Tuesday, June 14, 2005

caged bird blurs

i just don't give a shit. i'll just have to work backwards. the diary turns into a curse, the more that happens and the more clever things i think about to relate, the less time i have and the less motivated i feel to sit down and take hand to keyboard. i don't write songs anymore. i write diary entries. it's a start. i wrote the rough outline of a song in mexico and tried to flesh it out during my 2 hours off in boston. it centers around a moment a photograph is taken at disney world. three voices: minnie stuck in her oppressive fucking costume, the housewife, and minnie's boyfriend the junkie with a view in the projects three miles away that overlooks disney world. main theme (like i can't relate): WHY AM I DOING THIS?

backwards number one.
so tonight was out first show of the european tour. we landed in deutschland yesterday and hung out with a huge bunch of caged exotic birds (all colors of green and blue and in a box sort of shaped like mini-bird-kennel with a few square inches per exotic bird) at baggage claim D, while british airways figured out where on the planet our luggage had migrated. they were destined for a german zoo. we felt for them. brothers. we bussed to the hurricane festival and slept over in the bus (on the grounds) and woke up with just a few hours til soundcheck. europeans know how to take care of artists...everybody says it and they're right. we had a nice little cubicle in artists village and we were the first band of many on the main stage. the show was fine despite the fact that it was in the fifties, bright yet drizzling, windy as fuck, and we were jetlagged and unpracticed. being the first band of the bill had the huge advantage that we could wander and observe for the rest of the day. so we ate and watched boy sets fire (punk and effective). then we watched NIN (nin-like and great).
then we watched rammstein (german and hilarious. i decided that making fun of rammstein is as pointless as hating the circus. the people must have their fun). then we watched oasis from the side of the stage. i was pretty unfamiliar with their music though i have checked out a few CDs.
the point HERE is that emily, our tour manager, is an oasis FIEND and had been looking forward to this day the way a....i can't think of a good metaphor. the way a crazed teenage obsessor looks forward to meeting the band they obsess over. which isn't a metaphor.
but you understand. this was the girl who had three complete walls covered with oasis posters and magazine centerfolds and spent every allowance on the latest maxi-single. to pick up, we watched them form the side of the stage with NIN (all five in a line, which was poetic and lovely) and then i wandered backstage to where emily had secured a concrete spot hanging with oasis and was introduced to each member of the band, including liam, the singer who was the most opinionated fuck i've ever met (guess what - i sorta liked him), noel his brother, who was very nice, and zach starkey, ringo starr's son, who is drumming for oasis on this tour. truth be told, they'd had a pretty terrible set. it was freezing for them too (i empathized) and they faced massive feedback problems. so i asked liam, the singer,ß what the difference was, for him, between a good show for himself and a good show for the audience.
it's a mystery. sometimes you play like shit and the audience goes nuts and cries and sometimes you're completely on and the audience just isn't there with you.
according to liam, it only works if you play well. don't you feel the tide turn when you talk to people after the show and they shower you with love and you-changed-my-life-tonight?
i asked liam. no, he said, i fucking leave the venue immediately. well, liam. ah, whatever. they also clued me in on the motto that i would have believed if i had really truly wanted to: "drink and smoke whatever you want, you'll be fine tomorrow." fuck. really? two marlboro lights and one vodka orange juice and one heinekin later i lost my faith. what am i doing? you're going to lose your voice, you fucking idiot. quit thinking that being in the presence of rock stars is special dispensantion for vice.
you'll be just as hung over tomorrow, asshole.

backwards number two: the DVD shoot.
so while back in boston, for a grand total of four days between tours, we shot our first DVD and played an additional show at avalon for WFNX. it really honestly looked kind of like a fast-motion cartoon in my house as i dropped my suitcase on the floor and started talking to pope downstairs about the shoot. beautiful marie and emilie flew in from france to take part and so did casey from san franscisco, the gentelman beyond reason who has been organizing the brigade through the magic of the interweb. the house was packed from top to bottom with people buzzing 24/7 getting things ready for the shoot...film interns, art department, piano tuners...madness.
the shoot itself began the moment i woke up (good morning Camera In My Face, i know i invited you in but now i wonder if this is truly healthy) and the day was a fuzzy soup of mania that I can luckily go back and watch now that i've forgotten. the power went out shortly before soundcheck and about 300 people patiently waited on commonwealth ave for three hours while we waited for it to come back on and finish soundchecking and readying the club. despite this disaster, the show did get filmed and we will see what becomes of it. we were tired. i gave the show a B- overall. maybe the visual will make up for any terribleness. in a stroke of true randomness, we did get christopher lydon to play the MC. i am strongly considering releasing the DVD without the musical performance, i think it would make more sense.
the show at avalon was a typical radio-station-throws-20-hip-bands-together kind of awkwardfest. pointy boots and sunglasses everywhere. i got to see one of my rock-crushes (the singer of the kaiser chiefs) and i streaked across stage during their set to keep the night interesting.

backwards yet still more: ....and everything before that must have been on tour with nine inch nails in america. we did do that, didn't we? it all gloms together in a blur of bus, dressing room, show, gas station, people and sharpies (both black and silver). i do not love the blur, i do not hate it, and i certainly don't try to focus on it any more, it's like trying to make sense of a film playing on fast fast forward. just appreicate the images for now and we'll take a closer look later. not that i am not enjoying myself. i am, actaully.
i have more free time lately to do as i please. i'm in the tour bubble. as the NIN stage manager, bitter and hilarious name-a-tour-i've-been on-it british chap,would put it in answer to everyone else's crass "living the dream" mantra: i'm "circling the dream". you're only in the picture when you look back at the photos. as he also says, after he takes a moment to sigh, order another few people around, yell into his cell phone that any other color WILL NOT DO and puts his hands on his hips while looking around for a moment, fully convinced that the venue will not collapse within seconds: "Time for a fucking hot pocket." that too.

NIN needs it's own chapter. it is it's own world. later.

forwards.
right now it's three days later than i started this entry, we've played two more festivals and frozen our asses off, brian's faith in music has "been restored" now that he's seen motorhead, and i can't fall asleep and it's 4:30 am. we've been driving almost an entire two days. we re-unite with NIN tomorrow for vienna and it will be nice to see the whole crew again.

the only thing i can remember that, for some reason, i felt it was important to relate was the food on the way back from san diego when the NIN tour finished. we were flying some typically cheap ticket and the food was brought. i always get vegetarian (though i do eat fish) because it's almost always better than the standard fare but brian, who was sitting next to me, was brought some really unidentifiable meat. it was sort of saucer-shaped and had the consistency of meatloaf. in his defense, he did actually TRY a bite before turning it into entertainment. it came in a sad bed of peas and corn and so he took two of the peas and gave it eyes, gave it a leafy hat and split it lengthwise to create a frighteningly mean-looking mouth, and made it sing all sorts of beatles songs and impromptu operatic numbers about how it's life was a misery because it was neither beef nor foul, chicken nor pork, and it was going through the most wonderful musical existential crisis and
i was peeing my seat with laughter and we were of course irritating the fuck out of all the nice families around us. then he made things worse by exchanging one of the peas for a corn kernel, so the little mystery-meat-beast had two different colored eyes, and making it sing a medley of marilyn manson songs. here i fully lost it, and needed to either throw up or fling the thing so we gave it a burial at the empty tray table next to me under a blue cocktail napkin.

12 comments:

Jen Kiaba said...

The last time I remember being a "true fan" of something (if that can ever really be defined) was when I was 12...of what I will not even say. Then your band comes along and I find myself checking your updates...excited to see what’s new in the life of someone I have never even met before.
As dark as some might describe your music to be, it had pulled me out of apathy. And not just by turning me into a pro-active blog reader. But I find myself re-exploring my old artistic interests more fervently...and I owe that greatly in part to your music.
Maybe you have just warped my mind...but I love it.
Can't wait until you come back to NYC.

A Unique Alias said...

You know you're in trouble if you're taking tips from Oasis.

You're on the right track. A great show is complete when the audience feels like you "delivered." That will come through very strongly on your DVD.

It's very easy for an artist to be overly self critical, and bearing that in mind, your assessment of "adequate performance" shouldn't matter. If your voice cracks, it seems like a big mistake to you. Conversely, it seems like an infusion of emotion to the audience. It works the same way in any theatrical production. An audience doesn't see an actor hesitating and fervently trying to remember their lines - - they see a character wracked by guilt, or overcome with joy, or immersed in self-loathing and struggling to express themselves.

Or I'm full of shit. Either way, thanks for the music, and thanks for letting us get a glimpse at your experiences (re: diary.) If it bogs you down, though, it's something we wouldn't miss nearly as much as we would miss your third album.

Sorry for the lengthy note :-)

a.non. said...

I should be doing other things - namely revising how an external locus of control may lead you to become a criminal - but I have wanted to post on here for a while. It's amazing that a band such as Oasis, full of utter twats, is so inaccessable - whereas I can actually post to a diary written by someone I hero-worship somewhat.

That said, I don't know that you read these. Somehow reassuring when I may well sound like an idiot. I am coming to see you at the Wireless festival, ('oh are you going to see New Order?' 'No, I am going to see the DRESDEN DOLLS. WATCH THEM DAMNIT, THEY'RE GREAT,') and I am too shy to go and meet you if you were around, even shy of actually going to the gig when I've been to about one in my whole life - so that if I can't do it in person, I will probably be able to post here about how amazing you were.

Anyway. You rock, and stuff.

Unknown said...

I was one of the people at the dvd shoot, and i was waiting in line. It was defiently worth the wait to see you and brian perform. I think the lyrics are beautiful, even though I get kick out of the jeep song. I had a bf once that drove a jeep, and now when I see a jeep I either can't stop laughing or bap bap bap.
Also despite the power outage and crap, You guys put on an A+ performance, even though brian was bleeding during the set. Thank you.
photo from
NIN concert on the 13th of may
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fieryredfairy/album?.dir=c0a2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

paul macfarlane said...

Sleep.
Carve out some quiet meditative time each day and night.
Take care of yourself.
Shut out the world and go inside that divine YOU.

I love you.

luap

st. louis

Savannah said...

i've been meaning to tell you...i had a bizarre dream about going to one of your shows afew eeks back....not that i have ever been to a show... anyway, it was bizarre, like i said, but awesome.

i think i was going through doll-withdrawal, as my cd had been at my dad's house for about a month and i had not.

i love you two.

Unknown said...

Hey Amanda,
I truly believe you're one of the great song writers out there so I'm sure you'll get over your writer's block. Not to pressure you though...hehehe. I've always heard that Liam from Oasis was a pretentious and oppinonated guy so for that reason I've generally stayed clear of their music, which probably isn't fair of me but so it goes. I'm glad you have such good things to say about Trent and NIN because they too are of my loves. Well, I look forward to your next entry.
<3

AllisonDawn said...

I don't usually comment, for fear of making a complete idiot of myself, but I read this: "typical radio-station-throws-20-hip-bands-together kind of awkwardfest. pointy boots and sunglasses everywhere." and just wanted to laugh. I know the scene and just having it put into some sort of sentence structure just made my night. Also, I never got around to ever saying that seeing you live is a mindblowing experience. Every bit of your performances are on such a personal level and it's great to see uniqueness of that caliber. Have a good one.

karheil said...

Just a little post... I saw you tonihgt in Paris for NIN... I did not know you before, and I discover you are great, I think all the public did not get at all bored by your music and just really love you (that's not so easy to manage before a group like NIN)... Thank you for your presence, your music... and the song with Amelie was absolutely magical. I was under a spell...

It is a pity, i did not find you after the show for your dedicace, but at least i can write you here... CONGRATULATION !!! and don't stop !

bill yjoebob said...

Miss Amanda,

Like many others to post here, I'm slightly apprehensive about what to say, knowing only that I want to add my voice to those that say things such as - you rock, your music and words are inspiring.

Saw you in Melbourne, Australia last year, and echo stay_strange's comments about hoping for your return, if only because my son only got a chance to see you in utero the last time, and maybe if you come back we can organise a keyboard that works....

Keep on truckin'

Turtle said...

I'm laughing my ass off! Brians mystery meat parade in your own poetic words! Anti-meat Superstar!

So I'm reading up on your blog at work where I'm not supposed to (ever the villan). I'll switch screens so I don't get caught, but it's killing my eyes, cause your blog is black, and the work screens are just snow white!

Lillian Millicent Entwistle said...

That last part, about Brian and the plane food cracked me up. I could picture it. It is nice to have amusing friends while stuck on a plane with nasty food. I'm sure you two were a much better distraction than the norm of "screaming baby with an inner ear infection".

I would have paid money to see that show.