Comments on: 10 Questions for Amanda Palmer – Are you simply being penalised for your transparency?

By: D

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:02:48 +0000

Music may survive , but it out be nice if musicians survive, too.

By: Sid

Sid — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 05:43:09 +0000

music survived home taping, it survived file sharing, it will survive this too

By: Princess Stomper

Princess Stomper — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 06:03:47 +0000

She’s (at last) done the right thing, nothing more, nothing less. Good on her.

By: D

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 05:42:35 +0000

“and they say Steve Albini’s heart grew three sizes that day.”

By: Gerry

Gerry — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 02:21:25 +0000

It must have been Steve Albini’s idiot remark. He is so casually scathing.

By: Everett True

Everett True — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 02:08:10 +0000

So, of course, there's this. what we’re doing about the crowdsourced musicians. also: we charted at motherfucking #10.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:39:08 +0000

Fuck Amanda Palmer – not for exploiting sessions musicians, but for making that godawful cover of Polly. I will see you in hell.

By: D

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:07:13 +0000

Oh, and here’s how businesses run: if you don’t make enough money to cover the musicians, you don’t get those musicians.

She would HAVE that money if she managed it properly (I haven’t checked the budget, did she REALLY keep $100,000 for herself?), but to screw your fellow musicans and then play it up as a superfun treat for the fans is really, really poor.

I’ve been watching Arrested Development (all DVDs paid for, of course) a lot lately, and there are a lot of jokes about the Bluth family using the company as their personal piggy bank. Palmer doesn’t have a publicly traded company so she doesn’t have to hold to that, but, jeez, she could free up that $100,000 with no problem.

By: D

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:01:24 +0000

Why get angry at her? Simple. Because we’ve known about unethical venues for years, and bands know to avoid them and look out for each other. The solidarity between artists may not break crappy venues, but they can at the very least help out other artists.

This, on the other hand, is an artist doing the exact same thing to other artists. And not just any artist, but the artist who is supposed to be leading the way to a new business model based on touring and merchandise. If management screws you over, that’s one thing. If your peer screws you over, that’s much worse.

“:
I recently applied to take part in a concert playing guitar with about 99 other guitarists in a live guitar symphony of sorts. I’m pretty sure it was going to be paid tickets at the door, and we were hired as volunteers. I got accepted then had to turn it down due to the date. The point is this- I opted to do that as an unpaid volunteer because it’s a life experience and a rare one at that. Playing a gig with AP would probably be the same to some people. Of value in its own right far beyond the value of any money.”

My guess is that was a one-time only event. No, the volunteers don’t have to go on tour with Palmer, but it’s nonetheless setting a really bad precedent for less scrupulous acts who might not even give the beer and hugs.

As well, again: one of the “musicians” who defended this was a professional scientist who played with other well-paid professionals in other fields. “It’s giving guys like me a chance.” Well, that’s just lovely. Meanwhile, musicians who do it because it’s in their very marrow starve.

Here’s a confession: I have never heard a note of her music. I’ve never seen her wacky videos (except for a bit of Evelyn Evelyn which I stopped watching because it was just too sleazy) I know about her antics, but only second-hand. This has nothing to do with my personal feelings about her.

If Tom Waits or Prince pulled this, I would be heartbroken. I am, actually, a little heartbroken that Neil is defending her, but I’ll get over that.

By: Golightly

Golightly — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:43:23 +0000

While I agree that she should pay her musicians, I also don’t agree with her being the lightening rod for the entire wrongs of the music industry. I think her being transparent about this is as effective as an act of protest in raising awareness of how wrong the whole thing is. But I refuse to scape goat one woman for that. Or one person for that matter. It’s a convenient diversion, personalizing what is a pervasive problem.
What about the real problems like venues who NEVER EVER pay the bands that play there? What about that? At least AP is doing this as a one off so far. What about the major label who commissioned some recordings from my friend’s studio and NEVER EVER PAID THEM in spite of loads of invoices and chasing them? And what about my friend’s band who signed to America’s largest independent label and whose contract meant nothing, except that no other label could sign them? They weren’t paid a penny. Not even for touring? What about all the illegal downloads robbing musicians of their wages?
And we’re gonna ignore that and penalize AP for some honesty about the state of the industry. We’re gonna get angry at HER? It’s 2012. Even if she has a rich husband, if she hasn’t enough income to pay people, no one ought to be suggesting she begs her husband to pay these musicians out of his pocket as that’s just plain wrong. That fact has muddied the waters of this whole debate. Her music is a BUSINESS at the end of the day (when we’re discussing it in terms of money anyway) so if the music is not making enough money to cover the costs of musicians, then that’s how it is.
I recently applied to take part in a concert playing guitar with about 99 other guitarists in a live guitar symphony of sorts. I’m pretty sure it was going to be paid tickets at the door, and we were hired as volunteers. I got accepted then had to turn it down due to the date. The point is this- I opted to do that as an unpaid volunteer because it’s a life experience and a rare one at that. Playing a gig with AP would probably be the same to some people. Of value in its own right far beyond the value of any money.
I think musicians shouldn’t play for free, but I think there are exceptions… and I also believe that money as a system is just as messed up as capitalist systems like the music industry right now. So I think there are many ways to look at this.
If I was one of the musicians involved, I’d talk to AP personally and ask her if she would consider playing one of my shows in return. She might say yes, she’d probably say know… but at the end of the day AP owing you a favour is not necessarily a bad thing.