for the whole album!) is $1.  That includes bonus content.  But more(!!!) people have ponied up $24 extra for the hard copy.

(And I will say that offering vinyl is inspired!)

[Stoic Joker]

people have ponied up $24 extra for the hard copy.

-wraith808 (May 01, 2012, 01:49 PM)

Hell, I'm not even sure who she is and I'm tempted to buy one just to back her for bucking the system.

Somebody bump this thread in September when it goes on sale so I don't forget.

[wraith808]

Was in this thread to get the template for another Kickstarter post, and wanted to post an update that I should have done a while ago:this Kickstarter drive ended with over $1,000,000 (!!!) in pledges.  She also has a pretty good breakdown on where everything goes.

[tomos]

The album is available, like the link says: pay what you want:
http://www.amandapal...p/pay-what-you-want/

for a download, she says $1 covers the covers, so I guess it would be nice to give more.
I paid for one (FLAC) and also got a free download (320/mp3) to save me converting if necessary :-)

[tomos]

... may be good to post a video so you can hear it ;-)

the music often has a raw edge,
I like that myself, YMMV.

A nice video here, good track as well --> NSFW (nekkidness - nothing offensive though imo)

youtube playlist for the album is here

I haven't really listened properly to the album, but like what I've heard. Lots of influence from punk/pop late 70's/early 80's.

[40hz]

Raw, exposed, and complex. But that's Amanda Palmer. Ya likes it - or ya don't. (I like it.)  

Parts remind me a lot of early Clash. Not a bad thing at all IMHO. We need a little more articulate rage to offset the glut of incoherent and partisan ranting we're getting these days.

A nice video here, good track as well --> NSFW (nekkidness - nothing offensive though imo)

-tomos (September 25, 2012, 05:09 AM)

@tomos -my GF watched and made an interesting comment about it: "How can anyone possibly be offended? There's not enough girl to get offended over."
 

[wraith808]

She actually did a video and a set with Wayne Coyne in Boston- and replaced Erykah Badu in his video after that singer's remarks about the first cut (note- don't bite the hand), so yeah... she gets a lot of her influences from that era.  And the album is running #10 on the charts.

[40hz]

^Yeah. I get that from her. But maybe it's because the band I was in that I liked best (Maelstrom - "High-Energy Rock") was also part of the Boston music scene back in the 70s when "punk" and "new wave" were first starting to gain traction in the US.

Long live The Rat! The quintessential hole-in-the-wall "dive bar."

The Rathskeller (known as The Rat for short) was a Kenmore Square live music venue in Boston, Massachusetts that was open from 1974 to 1997. As implied by its name "Rat(h)skeller" (German: "council cellar"), the Rathskeller was a dimly-lit establishment. It had a bar and restaurant on the street level and a rock club in the basement. (The restaurant, the Hoodoo BBQ, was included in Esquire magazine's 1985 list of the Top 100 Restaurants in America.)


One Boston-area magazine describes:

    There was also a new Ground Zero for live performance in Boston at that time. Deep below freaky-funky Kenmore Square, the Rathskellar (or, as everyone called it, “The Rat”) was a dingy subterranean dive bar that would appeal to the ever-burgeoning punk movement, and that hosted shows by everyone from Talking Heads and Tom Petty to Thin Lizzy and The Ramones. Everybody played there—and would continue to do so until the club finally closed its doors in 1997 amid a movement toward gentrification.[1]

The Rat also hosted such acts as the Cars, Pixies, Metallica,the Dead Kennedys, The Police, The Replacements, and R.E.M.. The Rathskeller closed in November 1997 and was ultimately razed in October 2000 to make way for the Hotel Commonwealth, a 148-room luxury hotel of which Boston University is a limited partner.[2]

The Rat is referenced in both Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, where one of the venues is called "The Rat Cellar" and it is located in Boston. The Rat is recalled in the song 'Poor Poor Jimmy' by Street Dogs.

Musicians and groups desperately need venues like The Rat. Too bad there are so few of them left.

[wraith808]

Musicians and groups desperately need venues like The Rat. Too bad there are so few of them left.

-40hz (September 25, 2012, 09:44 AM)

+1.  It also takes a special location and environment for places like that to thrive.  That nexus used to be easier to find- but these days, not so much.

Modified because I saw this part of the quote "the club finally closed its doors in 1997 amid a movement toward gentrification."  That's part of a problem, unfortunately.

And one final note on AFP - she's married to Neil Gaiman which is definitely way cool.

On January 1, 2010, she stated on her Twitter feed that she "might have told [Neil Gaiman] [she]'d marry him but also might have been drunk."

They went on to get married, then really married later... but that quote is pretty awesome all by itself.

[40hz]

And one final note on AFP - she's married to Neil Gaiman which is definitely way cool.

On January 1, 2010, she stated on her Twitter feed that she "might have told [Neil Gaiman] [she]'d marry him but also might have been drunk."

They went on to get married, then really married later... but that quote is pretty awesome all by itself.

-wraith808 (September 25, 2012, 10:14 AM)

Yup! She doesn't have that middle-F in her initials for nothing. She earned it.

[tomos]

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer did a kickstarter a couple of years ago -
I dunno much about it but I know he has a few fans here, so I'm posting.
Now released generally (triple CD costs $20; digital down load $10).
http://amandapalmer.net/

Kickstarter details.
http://www.kickstart...an-and-amanda-palmer

An Evening with Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer
Track listing:

Disc 1 (neil gaiman reads things)     My Last Landlady     The Rhyme Maidens     The Day The Saucers Came     Feminine Endings     The Winter Gardens     In Relig Odhrain     The View From The Cheap Seats     I Will Write In Words Of Fire     The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury     Making A Chair     100 Words Disc 2 (amanda and neil....do things)     Margaret Cho Introduces the Show     Makin’ Whoopee     (Introduction To The Problem With Saints)     The Problem With Saints     Jump (For Jeremy Geidt)     Ask Neil And Amanda     (Introduction To Broken Heart Stew)     Broken Heart Stew (By Amanda)     Poem for Amanda (By Neil)     Poem for Neil (By Amanda)     Electric Blanket (A Duet. Amanda Palmer And Jason Webley)     Psycho     (Introduction To I Google You)     I Google You Disc 3 (amanda sings things)     I Want You, But I Don’t Need You     (Introduction To Dear Old House)     Dear Old House     (Introduction To Gaga, Palmer, Madonna: A Polemic)     Gaga, Palmer, Madonna: A Polemic     (Introduction To Judy Blume)     Judy Blume     I Don’t Care Much (With Lance Horne)     Map Of Tasmania     (Introduction To Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass)     Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass     (Introduction To I Will Follow You Into The Dark)     I Will Follow You Into The Dark (For Ashlie Gough)     Look Mummy, No Hands     Ukulele Anthem

[tomos]

This seems to be the Amanda Palmer thread:

she's playing about 9;30 tonight (ET) at the 'Seeger Fest' (in about 5 hours or less) which is being streamed live:
http://www.seegerfest.org/

that's well past my CET bedtime, so hope to get to see it on youtube. Be interesting to see what she plays in that scenario.

[tomos]

she's playing about 9;30 tonight (ET) at the 'Seeger Fest' (in about 5 hours or less) which is being streamed live:
http://www.seegerfest.org/

-tomos (July 21, 2014, 03:39 PM)

^
their idea of what constitutes a livestream is different from mine - they do have a 3+ hour video up there, but it's the same one today as yesterday...
but yeah, it's on YT, just a bit of fun really: