she slips

there are loads of people who have influenced or inspired me, but the first one i’m going to talk about is miss amanda palmer. because she has had the most recent impact and really changed my attitude about some things.

for those unfamiliar with afp, she’s one half of the dresden dolls and has also put out a really outstanding solo album, complete with tour. i have considered her a genius for years now, but only started following her blogs and such this year. not sure why it took me so long to get around to doing that. and the woman is an inspiration.

she’s clearly hard working. not just living the easy life. when her foot was broken toward the start of her european tour, she did all she could not to let that change her stage show or interrupt any of the dates or signings. from what i can tell, no one got a lesser experience due to this. if someone runs over my foot with a car, i can’t say i’ll do so well…

also, her current record company are not being supportive. they don’t understand why she isn’t toeing the line for maximum fame, they don’t think people will get her odd album and they don’t want to promote it, and they can’t imagine why she won’t let them cut out parts of one video where you can see that she has an adorable and normal-girl belly instead of starvation abs. she is keeping things honest, even when it won’t get her pop stardom. she is promoting the tour and album herself online and in person. she is busting her bum.

part of how she does this, i believe, is that she clearly loves and appreciates her fans. she totally gets that the reason she gets to live off music is that her fans support her. and she is overwhelmed with gratitude. seriously. the woman tears up when talking about this.

the other thing you get from her blogs is a lot of openness. a lot of us artistic types are torn between our desire for privacy and protecting our internal and personal lives and the desire to put it all out there in our art and show it to you. i never feel like afp is giving us everything, but she isn’t hiding either. if she has had an emotionally rough day, she tells us. when she gets hurt or happy, we often know. and that, i think, fosters a connection with us and gives us a better glimpse into the place from whence the songs we love are coming.

ah, the songs we love…i waited around after the afp show in seattle because i wanted to give her a note about a song of hers that is saving me right now. i knew she was planning a signing, so i figured i’d hand it over and move on. what really happened was that she stood in front of the table, instead of sitting behind. and things were physically arranged such that each person could have a moment of quiet near-privacy with her. and she gave each person a few minutes if they wanted. so that i was telling her what the song meant to me and thanking her for being such an inspiration to me as she held my hand and hugged and kissed me. no joke. and i saw tears in her eyes as we talked about some things…

so, thank you, amanda, for teaching me about being gracious and grateful with fans, about the value of being open, and about working hard and having joy even when the world seems against your art. if i turn into one of those nasty diva types, i hope you’ll pull me aside, rockstar to rockstar, and smack me. and not in a sexy way.

taking a break from pre-history to share some tidbits about modern history. about the first varnish gig, which was my first gig ever.

i went into my first gig with a modest set of goals:

1. don’t leave the stage to pee during the set. (i had been fending off illness and drinking even more than my usual loads of water….this was a very challenging goal to meet.)
2. don’t let down my best friend. he had gotten us the gig and i didn’t want him to regret it. secretly, i wanted to do more than not embarrass him; i wanted to make him proud and make him like me more and want to get us more gigs.
3. oh, and it would be nice if i weren’t totally mortified with our performance. (i am really self-critical, so that isn’t a joke.)

i also went into that gig knowing:

1. we had some great songs.
2. i was a good lyricist.
3. i was a good performer.

and here is how this all came together:

1. all goals achieved! i am pretty sure i grinned like a complete idiot when the best friend told me we’d done really well. good thing there were no cameras.
2. the monitors were really good, so i could hear myself really clearly. and people who were not drunk, were not there for varnish, and were not hitting on me told me i had an amazing voice. which means i could finally add to my list of things i knew that i was a good singer.

my friend celeste, who ran the video camera (i told you i’d mention you by name, missy) and has always felt free to give loads of feedback on the efforts i make at music, told me that she saw when i started to believe. and that everything got better then.

so the most important thing i got from that, aside from popping my gig cherry, was belief in myself as a singer. leaving me with a burning need to make sure that the boys in the band believed in themselves and that my friends in other bands believed in themselves. because as awesome as their performances were, i had now learned that believing in yourself (and i don’t mean having some cocky ego trip, because that’s usually rooted in insecurity) lets you do a better job and enjoy what you’re doing more.

and maybe that seems like a very obvious thing to you, but i gotta take my enlightenment where i can get it. even if it sounds like a cheesy greeting card.