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Amanda Palmer

Music

The Year in Memorable Musical Controversies

By Tom Hawking on

2012 has been a crazy year in many ways, and the music industry hasn’t exactly been immune to its air of pervading insanity. (In fairness, the music industry is rarely immune to any sort of insanity, but still, humor us here.) This year has given us a particularly rich vein of memorable controversies, conflicts, and contretemps, and as part of our ongoing end-of-year wrap-up, we’re looking back at some of the most significant. Some of these are hilarious, some of them depressing, some of them hilariously depressing, and some just plain old bewildering — but from the resurrection of dead rappers through homeless people functioning as wifi hotspots to a record company suing an entire country, all of them have been worth remembering. … Read More

Music

Is Prince Going to Stand for Amanda Palmer Performing ‘Purple Rain’?

By Tom Hawking on

We’ll be honest: we received the news this morning that Amanda “Fucking” Palmer is planning to play Prince’s classic 1984 album Purple Rain from start to finish at Terminal 5 on New Year’s Eve with a mixture of horror and bemusement. Once the initial shock had worn off, though, one question remained: what on earth… Read More

Music

Amanda Palmer’s Amanda Palmer-Loving, Wayne Coyne Co-Directed NSFW “Do It With a Rockstar” Video

By Judy Berman on

Everyone is talking about Amanda Palmer. The drag queens are squabbling over whether she’s “fugly” or what she does is “art, bitch.” The hipsters in “Pave-adoh” T-shirts think she’s “a Scientologist and an ableist and a Klan member — and she hates men, she hates women. She hates everything!” But they actually all secretly love Amanda Palmer, because they end up at her show anyway to watch her rock out and get covered in glitter. And one of the hipsters, played by “porn star, feminist, smart alec, FORCE” Stoya Doll, ends up going home with Palmer. Yes, of course, there is girl-on-girl action in this video.

So, basically, according to Amanda Palmer — and Wayne Coyne, who co-directed the video with her, George Salisbury, and Michael McQuilken and appears in an extremely brief and death-defying cameo — everyone who says they hate Amanda Palmer actually wants to sleep with Amanda Palmer. Yup. So, if you’re interested, watch the NSFW Amanda Palmer controversy train roll on below! … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. In the future, if all goes according to Goldenvoice’s plan, there could be as many as four Coachellas each year — which we suppose is better than four Bonnaroos. [via Vulture]

2. Amanda Palmer has invited her fans who play the strings, saxophone, and brass to join her on stage at gigs… Read More

Partner Buzz

Check Out Amanda Palmer’s Exclusive Flavorpill Session

By Doug Levy on

Last week, we welcomed the fabulous Amanda Palmer into our office as the latest performer in the Flavorpill Sessions concert series, presented with Livestream. We’ve been huge fans of Palmer since her early days in the Dresden Dolls, and based on what she’s revealed so far, her new album, Theater Is Evil, could be her best work yet. The record isn’t out until September 11, but Palmer and her new band, the Grand Theft Orchestra, have been teasing a good portion of it via recent live shows and digital samples. Meanwhile, her recent high-profile success on Kickstarter has exposed Palmer to an even wider audience — but exposure isn’t something the extremely inventive songwriter has ever had a problem with, as emphasized by her latest music video.

During her hour-long session, the performer commonly referred to as AFP ran through stripped-down solo versions of new tracks including “The Killing Type” and “The Bed Song,” pausing to take requests and answer questions from fans around the world. Check out a gallery of photos from the event, and then click through to watch a stream of the complete session. … Read More

Music

These Are the Bands That Make You Totally Undateable

By Tom Hawking on

A couple of weeks back, our esteemed literary editor Emily Temple surveyed the books that might make you beat a hasty retreat if you saw them on a potential date’s bookshelf, or in their handbag. The post got plenty of heated comments, and it also got us thinking about the other place you might look to snoop on a date’s cultural credentials: their record collection (or, failing that, their iPod.) And so, as we did for books, we asked around Flavorpill central to find out which artists might, if discovered on a potential date’s playlist, put an end to that date pretty damn quickly. We received plenty of responses, and the entirely personal, subjective, and often hotly debated results await after the jump. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. Yes, she’s been publicly naked in a bathtub before, but it’s pretty weird that Wayne Coyne is talking about replacing Erykah Badu with Amanda Palmer in a re-shot version of the Flaming Lips’ controversial video for “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” right? [via NME]

2. Apparently LA Noir, Frank… Read More

Art

Amanda Palmer Art by Frances Bean, Neil Gaiman, and Others

By Doug Levy on

A few months ago, independent-music heroine Amanda Palmer wowed the DIY community by running a Kickstarter campaign for her new album that raised over ten times its original goal, roping in more than one-million dollars in support of the record’s promotion, marketing, and tour. Palmer was able to accomplish this in large part due to her massive online following — the singer has over 500,000 followers on Twitter alone — but also due to her multifaceted approach to presenting her work. In addition to offering the upcoming album, Theater Is Evil, in a variety of formats, rewards for her backers included everything from a limited-edition art book to a private party.

For the book, Palmer commissioned work from over two dozen artists and friends, including Cynthia von Buhler, Cassandra Long, Michael Zulli, DJ Spooky, and Frances Bean Cobain (and hubby Neil Gaiman, natch). Each was tasked with creating either a portrait of Amanda or offering their take on the title of one of her new songs. The works debuted at private art shows in Berlin and London earlier this month, and this week they travel to the US for a series of sold-out intimate exhibits and private performances with Palmer herself. Ahead of tomorrow’s Brooklyn event at Momenta Art in Bushwick, check out our exclusive gallery of pieces from the book/exhibit, then mark your calendar for the September 11 release of the album. … Read More

Music

The All-Time Coolest Author/Musician Collaborations

By Emily Temple on

Collaborations between musicians and authors seem obvious, like they should happen all the time, but the truth is, good ones don’t come along that often. Earlier this month, however, author, poet, and memoirist Mary Karr released her first album, Kin, in collaboration with country singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell, and boy is it good. Though we might be a little biased since we’ve always been die-hard Mary Karr fans, we love the album, which combines Karr’s sublime poetry with Crowell’s formidable musical talent. Inspired by their collaboration, we got to thinking about other fantastic author/musician pairs, from the time Kurt Cobain and William S. Burroughs recorded a Christmas album together to the time Bono hacked a Rushdie novel for lyrics. Click through to see a few of our favorites, and let us know if we’ve missed one of yours in the comments. … Read More

Activism

Read an Anti-SOPA Letter from Aziz Ansari, Trent Reznor, and Other Artists

By Judy Berman on

SOPA Blackout Day is in full swing, with Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing, and other Internet giants blacking out entirely and thousands of other sites — including Flavorpill — creatively demonstrating their solidarity. (We hope you agree that censor bars aren’t a great look for us.) There’s also been something of a backlash against the online outpouring of opposition to SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA, from the usual suspects in Washington as well as groups like the MPAA, who sent this nasty note about the protests.

But not everyone in the entertainment industry supports SOPA. Stop the Wall, a site that you can also use to make a quick and easy phone call to your senator about the legislation, has posted an open letter to Washington from a group of artists that includes Aziz Ansari, Trent Reznor, The Lonely Island, MGMT, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Troma honcho Lloyd Kaufman, and many others. “As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level,” they write, but they don’t support SOPA because they “have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet.” Read the full letter after the jump, and then, if you haven’t already, get on the phone with your representatives to add your voice to the anti-SOPA chorus. … Read More