Amanda Palmer Hits A Million Twitter Followers, Releases Town Hall Session w/Zoe Boekbinder
Amanda Palmer kicked off planning for her next album release with a BitTorrent Town Hall session. Zoe Boekbinder joined in and, as it turns out, they've been playing together as well. The whole event is now available, along with music videos, as a BitTorrent Bundle. Additional commentary by Amanda Palmer is also available as are her thoughts on reaching a million followers on Twitter.
Amanda Palmer: "on hitting a million twitter followers."
that benefit had been announced, a week before, that he was going to be at the benefit, but nobody from his fanbase knew he was there.
because the benefit had no direct reach to those people. nor did he.
the no big newspapers were announcing it. so we were playing, mostly, to my fans.
which felt bizarre. because peter [yarrow of peter, paul and mary] is way more famous and highly-regarded than me.
but i had…520,000 twitter followers.
BitTorrent Sessions: Amanda Palmer Calls a Town Hall
Back in December Amanda Palmer called an "Internet Town Hall" at BitTorrent HQ. Zoe Boekbinder, with who she's been making music, joined her in the discussion.
In the intro above Palmer says she basically wanted to go to her fanbase to decide what to do with her next album. Instead of planning with management, she wanted to figure out how to bring it into the world based on what her fans wanted to see.
If the BitTorrent Blog's nicely done presentation of the event is any indication, the discussion ranged much more widely.
Amanda Palmer's Town Hall includes both the full Town Hall and four music videos by Palmer and Boekbinder.
The "Current Nightmare of the Modern Musician"
After the Town Hall, Amanda Palmer was interviewed by CNET who apparently mixed the two together. Here's a sample:
"The one big problem with Kickstarter — as I've gone around talking to, especially, musicians — is that you don't necessarily want to put all of your time and energy, every time you have a project, into convincing those same people, 'Please Kickstart my record, and here are all the things you'll get; I spent all this time building this page; I spent all this time coming up with these fanciful rewards that you will get, and I spent so much time fulfilling them.'"
"And all these things will go wrong, and things will be misprinted, and FedEx will not come, and that is the current nightmare of the modern musician. This is the recurring theme, that yes, Kickstarter works, but it's a ton of work and you have to keep doing it — every time. You fulfill that one album and you're looking at the next mountain. And that doesn't make a lot of sense because a lot of those people are the same people."
More:
- Watch Amanda Palmer's Impressive TED Talk: The Art Of Asking
- Amanda Palmer's Lessons For Musicians Too Uncomfortable To Ask Their Fans For Money
- Amanda Palmer: "The Music Business Is Baffled" By Kickstarter
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) posts music crowdfunding news @CrowdfundingM. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Nice! I’m mainly cheering for some recognition for Zoe, but still…