Friday, June 29, 2007

On Wrinkling

when you are constantly being photographed, and used to seeing
photographs of yourself in candid and not-candid moments on a day-to-
day basis, you get to know your face outside the mirror and through
the photographs.
if you don't mug to the mirror the way you mug to the photographs,
unless you have a lot of time on your hands or you're one of those
mirror-muggers who regularly spends hours locked in the bathroom
making faces at yourself from different angles for hours on end (we
all go through that at some point or another, some more than others.
don't lie), then you get more information form the photographs than
you would from the mirror.

so starting about 3 years ago i noticed that wrinkles were showing up
on my face that weren't there before. and i noticed they were only
showing up in photos in which i was smiling broadly.

lately i've noticed that there are a lot more wrinkles. lots and lots
more. then i noticed the other day that when we were being
photographed i was thinking that maybe i shouldn't smile so broadly
because i might look more haggard and old. then i realized that was a
very fucked up thing to be thinking.

i can't deny that i've gotten happier as i've gotten older. it's a
fact. every year, i am happier. i care less what people think about
me, i enjoy my days more, i worry less about what i'm doing and worry
more about how i'm doing it, which is more fun. i struggle but don't
struggle so much with the fact that i'm struggling. i am still
totally confused by whether my life, my music and my art is a path
i'm supposed to FIND or MAKE and i change the answer every day, but i
stress it less and less.

i was confronted with some of this aging shit when i was in bordeaux.
i was sitting outside a cafe one night, eating my dinner and writing
in peace and a group of very loud and drunk french teenage boys and
girls decided to convene across the cobblestoned pedestrian alleyway.
they were screaming and laughing and being drunk teenagers and it
occured to me that i was not only irritated because i wanted to write
and think and enjoy my pasta without noise but i was ENVIOUS. i
somehow wanted to be on that side of the alley, not on mine. they
looked over at me, laughing, and i saw myself through their eyes. a
woman, in her thirties, sitting at a table, alone, drinking a glass
of wine and eating pasta and writing in a book. i was shocking
myself. i somehow fixated on this: me = old, them = young. line in
sand. why did i care?

maybe it was because i was simultaneously coming to terms with the
fact that i could actually be too old to take someone to bed without
feeling weird. i think your twenties are that perfect sweet spot.
nobody is too old for you or too young for you. you can be 25 and
bang a 19-year-old or a 49-year-old and not really feel the sting.
but once you pass thirty, it doesn't matter how cool or hot or rock-
star-affiliated you are. you're old and if you end up in bed with
someone who is twenty, you're going to fucking feel it. and so are
they. not in a bad way. just is.

maybe i should be optimistic about this and embrace the fact that
awesome and sexy people in their thirties and forties will take me
more seriously because i'm officially not young and dumb anymore.

there is a line between my eyebrows (or where my eyebrows would be,
if i didn't keep making them disappear) that used to be two lines.
the two lines were sort of always there, a little 11 in the middle of
my face. one was longer than the other. then the longer one absorbed
the shorter one and they created a unified front in my mid-twenties.
then one day, about a year ago, it didn't appear only when i was in a
furrowing mood. it was just THERE when i woke up in the morning. then
one day it went away again. and then came back. and now it's here to
stay.

the other wrinkles are appearing around my eyes and mouth and show up
when i smile. crazy, that. this is that creepy ass botox-phenomenon.
if i simply stayed emotion-free, i might look thirty-one forever.
but life would blow.





these are from hawaii. you can see the wrinkles quite clearly in the
smiling picture.

maybe it's also why people in hollywood never smile? i can never
decide if plastic surgery really counts as lying or not. i think
it does. but whatever makes you happy.
my friend had a E cup and got a reduction. i had a friend in high
school who was very into getting a nose job. and i think she did, and
it made her happier. i know some women who are getting into their
fifties and getting their faces stretched back. it freaks me the fuck
out. on the other hand, their faces are just their faces. it's like
an extreme version of doing your hair up. i'm relatively thrilled
about the way i look, most of the time, even as the wrinkles appear i
find a way to get excited about them (look!!!! i'm WISE!!!!). i
wonder how i would feel if i truly considered myself ugly. i wonder
if i would want to take a knife to me face and carve it up
differently. i wonder if i would hate people like me for saying Just
Love Who You Are and want to punch me in the fucking face because i
was born with a pretty standard and relatively attractive WASP mug.

when i look at footage of myself playing, it's no wonder. i furrow
frequently. christ, sometimes i look like i'm constipated. and i
smile a lot. i make lots of faces. i am a face-maker.

so i started thinking i should probably take pride in these appearing
wrinkles as they actually denote amount of life lived as opposed to
years lived. this thought comforted me.

lately, when people ask me to guess their age, i ask them to smile.
then i look at their eyes to see if there are wrinkles. then i guess.
i'm HORRIBLE at this game. i usually guess about 7 years off, often
erring on the side of too old, which insults people. what i usually
end up doing is taking my best guess and subtracting about 20-25% of
the total so i don't sound like an asshole. i think everybody does
this. but anyway, the smiling gives people away.

i've been meeting people who i think look my age only to find out
theat they're 20. this freaks me out. am i just a terrible gauge? i
can also never tell when people are tripping, rolling or on coke.
sometimes i can't even tell when people are drunk, unless they're
hammered and puking. then i'm like: wait, somethings wrong here.

i've noticed that this age-freakiness has been seeping and poisoning
some of my decision-making, or at least creating an added level of
neurosis.
the downward spiral goes something like this:
ok, if i finish the record this fall i can put it out my march. but
maybe i should take more time with it so i can relax. but if i take
more time with it, it'll need to come out next fall. then i'll tour
it in the spring. i'll be 33. holy shit, i'll be 33 when i'm touring
on my solo record. that's when jesus died. fuck. let's not even get
started on the beatles. they had BROKEN UP by the time they were in
their late 20s. fuck. i'm doing nothing with my life.

i've been reading live reviews of cyndi lauper and debbie harry from
this tour. and it seems like once you get past a certain point you
are either "showing your oldness" or "looking great despite your
oldness". what the fuck?? why does it have to be like that?

i suppose it's the same thing if you're young and bright eyes at 17.
you're either "showing your youngness" or "sounding amazing despite
your youngness". i thought about his recently and decided that you're
only really in the clear if you're over 21 and under 45. before and
after that, you're fucked. especially if you're a she.
speaking of which, i coined a term for the paris hilton and linsday
lohan phenomenon:

"chickwreck"

i'm sure someone else somewhere has already thought of this.

(there was a time when i had brian convinced that "marcia marcia
marcia" would be a great name for our band and lo and behold someone
in ohio had already thought of it. what did people do before google?
i suppose there were just a bunch of bands with the same name and
nobody cared until lawyers got involved. but thank fucking god. the
dresden dolls is way better.)

i am reading an extremely excellent book by jonathan saffran foer
called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. i had it sitting on the
shelf i have in the kitchen of books i would like to read, it's a big
shelf. it's a bookcase. almost anytime someone recommends i read a
book i buy it, because books are so cheap now on the internet.
anyway, when my friend was staying at my house he saw the book and he
picked it up and said: this, this is a good book. or he said
something to that extent. anyway with the double endorsement i
started reading it and i am in love with it a little. it is many
stories in one and i recommend it highly.

his friend died of cancer the other day. he knew for a couple weeks.
she was older, but not extremely old. we've been talking a lot. we
were talking a few days ago about how zen sort of sucks because
sometime you decide to choose to feel more than detachment because
you decide to do that because you decide that that's life. this is
from page 180 in the hardback version, which page i read about an
hour ago.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder.
Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me
feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could
have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney
ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself
from happiness.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

and now the weather

and now the weather

this is the sky right now in santa fe



i am deliberately not paying too much attention to anything lest i implode.

coming-back-together with brian, the Drummer of The Dresden Dolls. hard.
being back on tour. hard, but not so bad.
being around famous people. weird. but good. not hard.
being in touch with people who are dealing with dead or dying relatives and friends....

interspersed with trying to figure out which direction to take with my solo record. very hard.

it's been an odd month.

i did some yoga on the strip in las vegas:



someone commented with a bunch of questions in a row.
here are the answers:

#1. Is it really weird to be meeting all those hoards of fans after shows? You and Brian were really nice, but I couldn't comprehend what that feels like. I thought for a second I stared too long at you and we made eyecontact for a nano second (I think?) and I felt REALLY creepy. Like I looked like the creepy old lady in line.

no. it's not weird. not weirder than anything else. it feels like what it looks like. imagine having a birthday party every day for an hour and you get an idea. i love when people get all emotional. it makes me feel like i'm doing something right. it makes me a little sad when people feel they have to pre-amble with "i know you hear this a million times a day, but...." or "i don't want to sound like a creepy stalker fan-boy, but....". it's like, you and me, two people talking. you do you think i am? i LOVE THIS SHIT! i also completely relate to being on the other side. when i was around 16, i waited in line to meet edward ka-spel after a legendary pink dots show at axis in boston. my heart was racing like mad and i couldn't believe i was about to be face to face with the man who had written the soundtrack to my life and who had changed my whole musical mental landscape. i breathed and breathed deeper and rehearsed what i was going to say so i wouldn't waste his time or sound like an idiot. it was my turn and i looked straight at him and said "i hope that someday i will write music as beautiful as you do." and he smiled at me and was so kind and human, and talked to me and signed my whatever. and i'll never forget that interaction, ever. so i give that back every time i meet someone. the only thing that bums me out is when people don't make eye contact and don't seem like they actually want a connection. the other day, some guy was actually ON HIS PHONE and just handed his ticket to me and brian for an autograph without stopping to look at us, talk to us, or even say hello to us. we were like, what's the point, dude?

#2. Does it creep you out to know that everybody in line is lusting after you and frothing at the mouth? Because they are. Do you block it out or embrace it?

oh, come on. well, ok, i answer truthfully. i love being loved. and if it ever gets creepy, i'll duck out the back door and go home and read a book. easy. i'd also like to think that you're not speaking for everyone. there are plenty of fans that i meet that i think have no desire to fuck me, and that's fine and dandy. it probably means they're better able to listen without being....disturbed.

#3. Where does your confidence come from? Will you write a self help book? Because I had to stop myself from saying "Hi, My name is Jen, I work for an insurance company and my life is really lame.",then burst into tears.

oh, darlin'. i don't really know how to answer that. i think my confidence comes from being very lucky growing up and being given a very large and free playground in which to grow as a person and an artist. i was never shut down very much, and when i was shut down i had a lot of supportive teachers and family and friends. but i also had to deal with a lot of shit as a teenager and i think it may surprise you to know that a lot of what confidence about isn't just having it, it's being able to APPEAR that you have it. i can't tell you how many times i've been onstage freaking out that this/that/theotherthing is fucking up but i smile and bang away as if nothing is wrong. very much like life. act as if. people will buy it. i'm more insecure than you think. i just wait until the end of the night to talk about it.

#4. Have you ever heard of The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus? I saw them perform in Cleveland last night and I thought man, it would be awesome if The Dresden Dolls went on tour with them. They are like an old school punk rocky adult circus. Check them out!

FUCK YES!!! i've been down with those guys for years. they are amazing. we've never done a proper tour together but we have shared stages. sxip shirey (www.myspace.com/sxipshirey), with whom i often tour and collborate, is a performer and composer for the Bindlestiffs.

..........................................

we sign autographs and meet fans after every set on this tour (which started in las vegas about three weeks ago and has crisscrossed the country twice).
sometimes people come up to me shaking and crying and loving our music and i love that and i hug them. we talk to hundreds of people every night. they're there, they're real, they're listening.
i never forget that, but seeing the human face of our music community reminds me to snap the fuck out of it. sometimes i get so caught up in the void that i forget who is out there.

the media is a trick mirror.
i go through phases with how much media i consume. sometimes i'll pile it all on and buy a stack of rolling stones and magnets and spins and catch up on my pop culture to see what america is being exposed to. often when i'm flying (and i make sure i balance out all the music garbage with some Teen People and the Economist or New Yorker).

i used to read all of these music magazines wondering where my band would fit in. it's only now that i've been realizing that i may forever be exempt from the world of mainstream media, and that's given me some food for thought. i used to look at these giant national magazines and wonder why bands who had a quarter of the fans that we did were getting giant photos and articles and hype. the dolls have been together for 7 years, we've always managed to miss every bandwagon and wave of hype, and lots of the bands i remember seeing so much of a few years ago have vanished. we've never declined. we've only grown. for the number of records we've sold and the amount of fans we have, we have stayed (by no means willingly, since we always answer to the call of the press when it comes) almost completely out of the mainstream spotlight for the duration of our career. sometimes i feel grateful (who else has managed to do that? besides the string cheese incident? i suppose if i knew, then i would be disproving my own rule. if i was aware of the unknown, how would it be unknown?). sometimes i feel gypped.

there will always be people richer than you, and people poorer than you, you will always see people who seem happier and sadder than you, more and less famous than you.
the key is not to try to get on top, the key is to make peace with what you've got. madonna sits at home and stresses about god knows what. the A-list celebrities have a laundry-list of fucked-up priorities that you or i wouldn't ever want to have to grapple with and most of them don't seem to be genuinely happy. meanwhile, people all over the world pay homage at the altars of superstardom and trash-gossip. why? this has been coming up as a topic of conversation on tour. the general theory is that it's always been this way but that it's particularly disgusting right now because the larger backdrop has become so threatening in it's hopelessness. the war? over it. darfur? AIDS? over it. the fattening and overmedication of america's youth? eh. paris? lindsay? THERE'S something we can all connect about. let's talk about THAT. ok!

we determined that people can't talk about the weather anymore because it's also too depressing due to global warming.
once you can't talk about the weather you are fucked - gotta talk about lindsay.

but i look at all this and i think about myself and where i fit into it. i was just reading an interview with jack white of the white stripes, he said

"in this day and age, every band wants to say, 'come look at what we do', all the time. 'you wanna see me in my underwear? you wanna film me while i'm sleeping?' america has traded culture for entertainment and technology. how can you ever come back from that?"

i stopped and thought. if anybody wants to see me (sleeping or non) in my underwear, i'm usually happy to oblige.

so. for whatever reason, jack white and i are different. should i feel guilty about that?

but there's something more to this. jack's saying that we've traded culture for entertainment.
i don't fully buy that. entertainment IS and has been a huge and important part of culture for...ever. jack white is an entertainer. technology is culture. always has been.
technology and entertainment ARE culture, they DRIVE culture. but i understand what he's saying....i was reading an interview with Bansky and he said something to the extent of

warhol's prediction is going to warp. in the near future you're not going to be waiting for your 15 minutes of fame; you're going to be waiting for your 15 minutes of anonymity.

in youtube and myspace culture we're all mini-celebrities. but i think what jack is actually complaining about, and Banksy as well, isn't the phenomenon itself so much as the content involved. if teenagers all over the world were myspacing at the speed of light about how they could use their collective power to end hunger or stop global warming instead of swapping britney snatch-shots, would anyone be worried? hell no. we'd be ECSTATIC.

whatever it is that drives me to want to connect to people on the level that i do, it simply is that way. thinking about it seems to be pointless. i can drive myself crazy this way.
what do i want to do?
why am i making a record anyway?
if i want to videotape myself in my underwear and someone wants to watch it, don't i have the responsibility to make it a meaningful underwear-video?
should i be thinking more about what i'm doing?
like, really sitting down and trying to make some larger, more comprehensive decision about my life instead of just constantly saying "sounds good" to whatever happens to land in my path?
should i learn how to play the piano? really? should i take a year off and learn how to sing before i destroy my vocal chords because i don't know what i'm doing?
at least that way i'll have more ammunition when the underwear-video police knock on my door.
it seems to be the rule that the more talented you are, the more you can get away with. but who determines if you're talented? dead end.

cyndi lauper thoroughly destroyed her voice, went to a voice therapist, and brought it back from the dead. she steams it before and after every show.
"you could blow it amanda" she says. "start now, while you're young".
jesus christ, i'm 31. that's YOUNG???
"do it while you can" was also her advice about my choice to sport the hottt bra onstage instead of the tank top:
"when you're my age, honey, fuggedaboutit". i love her.

debbie harry also shed some enlightening perspective on my struggle over the production of the solo record.
"ah" she mused "when i made my last solo record the producer stole it, got on a plane to [guam? somewhere.] and held it for ransom."
"what did you do?"
debbie harry is very calm cool and collected.
"i paid him and got it back."
"god, i'm sorry. that blows".

i used to make all of my decisions through some sort of divine, and perhaps naive, assurance that i knew what i was doing.
on optimistic days, i take my recent faltering and ambivalence not as a sign of weakness but as a sign of growth.
on those days, being not sure of myself = evolving into a person who is open to anything.
on pessimistic days being not sure of myself = being a totally neurotic and shit-scared wuss.

highlights of the past few weeks have included rosie o'donnell falling in love with us (how awesome is she?), singing "when u were mine" onstage with cyndi lauper in boston (can die happy now, pretty much), and playing at radio city music hall (both brian and i had a moment there). brian and i also sang "rainbow connection" to cyndi backstage in texas for her birthday. she was so sweet, she actually sang along at the end. she's such a solid fucking woman, she really tries hard to tie everybody together. i hope i'm like her when i grow up.

i took some days off in chicago and spent them with good friends, which fed me. we went on a boat (thanks to stuart):


lane the triumphant


jeffers and me

...........................

from the UKULELE/PIANO DEPT:

re: the myspace covers project: i am thinking of going home early in july just to tackle this. why fucking not? i will try to make it as fast and furious as possible, with, like, a 12-hour turnaround.
yay the internet.

...............................

from the COUTURE DEPT:

and since y'all keep asking:

the skirt came from katie kay's roommate's who run a clothing line called skin graft. they work out of their living room. i slept int eh living room. so technically the skirt and i slept together. and then, in true romantic fashion, we could never part. go see:
www.skingraftdesigns.com & http://www.myspace.com/skingraftdesigns



the black boots, sadly, are last seasons. they were made by fine fine john fluevog (www.fluevog.com) and you could try ebay (the style is roosevelt).

...............................

here are some awesome dancing and busking musician brothers and sisters i saw in washington square park on a walk.
i bought a disc but can't find it right now so if you know them (they're local), drop a line



...............................................................

from the VIDEO DEPT:

there's a great new clip of me playing "astronaut (a short history of nearly nothing)" at the paradise last year
gorgeous camera work and lighting. edited by the stupendous peter sand.
i love this song. it was still a bit different back then, the ending has changed since this performance....but its goood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udHpzUnoHSk



unrelated.....one of you posted an alternate "california girls" homage (sorta) that KICKS OURS IN THE ASS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P3Wc-37pC4

aphex twin. it's long, but watch it, it's pretty fucking awesome. he's brilliant. i'd marry him if i was more into techno.

.....................................

and here is a picture for jack white of me in my underwear,
which i coincidentally took in NYC in my hotel room long before i read his damning interview.





suck it jack



love
amanda

Thursday, June 14, 2007

the last of the mojitos

.





when i was in bordeaux i found myself getting caught in the occasional thought-trap of "how will i explain/write about this feeling/thing/person/event". for that reason itself i am looking at the blog like a source of scariness - you might lose your life fucking watch out. don't start thinking you're living in your own movie. when i'm overtired like this, raw and alone and kinda hungry at the end of a long day (we played chicago tonight), i feel like it's the best time to write because i won't bullshit or get flowery. i'll just dump.

bordeaux already seems like a distant experience. it was a beautiful, hard trip. i've let it all sink in and what i've learned most is that i don't do "vacation" well since i am not a normal person with a normal life and job (but what/who is fucking normal? nobody i know, and i know shitloads of people). i had a gorgeous little house all to myself in a quiet garden right outside of the city center. i spent the first 24 hours in a letlagged and slightly hungover haze (that was my wonderful host's fault, he fed and drank me over at his house upon arrival) just thinking i was the luckiest girl on earth to be afforded this luxury, this solitude, this beautiful place. it started raining non-stop and within 48 hours i was feeling depressed, confused and totally unmotivated. not gloriously alone, just isolated.

i didn't start feeling better until i started doing what amandas do. meeting people and setting shit up. so i met william through the kaiser chiefs show and told him i was climbing the walls and wanted to set up a solo show. he took me to el inca, i met milos, and within another few moments i had made friends, established a favorite bar and had a show to get ready for. then i felt more like amanda and i could get to work. funny what i need to be happy. a show, something to look forward to, a motivation to write. i started writing a handful of new songs (i rented a keyboard and amp for the house) and read a few books and re-watched the royal tenenbaums and whacked off a lot. i slept odd hours and cooked omelettes. i pedaled my ass into town every day and met up with new friends but mostly hung around cafes outside eating whatever i wanted (which usually involved chevre, which is very delicious goat cheese).

i took a lot of get-myself-lost bike rides and spent long hours in various cafes in various squares scribbling away in my journal, trying to figure out what the fuck i'm going to do with my record, my upcoming year, my life.

i drank a lot. of wine. and coffee. i became a fixture at el inca and saw a bunch of shows there inbetween sitting and writing at the bar while drinking very tasty fresh mojitos and sampling every kind of infused rum milos had brewing (vanilla, hot pepper, strawberry, ginger, and a few i forget). ludovic-pierre and i stole wine glasses from the creperie where we were eating and took the bottle to the river and stayed up into the night. one day my wallet got stolen from right out of my backpack at a cafe and instead of being pissed off, i was actually excited to have something to do (which was to go to the police and explain the situation in my pigeon french. it was a blast). the second to last night i played my show at el inca and it was just pure, unadulterated old-school awesome. just PLAYED. i had a few new tunes to try out and did a few covers but mostly just soaked up the simplicity of banging on the keyboard to an audience. handfuls of people wandered in having no idea who i was. just american chick banging on a piano. no discs to sell, no mailing list, no fucking nothing, just being handed a wad of greasy euros in the kitchen after the show split three ways between me and the other two bands. it was paradise.

i spent my last night glued to the bar at the inca, chatting with milos and desinging a little goodbye drawing to myself entitled "last of the mojitos". i plan to return to bordeaux as soon as fucking possible, the house is there when i need it care of the french government.

i have decided that what "vacation" means in my life is that i pay less attention to business and i drink and eat more. and that's it. it's not site-specific.

spending four days in vegas last week affirmed my feelings. people come HERE? deliberately? to have FUN? you're fucking kidding me. it's a nightmare disneyworld for adults but without the childhood nostalgia. but i managed to figure out a life there: i just found a cafe that i liked in the paris casino that closely resembled a real cafe, pretended i wasn't in vegas (i think thats also sort of the point when you're there, it's like one big virtual reality since all the casinos are theme parks of other countries) and ate decent food while i sat and wrote and fantasized along with all the other schmucks. i jogged a lot on the strip and in the casinos (jogging in a casino: try it before you die) and fucked with peoples paradigms. jogging to the buzzcocks is good. (also while in vegas: i shot a new karaoke video for MTV to air later this summer. it may or may not be to a cyndi lauper song that may or may not be about girls wanting or possibly not wanting to have fun.)

it's all about context. i went to bordeaux, i realized, because when i saw it on my off day it was during one of those typically miserable european tours where everyone was insane and grouchy and i really needed to get away from it all. the weather was gorgeous and the city and it's quiet winding streets just embraced me, it was exactly what i needed. at the time. it was like what food tastes like when you're starving. the place was a backdrop to a badly needed escape.

you never step in the same river twice. i didn't find that bordeaux again until the show at el inca. i set up my gear and had about two hours to kill and didn't want to hang around the club and talk and lose my voice and be tempted by different varieties of infused rum. so i went for a walk to get away. i stumbled into the most beautiful tangle of streets i had yet seen, it was twilight and a bunch of local artists and sculptures were partying and chatting away out on the balconies above their closed workshops busting with paintings and plaster. i felt, finally, like i had found what i came for.

i'm in love with my new songs. guitar hero is sounding better and better live and i think is up there with the best songs i've written. i only hope i can give all the songs the care and feeding they need to translate onto the record. i'm starting to have terrible self-doubt-feelings about how to make these songs work out of the live context and am starting to think more and more and more that less is more. with so many options of what to do, what sounds to make, i'm feeling overwhelmed. i'm going to be in santa cruz for a few days in july to arrange some songs with estradasphere (one of my favorite new bands, they share 3 members with the secret chiefs and are part of the mimicry/sleepytime gorilla museum/mr. bungle-type family) and will see how they come out. they are top-notch musicians and total sweethearts. jason webley and i found them by accident one night in boston when we were working on producing evelyn and evelyn's record. our jaws dropped. (here's links: http://www.estradasphere.com, or myspace: http://www.myspace.com/estradasphere. speaking of jason, he and i are going to hopefully finish producing the twins' record in july and it sounds just beautiful. we've been trying to convince them to put up a webpage or a myspace page but they don't do internet very well, so we're working on it.

between france and true colors, at home on a whim one day i called up my friend noah and he helped me set up a home-recording studio in my bedroom. we just miked the piano and set up a vocal mic and plugged it all into garageband on my mac. i think the recordings i did that night and the next night might be the best i've ever done. they're just so fucking blunt. i wasnt thinking about posterity or mistakes, i was just recording for the sake of archiving the songs before i forgot them. now i listen back and i'm like: go to a studio why?? fucking finish this shit in your bedroom, amanda. that said, i got an even better idea: to do a cover song every day for a month. or forever. i'd like to have to do it on command at the mercy of some sort of online lottery of fans, or get a a nice little random jukebox robot who wakes me up and says GOOD MORNING AMANDA TODAY YOU WILL BE COVERING MARGARITAVILLE BY JIMMY BUFFETT WOULD YOU LIKE HONEY IN YOUR TEA post the shit up on myspace for a day at a time, then never again. just fun. i miss having fun. when i do covers, i have fun. when i play my own songs, i feel like i am working.

aight.

in band news: the "shores" video is rocking hardcore !!!!!
i am AMAZED, though, at how many people don't get the david lee roth reference. the WHOLE video is a pardoy, almost shot-for-shot, so it's weird for me to imagine what it's like to see it out of context.

anyway, here's a fun 8 minutes:

watch the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmbhfI8f_Ek
then watch the shores video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awnjw36mNEs


it's currently got 17 honors and it creeping towards 60,000 hits. go us!!!!!!!!!!
post it, link it, spread that shit. even weird al yankovich wrote me an email to say that he loved it!!!! :) um, i'm high.
though depressing to see all the WHERES BRIAN comments from people who arent in the loop. we had really wanted him to be there....i missed him on that shoot more than anyone. so it goes.

we've been on the true colors tour for almost a week now and it's been in-fucking-credible. there's lots to tell, most of it fantasy-level. i'll write more soon, i need to go jog to the buzzcocks now (actually, i think i'm going to jog to the new NIN record) and try to answer 256 emails and work on my voice for the five-in-a-row we have coming up so i don't sound like a fucking corpse with a cold on stage. to all of you who i've met in the past week, thank you, thank you so much for making it out. we've been signing after every show so if we haven't hit your city yet and you're coming, find us for love (after our set and during debbie harry's), we're usually set up my the merchandise tables but miss margaret cho will always announce exactly where.

oh and one last thing, i'm switching instruments
i'm fucking sick of the fucking piano.
new results can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek5ZNgw8Vdk



and here are some photos from bordeaux.

my backyard:



the inca (thats milos on the right):



inside the inca:



view from my barstool:



drunken self-portrait in the middle of the night, with bicycle:



up late w/ william & his friends from leisure:



ludovic-pierre in front of st. pierre:



outtake from a photoshoot with greg behind my house:



still life with legs:



very last night in bordeaux:







love
a