Album Review: Who Killed Amanda Palmer?

I've never made any secret of the fact that I think one of the two best bands to pop up on the scene this decade is The Dresden Dolls. (The other one is Rilo Kiley)

Certainly one of the most creative and unique bands to come around in a while, who else is doing "Brechtian punk cabaret" music?

With such a creative songwriting talent, I was looking forward to lead singer/piano player Amanda Palmer's solo album, the oddly titled Who Killed Amanda Palmer? Even more exciting, the album was to be produced by Ben Folds.

Unfortunately, as an album it is something of a disappointment despite some fantastic moments. At its best moments the record really flies with some great melodies, lyrics and imagery on tracks like Astronaut, Leeds United, the beautiful rocker Guitar Hero and my personal favorite, the wonderful teenage-viewpoint storytelling of Oasis.

But filled in between these tracks is the drudgery of songs like Ampersand and Blake Says, which were really surprising songs in the fact that I didn't think Amanda Palmer was capable of doing something so utterly boring.

These are not the worst moments on the album. Much worse than those is the really self indulgent cover of What's The Use Of Wond'rin from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel that makes one wonder what the hell the point is.

The album really bottoms out with the performance art-like opening of Strength Through Music, a song that is not half bad except for the fact that it begins with what must be the most ridiculously pretentious minute in the history of pop music.

Walking up to the line of self-indulgent pretentiousness without crossing over it is something The Dresden Dolls have been doing since their first record, but on this album Amanda takes the huge leap on more than one occasion on this record.

(To be sure, the Dolls cross that line on many occasions at their live shows, but they keep it in check on their albums)

The big question I have about this though is, why make this record? The sound is in no way a serious departure from that of her regular band. And when one half of that band is the best drummer in the business, why record tracks with Ben Folds at the kit?

In many ways, this album is a lot like The Dresden Dolls' most recent release, an album of outtakes called No, Virginia...

That one also suffers from a combination of great or really good tracks, including an awesome cover of Pretty In Pink, and a bunch of throwaways.

It's too bad. Take the best tracks of these two records and we would have had a really kick ass new Dresden Dolls album instead of a couple of mediocre CDs that require too much use of the skip button.

*

Shores Of Jersey

OK, so once again I'm really sorry I haven't written anything at all in almost two weeks. I've been working out in beautiful, cosmopolitan Newark, New Jersey for a long stretch this month. Once I get home from working all day, after an hour-and-a-half one way commute, I'm just too beat to get my brain to think of anything interesting. I know, when have I let the lack of anything interesting to write about stop me before?

Anyway, I'm still in the middle of a long work week, but I thought I'd say hi.

In the meantime, check out this brand new, hot off the editing machine video from the Dresden Dolls. It's for the song Shores of California off of Yes, Virginia... and I find it weirdly interesting. For some reason they decided to parody the old California Girls video from David Lee Roth. It's an odd choice, but Amanda Palmer acting all freaky pretty much works in anything.

Five more days until I'll be seeing them at Radio City Music Hall with Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry and Erasure...

I've got to get going. Time for the long, ugly ride to Jersey. Garden State my ass.

Document The Passion (Music Geek Night part 2)

A great show. One of my favorite singer-songwriters. A band in fine form. Meeting and chatting it up with a fellow obsessive music geek. A great bartender working the front bar. Talking to Amanda Palmer before the show. All in all a nice night out at the Knitting Factory.

After the set I went back out to the front bar, got another beer and sat there talking to the bartender for a while. Eventually the band was out in the crowd that was left talking to fans and signing various things. I made my way over and spoke with Scott McCaughey for a while. As I alluded to in Friday's post, I used to work with a guy who is Scott's best friend since high school and I've talked with him a few times before. I also know a couple of other people in Seattle that I figured he knew as well (like a buddy of mine who books shows there) so I kind of talked to him about that for a while. I'm not really an autograph hound or anything, but since he was there I grabbed a copy of the new Minus 5 CD from the merch table and had him sign it for me. He was standing there with a Sharpie in his hands so why not? It was cheaper to get the disc there than at the record store anyway.

I ended up close to Robyn Hitchcock at some point and made a few comments to him as well. Now, I've been in this situation before having seen him so many times and in small venues where you can hang out for a while after the show to meet the band. It never really turns out that well with Robyn. There are a few reasons for this. A lot of the time I've had a couple too many beers by the time the show's over and just kind of say something stupid or maybe unintelligible. Also, there's not really all that much to say to one of your favorite musicians besides "I love your music man," or "great show," and I'm sure he already hears that a hundred times a night. I certainly don't want to start asking him about the meaning of his songs because most songwriters hate that. Plus, he's pretty damn eccentric, so half the time you can't tell at all if he appreciates the comments or if he's a huge dick.

I'm not into the hero worship aspect of it like some people seem to be. I just like to talk to musicians about their music and music in general. That doesn't always work too well with legendary people like Robyn, but can be a really cool thing with smaller and up and coming acts. I think that's why it was so easy to talk to Amanda Palmer about her career and kind of discover what stuff she's into, tell her how I've turned other people on to her music and to talk about mutual love of other acts like Robyn. Or the time I sat at the bar at TT The Bear's Place in Cambridge, MA talking to Tracee Miller from Blanche, while the Ditty Bops played their opening set, about topics ranging from the Carter Family to the kind of fans they attract. Truly an interesting person. Had a great conversation after the show with her husband Dan, the leader of Blanche, about things like his musical style, working on the Loretta Lynn album and being in the Johnny Cash movie, among other things.

With Robyn that night I believe my conversation went something like this.

"Robyn, I wanted to say thank you for playing The Ghost Ship at the request show in November at Maxwell's."
"Did I play that?"
"You did, and I was the person who requested it."
"Oh, OK."

And that was about it.

I was pretty much getting ready to take off when I noticed Peter Buck was actually hanging out without being bothered by a ton of people. I've been in this situation before, where I've been in a small club and seen Peter Buck hanging out and it would be really easy to walk up and talk to him. But I've never done it. With him being the actual bona fide major rock star in the room you really feel like he gets bothered by fans more than enough times in his life. But this time I decided to walk over.

You may remember my story from a couple of weeks ago about how the album Document saved my life. Well I decided to tell Peter Buck this story, without being as long-winded as I was in the blog posting (I hope), just to let him know what his music did for me. You don't get this opportunity with too many artists and I decided not to let it go again. I wasn't sure if he would think I was a total dweeb or not. I even said at the end of it, "I don't want to sound like the total dweeb fan and creep you out or anything, but I just wanted to let you know what that album did for me my senior year of high school."

He was very cool and seemed pretty genuinely flattered by what I said. After commenting how young I was, because I was a senior in high school when Document came out, he said, "No that's not dweeby at all, that's very cool. I really appreciate that."

We talked for a little while more and he mentioned that he had albums that were the same for him (specifically Patty Smith) and we talked about living in Seattle and growing up in Georgia, two things we have in common. And some point he told me, and I'm still not sure how this came up, that he was getting divorced. I told him I was sorry and he kind of shrugged his shoulder and said something along the lines of, "Yeah well, what are you gonna do?"

I bounced on out of there before I allowed myself to order another beer and made my way to the subway, happy to have been able tell someone what their music did for me and what bleak times it helped me through.

And even happier that he didn't seem to think I was a total loser for doing so.

And my extreme, obsessive music dorkiness gets rewarded once again.

The Underneath (Music Geek Night part 1)

Time yet again for a post (actually two) about an amazing night at a Robyn Hitchcock show for little ol' me. Now, you know I usually try to not let my blog become one of those boring "here's what I did today" diary type blogs, because I really can't stand those. People might not dig what I write, but at least it's not going to be because it is nothing more than just a daily accounting of my daily life. If I'm going to be hated I want it to be for being a shitty writer, not a boring one.

My thought and ideas, sure. But not just recaps of my day I hope. Unless your name is Anne Frank nobody is interested in your diary.

Well sometimes I just can't help it after I've had such a fun night out. It seems to usually involve going out to a show by one of my favorite musicians. Like here, here and here. Most of you who might read this blog on any type of regular basis pretty much know that I'm a major music geek and that my favorite things are Robyn Hitchcock, Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy and that REM holds an important and special place in my life and that my favorite new band to pop up in the last five years is The Dresden Dolls.

Knowing that, you'll see why Tuesday night was so damn cool for me.

So I head down to the Knitting Factory in Tribeca, rushing out the door because the show is listed at 8:00 and I wanted to see at least a little of the opener and at the time I left it meant I wouldn't get there until about 8:30. Turns out I rushed for no reason though. Seems that The Knitting Factory, without specifying it, puts on their listings and tickets the door opening time and not the show start time like everybody else. So I'm at the venue at 8:30 thinking that Robyn would be going on about 9:00 or 9:15 and find out that it won't be until 10:15. So that sucked. I also find out that because I did will call for my ticket I don't actually get a ticket stub to add to my collection, just a stamp on my hand. Kind of hard to put that in my ticket box.

I grab a Boddingtons at the bar and head into the band space to check it out since I haven't been there before. Good space in general. Nice and small, the way I like my music venues. But also really warm already and it is not even close to being full yet. I chat up with a couple of guys hanging out there for a while before the opener starts. When Johanna Kunin took the stage I watched for a while but her music was a little too mellow for the room temperature. So I took a walk to the outer bar and kind of hung out by the entrance. I started talking to a guy named Phil who was trying to unload an extra ticket he had, which is why he was hanging out by the door.

By this time Peter Buck had been walking around hanging out for a while looking like just any regular concert-going guy at a bar, just like he had at the show in November at Maxwell's, with no air of a guy who plays lead guitar for one of the biggest bands in the world and was just inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

So I'm talking to this guy Phil about music, he's a middle-aged music geek from Jersey and we hit it off really easily. I know I've said it before, but the great thing about not living in Boston anymore is that this kind of thing is actually possible in, well, everyplace else in the world pretty much. People in clubs will actually talk to each other and make friendly conversation. But I digress.

While I'm chatting with Phil I notice a black dude walk in with the wildest head of hair I've seen for a while. It's not really an afro because it's too straight. It's more like a black guy with a Robert Smith 'do, which was just great. He walked in with a woman that looked familiar and she told him to find the guest list and he walked toward the box office and I told him I thought it might be at the will call table (I was wrong). He started to scream toward his friend that he found out where the list was but she had walked back outside.

"Oh, she's going to go smoke, I have to wait for her," he said to me.
I said, "She looks a lot like Amanda Palmer."
"That is Amanda Palmer."
"Really, the Amanda Palmer."
"Yeah."
"No Shit?"

Amanda Palmer is the leader of The Dresden Dolls.

So when she came back in I started talking to her for a while and told her how much I love her music and that I saw her perform live several times while I was living in Boston and other such complimentary things. I was starting to tell her that the only thing I liked about living in Boston was discovering her music while I was there (that's where The Dresden Dolls are from) and I said, "I really hated living in Boston, but..."

She cut me off with, "I know doesn't it suck?"

I was so happy to find out that she hates it there too. A great musician, songwriter and a kindred spirit as well. We talked for a little while longer, about her upcoming tour this summer with Cindy Lauper, Erasure and Debbie Harry and that my wife and I would be seeing it at Radio City. I also told her that I had been out there turning people on to her music as much as I could, that my wife would be bummed that she decided not to come tonight because she was a big fan too, and we had a nice little conversation about our shared love of Robyn Hitchcock. That was the reason we were both there after all. Except I wasn't on the guest list.

She went to go get her ticket, gave me the warmest handshake and told me she would try to catch me again later.

In the meantime, Robyn walked past on his way in to the venue (Amanda pointed it out to me in a genuine fan-geek style, she was just as giddy as anybody in the place) as did Scott McCaughey (he remembered me as Gary's friend he met last time) and Phil had sold his extra ticket so we went and got a beer together. He didn't know who The Dresden Dolls were, so I told him why I was so psyched to meet her and tried to describe their music to him. That's hard to do.

Phil and I made our way back in to the performance space and it was packed to the gills and hot. We stood toward the back for the show. It's a small place and I'm tall, so why try to work in to the thick crowd and the heat?

The show was great of course. I've done enough gushing over Robyn shows in the past so I don't need to give a review here. I will say that the highlights for me were finally getting a live performance of Belltown Ramble (brings back Seattle memories), a great acoustic version of Balloon Man, an incredible cover of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd's See Emily Play and the best rockin' version of The Underneath I've ever heard.

I was in heaven. I would be even more so after the show.

To be continued...

Halloween In Dresden

So the lovely wife and I had a great Halloween here in Boston. We attended the final show on The Dresden Dolls current tour, before they finish work on their new album. And what a night it was. Started off by walking through our neighborhood and looking at the costumes and decorations on the rich people's houses on the ritzy side of Beacon Hill. Got to see Theresa Heinz Kerry passing out candy. Well, she was out talking to people, the maid may have been doing the actual candy passing. It seemed like this year every other high school/college girl (and a couple of guys) went as slutty French maids. Maybe it's that way every year and this time I just noticed, I don't know.

So anyway, we make our way over to the Fenway neighborhood for the show. For those of you not from Boston, yes this is where Fenway park is. A line of clubs are on the opposite side of Lansdowne Street from the famed "Green Monster" wall in Fenway's left field. It appears that these were crappy warehouse spaces years ago that were turned into clubs when it became a more expensive/trendy neighborhood. They still look like a row of crappy warehouses.

We got to the show about an hour after the first opener started which was probably a good thing. When we walked in there was a woman kind of yodeling or falsetto screaming through some sort of circle with material stretched over it just finishing her set. So I was OK with missing most of that. If you've ever seen The Dresden Dolls something like this wouldn't be surprising. See, they call themselves "Brechtian Punk Cabaret", and they try to do a whole theatrical type experience at their shows, ala 1930s Berlin cabaret. But on acid. They perform their shows with their faces painted white and Amanda, keyboards and vocals, wears black and white striped stockings with garters and the drummer Brian usually wears black trousers without a shirt and a black derby. At their shows they also recruit "performers" to entertain pre-show and between sets. Now this is a good idea in theory that doesn't always work out in practice so well. A lot of them tend to be performance artists in the worst sense of the label. It can come across as bad, under-rehearsed mime work. Guys in white face who peel imaginary bananas or give invisible flowers to girls. Yawn. On this particular night we had, at the most interesting end of the spectrum, a girl with pale face and dark lipstick doing the glass ball balance thing on her hands, much like David Bowie in Labyrinth. Not real interesting after a while, but she was committed to it and had great concentration and skill. At the stupid end of the spectrum you had a girl with a Rosie O'Donnell body with very little clothing on doing a little bit of pseudo belly dancing or hip shaking with some other S&M wannabes. On the real annoying end there were those couple of guys and girls doing the freeze posing in pretentious, overly dramatic positions. A lot like those guys you'll see in the tourist areas of every major city who stand there like statues until someone puts money in their bucket and then they'll dance around for ten seconds. You know, those guys you really want to walk up to and push over. And imagine if they were really really bad at it and never practiced. And wore bad drag. Then after a real opening act, DeVotchka (who were way too cool to go into with any justice, that's a review for another time), we had to stand through a performance of Amanda's alma mater Lexington High School drama club. It was a bunch of girls doing weird writhing movements and amateurish images of consumption and purging and devouring, etc. I leaned over to my wife and said I thought it was one of those things that we would find out was supposed to represent a vagina or something like that.

But then the show finally started. And wow. Fucking wow. I can't think of another band that could get away with doing a cover of Science Fiction/Double Feature from Rocky Horror Picture Show. And that was how they opened the show. And we were hit with beautiful renditions of their songs from the first album, like Girl Anachronism, Coin-Operated Boy, and Bad Habit (which has my favorite line "sappy songs about sex and cheating, bland accounts of two lover meeting, make me want to give mankind a beating) along with new songs from their upcoming album. At one point an acrobat performer showed up on stage and did a Cirque du Soleil style curtain hanging/flipping/repelling show. Absolutely stunning to watch, especially since it was done to better music than the normal new-agey boring stuff done at Cirque.

The highlights of the evening though, was the five cover songs they did. They completely solidified my belief that this is one of the greatest new bands on the scene today. The artists they chose to cover are as varied as the Dolls influences themselves. First there was the previously mentioned opening number from Rocky Horror. Later on they did a kick-ass rendition of I Love Rock And Roll with Amanda on the drums and singing and Brian wailing on the guitar. The most rocking part of the night, people even started doing that 80s fist throwing to the beat thing that was so popular with the Headbangers Ball crowd back in the day. Later on in the show Brian left the stage to Amanda alone and she played a song by herself. She prefaced it by saying something along the lines of she doesn't really know what's cool and that a lot of people think this guy is cool and others don't but that this is what she's been listening to recently. She then did a spectacular rendition of Bright Eyes' Lua. To me it was the most beautiful moment of the show.

For the encore we got another huge surprise. They came back out dressed kind of weird and we weren't able to figure it out right away, with Brian in drag with a long black wig and Amanda wearing trousers and a sort of flat wide-brim hat. After they sat back down at their instruments and Amanda said "Isn't my sister sexy?", that I realized they were dressed as The White Stripes. They then kicked into a smoking cover of My Doorbell.

And they wrapped up the evening with The Flesh Failures (Let The Sunshine In) from Hair! after inviting DeVotchka and the other openers on stage. And not the Aquarius combo version either, the original whole song from the musical by itself. It was a raucous beautiful end to the night. Not many bands could get away with it. Only The Polyphonic Spree comes to mind as another who could. When it comes to the Dolls theatrics, when it works (party sing-along of a 60's musical number) it's fantastic and fabulous, when it doesn't (bad high school mime feminist theatre, statue people) it is hokey and embarrassing. But the moments that do work are worth it.

And everyone knows I really don't like Boston very much, but that last song at the end of a tour for a rising star band in front of the hometown Boston crowd full of their friends and longest-time fans was just fantastic.

They have a live DVD coming out on Nov. 22nd.

Live clips and videos here.

Song samples here.