If you read Iman’s review of Amanda Palmer’s show at Webster Hall, you know that the ex-Dresden Dolls woman invite musicians to play with her every night, and pay them with drinks and hugs instead of real money. She is claiming that she couldn’t afford to bring along her own horn section and string quartet, so she posted a web invitation saying 'We will feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch and thank you mightily for adding to the big noise we are planning to make’… she is also promising exposure, although I am not sure, exposure for what?
This has upset musicians’ unions who have begun to post angry comments on Palmer’s website, such as ‘Beyond unprofessional and just sad’, or ‘You’re a real jerk’, or even ‘I’m having a house concert at my place. You should bring your tour to my house and play for free. It’ll be great exposure for you.’ A musician named Amy Vaillancourt-Sals even posted this long letter to Amanda on her website, politely but clearly expressing her disproval.
They argued that this is a way to avoid paying an estimated $35,000 that she would have had to take from her pocket if she had hired players for all her tour dates. A musicians’ association of Seattle took the fight to Twitter, posting sentences such as ‘please pay your musicians who ‘actually really play their instrument!’ a fair wage. Hugs don’t pay rent.’
And they have a good point. Raymond M. Hair Jr., president of the American Federation of Musicians commented with the following for the New York Times: ‘If there’s a need for the musician to be on the stage, then there ought to be compensation for it. Playing is work and there’s a value associated with it, and that value ought to be respected.’
Despite all the criticism, Palmer still pretends these people are enthusiastic and just happy to be on stage, explaining that musicians do it because ‘they fundamentally believe it’s worth their time and energy to show up at this gig’. She even added, ‘To me it seems absurd, If my fans are happy and my audience is happy and the musicians on stage are happy, where’s the problem?’
The problem is obviously all that money she raised with her Kickstarter campaign,… over one million, and she doesn’t want to spend $35,000? Again, she claims it all went toward recording expenses, promotion and touring… well everyone can do the math, it is only 3.5% of what she got, and some indie bands manage to record an album for several ten thousand and tour for even less, but she needed a million?
You know what, this choice seems very cheap to me, okay some people are gonna be happy to play on stage in big places like the NY Webster hall with Amanda fucking Palmer, but isn’t she abusing a bit of her star-aura power? I mean every time I am checking Twitter, there are some of her posts in my feed, as she seems to be spending her whole day tweeting and communicating with her fans, and so maintaining the illusion of a close relationship with people,… how could they resist to her offer, she is so friendly!
But at the end, she could be right, if everyone is happy, where is the problem? However, if you dig deeper, she appears a little like a jerk to me: she was NOT asking for a million for recording her album on Kickstarter, if I remember correctly, she was asking for $100,000 and she got much, much more because of her fans’ generosity, but that was not her first demand at all! I know everything costs money and she may have found a good way to spend all that dough, but isn’t touring supposed to bring her more money? Isn't she selling tons of albums right now? We are not talking about friends or volunteers helping her with her DIY project. She is now a business woman and she could have done four videos instead of five and pay these musicians!