"THE EPIXHD TOO FAT FOR FORTY SMODCASTLE PRESS SCRUM"<\/a> it explains his philosophy.<\/p>\nSo we found out Amanda comes from a broken home and she wrote one of the Dresden Dolls’ most noted numbers, "Half Jack", for her real father.\u00c2\u00a0 Who heard it live in D.C. for the first time.\u00c2\u00a0 And her mother was pissed she didn’t write a song about her.<\/p>\n
Even better was her parents complaining that she was banging on the piano too much in the basement.\u00c2\u00a0 Quite the antidote to those stage parents pushing their progeny into showbiz.<\/p>\n
The stories were flying fast and furious.\u00c2\u00a0 How Amanda was a living statue for four years.\u00c2\u00a0 Kevin asked what I wanted to know, could she make a living at it?\u00c2\u00a0 Amanda said she made more than all her friends, on a good day $450.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow!<\/p>\n
And she met Brian, the Dresden Dolls’ drummer, at a party in her house where she was performing at the piano, something that had taken her years to feel comfortable doing in public, and they started the band.\u00c2\u00a0 Did they have a relationship?\u00c2\u00a0 OF COURSE!\u00c2\u00a0 They slept together, made music, and made love.\u00c2\u00a0 They were two halves of the same being, they were never apart.<\/p>\n
Whereas Neil was more isolated.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the guy with the book.\u00c2\u00a0 His parents would pat him down before a Bar Mitzvah, not only looking for the book, but the hidden spare.\u00c2\u00a0 He’ll take a book to the bar.\u00c2\u00a0 He resorted to reading the newspaper upon being introduced to Amanda’s father at dinner, the aforementioned Jack.<\/p>\n
But both Amanda and Neil had a dream, from a very young age.<\/p>\n
Amanda wanted to be a rock star.<\/p>\n
Neil had a list, comprised of being a comic author and so much more.\u00c2\u00a0 His mother said it was nice, and now he’s done it all.<\/p>\n
And now the two of them, Amanda and Neil, are traipsing around the world in love.<\/p>\n
The Smodcastle only holds a hundred people.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was packed to the rafters with those paying a hundred dollars to get in.\u00c2\u00a0 You see modern entertainment is quite narrow.\u00c2\u00a0 A core of fans will pay seemingly unlimited amounts to be close to their heroes.<\/p>\n
Like those people who paid $1000 for the special package of Amanda’s ukulele Radiohead covers.\u00c2\u00a0 She made a hundred grand.\u00c2\u00a0 God, there are people on the pop chart who haven’t netted a hundred grand.<\/p>\n
But she’s doing it all by her lonesome.<\/p>\n
Well, not really.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s got a full time Webmaster\/tech guru, Sean.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re constantly trying new ideas.\u00c2\u00a0 Asking the audience what it wants.\u00c2\u00a0 Taking risks.\u00c2\u00a0 All of this anathema to the machine which Amanda played victim to in her previous incarnation as a major label recording artist.\u00c2\u00a0 Major labels want to play it safe.\u00c2\u00a0 They want insurance.\u00c2\u00a0 Risk is forbidden.\u00c2\u00a0 And the concept of asking the fans…\u00c2\u00a0 Did you see that piece on L.A. Reid in the latest "Entertainment Weekly"?\u00c2\u00a0 He thinks he’s the new Clive. He thinks he knows.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not true, the artist knows!\u00c2\u00a0 And a modern artist is in touch with his fans, it’s a symbiotic relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 All those old middlemen, radio and TV and print…they don’t care about artists, they just need grist for the mill.<\/p>\n
And Neil Gaiman barely flies on my radar.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t read comic books and I didn’t see "Coraline".\u00c2\u00a0 But I know he’s a god in his world.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was reinforced when he and Kevin told tales of Comic-Con.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the modern world.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about making it in someone else’s sphere, it’s not about being anointed by those who don’t care, but by those who do.<\/p>\n
Not that Neil hasn’t won awards.<\/p>\n
And he told tales…<\/p>\n
His first book was about Duran Duran.\u00c2\u00a0 Written from press clippings acquired from the BBC.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a huge hit.\u00c2\u00a0 He planned how to spend his earnings.\u00c2\u00a0 But in two weeks, the publisher went bankrupt and he didn’t get paid.\u00c2\u00a0 And he didn’t do anything for the money ever again.<\/p>\n
That was the mantra of the evening.\u00c2\u00a0 Life was too short to do that which you did not love.\u00c2\u00a0 And Neil even went on to say that that which he’d done for free, expecting no dough, ultimately paid dividends years later!<\/p>\n
And there were tales of the movie business.\u00c2\u00a0 Making a deal and being flown to the Mediterranean for a weekend of sailing where the crew included…Simon LeBon.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Neil said, as soon as you get involved in the movies, life becomes surreal. Days went by, Simon and Neil bonding, finally he couldn’t handle it anymore, he told Simon he’d written that book…\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out Duran Duran loved it!<\/p>\n
And Kevin told his stories too.\u00c2\u00a0 About being infatuated with Batman and making up calling cards with the logo and putting one on the windshield of his beloved and writing upon it that she should look up, to where he was standing in a trench coat atop the pharmacy where she was employed!<\/p>\n
Kevin labeled Amanda an art chick.<\/p>\n
But all three of these characters were art chicks.\u00c2\u00a0 Following their muse.<\/p>\n
And yes, Amanda realized she could never be a pop star.\u00c2\u00a0 But she’s happy in her niche.\u00c2\u00a0 And the estrogen in the audience was happy with her.\u00c2\u00a0 Kevin had never seen so many women in the Smodcastle.<\/p>\n
I’ve seen a million interviews.\u00c2\u00a0 Live and on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 The subject is promoting something, and certain topics are taboo, and truth rarely comes out.\u00c2\u00a0 Kevin’s only interested in the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 He extracts it.\u00c2\u00a0 And one got more insight into the struggle to be an artist last night at the Smodcastle than at any panel at any music conference ever.<\/p>\n
You see it’s about the people.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re a special breed.\u00c2\u00a0 And those who last are not about the money, because it’s too hard for it to only be about the money.\u00c2\u00a0 They were always a little bit off, always living in an alternative reality in their heads.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s only when they laid this down that they found out huge swaths of people identified.<\/p>\n
Come on, how many of you have been surrounded by bodacious bods as you run around in $100,000 worth of steel? Whereas you know heartbreak, and anxiety…\u00c2\u00a0 Neil was inspired by twins he saw on the train every day who he never spoke to.\u00c2\u00a0 Now that’s life!<\/p>\n
Kevin said it’s gonna be a regular series, Starfucking.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll see what comes next.\u00c2\u00a0 Meantime, when this podcast goes live, I’d check it out.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if you’re not a fan of any of these people.\u00c2\u00a0 The conversation just oozed with humanity, about life with excitements and dead ends, triumphs and losses.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re all trying to get along.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s art that keeps us going.\u00c2\u00a0 Imperfect people telling imperfect stories.\u00c2\u00a0 Those we can relate to.\u00c2\u00a0 Shiny is for Hollywood.\u00c2\u00a0 Shiny is a force field that you just can’t penetrate, which is why so many are rejecting the mainstream and digging down into the niches, because burrowed beneath the bullshit is where the real people live.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least that’s what Kevin Smith called it.\u00c2\u00a0 The inaugural Starfucking Smodcast, with Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman. What does it take to make it? Tons of effort.\u00c2\u00a0 And a dream. Kevin Smith is such a good interviewer, he makes me feel inadequate.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only can he ask the questions we want the answers to, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Vp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3560,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions\/3560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}