Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Breaking and Making

Such a strange mix of feelings.

We've never cancelled a single show, and now three days before the flight we're pulling out of an entire tour.
Brian doesn't want to go, is going through his own thing, and I am very supportive of him....while also going through my own understandable frustration about it. I know, deep down, that we've made the right decision and that things could be no other way, but then I find myself plagued with haunting visions of a girl from FInland showing up at a Festival that she's spent a years allowance on a ticket, defied her parents orders and driven 23 hours with her best friend who is dying of leukemia only to arrive there and find, a la the Wally World scene in "Vacation", a tattered sign scotch-taped to a chainlink fence, blowing in the wind: "Sorry, Dresdin Dolls show is Cancell". She the bursts into tears and forthwith curses my name every night before she goes to bed until she dies. fine fine. maybe it won't be that bad.

We've done a complete 180, Brian and I. I remember back when my nickname for him used to be Mr. Get In The Van because he was so gung-ho about touring. I, on the other hand, was always dragging my feet and really reluctant to leave. Now I've acclimated and Brian is feeling the reverse. It just goes to show, nothing's ever the way you think it will be. I am still going to go play the shows we were scheduled to do in Scotland, alone, which is slightly terrifying but should be fun. Emily is coming with me and it's fringe-festival time in Edinburgh, which I've dreamed about going to see I was a Wee Bairn. I'm bracing myself for a flood of emails about Why The Tour Is Cancelled and Are You Ok and Is Brian Ok and general What The Fuck and am deeply considering coming up with some kind of auto-reply to spare myself typing the same email 148 times. Meanwhile....I spent the last three days just keeping body and soul together, drinking tea and staring at the wall a lot, while everybody hustled and bustled this way and that and tried to come to the right decision. I stepped back. I took long bicycle rides. I did no work. I sat by the phone. I went to the movies. I finished two songs. I met with old friends. I tried to remember myself. I tried to find some love. I tried to get my mind off of everything. The movies really do help you do that, I noticed, after I left the theater. I didn't think about my problems at all for two hours. No wonder ticket sales for movies skyrocketed during the depression. So I went back to the movies again. I highly recommend "Me and You and Everyone We Know". ))<>(( Miranda July is a woman I think I would marry if I were the lesbian type and the marrying type.

The Recording is supposed to start in a few weeks and I'm feeling cautious but also looking forward to it. We recorded 19 songs in Sean and Paul's new studio in Revere (nicknamed "Severe" around these parts; not the savoryest part of Boston but certainly has it's charm). They've jsut moved in there and nothing has been touched (or cleaned?) since 1957. The control room looks like the Brady Den, replete with wood and fake-stone paneled walls, like a ski lodge. There was an old mason and hamlin piano in the corner but after cutting a few tracks with it it was just impossible to play, and sounded icky, so we ended up cutting all of the tracks with the Kurtweill. Another 180: I used to abhor playing a keyboard, now I'm pretty much committed to the conclusion that I am not a piano player but a kurtweill player and it's possible that the album will be tracked with keyboard And Piano and that's just fien with me. You couldn't have gotten me to agree to that a few years ago if you'd held a paintball gun to my head. The material sound really, really good. My relationship to this new batch is a weird one. These songs are, generally, a lot less personal than the batch on Record#1 and for some reason that makes me feel very funny inside. I'm just not as attached. On the last record, every song was The Song and had been The Song for some perdiod of my life. Bad Habit was The Song for a few years and so was Slide and so was Half Jack. But on this record....none of these songs have rooted themselves inside me and festered. So they feel.....well, not Not As Good but maybe Not As Real. I think this will be the case for every record I make from now on. I think the first record is like the first true love, or losing your virginity. For better or for worse, i don't think you ever feel that way again, ever.

Still, I am taking care of myself, meditating every morning, doing yoga every day and drinking my greens. My voice is getting stronger and I'm laying off coffee and cigarettes and alcohol and yes of course all that crack cocaine I usually smoke, and it's sounding pretty good. Pope and Z are away in vermont and Lee is back from the hospital (he's fine), so things here are quiet and peaceful. The rain has been bashing down and I got caught in it yesterday while riding my bicycle and it felt really good to be poured on and I got home sopping wet and put my bathrobe on and there's nothing like that feeling of walking around in your warn apartment wet from the rain with your bathrobe on and the sky dark and your wet clothes hanging on the shower rod.

yesterday i read a new set of lyrics to a friend and he liked everything except the part where i mention an ampersand. he said nobody knows what an ampersand is. i found that impossible to believe. so my activity today is to ask everybody if they know. and if i get at least a 50% positive response, the ampersand stays. if not, i'm fucked and need to find another word for ampersand, which there ISN'T, so i'm just fucked, plain and simple.


&

a

34 comments:

Chris said...

There is a great episode of Family Guy where Brian is teaching a class "Dangerous Minds"-style and he writes an ampersand on the board & the kids have no idea what it is. I agree with Die. Most people who don't know what an ampersand is will here the lyric and pass over it, but there will definitely be an important few who will learn what it is because of your influence.

~r. said...

jake flowers and i will be at desi's at 1pm thursday, having a salon "me" day filled with a lunch party that jake and i shall be catering.

you are so welcome to come and share crackers, cheese and proscuitto with us, if you want to come.

maybe a nice, quiet, in-tune thing will be fun to have. an afternoon high tea!

love

Joe said...

Use the ampersand...it's a wonderful thing.

Plus, I really hate it when people hear that word, pause and then reply, "Oh... the 'and' sign."

I'm not being snooty, it just annoys me when people are stupid.

Anyway, a friend of mine put your song on a mix he made for me and I like it...so trust your feelings and do what you darn well feel like doing.

A Unique Alias said...

Why doesn't @ have a name? The ampersand and the asterisk have no idea how good they've got it.

Darby M. Dixon III said...

Oh, yes, keep the ampersand.

Devo said...

keep the ampersand

silkar_amurana said...

Use the word. I know what it is. I think that even if about half the population of the world is so consumed by reality television that simple punctuation is a thing of the past, anyone who is going to like your music will either already know what it is or know how to look it up. At the very least be friends with someone who can teach them.
Don't ever dumb yourself down to please the hypothetical masses. We love you for you, and brains are dead sexy!

Hank Stanford said...

Magnetic Fields had no problem giving a shoutout to an ampersand in "I Don't Believe You". Get yr "&" on.

Yomikata said...

I don't know what is a ampersand ( maybe a desert of ampere?)Sorry, I'm french, but I would like to know what it is. About this song, generally, the first idea is the bettre. Keep it!

Wolf said...

Your wellbeing, as well as Brian's, should always, always come first,no matter what.

Be well and Be safe. Your fans in Europe should and more than likely will understand.

- Wolf
(www.livejournal.com/users/wolfsilveroak/ or www.livejournal.com/users/wolfs_chaos/

Noam Plum said...

Plenty of people couldn't define an anachronism either, but that didn't stop you, did it?

myrrh said...

Dear Amanda,

Please do keep the ampersand.

♥ myrrh

Rachel said...

Again a vote to keep the ampersand. It's a lovely word and for some reason has just reminded me of George Sand, which can surely only be positive.

Please both of you take care of yourselves, and have a good time in Edinburgh! I saw you in London last December and will be there at the front the next time you play anywhere near me. It was (and surely will be) an amazing experience but I'm sure none of your fans would want you to perform at the expense of your health! Best wishes to you both.

Sunshine said...

Please keep the "ampersand." Surrender not the beautiful intelligence of the "ampersand." Those who "get it" will love it, and those who don't will either skip over it or be intrigued & learn something new.


~S.

Sunshine said...

PS - See you @ The Madrid. :D

Cyroul said...

You can use also "esperluette". It's the french word for ampersand. It's a good word isn'it ? But a lot of french people doesn't know it anymore.

Hope Brian will be better. Maybe you should telle him about the esperluette.

Graeme Strachan said...

Sad to hear about the tour being cancelled.

I'd say to Brian that tough times are a contractural obligation in this day and age. Poor lad, chin up and all things in time will pass and events only ever unfold as they should. Heart and thoughts go out to you.
so I guess its just Amanda I'll be waving and gawping at in appreciation come the 24th. See you at the gig.

I'd be different and say I lose the Ampersand but I like it. Next time CIRCUMFLEX!

Unknown said...

Hey amanda and Brian:
I hope you guy's give yourself the time to rest and reconstruct. You two are the bonnie and clyde of the music business. I enjoyed being at the dvd shoot and watching you guy's perform. Also can't wait for the second album, take care you too. Remember mental health is more important than anything else in the world.

Turtle said...

"One vote for keeping the & (ampersand), please."

"That will be three dollars and fifty-six cents please."

"Thank you. Have an inspirational day."

Turtle said...

BTW: Attn: a unique alias

The @ is commonly referred to as "common at", "at sign", "at symbol", or just "at".

My opinion is that in about a century, this symbol (@) will have an accepted title of it's own, much like the ampersand in question (which arose from "recitations of the alphabet which ended "...X, Y, Z, and per se and (Wikipedia)" in which & was considered the last 'letter' of the alphabet).

So I guess we could call the @ an "atsine".

Whatcha think?

Judith said...

So many comments, and yet the thing I find surprising is that noone has really reacted to one of the things that I find most interesting in your post, which is your remark that the songs on the new record are a lot less personal. That seems to me no small thing considering that the personal quality of the songs on the first record is such a big part of what your fans have responded to and the source of the connection that many of them feel to you. Not that I want you to feel anxiety over this. I just find it interesting, and am certainly curious about the new material.

A Unique Alias said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
A Unique Alias said...

Attn: what's_my_line?

My name is Matt, and, frankly, I think we should call it the Mattpersat. :-D

Harmen said...

You were the ONE Band I definetely had to see at Lowlands this weekend.

I'm sorry to hear you had to cancel.
Be well and see you maybe next year?

Jen Kiaba said...

i am ashamed to admit that until this point in my life i had no need or desire to know what an ampersand is. now that has changed. thank you for broadening my horizons. id say keep it (even though im in the failing 50%)

now i must ponder the lack of "the song"s on the new album. i wonder if it is less personal to you, will it be less personal then to those who listen? because i find that some of your songs could be the soundtrack of my life.
one way or the other i look forward to the album. i think twain said it best (just change the male pronouns to fit):

“Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale”.

tofu mugwump said...

This is more or less off-topic, but I have to say that on my days of self destruction I listen to "Bad Habit" on repeat & eat pancakes (I fear my friends have deeper emotions than I). Though the reason I connect to that song is not so much because I can relate in my own actions to your personal-ness, but that I can relate it to actions in others...

So, regardless of how personal the songs are to you the artist, we the audience will go on relating to them because we all co-opt from the great emotional bricolage of life (as does the artist in creation).

I shall now learn to write and one day reiterate this in a way that makes sense. Though it did mean a lot to me to see you perform "Bad Habit", but I can't even remember if that was Birmingham or Minneapolis. C'est la vie!

Mister Tim said...

Ampersand, ampersand, ampersand.

I always thought it was such a cool word for such a little sympbol.

and per se and
& is and

as you wish said...

I will be very disappointed if I see no ampersand in your next album. I hope Brian feels better soon.

xoxo

aagje said...

Dear Amanda,

You did make the right choice - take it from someone who got 'sons and daughters' instead of the dresden dolls at a festival this weekend. I didn't even bother to go see them, but I don't blame you at all - you guys have been touring like crazy, there's a limit to everything. And I hope Brian is doing OK.
And leave the ampersand. Your audience is intelligent enough to either know what it means or know how to use a dictionary...

FunkeBoy said...

I will be very disappointed if the ampersand reference is removed. Just because your friend thinks this country is illiterate (which it is) doesn't mean your aRt should suffer. Good luck on The Recording; hope Brian bounces back from whatever-it-is soon and happily; hope to see you guys on the stage again soon.

R. MacKay said...

I realize by now that I'm about the 8 billionth person to post a reply but, hey, maybe nobody'll read it. I shall also refrain from any useless blather. (oops.)

Keep the ampersand. I know what it means. Lots of people would.

Unknown said...

Amanda, whether or not you read this i dunno but i guess someone is...so hi to them :P

i saw you perform last night in Aberdeen. it was the most amazingly beautiful and inspirational set i've ever seen. you should never doubt yourself. your emotion and talent far outstands anything i've ever known

my thought are with you and brian and whatever your goin through. stay strong

A~Z

A Unique Alias said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
myrrh said...

dear amanda,

by the way, you should read this article about bookstores & smile.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/2005/09/2005091201c.htm