BEGIN:VCALENDAR METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:-//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls) & The Danger Ensemble w / The Builders And The Butchers in Portland at Wonder Ballroom - Event ful BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART:20081212T210000 DTSTAMP:20081209T021925Z SUMMARY:Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls) & The Danger Ensemble w/ The Builders And The Butchers DESCRIPTION: The idea was a simple one: songs for the piano and voice\ , recorded in one week in a bedroom\, just to get them down on tape. B ut like all things surrounding The Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer â€" a one-woman machine who is a rock musician\, artist\, writer\, yoga enth usiast\, political activist and more â€" simplicity is not an easy thi ng to come by. Her small idea snowballed into something grand\, exciti ng and nothing short of brilliant in the form of her debut solo album\ , Who Killed Amanda Palmer.Born and raised in the Boston\, "simple" ha s never been a way to describe Amanda Palmer's undeniable talent and p assion for creating art. With years of theater and performance art stu dies under her belt\, Palmer has always sought to merge the worlds of rock music\, theater and performance art...even when it's meant biting off more than she can conceivably chew (Palmer\, never one to shy fro m a challenge\, always finds a way to get it done\, and to do it well) . Post-college\, she was notorious around Boston as a "living statue" street performer\, art-party impresario and DIY theater director. And\ , occasionally\, a piano-bashing singer-songwriter\, setting up shop i n small galleries and friends' parties and sharing what would eventual ly become the first batch of songs for The Dresden Dolls. Upon meeting drummer Brian Viglione at a party in 2000\, The Dresden Dolls were bo rn\, and the rest\, as they say\, is history.Until history took a bit of a turn. With multiple critically-acclaimed records under her belt\, Palmer could have easily continued on that trajectory â€" but as the band hit their consecutive fifth year of touring\, Palmer decided to t ake a breather and create her first solo album - a stripped-down piano -and-voice affair to be recorded at home. "I was all set to just bang out the tunes in my bedroom with the help of a local engineer and was locking the dates when Ben Folds showed up on the scene. He emailed th e band's website while he was on tour in Japan\, gushing about how muc h he loved our records. I was totally ecstatic and jumped up and down for a while and then dug out my old Ben Folds CDs and wrote him back i mmediately\," explains Palmer. "We struck up a fast friendship\, and f ate would have it that we were both in Australia a few weeks later\, s o we met up and had a good old-fashioned geeky-piano-songwriter-bondin g session. He told me that if I ever needed to use his chock-full-o-pi anos studio in Nashville\, he'd be happy to loan it. I told him that\, as a matter of fact\, I was plotting a solo album and would love to m ake use of it. He stopped and thought for a second\, asked me if he co uld produce the record and I said yes without blinking an eye...I just had a good feeling about it and knew I could trust him. And I wound u p being blown away by what Ben brought to the table\, he went beyond m y expectations in spades."The resulting sessions culminated in Palmer' s solo record\, Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Spanning almost ten years' w orth of songwriting\, Palmer had nearly thirty compositions to sort th rough with Folds when she finally went down to Nashville to begin work ing on them. "My recent songs\, like 'Point of It All' and 'Guitar Her o' all seemed like no-brainers because they represent a newer and matu re kind of songwriting for me\, but there were some older ones that Be n was curious about\, like 'Runs in the Family' that I tried to veto\, and\, well\, Ben won\," Palmer says. "Other songs like 'Blake Says' w ere written in my mid-twenties and had always had a place close to my heart â€" I knew they had to go on the album. But Ben was really merci less about separating out the wheat from the chaff\, and it really pai d off. I don't think there's a single weak link on the record." With t he songs picked\, recording commenced in marathon sessions in spring o f 2007\, with Ben Folds acting as producer and back-up one-man-band\, and the creative process in full swing."From there\, the project stret ched from a two week side project into a year-long epic project\," she continues. "Ben was a madman in the studio. He had a wicked sense of humor and a perfect touch with sounds and ideas. He was able to see wh at I missed. I thought that 'Melissa Mahoney' was too silly to go on t he record…I mean\, come on\, it's a pop song about abortion. But Ben took the joke\, ran with it\, added back-up singers and NAILED it to the wall. He knew exactly when to take an idea too far and when to pul l back. The amount of magic he added to the songs is just unbelievable .""We weren't working with a strict deadline\, so we got to try a lot of things and throw them away\," Palmer continues. This experimentatio n also gave Palmer the opportunity to invite some of her own favorite musicians to play on the songs\, resulting in guest turns from the lik es of St. Vincent's Annie Clark (on a twisted version of Carousel's "W hat's the Use of Wondrin")\, The Dead Kennedys' East Bay Ray and Raspu tina's Zoe Keating. Mr. Folds\, in addition to producing and arranging \, played synthesizer\, drums\, organ and contributed some back-up voc als on the record. He also introduced Palmer to his trusted and critic ally-acclaimed string arranger Paul Buckmaster\, who supplied gorgeous string and orchestral arrangements for four songs on the record and c onducted the sessions at LA's historic Studio A at Capitol Records.Who Killed Amanda Palmer\, titled after a Twin Peaks reference that has " come to mean new things\," according to Palmer\, gives the listener an entirely new angle by which to view Amanda Palmer as a songwriter\, v ocalist\, piano-player and arranger. "One thing that was always irrita ted me is that the Dolls get locked in the gimmick box by a lot of peo ple. Many times they don't see past the fun and theatrics\, they never actually find the music or experience us live\, so they have little i dea what the essence of the band is." Palmer explains. "At the core\, I'm a songwriter and the Dolls are a rock band. We've earned a great r eputation for throwing wonderful events and making our shows feel like big parties\, but I'm hoping that people can see past that and assess me as a songwriter and performer instead of just a circus ringmaster. I do love that role - and I think the role is an important one - but it's important for me to wave and remind people that I'm a human being before I step back into the ring."The songs on Who Killed Amanda Palm er do just that. From the sweeping orchestral opener "Astronaut" to th e wild choruses of "Leeds United" to the sinister pop of "Melissa Maho ney\," each song peels back multi-faceted layers of Amanda Palmer\, re vealing an unbelievably talented woman at the core. "'Astronaut' may b e my hands-down favorite\; It feels most representative of where I've gone as a songwriter\," says Palmer when discussing the songs on the a lbum of which she's proudest. "But the recording of 'Leeds United' has a great story\, which is part of what makes me love that song\," she continues. "I had just written it and played it for Ben\, and we were trying to figure out how we wanted to track it. I was in Scotland play ing at the Fringe Festival\, and I had wanted to add the song to the l ive set\, so I called a local trumpet player I knew to come to the ven ue with some horn-playing friends. We had one rehearsal and they joine d me that night\, wearing no pants and lampshades on their heads\, on stage for a piano-and-horns version of 'Leeds United.' It sounded so g reat that I wanted to capture the arrangement to send to Ben\, so I bo oked us into a teeny\, cheap little studio to cut a demo. That scratch vocal was done in one take\, and I'd been smoking and drinking all we ek\, since I was done with my engagement and living it up. I knew ther e was no way anyone would ever hear it but Ben\, but Ben loved it…so it wound up on the record. It took forever to track down all those Sc ottish guys to get them to sign releases."Other songs have taken on ne w emotional depths as Palmer has seen them take different shapes once they've hit the stage. "'Strength Through Music\,' which was inspired by the school shootings at Columbine\, took on this whole new quality when I worked it into the stage show with The Danger Ensemble\, a perf ormance art group from Australia who are going to be touring with me\, " says Palmer. "Watching actors on stage interpret the meaning of thos e lyrics was heartbreaking." Palmer also collaborated with long-time f riend and filmmaker Michael Pope on a film project based on six of the album's songs to be released in pieces in the weeks leading up to the record's street date. "We filmed 'Strength' in the hallway of my high school with a bunch of teenage drama students. It was incredibly powe rful\, there were a lot of tears after we cut the first take." The fil m project also includes clips for "Astronaut\," "Guitar Hero\," "Amper sand\," "Runs in the Family" and "Point of It All." Extra footage was shot to weave the songs into a complete 30 minute film that connects e ach song to the next and follows Palmer through a series of painful bu t liberating realizations.Who Killed Amanda Palmer evolved from a simp le idea to an elaborate process culminating in the finest work of a va ried\, already-impressive career. At its center are the words of a mas terful story teller\, a woman with a wry tongue and a penchant for bol d confessionals. In this way\, it makes sense that for the album's lin er notes and accompanying mystery concept and photo book\, Palmer has teamed up with another artist who successfully merges many worlds into one: best-selling author Neil Gaiman\, who is best known as the man w ho penned the Sandman comic series. "I met Neil through my good friend Jason Webley\," she says. "We really connected and became a quick lit tle mutual admiration society. I sent him an early draft of the album and he loved it. When I realized I wanted to release a companion book of bizarre photographs along with the record\, I asked if he might wan t to write the text to a story called 'Who Killed Amanda Palmer\,' and he was jazzed at the idea." Thus\, Who Killed Amanda Palmer grows eve n further â€" a story written within a story sung. Gaiman and Palmer p lan to self-publish the book in a limited edition and plant hidden vis ual clues within the images for further hunting should the reader want to follow the mystery of Who Killed Amanda Palmer down the rabbit hol e.Fans who have felt a kinship with Palmer â€" and there are thousands who pore over her words in her personal blog every day â€" will feel this bond strengthen even further due to the astonishing forthrightnes s and vulnerability in these songs. Those who know the backstory of Pa lmer's personal struggles and musings will feel at home instantly\; Pa lmer has piled every reference\, challenge and acceptance from her ver y vibrant life into this album\, inviting the listener into her home\, as well as her heart. Who Killed Amanda Palmer sees our fearless hero ine weaving together the many threads of her personality\, her interes ts\, her extensive artistic family\, her astute\, witty world observat ions and the stark openness of her feelings into a dynamic record that pushes emotional boundaries while staying true to its genius creator. From Amanda Palmer\, we would expect nothing less. The Builders And T he ButchersChock full of junk store percussion\, is this to be conside red inspired by call and response old time Gospel\, or is it the Gospe l for modern folk pop lovers? This lo-fi recording of strings\, mandol in\, drums\, “whatever you can get your hands on” percussion\, gui tars\, banjo\, bass\, organ\, and open vocal harmonies\, is deceptivel y loose-sound sounding on first listen. As the listener dives deeper i nto the record it becomes pretty apparent that this musical mongrel of a band is pretty precise\, but feels like it was hewn from dirt of th e land\, and sounds ragged and burnt from a lifetime of tilling. The l yrics are slyly smart\, artfully sinister\, and built for audience par ticipation… and while the rolling high end mandolin and banjo pluck their ways through countermelodies\, there's that perfectly tattered j umble of percussion that sets the knee to bouncin' and the hands toget her to clap along. Find the lot of players in front of a crowd that is jubilantly singing along with the backing chorus\, and you'll find th e whiskey drinkers\, beer swillers\, the devoted Tom Waits fans who wi sh they could get as close to him as they can to this band. This recor d must have been incredibly fun to record. LOCATION:Wonder Ballroom @ 128 NE Russel Street, Portland, Oregon 9721 2 United States SEQUENCE:1228789165 UID:E0-001-016795777-0 URL:http://eventful.com/E0-001-016795777-0 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR