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Forum nameThe Lesson
Topic subjectWhat do y'all make of the Amanda Palmer controversy?
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=2740755
2740755, What do y'all make of the Amanda Palmer controversy?
Posted by The DC Sniper, Fri Sep-14-12 10:10 PM
For me, it's simple: working for no money = slavery. Palmer is being exploitative at BEST.


http://stereogum.com/1151562/steve-albini-amanda-palmer-is-an-idiot/franchises/wheres-the-beef/

Steve Albini: Amanda Palmer Is An Idiot

Amanda Palmer is no stranger to soliciting fans to help facilitate her musical endeavors — she raised a record $1.2 million via Kickstarter to finance her new album, Theatre Is Evil. Now touring behind that album, she is once again crowdsourcing for support. On 8/21, the Dresden Doll posted a blog entry titled “WANTED: HORN-Y AND STRING-Y VOLUNTEERS FOR THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA TOUR!!!!” in which she requested horn and string players of “professional-ish” ability join her touring band on stage. By way of compensation, wrote Palmer, “we will feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch, and thank you mightily for adding to the big noise we are planning to make.” So, in case the Olympics didn’t make these distinctions clear to you: Professionals get paid, amateurs do not, and professional-ish people are paid in hugs/high-fives. Cool? Not really says Chicago-based musician-engineer-godhead / poker enthusiast / professional-ish crank Steve Albini. In a post on his own Electrical Audio board, Albini called Palmer an “idiot,” saying: “ you are forced by your ignorance into pleading for donations and charity work, you are then publicly admitting you are an idiot, and demonstrably not as good at your profession as Jandek, Moondog, GG Allin, every band ever to go on tour without a slush fund or the kids who play on buckets downtown.”

Albini wasn’t alone in his outrage; on 9/12, the Times ran a piece on the backlash resulting from Palmer’s request. But Albini, was — naturally — the only one to liken Palmer’s request to “gather at a mud pit downstate and sell meth and blowjobs.”

(Just gimme a sec to genuflect in silence over here.)

(OK, moving on …)

Palmer didn’t respond directly to Albini, but she did offer this in reaction to the general criticism (via NYT): “To me it seems absurd. If my fans are happy and my audience is happy and the musicians on stage are happy, where’s the problem?”

The problem, as I see it, is that I have LINED THE POCKETS of Neil Gaiman for TWO DECADES now. And since I’m not getting a refund on American Gods anytime soon (or the hour I spent reading its first few chapters before recognizing that it really wasn’t getting any better), I wouldn’t mind seeing some of that money going back into the pockets of professional-ish horn and string players for whom hugs don’t put formula in baby’s bottle. (Just ask the Bunk Antoine Batiste.)

Here’s Albini’s rant in full:

I have no fundamental problem with either asking your fans to pay you to make your record or go on tour or play for free in your band or gather at a mud pit downstate and sell meth and blowjobs to each other. I wouldn’t stoop to doing any of them myself, but horses for courses. The reason I don’t appeal to other people in this manner is that all those things can easily pay for themselves, and I value self-sufficiency and independence, even (or especially) from an audience.

If your position is that you aren’t able to figure out how to do that, that you are forced by your ignorance into pleading for donations and charity work, you are then publicly admitting you are an idiot, and demonstrably not as good at your profession as Jandek, Moondog, GG Allin, every band ever to go on tour without a slush fund or the kids who play on buckets downtown.

Pretty much everybody on earth has a threshold for how much to indulge an idiot who doesn’t know how to conduct herself, and I think Ms Palmer has found her audience’s threshold.

UPDATE: Steve posts a clarification:

Well, since the new journalism is just re-posting what other people have lifted from message boards and twitter, there are probably going to be a hundred or so stories on the web with headlines like “Steve Albini calls Amanda Palmer an Idiot,” so I’d better make my position on that clear. I don’t think Amanda Palmer is an idiot, and it was rude and sloppy of me to make that impression. I’m sorry Amanda Palmer, the internet is going to tell you that I think you’re an idiot, and while that’s not true, it’s my fault.

I Don’t know Amanda Palmer, and don’t recall ever hearing her music, though I hear a lot of music. Full disclosure, my wife Heather once tried to contact her through her agents to see if she would play at a charity event, but I don’t know what happened with that other than nothing happened.

I have no problem with bands using participant financing schemes like Kickstarter and such. I’ve said many times that I think they’re part of the new way bands and their audience interact and they can be a fantastic resource, enabling bands to do things essentially in cooperation with their audience. It’s pretty amazing actually.

It should be obvious also that having gotten over a million dollars from such an effort that it is just plain rude to ask for further indulgences from your audience, like playing in your backing band for free.

Fuck’s sake a million dollars is a shitload of money. How can you possibly not have a bunch laying around after people just gave you a million dollars? I saw a breakdown about where the money went a while ago, and most everything in it was absurdly inefficient, including paying people to take care of spending the money itself, which seems like a crazy moebius strip of waste.
2740757, I just think most her music is pretty unacceptable anyway
Posted by Nodima, Fri Sep-14-12 10:22 PM
but I can see how people who are fans of that rare style would be willing to pony up some million dollars total.

I suppose I might have enjoyed the first Dresden Dolls album, but I thought Evelyn Evelyn was awful.



More on topic, I agree with Steve on both of his final points: it's cool if your fans want to support your art in ways other than buying a CD in merch, including essentially giving you an advance deal that isn't expected to be paid back, but if you make such an exorbitant amount of money, you have to be really careful in how you frame "I can't afford touring musicians so will you all join me for some amateur live shows that may or may not be a lot of fun?"

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." © Jay Bilas

http://www.last.fm/user/NodimaChee
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/run_that_shit__nodimas_hip_hop_handbook
2740768, RE: What do y'all make of the Amanda Palmer controversy?
Posted by Conscious, Fri Sep-14-12 11:19 PM
She can go kick rocks. WTF seriously. It's funny how folks will work toward being independent working musicians only to try and get others to play with them for free. She's greedy. Sad.
2740779, RE: What do y'all make of the Amanda Palmer controversy?
Posted by The DC Sniper, Sat Sep-15-12 01:07 AM
I can't believe I'm just now asking myself this, but who the fuck gave her $1.2 million!?!? I consider myself knowledgeable when it comes to music and I'm only vaguely aware of the Dresden Dolls. I think if you gathered all the people in America who call themselves Dresden Dolls fans you wouldn't be able to fill a school bus. The only possibility I can think of is that maybe all $1.2 mill came from one hardcore fan who's an eccentric millionaire. Didn't Public Enemy crowdsource their last album? They're infinitely more well-known and I can't imagine they raised anywhere near a million dollars.
2740802, Neil Gaiman has boosted her stock considerably.
Posted by AFKAP_of_Darkness, Sat Sep-15-12 03:17 AM
2740808, it's taking crowdsourcing to a place unfit, for mine.
Posted by ninjitsu, Sat Sep-15-12 03:55 AM
she's wanting musicians to audition for a gig that would be played only for the privilege of playing for her. that's pretty bloody smug.
2740812, It's especially disappointing when a musician devalues the work.
Posted by Buck, Sat Sep-15-12 07:13 AM
Her position is evidently that the performance of music is quite literally worthless, which is a view more typically associated with club owners and those seeking to hire wedding bands on the cheap.

Her music, such as it is, is godawful, but that doesn't excuse this. Despicable, really.
2740814, If you volunteer and can quit any time, it's not slavery.
Posted by dalecooper, Sat Sep-15-12 08:29 AM
Just wanted to point out the obvious. Palmer is being dumb and cheap and lacking in social awareness, but she's not enslaving anybody.
2740815, Comparing this to slavery is astoundingly stupid
Posted by TomWaitsInOkkervil, Sat Sep-15-12 08:38 AM
I don't agree with what she's doing, but come on.
2740850, RE: Comparing this to slavery is astoundingly stupid
Posted by The DC Sniper, Sat Sep-15-12 12:06 PM
I'd say this is worse than slavery. At least slavery had better songs
2740818, After reading multiple pages/articles I'm still unclear whether
Posted by amplifya7, Sat Sep-15-12 08:49 AM
she's asking for different horn/string players in each city to volunteer for just one night each? Or go on the entire tour with her for free ? Either way though, I don't have a problem with it
2740821, this is after she's already raised a million dollars on kickstarter
Posted by ninjitsu, Sat Sep-15-12 09:16 AM
for her music project.
2740823, You probably also have no problem with stealing music.
Posted by Buck, Sat Sep-15-12 09:36 AM
2740855, RE: What do y'all make of the Amanda Palmer controversy?
Posted by ajiav, Sat Sep-15-12 12:56 PM
The fun part is Albini's ceaseless ability to invent/stoke 'controversies.' The go-to guy for someone in need of kindling.
2740938, RE: She's already appeared fully nude on camera.
Posted by Austin, Sun Sep-16-12 01:30 AM
How much more evidence do people need before they rightfully assert her the title of "whore"?

~Austin

http://austintayeshus.blogspot.com
http://www.last.fm/user/Austintayeshus
http://twitter.com/Austintayeshus
2740983, Amanda and one of the musicians each write responses
Posted by amplifya7, Sun Sep-16-12 10:53 AM
to the controversy:

A San Francisco Cellist who played for free with Palmer:

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2012/09/why_im_fine_with_playing_for_amanda_palmer_for_free_by_sf_cellist_unwoman.php

Amanda's response:

http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/20120913/

both good reads...looks like i am the only AFP fan in The Lesson, I liked the Dresden Dolls album and love at least half of Who Killed Amanda Palmer.
2740989, Mane Phuck Dat Bitch!
Posted by Grand_Styles, Sun Sep-16-12 11:30 AM
Who givez a phuck, not me, datz who.


2741149, new albini interview :
Posted by ninjitsu, Mon Sep-17-12 05:04 AM
http://www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk/features/interview-steve-albini.html

Q: Part of Amanda’s defence of her scheme seems to be that, simply, many fans would jump at the chance to play with their favourite musicians for no money — does this argument seem fair?

A: On the part of the fans, I totally understand and sympathize with this impulse. That’s starkly different from a millionaire asking people to do things for free, under the guise that she is giving them something by indulging them. It’s cheapness repainted as generosity and it’s gross. Using people in this way, exploiting their good nature for one’s own benefit, is a cancer that taints many enterprises and it always reflects poorly on the exploiter. It’s one of the things I hated most about the old-school record business, the practice of fucking with people who loved music so much they would put up with endless greed and abuse just to be a part of it. A new music business paradigm, if it is worth anything, should strive to be free of exploitation and be honest about its motives.

Q: You take issue with Palmer paying people to take care of the Kickstarter fund as inefficient, does this not seem like a reasonable expense for such a large amount of money?

A: No it doesn’t, and I said as much. Paying someone to spend your money for you is pretty ridiculous. That there is a lot of it is all the more reason to keep tabs on it yourself.

Q: What other aspects of Palmer’s scheme strike you as ‘absurdly inefficient’?

A: Given that the typical budget for albums I work on is less than $10,000, you can take your pick of line-items in her budget, divide by ten and still have an order of magnitude worth of waste from my perspective. I haven’t looked at the breakdown since I first saw it so don’t quote me on it (haha, “don’t quote me,” I just said something funny), but I recall that she skimmed a couple hundred grand off the top for her pleasure prior to beginning to make the record. That alone is enough to make the record of your dreams a couple times over and seems like a straight-up “fuck you” to everybody who pledged money to the project.

It’s crazy that I have to explain to you how ridiculous it is to blow a million dollars. More than a million dollars. Just say it out loud and think about how much fucking money a million dollars is. That’s several really nice houses with a Jaguar in each garage. A lifetime’s wages. It’s just an incredible sum, enough to make a hundred records. Palmer had more than that at her disposal and now claims not to have enough left to pay musicians. To pay them for gigs she is also being paid to play. This coming from someone who already had a successful career before she had her audience begin paying all her expenses in advance. A millionaire pleading poverty and asking for additional charity. It’s fucking ridiculous and it mocks all the bands who genuinely need their audience to help them conduct their business.

So that’s what I think. Nobody’s an idiot, some ways of conducting business are just uglier and more exploitative than others.
2742162, amanda now to pay volunteer musicians.
Posted by ninjitsu, Thu Sep-20-12 06:42 AM
http://www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk/features/amanda-palmer-decides-that-she-is-going-to-pay-volunteer-musicians-after-all-the-furore.html