One Review, Thirty Minutes

The ad hoc creative team of Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, Damian Kulash, and Neil Gaiman met in a Boston recording studio yesterday. The ambition of their stated goal, to produce eight songs in eight hours (hence the project and band name, 8 in 8, and to let the Internet world watch while they did it, attracted both fascination and notoriety in advance. The least one can do to honor the project is to respond in kind, with a thirty-minute review of their final six-song product, "Nighty-Night".

That they fell short of their goal numerically, producing six songs in twelve hours, is the least important aspect of the endeavor. The project may have started with an artificial time-challenge, but when time ran short they kept going, and quit when it was no longer sensible to continue. This was not the musical version of Chopped, the timed gourmet-cooking competition show; noone was required to step back from the keyboards and mixing console at the end of eight hours.

The six tracks reflect the disparate sensibilities of the contributors. Author Gaiman's contributions are the most witty and writerly, in a Sir Tom Stoppard meets Sir Noel Coward kind of way. Gaiman's "Nikola Tesla", a rock-staccato track voiced by Palmer atop her piano-percussion banging and Ben Folds' drums, shows off the writer's science-minded wit while reintroducing Palmer's meme of the everygrrrl torching for celebrities, à la the Dresden Dolls' "Christopher Lydon" -- or in this case, for a celebrity of historical interest. Later, Gaiman voiced his own sword-sharp lyrics in the collection's closing track, "The Problem With Saints", a modern-day Jean d'Arc sequel as Tom Lehrer might imagine it -- if Tom Lehrer were English.

That the album session appeared to some advance critics to be a mere stunt -- one commenter had worried about the prospective "jokiness" of the result -- may have spurred the team to incorporate large elements of sadness and poignancy into the collection. The haunting plea for a missing child to return is the subject of a Folds-Palmer slow duet, "Because the Origami", that leads the listener out of the realm of Dr. Demento into the hurt and pain of parental grief and desperation.

"Twelve Line Song", a Ben Folds-led number that mixes funny and sad, features the unlikely still life of a squirrel suicide in a bathtub. One suspects Folds, Gaiman, and Palmer don't quite have the "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" faux-death-scene photo project out of their heads yet. The happy sounding tracking vocals are a seriocomic switcheroo, a trick that Palmer and Folds have used before, in W.K.A.P.'s "Oasis".

With more gravitas, Damian Kulash of OK Go takes the lead on "One Tiny Thing", a break-up song depicting the fragile nature of relationships. Kulash's mournful vocals revealed a soulful musicality which seemed upstaged during much of the project by the alpha squirrels in the studio. If certain songs reminded chat-room onlookers of the Beatles, then Kulash was this project's George Harrison. One imagines "One Tiny Thing" could ultimately become the most honored of the collection, if tribute is reckoned by the number of future cover versions from a wide variety of artists.

Which brings us to the penultimate piece, "I'll Be My Mirror", to me the true payoff piece of the project. As much forceful poetry slam as song, "Mirror" takes a tragic scene that everyone can relate to, the street person out of their right mind; Amanda Palmer's emphatic vocals bring home the startled onlookers' pensive, but-for-grace-there-go-I apprehension in the presence of the subject. A catchy fanfare of a piano riff and a crashing rhythm guitar add an exclamation point to each stanza without interrupting the angst and poetry of the lyric.

The overall verdict? "Nighty-Night" is a bit incoherent as a song collection, but several of the songs are highly worthy in their individual graces. The team created something of value and opened a window into the creative process. In particular, they revealed that worthwhile endeavors invariably take longer than even the most talented and productive creative types imagine that they will -- and at a full hour and thirty minutes instead of the budgeted thirty minutes to write this review, it's time for me to join them in saying, that's enough for today.

Seal Rock

The humorist Dave Barry once wrote, "Yuppies have a very low birth rate, because apparently they have to go to Aspen to mate."

Clearly, Mr. Barry has never attempted to drive through the North Side of Chicago on a Wednesday night with a destination and an arrival time in mind. Yuppies, hipsters, and various bicyclists and jaywalkers, thick as a pod of seals on Seal Rock, crowd the sidewalks, their closely-spaced numbers both the result and proximal cause of privilege and procreation. The opportunity to reduce the surplus population is there for the motorist's taking, whether the heel at the wheel is a sociopathic Illini or a mild-mannered Wisconsinite in town for, say, a Dresden Dolls reunion tour concert at the Vic Theatre.

At least my Beloved Lady Seal and I knew better than to assume a trouble-free route to our destination. Ten years prior, our bucket list baseball pilgrimage to Wrigley Field had resulted in an apparently predictable two hours of futile wrangling with Addison Road gridlock, not to mention a supplementary idiot tax of $20 exacted by alley youngsters perpetrating a well-practiced, time-tested faux-parking ruse. We arrived to take our place on the Rock in the fourth inning.

Once inside Wrigley, our fellow fans crammed themselves into the tiny grandstand seats, more interested in animal partying and mating rituals than the batting averages of the alpha seals on the field, blocking our view of the ballgame annoyingly and repeatedly as they shuffled past us multiple times to make their way to the sea for more fish. The confines of Wrigley Field may be friendly, but when the perpetuation of the species is at stake, marine life on the Rock doesn't have time to spectate.

Ah, nostalgia. We were but pups then.

Seal Rocks are fascinating and diverse. A Rock can be seasonal, as with Aspen during ski season or Milwaukee Summerfest in, er, the summer. It can be a singular, temporal event, as with Woodstock or the Jon Stewart rally, or recurring, as with the quadrennial co-mingling of the athletes at the Olympic Village. A colony can evidence prosperity and generative energy -- the quickly constructed suburban schools, townhouses, and mega-malls ringing Washington, D.C. come to mind -- or high-density deprivation and a lack of alternatives, as with urban ghettos or tent villages. Recognizable-by-type residential and commercial districts, each with their own characteristics, surround military bases, factories, colleges and universities, and anyplace else that colonization and the raising of baby seals occurs.

Seals sometimes also go clubbing, a nifty role-reversal. On the aforementioned Wednesday evening in Chicago, we managed to wend our way through traffic and avoid running over the locals with the Silver Zloty at seal crossings, arriving at the Vic Theatre in the fourth inning -- i.e., near the end of the opening act. We found our way inside. The uniformly skinny, black-clad and/or costumed members of species H. Dresdendollus teemed on the lower level, performing intricate mating rituals, exchanging, if not genetic material, at least cellphone numbers, email addresses, and pirated MP3 files. Sharing fish with each other, as it were. Meanwhile, the older, heftier, balding and bespectacled members of the colony -- hey, that's me! -- headed for the higher altitudes of the balcony.

Having experienced a Seal Rock first-hand, I'm inclined to agree with the line from Jurassic Park: "Life will find a way." The entire colony danced its happy-mammal dance in the panorama before us, rocking and writhing to the percussive tones. It's hard to tell if the collective joy in the theater that evening was born of enthralled appreciation for the musical performance or warm affection for the musicians. Both, I'd say. But it was also a purely instinctual response: now and then, if you're a seal, it feels great to find yourself on Seal Rock.

For Evelyn Evelyn, Life is a Cabaret

Cabaret rocker Amanda Palmer and accordianist Jason Webley have teamed up to produce a forthcoming album of oddball songs by "Evelyn Evelyn", a musical act featuring conjoined twin sisters and former circus performers Eva and Lynn Neville who were "discovered" by Palmer and Webley. The twins don't appear much in public, so it is said, but their songs, featuring musings from many angles on the nature of duality in the universe, would be suitable for the old Dr. Demento radio show.



Perhaps predictably, the twins -- more accurately, their producers -- have their detractors. In particular, Disabled Feminists airs a thoughtful protest that, paraphrasing, Evelyn Evelyn is part of a tired, stereotype-laden treatment of Persons With Disabilities (PWD) by the Abled, as it treats them as freakish, and is therefore objectionable on the face of it. Less admirably, Disabled Feminists goes on to warn prospective commenters against posting any counterarguments on its site that would be "derailing" its apparently unimpeachable criticism of the project.

So, I'll do it here. I would respond: Palmer's and Webley's art lies squarely within the cabaret tradition and is entirely appropriate in that context.

Cabaret as a genre provides a safe space for exploring touchy, edgy, even taboo subjects by treating them humorously, satirically, or entertainingly, for the sake of illuminating the humanity at their core. Like gossip, cabaret art is, at least in part, a communal conversation to discuss essential truths and morals, including where the boundaries are.

Consider the satirical show-within-a-show at the Kit-Kat Klub in the movie Cabaret. The stage show and its songs depict poverty, hunger, greed, promiscuity, antiSemitism, Naziism, etc. We gasp when the "bride" is revealed to be an ape, and then Jewish. Is that depiction in the 1970's movie unacceptable on the face of it, due to its vile antiSemitism -- i.e. should the piece never have been written, performed, and filmed at all -- or does it serve an illuminating purpose by laying bare the antiSemitism of 1930's Germany (and elsewhere, and elsewhen) through satirical mockery?

Consider the subjects of Amanda Palmer's songs "Mandy Goes to Med School", "Missed Me", and "Oasis", to name just a few. "Oasis" alone treats alcohol abuse, date rape, teen pregnancy, abortion, manipulation, betrayal, and denial (all in under two minutes). Those are hardly the only examples of difficult subjects in her repertoire. When in "Guitar Hero" the narrator says "Tie them up and feed them the sand -- ha! N****!", is her use of the n-word variant vile and unacceptable on the face of it -- i.e. should the song have never been written and performed -- or does it serve a greater satirical purpose by illuminating the vulgar slang used, by videogamers and soldiers alike, to dehumanize one's virtual and real enemies?

The critics are welcome to say, they don't like this or that or that something is bad or wrong. That's part of the conversation. And granted, the original conception of Evelyn Evelyn seemed more screwball than purposeful or satirical, though the more recently published Evelyn Evelyn background story can be seen as a kind of a text-based cabaret number. My point is, if you're the kind of person who sees Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" as a political statement against animal rights, you're unlikely to find much of value in Palmer's and Webley's songs -- or indeed, in the entire cabaret tradition.

Pass the Hat...and the Plate

My favorite rock-cabaret chanteuse, Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls, has conducted a reportedly successful economic experiment on her recent tour swings through the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Touring in support of her new solo CD, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, Palmer enlisted The Danger Ensemble, an Australian theatrical art performance company, and featured string instrumentalists Zoe Keating and Lyndon Chester as accompanists.

One problem: the tour economics for a live performer, with travel, room & board, tour bus rental, equipment managers, etc., did not allow for salaries for the supporting cast. A veteran of street performing, Palmer's solution was to have The Danger Ensemble pass the hat (or rather, two burlesque boots) around the willing audiences. Supported generously during her modestly priced shows, The Danger Ensemble performers made more money through voluntary donations than they would have on salary.

Palmer and her traveling team have also solicited donations-in-kind: food, lodging, even driving errands such as last-minute deliveries of boxes of newly minted CDs and band merchandise ("merch") to tour stops, in exchange for tickets, merch, and time with the performers. Her advance teams of fan volunteers distribute promotional posters and flyers, and a semi-organized group called The Brigade arranges amateur performance artists, such as living statues and costumed models, to greet concertgoers outside the clubs. Friends and fans appear as extras in her music videos.

Palmer, a prolific blogger and interview subject, has written openly about the business aspects of her occupation in a time of chaotic transition in the music industry. She believes voluntary patronage of artists of all types will become the new business model for working musicians, and she cautions new singers and bands that the rock band fantasy of simply showing up for a gig, getting paid, and leaving without fostering a close, continuing connection to the fans is no longer possible.

Fortunately, the Internet bolsters that connection. Palmer's close, caring, and technology-enabled relationship with her fans -- an intentional decision from the early days of The Dresden Dolls -- has yielded her the goodwill, social capital, and email lists that allow her to go to her audience repeatedly for voluntary, tangible support. Will it last? Is artist patronage, not by foundations but by average fans, a sustainable business model?

In "Christopher Lydon", an early Dresden Dolls song, Palmer's girl protagonist torches for the mellifluous NPR interview host, who ignores her on-air declaration of love for him. Jilted, she sings, "Thank you for everything, but I'm not listening anymore/Nor do I plan to contribute to NPR!" If Palmer's right about the new role of patronage at all levels of the music industry, there's a lesson in that lyric for all working musicians.

A "Grammar Revolution", Close Quote

Astute readers of this blog will notice my fastidious habit of flouting one of the long-standing rules of grammar, boldly and intentionally.

(In addition to my use of snappy sentence fragments instead of sentences, that is.)

To wit: I cannot -- will not! -- place a comma, period, or other punctuation before a closing quotation mark if it is not part of the title, word, or phrase being signified in the first place.

This goes whether the referenced item is an actual title or merely a "gaggle of words" which, if you were to "speak aloud", you would "enunciate archly" while holding up two "waggling fingers" on each hand.

To illustrate, here are some examples from previous posts:

      Grammatical but Dumb: Scrabble People watch Patrick McGoohan in
          "Secret Agent."
      Much, Much Better: Scrabble People watch Patrick McGoohan in
          "Secret Agent".

Dagnabbit, if the producers had wanted to call the show "Secret Agent." with a period at the end of the title, they would have called it that!

      Grammatical but Dumb: The Dresden Dolls describe their niche as
          "Brechtian Punk Cabaret."
      Much, Much Better: The Dresden Dolls describe their niche as
          "Brechtian Punk Cabaret".

If Hal Prince had included a period at the end of the word "Cabaret", Liza Minnelli would have come to a full stop in mid-chorus. We'd never have heard her call us "Old Chum". How tragic!

      Grammatical but Dumb: I know how to spell and pronounce
          "Schenectady," "Schaghticoke," and "Rensselaer."
      Much, Much Better: I know how to spell and pronounce
          "Schenectady", "Schaghticoke", and "Rensselaer".

No Rensselaer-educated computer programmer would dream of placing commas that separate instances of listed string variables inside the quotation marks that demarcate those string variables! Can you say "Syntax Error"? Hel-lo, World!!!

Clearly, Strunk and White never read Programming for Dummies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this revolution -- Our Revolution! -- Your Revolution! -- is gaining momentum! The need is urgent; the time has come. Our representatives in Washington must hear our voices. With your letters and, more importantly, generous contributions to the Committee to Avoid Misplacing Punctuation (CAMP), we will turn Congress in our favor on this "crucial issue".

(Right after it deals with the financial crisis and split infinitives, that is.)

They Had Me At "Brechtian"

It's fun to be 20 again -- especially when you're pushing 50!

Two years ago, my long-time best friend, an RPI engineer who owns some timberland, gave me a CD by The Dresden Dolls, a Boston-based rock duo that describe their niche as "Brechtian Punk Cabaret". He said some of the clever lyrics reminded him of Tom Lehrer, although his beloved spousal unit thought they were "too angry".

As a former German language student, they had me at "Brechtian". And again at "Cabaret". I would add: New Wave, expressionistic, confessional, theatrical, intense. The Dresden Dolls are a magically matched pairing of incredible lead vocalist, lyricist, keyboardist, and art party impresario Amanda Palmer with the equally leading, theatrically talented drummer Brian Viglione. The combination of Amanda's pounding rock piano and Brian's perfect punctuation and talent for expression creates a full orchestration with only two instruments. The music videos that they've produced are visual and aural wonders, artsy and polished, bringing out the duo's dark, angsty humor and dangerous edge.



Two years on, I've collected three Dresden Dolls CDs, two concert DVDs, plus the new solo CD by Amanda Palmer. I've attended one concert by The Dresden Dolls and one by Amanda solo, supported by an Australian performance art troupe, The Danger Ensemble. I've stood in an autograph line -- Amanda and Brian are famously welcoming to their fans -- and attended an afternoon sound check and photo op, where my beloved spousal unit gave Amanda & Co. three loaves of bread fresh from the bakery for their pre-concert table.

I've ironed the band's logo onto a t-shirt. Seriously, dude.

I once introduced myself to Amanda as a fan with the "Geezer Brigade". She responded to my self-deprecation with a cheerfully emphatic, one-word barnyard epithet. My redeeming encounter with the muse. It's good to be 20 again!