Fuck Off, Amanda Palmer 2: Electric Boogaloo
A sequel to Fuck Off, Amanda Palmer.
So, Amanda Palmer has been asking musicians on her tour stops to volunteer for free, playing several songs in her sets.
Amanda Palmer draws criticism for hugs-as-pay touring musician approach
Amanda Palmer Asks Musicians To Play For Free, Pisses Off Musicians
On the surface, this seems pretty benign. I've seen a lot of people who don't work as professional creatives ask "what's the big deal?" Indeed, these volunteers get to hobnob with someone they like and admire, make a little music, and have a fun experience they can talk about on their blog. I want to make it clear that I'm not upset at the volunteers (I even know one). I get the impulse. Truly, I do. And I am not okay with people who are labeling those who volunteered at Amanda's show "scabs" or any other number of nasty names called.
My ire is reserved for Amanda Palmer, who should fucking well know better, especially after being formerly outspoken about paying artists. Well, when it suited her, I guess.
Here's the problem I have with it: setting up a system where some people get paid and some don't in the same gig is wrong, and harmful to professional creatives across the board. It tells event organizers that artists don't really need to get paid, because there will be a pool of people willing to do it for the experience, which means people who draw a living will be competing for gigs with people who are doing it for fun.
And there's nothing wrong with doing it for fun! But fun is singing in the park, or playing a charity gig, or doing a song two for a friend, or doing a favor for someone who will have your back when you need it. It's doing a gig where no one gets paid, and ticket money goes to paying the venue and for equipment.
What it's not: a gig where everybody gets paid but you.
When an established, well-known musician says to lesser-known musicians, "play my gig for free," they are taking advantage, pure and simple. There's an entirely different power dynamic going on. If you ask me, it's not terribly different from the label system where the corporation has the artist working for scraps, for "exposure," and for little to no money. Amanda Palmer is all about fighting against that kind of injustice from labels-- so why is she essentially feeding right back into it by asking for freebies from her fellow musicians?
I mean, I get the "fun experiment" angle to asking fans to join her onstage. Why not have jam sessions? Do it for charity gigs where nobody gets paid? If it's about fan interaction, or creative exploration, there are totally ways to accomplish this. When you monetize it, and have unpaid musicians supporting your livelihood, it becomes inherently exploitative. (And I'm showing my bias here, but this kind of exploitation seems to be more and more common, both in the arts and with Amanda Palmer specifically.) And the "exposure" angle, lemme tell you, is not all it's cracked up to be. Sure some volunteers might have an album to hawk at the gig. Most won't. Nobody's gonna ask who that one sax player was, and where they can buy his band's album.
Now, this is not a tatic that only Amanda Palmer has used. But here's why Amanda Palmer is also getting a lot of flack: in her blog about where her record-breaking $1.2 million Kickstarter money is going, she says she's getting paid. Her touring band is getting paid. Her staff and crew is getting paid. She's installing an art show (primarily pictures of her face, says word of mouth, but I digress) at each stop. She's paying for custom images for her merch, and for a deluxe tour book.
...but she wants seven to eight musicians a night, free of charge (well, for hugs and beer).
She can afford all the bells and whistles and nifty whatsits, but she conveniently "can't afford" a relatively modest fee set aside to pay one-stop guest musicians. This shows pretty clearly what the priorities are, and highlights a trouble in many artistic industries-- people just don't want to pay for artists to work for them. Or they want to pick and choose who is worth payment and who's not, while getting valued services from both. Both equally problematic.
This is compounded with her most recent blog entry, where she says that for select tour stops, she contacted some one-stop guest musicians in advance, and they're getting paid, too.
Just not the one-stop volunteers. Volunteers, I might add, who had to submit an audition tape of sorts, then show up to a rehearsal before they could get on stage and play several songs (my friend said he played six). Time and effort. No pay.
It's setting up a dangerous double standard, in which some people get paid and some don't, seemingly arbitrarily.
Plus, let's be real. "I can't afford it" is bullshit. She raised a fuckton of money for the album and tour, but didn't factor in how to pay the musicians she'd need to play her songs? Then you prioritize. You lose an art exhibit. You take care of the people who are helping you earn your living. If it's important to you, you find a way. Add to that: her tour is going to do well. It's going to sell out in most stops. That's in addition to the kickstarter money for the output. So, something is fuzzy with the math.
Here's the thing. Fans paid for the album via Kickstarter. They're paying for the tour via Kickstarter. She admitted she asks for fans to "crowdsource" her meals on tour. And now she's asking for free performances. All in the name of "let's hang out and have a fun time, man," which, in and of itself, does not sound like a problem, even though she's not some no-name, trying-to-make-it artist.
But does she take beer and hugs as payment for tickets, or for merch?
No.
So it's not quite as hippy-culture as she'd like you to think it is after all. The money is flowing in one direction, and "ninja gigs" announced last minute and a smattering of free shows here and there don't balance that, nor do they primarily benefit the people who give the most to keeping her livelihood afloat. She's taking advantage of her name, and, in my opinion, damaging creative professionals with this tactic. (Tangent: "but Amanda does free gigs too!" is a strawman, for lots of reasons. Essentially, choosing to do a gig for free, for whatever motivation, is a lot different from an established musician asking lesser-known musicians to support her livelihood for free.)
It's true that a few fans have spoken up and said they don't feel taken advantage of for playing a gig. (Although her supporter getting the most play, Unwoman, admits she got paid, and more than she usually gets paid. There's that to consider.)
On one hand, I don't want to demean their experience, but on the other... just because you had a good experience on one night doesn't mean it doesn't have troubling implications in the industry. In fact, when some people get paid and others don't, it plays directly back into the toxic corporate structure that Amanda is trying so hard to combat. It's completely self-defeating in the long run.
If that is "the future of music," as Amanda so proudly proclaims... then I'm very worried.
Unrelated but still rage inducing, on another post, I found this little nugget:
Trigger Warning: Suicide.
"...when her partner, who was a recovering drug addict had a relapse, she faked a suicide attempt to let him know how he made her feel.
A few years later he committed suicide.
She recorded his reaction when he found her, pretending to be dead, and years later she used it on an album."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57XWrFNGs8&feature=youtu.be
She starts telling the story at 5:40.
Sick, twisted, emotional abuse is not "art," and should not be used for "art." Period.
...basically, as a former fan, it sucks to see what she's become. Someone okay with hipster racism, pretend-raping someone onstage for lulz, emotionally abusing a loved one for "art," making fun of legit criticism (of EvelynEvelyn) by a disabled critic on tv, and now "pay the artist except when I 'can't'." It's all pretty vile. I think if she were a newcomer to the scene who didn't have so many devoted fans due to earlier work, reaction to her would be very, very different.
That said, since I know this may come up: if you want to discuss Neil Gaiman, go ahead. But stick to his words and actions regarding Amanda's work. I will freeze anything that's "I can't believe my precious Neil Gaiman married her." It's not the point. There's plenty to talk about without going there. Ditto for sexist namecalling, or criticizing her eyebrows.
I have to get work done, so I'll be back to discuss later.
So, Amanda Palmer has been asking musicians on her tour stops to volunteer for free, playing several songs in her sets.
Amanda Palmer draws criticism for hugs-as-pay touring musician approach
Amanda Palmer Asks Musicians To Play For Free, Pisses Off Musicians
On the surface, this seems pretty benign. I've seen a lot of people who don't work as professional creatives ask "what's the big deal?" Indeed, these volunteers get to hobnob with someone they like and admire, make a little music, and have a fun experience they can talk about on their blog. I want to make it clear that I'm not upset at the volunteers (I even know one). I get the impulse. Truly, I do. And I am not okay with people who are labeling those who volunteered at Amanda's show "scabs" or any other number of nasty names called.
My ire is reserved for Amanda Palmer, who should fucking well know better, especially after being formerly outspoken about paying artists. Well, when it suited her, I guess.
Here's the problem I have with it: setting up a system where some people get paid and some don't in the same gig is wrong, and harmful to professional creatives across the board. It tells event organizers that artists don't really need to get paid, because there will be a pool of people willing to do it for the experience, which means people who draw a living will be competing for gigs with people who are doing it for fun.
And there's nothing wrong with doing it for fun! But fun is singing in the park, or playing a charity gig, or doing a song two for a friend, or doing a favor for someone who will have your back when you need it. It's doing a gig where no one gets paid, and ticket money goes to paying the venue and for equipment.
What it's not: a gig where everybody gets paid but you.
When an established, well-known musician says to lesser-known musicians, "play my gig for free," they are taking advantage, pure and simple. There's an entirely different power dynamic going on. If you ask me, it's not terribly different from the label system where the corporation has the artist working for scraps, for "exposure," and for little to no money. Amanda Palmer is all about fighting against that kind of injustice from labels-- so why is she essentially feeding right back into it by asking for freebies from her fellow musicians?
I mean, I get the "fun experiment" angle to asking fans to join her onstage. Why not have jam sessions? Do it for charity gigs where nobody gets paid? If it's about fan interaction, or creative exploration, there are totally ways to accomplish this. When you monetize it, and have unpaid musicians supporting your livelihood, it becomes inherently exploitative. (And I'm showing my bias here, but this kind of exploitation seems to be more and more common, both in the arts and with Amanda Palmer specifically.) And the "exposure" angle, lemme tell you, is not all it's cracked up to be. Sure some volunteers might have an album to hawk at the gig. Most won't. Nobody's gonna ask who that one sax player was, and where they can buy his band's album.
Now, this is not a tatic that only Amanda Palmer has used. But here's why Amanda Palmer is also getting a lot of flack: in her blog about where her record-breaking $1.2 million Kickstarter money is going, she says she's getting paid. Her touring band is getting paid. Her staff and crew is getting paid. She's installing an art show (primarily pictures of her face, says word of mouth, but I digress) at each stop. She's paying for custom images for her merch, and for a deluxe tour book.
...but she wants seven to eight musicians a night, free of charge (well, for hugs and beer).
She can afford all the bells and whistles and nifty whatsits, but she conveniently "can't afford" a relatively modest fee set aside to pay one-stop guest musicians. This shows pretty clearly what the priorities are, and highlights a trouble in many artistic industries-- people just don't want to pay for artists to work for them. Or they want to pick and choose who is worth payment and who's not, while getting valued services from both. Both equally problematic.
This is compounded with her most recent blog entry, where she says that for select tour stops, she contacted some one-stop guest musicians in advance, and they're getting paid, too.
Just not the one-stop volunteers. Volunteers, I might add, who had to submit an audition tape of sorts, then show up to a rehearsal before they could get on stage and play several songs (my friend said he played six). Time and effort. No pay.
It's setting up a dangerous double standard, in which some people get paid and some don't, seemingly arbitrarily.
Plus, let's be real. "I can't afford it" is bullshit. She raised a fuckton of money for the album and tour, but didn't factor in how to pay the musicians she'd need to play her songs? Then you prioritize. You lose an art exhibit. You take care of the people who are helping you earn your living. If it's important to you, you find a way. Add to that: her tour is going to do well. It's going to sell out in most stops. That's in addition to the kickstarter money for the output. So, something is fuzzy with the math.
Here's the thing. Fans paid for the album via Kickstarter. They're paying for the tour via Kickstarter. She admitted she asks for fans to "crowdsource" her meals on tour. And now she's asking for free performances. All in the name of "let's hang out and have a fun time, man," which, in and of itself, does not sound like a problem, even though she's not some no-name, trying-to-make-it artist.
But does she take beer and hugs as payment for tickets, or for merch?
No.
So it's not quite as hippy-culture as she'd like you to think it is after all. The money is flowing in one direction, and "ninja gigs" announced last minute and a smattering of free shows here and there don't balance that, nor do they primarily benefit the people who give the most to keeping her livelihood afloat. She's taking advantage of her name, and, in my opinion, damaging creative professionals with this tactic. (Tangent: "but Amanda does free gigs too!" is a strawman, for lots of reasons. Essentially, choosing to do a gig for free, for whatever motivation, is a lot different from an established musician asking lesser-known musicians to support her livelihood for free.)
It's true that a few fans have spoken up and said they don't feel taken advantage of for playing a gig. (Although her supporter getting the most play, Unwoman, admits she got paid, and more than she usually gets paid. There's that to consider.)
On one hand, I don't want to demean their experience, but on the other... just because you had a good experience on one night doesn't mean it doesn't have troubling implications in the industry. In fact, when some people get paid and others don't, it plays directly back into the toxic corporate structure that Amanda is trying so hard to combat. It's completely self-defeating in the long run.
If that is "the future of music," as Amanda so proudly proclaims... then I'm very worried.
Unrelated but still rage inducing, on another post, I found this little nugget:
Trigger Warning: Suicide.
"...when her partner, who was a recovering drug addict had a relapse, she faked a suicide attempt to let him know how he made her feel.
A few years later he committed suicide.
She recorded his reaction when he found her, pretending to be dead, and years later she used it on an album."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57XWrFNGs8&feature=youtu.be
She starts telling the story at 5:40.
Sick, twisted, emotional abuse is not "art," and should not be used for "art." Period.
...basically, as a former fan, it sucks to see what she's become. Someone okay with hipster racism, pretend-raping someone onstage for lulz, emotionally abusing a loved one for "art," making fun of legit criticism (of EvelynEvelyn) by a disabled critic on tv, and now "pay the artist except when I 'can't'." It's all pretty vile. I think if she were a newcomer to the scene who didn't have so many devoted fans due to earlier work, reaction to her would be very, very different.
That said, since I know this may come up: if you want to discuss Neil Gaiman, go ahead. But stick to his words and actions regarding Amanda's work. I will freeze anything that's "I can't believe my precious Neil Gaiman married her." It's not the point. There's plenty to talk about without going there. Ditto for sexist namecalling, or criticizing her eyebrows.
I have to get work done, so I'll be back to discuss later.