Sunday, January 4, 2009

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal (of all venues), I have discovered Amanda Palmer, one half of the Dresden Dolls,* who has just struck out on her own with a solo effort. Somehow I had not really noticed the Dresden Dolls before, tho', of course, any band that bills itself as "Brechtian Punk Cabaret" seems exactly up my alley.** So I'm not sure how they remained off my radar for so long. I guess I've been too immersed in sea shanties and the 97th Regimental String Band these last few years.

Anyway, so I've been listening to Madama Palmer's album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, and enjoying it tremendously. She has a very large range--both in vocal quality, subject matter, and tone. But I haven't listened much recently to contemporary music, and so I'm really enjoying it. Several of the songs have operatic qualities to them that are quite appealing. There were videos, but they got caught in the Warner's youtube malarky and are no longer available. However, here's a video of her song "What's the Use of Wondering."


What's the Use of Won'drin'? -Amanda Palmer & Vermilion Lies- from Amanda Palmer on Vimeo.

You can see why I like her! Apparently, Madama Palmer's label has not been particularly supportive of her album--something I can quite relate to--so I urge you to check it out. She's also working on a book in conjunction with Neil Gaiman, also called "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" which consists of photographs of Madama Palmer posing as a glamourous corpse. I wish I had Madama Palmer's fashion sense.

In other news, my lovely and talented agent sent me a box of Rivera pears for the holiday. At first I was slightly skeptical, as pears can be so hard and grainy...but these pears are soft and delicious and I have gobbled my way through almost the entire box already. In fact, I ordered another box.

In other other news, Devilman, Captain Jenks and I just finished watching "The Golden Compass" on telly. I hated hated hated HATED the books (don't get me started!), and while the movie looked stunning, we were underwhelmed at the plot. At least they managed to cut out most of the stuff I hated about the book, so that was a positive.

And it rained here today.

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