Amanda Palmer crowdsourced strings

[T-rex]

Yes. This.

Totally agreed. How can we make this happen? I'll chip in a few bucks to pay someone to do this if it's documented. Seriously.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

I'm in for 20 bucks, as long as we get a video reaction.

I would have totally pitched in for this!

[Gregg Juke]

Huh. Nice damage control post she got up there too. "We were always going to pay. It was all our idea in the first place. We Rock. Everybody Rocks. uh, Rock."

GJ

[fossiltooth]

Hahaha. Yes Gregg, she is a consummate marketer, for sure. Say what you will, but her ability to spin did get her the $1.2M to begin with and will (since musicians fought for it it) get some more checks signed than might have been otherwise. I say let her try and save some face if she wants to. Doesn't hurt us any, and doesn't concern us anymore. That's my take, anyway.

[Snarl 12/8]

Let's start a whole kerfuffle about how she needs to buy some more microphones so we can actually hear the horns. Did anyone watch that [painful] video 'til the end? I hear drums, bass, her and a shitload of distortion, but no horns even though there's about 10 of them up right next to her. You gotta make some space, sonically, for your guest musicians, or they're just window dressing.

[JGriffin]

That reminds me of three funny things:

1) The Van Halen incident (don't have a link right now, but it's on YouTube), where they're live in concert in Brazil or something, and the dat tape of keyboard parts on "Jump" is off-speed, but Eddie plows through his out-of-tune solo anyway...

2) The time a bunch of drunk weasels detuned our instruments one night in a bar when the band was outside on a break. Man, the opening chords of the next set were a shocker...

3) Closest to the point of the posts above, my friend Len, an amazing guitarist, would often randomly play signature guitar lines to songs a half or whole step up, or even in rhythm but a 12-tone kind of thing; just for his own amusement and the amusement of those who could figure it out... This would be live on-stage in front of a crowd, just because he could. It was a riot.

To the matter at-hand-- What if we start a Kickstarter campaign to fund AP's string section in certain high-profile towns, but we give them the secret instructions? ( "A half-step higher, please... Cello? A quarter-tone lower").

GJ

1) There was a 15-page or so thread here (I think it's here) about the Van Halen thing, and after much debate and a little scientific analysis it was determined that Eddie's guitar was the culprit, not the synth/DAT/computer/whatever.

2) Do some bands not check their tuning when coming back from set break?

3) Once, playing a 3-night stint at a resort in Ohio (they have them there), the lead guitarist and I (I was on bass for this gig, for some reason) developed a strong suspicion that our singer/rhythm guitarist wasn't really, how you say, "listening" to the rest of the band when he'd take his solos. So halfway through one of his longer, jammier solos, we modulated up a half-step to see how long it'd take him to realize he was totally out. After 48 bars we couldn't take it any longer and went back to the original key. He never caught on, and I don't even think we ever told him about it.

[Gregg Juke]

>>>>2) Do some bands not check their tuning when coming back from set break?<<<<

No, you don't understand dwlb; I'll give the whole story below... It's a hoot, now. Not so funny then. I guess the short answer to your question is--"Yeah, some bands don't check their tuning at the start of every set, if everything was fine when they went on break, and they trust people in a club to be adults and not pouty infants." In the words of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "I Won't Make That Mistake Again."

++++3) Once, playing a 3-night stint at a resort in Ohio (they have them there), the lead guitarist and I (I was on bass for this gig, for some reason) developed a strong suspicion that our singer/rhythm guitarist wasn't really, how you say, "listening" to the rest of the band when he'd take his solos. So halfway through one of his longer, jammier solos, we modulated up a half-step to see how long it'd take him to realize he was totally out. After 48 bars we couldn't take it any longer and went back to the original key. He never caught on, and I don't even think we ever told him about it.++++

I've been in bands like that! The classic complaint that drummers hear from guitarists (especially) and keyboardists when they are playing too loud is "We have to play to the level of the drums!!!!" I put a big puncture whole in that whole kerfuffle (Ed. Note--yeah, she did use that word A LOT) when in one particular band, the two guitarists were getting into their usual volume war, and I kept switching to smaller and smaller sticks, then Blasticks, then eventually down to brushes, on a Zeppelin tune (!!!!)-- NOBODY noticed. Too busy making sure that they were louder than the other guy.

OK, so the de-tuning incident. I was subbing with a buddies band back in the 90's. They had a "contemporary/alternative blues" type group, meaning they did blues, jazz, instrumentals, some rock stuff like Santana, and a lot of Robert Cray. Anyway, in this posh, trendy little flavor-of-the-moment upper middle class club, where all of the 45-70 year old and up hipsters and scene-makers hung-out was where the gig was. The band sounded good and people were digging it to the best of their ability. So the band is getting ready to go on break, and these drunk guys who wanted to have happy birthday shout-outs to their pal (which they got, several times), were getting rowdy, and pressing in and wanting to use the PA to basically scream whatever they wanted to at the crowd. At a certain point, that bandleader said no, but when we went outside and looked back in the window, there these pesta-tooches were, up on stage and screaming into the PA. The guys I was playing with didn't know what to do, so I said "I got this," and put on my big boy pants and confronted the jokers. I turned-off the PA, and told them to beat it off the stage, which was both whine-illy and slosh-illy protested with "But it's blankety-blank's BIRTHDAY!!!!"

"Yeah, whatever, get off the stage now before somebody gets hurt, and it won't be me." So I go back outside to the cowering band, to applause and general back-slapping pal-iness (Ed. Note-- I'm now using the suffix "iness" almost as much as AP used "kerfuffle"). When we come back to play the next set, we suit-up and the guys launch into "Midnight Hour," only everyone immediately turns and starts yelling the key at each other (keyboard player, guitarist, and bassist; I'm just staring in amazement with my mouth open)-- "It's in F!!!" "YEAH, I KNOW! It's in F!!!!" etc., etc. Finally we all start laughing, because it was too much. But it gets better; after we get it straightened-out and finish the set, I'm fuming, because we know who the idiots are that did it. So I make a bee-line for the table where the few remaining party-boys are and confront the ring-leader ("But it's blankety-blank's BIRTHDAY!!!!). "What the %$$##@@^^& did you think you were doing? Do you have any idea how much that gear costs that you were playing with? What if you drunk idiots broke something? Who's going to pay for it Nimrod?"

Turns out these guys were _lawyers,_ you know, those entrusted with knowing the law and making sure people's rights and property aren't violated, and stuff like that. I tried to bring it down to his level-- "Why don't you let me just drive your Ferrari around the parking lot? No big deal, it's blankety-blank's BIRTHDAY!!! Why don't I just come to your office and start ripping pages out of random books in your law library? Just because they're your tools that you need for work, that you spent a lot of money and time accumulating, what's the big deal, 'It's blankety-blank's birthday,' right????"

No effect. Blank stare. Some people will never get it.

GJ

[MoreSpaceEcho]

some people are just entitled douchebags. a friend was telling me about playing a covers gig once, and some woman put her drink down ON MY FRIEND'S AMP. as if that wasn't obnoxious enough, the woman then got offended when my friend told her to move her damn drink.

people...

anyway...tuning...i've told this before but it was ages ago so whatever...an old old old band of mine, the singer/rhythm guitarist never used a tuner, he'd tune using the 5th fret/open string method. he also smoked tons of weed, which as you may or may not know, can make the simple act of tuning somewhat difficult. so he'd be having something of a tough time of it already, and me being a class-a jerk, i figure i'll fuck with him and make it even harder. so he's tuning his A string, and i very very quietly fade in a Bb. the bass player, a quick study, catches right on and fades in a G#.

singer, growing rapidly agitated: "WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK????"

oh how we laughed.

[Gregg Juke]

The drink on the amp. Oy. The drink on the PA speaker. The pitcher of water on the PA speaker! The drink on the PA amp... One of the banes of my existence.

Once, in a church service, a pastor put his water glass on my conga!?!!!?!!! "What the heck; it's a flat surface, and I need one." I wrestled with it for quite awhile, but eventually went ahead and disrupted the whole service by walking up to the platform and moving the drink during the sermon. They've got to learn somehow.

GJ

[cgarges]

Huh. Nice damage control post she got up there too. "We were always going to pay. It was all our idea in the first place. We Rock. Everybody Rocks. uh, Rock."

Still: FUCK HER.

That reminds me of three funny things:

1) The Van Halen incident (don't have a link right now, but it's on YouTube), where they're live in concert in Brazil or something, and the dat tape of keyboard parts on "Jump" is off-speed, but Eddie plows through his out-of-tune solo anyway...

That was in Greensboro, NC and like dwlb said, it was the guitar.

Just recently I watched a conga player (rightfully) flip out when a drunk woman making a speech set her cocktail down on one of his drums. I also saw a dude knock a baritone saxophone off a stand, causing about $500 in damage, and then yell at the saxophone player for putting his horn right there next to the entire fucking band.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[JGriffin]

>>>>2) Do some bands not check their tuning when coming back from set break?<<<<

No, you don't understand dwlb; I'll give the whole story below... It's a hoot, now.

That is a fantastic story, and I hope you know I was just taking the piss.

[Snarl 12/8]

Still: FUCK HER.

I feel like you're almost crossing the line into mysogyny with that refrain. You might want to rephrase that, especially as a moderator of one of the message boards that she was perhaps referencing in her post.

I mean no disrespect.

[cgarges]

She says she's okay with not agreeing with people, and I'm fine with that. I'm still allowed to think that she's full of it.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[chris harris]

I said, and still say, "fuck her", too. There was absolutely no misogyny intended. If you don't believe me, then fuck you, too.

[JGriffin]

Yeah, I don't see misogyny in that response. I think it'd be "fuck 'em" whether we were talking about a woman or a man.

[Snarl 12/8]

Yeah, I don't see misogyny in that response. I think it'd be "fuck 'em" whether we were talking about a woman or a man.

Yeah, but somehow I think it might feel more threatening for a woman to hear that coming, with anger, from a man. Whatever though. If you guys want to double down on it, I'm not going to keep arguing about it. Seems like AP likes to drop the F bomb as much as possible too.