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The singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer is playing Joburg on Friday night. Yes, I know you’ve probably never heard of her, which she thinks is fine, but here’s why you should buy a ticket, reckons Charl Blignaut
The thing about pop culture that all savvy folk know is that it comes from the street and the underground. It’s always the “other” at first. Capitalist cultural production needs the next big thing. The zeitgeist decides the rest.
Culty, punky, passionate and compassionate, Amanda Palmer is rising again in the culture – because she’s anti and intelligent and human and she cares.
She is one half of punk cabaret band The Dresden Dolls, who developed a cult-like following wherever in the world they toured for the first decade of the new millennium. Because Amanda Palmer refuses to conform to stereotypes of what a rock chick should be and it is a magnet to the misfits and the alternative crowd, especially young women, who couldn’t relate to the messages of the music they were hearing on the radio. And she drops the F-bomb with a double ff. Often.
In fact, she refers to herself as Amanda F*cking Palmer on Twitter, where she has a following of 1.15 million, many of whom are invested in her work as patrons. She has used the Patreon crowd-funding model to create and sustain her business. Her fans pay for her work as she produces it; they’re an active dynamic in her creative process. The book she wrote about it as a new formula for independent artists made it to the New York Times bestseller list. It’s called The Art of Asking.
When she last popped up in Joburg – like so many of the top indie American creative are right now – her patrons hurried to help her find a place to perform and served as tour guides for her stay. Now she’s back for An Evening With Amanda Palmer.
Over the phone, I ask how she describes Joburg to people back home in America. “It’s mini-disorientating for a New Yorker who thinks they are street smart,” she replies.
“You’ll get humiliated by the locals. Your street savvy is useless here. Last time we were driving down town and I opened the window and put my head out and my hosts were, we don’t do that here.
“Joburg is inspiring. I tend to rate cities by virtue of the love and pride locals have in their city. You visit certain cities where the locals badmouth their own cities. And then there are cities like Joburg. Even if it’s hard to survive, people want to be here, love the spirit.”
We talk about The Dresden Dolls. In December Afropunk Joburg proved the scale of the city’s alternative audience, looking for thinking-people’s music and authentic performances. Palmer has always been that in music.
On The Dresden Dolls
“We were a weird band compared to the dude rock bands at the time. So when we were touring we were a magnet for people who wanted the opposite to the mainstream. We were not the kind of band they played on the radio. We demanded active attention, we shook you, made you listen. We found the right people.”
On refusing the mainstream
“I could write catchy songs with my eyes closed and a gag ball in my mouth, but I love intelligent people. It’s a sign of a healthy society as far as I’m concerned. People who are sufficiently not mainstream.”
On Donald Trump
What I really want to talk to Amanda Palmer about is her video Mother released in November last year. It’s a reversion of Pink Floyd’s original track off The Wall and it hits like a blow to the senses. In it she neatly emasculates and infantalises a man with orange-blonde hair, cripples him … and then breastfeeds him. A stock gesture in the Amanda Palmer ouvre, but as poignant as it is politically charged. Even Donald Trump has a mother who loves him.
“I’ve never been more proud of a music video,” she replies, delighted I have mentioned it. “It’s not a cover song. It’s a reinterpretation … I couldn’t believe nobody had done it. Here’s this song about a repressed guy and a wall and a nuclear bomb. It was one of those moments in the feminist movement … If I could’ve I would’ve given it to Katy Perry. Or maybe rather someone with a child. Adele!”
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