Amanda Palmer crowdsourced strings

apropos of nothing · Post by **apropos of nothing** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:53 am

I went to see Amanda Palmer last night.

There's a fair amount of controversy around her decision to ask for a volunteer string&horn section for her show, particularly in light of her very successful Kickstarter campaign. Enough so that Steve Albini made a snarky comment, and public apology.
http://amyvs.weebly.com/1/post/2012/09/ ... almer.html
http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/20120913/
http://www.nme.com/news/amanda-palmer/66100

Since we seem to have a nuanced view of voluntarism, gettin' paid and a deep passion for music around here, I'd be very interested in comments from the forum on the topic.

Thanks!

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 7:37 am

I think this would be totally fine if her concerts were free.

Nick Sevilla · Post by **Nick Sevilla** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:04 am

dfuruta wrote:I think this would be totally fine if her concerts were free.

/\This/\

If she were performing a free concert, the volunteers are always welcome.

But, this is not the case here..

Add to that, if she will record any of these concerts, then where would the royalties from those sales go?

If you work, and you get paid, and people worked under you, then they get paid.

That is how it works.

apropos of nothing · Post by **apropos of nothing** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:25 am

I note that Mr. Colletti, a frequent contributor to the magazine and board has written an interesting take.

groover · Post by **groover** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 12:31 pm

I just LOVE the music business!

I, too, like and agree with Mr. Colletti's response/essay.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:07 pm

I agree with JC.

I hadda ask m'self, what would he do?

O' Gawd, did I really just say that?

I agree with Mr. Coletti.

No Wave Casio Kitsch · Post by **No Wave Casio Kitsch** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 7:35 pm

The idea of inviting fans on stage to perform is very cool, but the way Amanda Palmer has gone about it in this circumstance is shameful.

telepathy · Post by **telepathy** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 7:38 pm

^^^^^^^^^ what he said.

this could have been much less of an issue if she had any tact or self-awareness.

dgrieser · Post by **dgrieser** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:22 pm

I've never heard of Amanda Palmer before this. I doubt I'll look anything up about her.

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:12 pm

Looked up a track on youtube earlier, and I don't really get it. Just seems like some bad alt-rock/lite-punk.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:34 am

She came to my attention because of her husband, Neil Gaiman who is a pretty good writer (American Gods, Anansi Boys, InterWorld were all good, especially the first), and because of her theatricality, which the music press writes up fairly regularly. I think she wrote a semi-successful musical a cuppla years ago, appeared topless, etc.

BTW, I didn't vote above, preferring "Questionable" as my answer.

Scodiddly · Post by **Scodiddly** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 6:28 am

I'm a live sound guy too, so I found Mr. Colletti's take interesting.

But going further, what about volunteers and reliability? I've worked my share of gigs where the school/church/whatever promised volunteer stagehands. And of course anybody who's had experience with this knows that a fair number vanish after the show is done (but before the loadout is complete), etc.

So I wonder what the volunteer commitment is here. If I'd signed on as a player, but had to cancel last minute to take a paying gig, what's my responsibility? What could the fallout be?

T-rex · Post by **T-rex** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:59 am

That is totally ridiculous. I'll admit, the $1.2 million figure looms greatly in my mind in stating how ridiculous this is. I see local people in the music scene help people out like this all the time, but I really feel that in this situation; she is exploiting the musicians. Tons of artists record albums with various parts that they can not recreate on stage due to their finances not allowing them to bring a keyboard player for three parts in two songs or an entire string section for the bridge of one song. Some artists tour solo because that's all they can afford. So when I see someone bring in that amount of money and then ask for volunteers to play for free beer, I can't separate the two.

Also, am I the only one that thinks the name, Grand Theft Orchestra is hilarious now?

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:38 pm

I cannot begin to fathom going into a tour with $1.2 million of it already covered and then asking people to perform for free. Fuck her.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Scodiddly · Post by **Scodiddly** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:14 pm

Well, it *is* pretty easy to spend a million touring, depending on scale of production and whatnot.

Having had a long drive to mull it over, my reaction to her blog post (gist of it "I do a lot of gigs for free - it's part of my art") is that she can afford to do a lot of free gigs, because she makes more money off others. Averaged out, she's making money on all her gigs.

The retail term is "loss leader", sale items that are cheaper than cost to bring in customers who will buy other items as well.

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