"Such Great Heights" is out NOW!

My duet with Amanda Palmer has been released. You can listen, love, download here:

7" Vinyl Record with Amanda Palmer

In March 2011 Amanda Palmer and Kim Boekbinder sat on a couch in a warehouse in Melbourne, Australia and sang a song called "Such Great Heights," by The Postal Service. 

It was the end of the night at the end of the tour at the end of the world. The duet is simple and  beautiful. It is a snapshot of a time when two busy musicians found quiet in a city at the end of the earth. 

The song will be released on a 7" record, along with an original song by Kim Boekbinder called, "On the Other Side of the World" which is a song about being in love with someone on the other side of the world, ie: Australia. Australians are wonderful. 

Only 1000 lavender colored vinyl will be made. The packages will also include high quality stickers and 5x7 art cards with the album art and a digital download. Each record will be hand numbered and signed by Kim.

The songs will also be released as a digital EP after the 7" is released.

The album art is by the NYC duo, Teetering Bulb www.teeteringbulb.com who have done beautiful art for comics, graphic novels, album covers, book covers, and more.

Internet go BOOM!

As you've probably heard if you follow me: I got a little bit more internet famous in the last few days because of my pre-sold show ideas: First show, NYC July 21st. Buy Tickets

My post for Warren Ellis about pre-sold tours got picked up by BoingBoing which spread out and got all kinds of people talking about pre-sold shows and tours. I hear the New Music Group at Mills College in Oakland, CA was discussing me in their email group. Yeah, that means it went deep. When a small group of experimental musicians at a liberal arts college are talking about you in an email group - you've made an impact. (Hi, Mills!)

Hooray! People are talking. But what next? This is one show. And I am one very particular case. I did this to solve a problem in my career: I'm too busy with this music thing to work another job, but not making enough money to tour properly. It's a terrifying gap in a creative career that almost every artist must face at some point. Too busy to make money, too broke not to. Sucks. So solve it.

I knew I had more fans than were coming out to shows. Part of the problem is that one person cannot possibly do all the things I attempt to do and promotions suffer. So I figured out a way to promote first, then sell, then book.

I am so excited about all the things I've been learning in the past few days. Several artists and websites have been mentioned. And because this is the internet there are a few people saying, "She's not doing anything new. This is an old idea. Here are examples 1 - 67."

I've looked. And I can't find anyone who is doing it. Not at my level and not in this way. I would love to see someone else pre-selling tours. But you know, when it comes down to it, it really doesn't matter whether I'm the first, or the last. What matters is that I'm doing something that people are thinking might work for themselves or for other musicians.

Here are a few of the things I've learned about: 

There are sites like www.eventful.com or www.upcoming.org that allow fans to "Demand" an artist in their town. But that's not pre-sales, that's just clicking a button. Singer-songwriter and internet celebrity Johnathan Coulton has been using Eventful as a gauge of interest for his shows. Seems to work well for him.

Comedian Paul F. Tompkins has fans set up Facebook events for their towns - when that event hits 300 attendees he'll book a show. And his website states it works really well. Once again it's just clicking a button, but since it's really fan motivated I think it's probably better. We talked a little bit about pre-sales. He said my plan seemed less anxious. I said his plan seemed less needy. He's funny, check him out: www.paulftompkins.com

The founder of www.dukits.com contacted me and they are going to be doing EXACTLY what I'm talking about, but they're not quite ready to launch yet and their site is a mess - don't try to click anything on it but do go look. If you're interested you should check back in with them soon. They look like they could actually be great when they get it together. I hope to work with them at some point.

Friend and social media pioneer Amanda Palmer pointed me towards www.nuevostage.com which has also not launched, and while they will be pre-selling shows in a way, they will also have bands competing against each other for the same venue, getting fans to commit to buying tickets in the hopes that their band will "win" the show. Looks like a bad deal for fans and bands but great for venues and nuevostage itself.  Competitions are the worst part of the internet. Let's move on.

www.queremos.com.br contacted me, they're from Rio, Brazil. They pre-sell shows by getting backers to pledge to bring big famous bands to a country that otherwise might not ever get to see them. So these backers put up large sums of money (in smaller, bite-sized chunks) and when they reach the minimum they book the gig and start selling tickets. If the show sells well the backers get their money back, they get credit on show promo, and they get to go to the show. I think it looks pretty great. But once again, for the already famous. And in Brazil.

www.gigmaven.com in NYC has also been in touch - they don't  pre-sell shows, but they do put venues and bands in contact with each other and they're helping me find a venue, so they get a shout out.

So far, no one doing the pre-sales the way I'm talking about doing them. I'll keep looking though and would like to keep hearing about it.

I think what has people excited about my plan is that I'm just me, not super famous, not represented by a manager or agent, and not letting anything stop me.

The Problems with my Model of Pre-sold Shows

- It's only worked once. So far. So there's that.

- It might not work for everyone. I mean, I know it won't. This isn't the magical answer to solve all touring problems. It's just an awkward first step.

- It's way more work than just showing up at an established venue and playing my 45 minute set.

- All ages venues are as rare as unicorns, or people who don't promote themselves, in NYC.

- Venues are hard to book this short notice. I might have to rent an empty room and have to get my own sound system and staff.

- It's a hard sell. I've made enough money to put on the show, but there still aren't that many tickets sold. I have incredibly supportive followers who are backing this very generously just to see it happen. The press on this has gotten me even more generous champions, but not high volume sales. That's okay for this show, but it makes me realize just how hard it will be when it's not my first show this way and I don't have all the internet poking at it.


These aren't complaints and they aren't going to stop me, I just know I can't solve the problems if I'm not making them (errrr… thinking about them.)

Things That Are Not Problems

- Fans in each city get to make a show happen! That is maybe the most exciting part of this whole thing. You want me to play. I want to play. You know I can't afford to travel, and I know you can't afford to fly me there yourself. But I can give you the resources to make a show happen. I'll set up a Kickstarter (or some such) in each city/town/hamlet/shire/what-have-you and then you and me get to work together to sell the show. Sweet!

- Little cities in the midwest or Florida (or wherever) that feel left out of the cultural loop because bands always pass them by get an equal chance to bring me there. (The caveat being that I can't be everywhere at once and might not make it to every city this first time.)

- No more empty venues! 10 people buy a show, I play in a living room, 100 people and I book a small and lovely venue. 300-500 people and I get a small to mid-sized venue. 3,000 people… 300,000… it just works.

- Venues get a guaranteed audience to buy drinks and/or food. Venues lose lots of money all the time on shows. It sucks. That's why so many of them try to sell you lots of alcohol - hence the serious dearth of all ages places to enjoy music.

- Everyone feels invested in the show. Me, you, the venue. We make it happen, we're all financially risking something and we're all working as promoters. And let me tell you that nothing tastes as sweet as the fruit of your own labors. You help me put on the show and it's your show too. I love that.

- Equal commitment equals happy relationship. I commit to play for you. You commit to come see me. We meet each other halfway, and then we go all way (no, not that kind of 'all the way' just all the way to a great concert.)



I feel really lucky to be at a point in my career (and in the history of the world) where this can work. I have the fans. I have the network. I have the tools.

Twitter, Facebook, email, Kickstarter and one very determined me = good things.



X O X O - BoingBoing Girl


p.s. NYC July 21st. Buy Tickets

The Rap of Tasmania

Backstage iphone snap while at a photo shoot for MX 

(look for it next week in Sydney and Melbourne.)

Costumes by Rose Chong's

*

My musical compatriot, Amanda Palmer, wrote a song called 'The Map of Tasmania' which is about pubic hair. Mostly it's about having pubic hair, and that having a big bush is great and shaving or waxing is painful and crazy and makes you look like an 8 year old. Those lyrics are funny, and thought provoking, and also necessary in a culture where the public pubic is mostly quite sparsely hirsute.

While we were on tour together I wrote a rap for the song, the rap evolved and grew and I got better at rapping - which I'd never done before. So when Amanda decided to release a remix album with a whole bunch of radtastic folks like PEACHES remixing her song I was happy to record my rap.

Here is my 'Rap of Tasmania.'

My Name is Gus helped me record and write the beats and grooves - he is awesome.

Lyrics:

Hey Amanda I don’t mean to be rude
but I think it’s kind of nice when it’s all slippery and smooth
Some women just don’t have a lot of hair 
and to say they all look eight years old is really unfair
Yeah, I dig the jungle, 
I dig the Rubyfruit, 
just like a pirate, 
I dig the boot-y.
You say you got the map, 
I say you got the treasure, 
your hair can mark the spot 
where I can dig for pleasure.
I like it fuzzy, yeah I like it bare, 
uh-huh, but most of all, I really don’t care.
So let me clarify what I’m trying to say: 
There’s a thousand ways to shape it, 
do it your own way.

*

And something I wrote for Amanda's blog about the song:

 I grew up around a lot of hippies who had an almost mystical belief in the power of the human body in its completely natural form. I don’t think anyone ever said this outright, but what I learned was that women should not shave or pluck or wax any part of themselves and to do so was an affront to nature. Women who submitted to popular beauty trends were seen as anti-feminists and idiots, subjecting themselves to the will of the patriarchy; all men who preferred their lady lovers with less body hair were porn obsessed pedophiles. The judgements were harsh and I was happy to look down from my hairy high horse at the idiotically smooth bottoms of the porn obsessed rabble below. Hair free legs were one thing, but leave the pubic mons as wild and free as nature intended. That was until I got an accidental Brazilian in Berlin (oh language barriers) which was the first step on a long road to the realization that I was a judgmental asshole who should shut the hell up about other peoples’ pants regions. We all have preferences and we all pick and choose which popular aesthetics to adhere to. 

Given my history, it is with a certain irony that my rap is in defense of the bare ‘down there.’ 

Body hair is political, but it’s also personal. And yeah, I like it all kinds of ways on all kinds of people.

You can read Amanda's blog about the remixes here: http://blog.amandapalmer.net/

Here is Amanda's fantastic and colorful original song and video:

Here's another Amanda video that Jim Batt made:

Melbourne Love (Possibly NSFW)

We have reached the end of the Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under tour. Amanda says it was her best tour ever and I'm so happy to have been a part of it. I met some very talented and wonderful people, and reconnected with Amanda, while getting to know the country I now call home.

Future Plans!

I've extended my visa and will be staying on in Melbourne until May 3rd. I have a residency at The Empress Hotel - every Wednesday in April - which I am very excited about. My show at The Empress on February 27th was absolutely wonderful. Thank you to everyone who came down and made me feel so very welcome in this beautiful city. It was the first official "Impossible Girl" show and it was better than I would have wished.

I'll also be booking my next US tour - starting in May! Finally bringing The Impossible Girl to visit all my beautiful American friends.

I'm almost out of CDs! Hurray. Thank you all for this. It keeps me eating and means I get to do another round of printing. You can get my CD here: Kim's Bandcamp

Been working hard on a project that will launch in a few days. It's SO good! Stay tuned…

Here are some photos from my escapades over the last week of the tour.

I'll leave you with this video of Amanda Palmer and me singing "Such Great Heights" in a men's bathroom in Geraldton, Australia.  

Love!

Kim

p.s. SPARKLY CUPCAKES!

All photos by Jim Batt

The Map of a Truck

Today I recorded my final rap for Amanda Palmer's 'Map of Tasmania.'

Today Jim is working on 'The Organ Donor's March' animation, cutting up pieces of paper, figuring things out. I love to watch him work.

Today I found out my childhood friend is in a coma here in Melbourne. She was run over by a garbage truck. Her pelvis is crushed. Her coma is medically induced, they don't want to wake her up. Too much pain. She can't breathe on her own, there are machines to do it for her.

We grew up not far from each other, in the countryside of Ontario, Canada. Her family and my family were good friends. I have so many memories of those beautiful, blonde sisters and their fairytale home. She has lived in Melbourne for years. She is insanely smart, like scary smart. When she was five she had a better vocabulary than most professional writers. She's a lawyer now. She's 27. She was run over by a truck. A fucking truck.

Humans are so little. So fragile. Trucks are big. And stupid. Who the fuck thought of trucks?

I want to keep smiling and believe that she will be ok. Because humans are fragile but they are also very strong. And resilient. And she's so smart and determined and beautiful. She must know how to fix herself. Even in her sleep.

She was riding her bicycle to work.

I write a blog, I send emails, I record a song. I keep doing things. Intermittently, I cry. Quietly.

I want to be able to make her all better. I want to fix everything.

Jim cuts paper. I send some more emails. And I try to understand how to keep going when someone so beautiful is hurting so badly. And I can't do anything about it.

Queens of the Desert!

I've been wanting to do this ever since I've been in Australia - actually ever since I saw "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." Now I am happy.

Also: These people make me happy...

Sometimes I look at these photos when I'm sad.

So much love.

XXK

Where in the world - Byron Bay, Australia

Photo by Jim Batt

Kim Boekbinder, Amanda Palmer, Saint Clare

I'm in Byron Bay, Australia. Jim Batt, Amanda Palmer, and Eric Sussman flank me. We are the dreaded macbook brigade. The cafe tries to hate us but we are charming.

Eleventy million things to say, but not much time for saying.

I'm trying to figure out how to tour. I love playing. I need to do a lot of work to figure out how to afford launching a good tour. I've just plotted out the next year of schedule, things will surely change but it helps to have even a shadow of a plan. I want to be everywhere at once. I want to go to every city and play in every place I can.

I have so many ideas and so many plans.

My show is getting better every time I play. Being on tour with Amanda Palmer is really good for me. We play, we laugh, we look good in sparkles. We go naked night swimming. We work all day on laptops. We live.

Photo by Jim Batt

Kim Boekbinder with Mikelango and Saint Clare

Where in the world - Sydney, Australia

Good morning! Or afternoon, or evening or whatever it is for you.

I'm in Sydney, Australia, sitting in a living room in a house filled with international surfers who are speaking Portuguese and German. The view from this house is incredible, it reminds me that being next to the ocean makes me a better person. Waves and rocks and ocean wind. Horizon without obstruction. Nature being itself; powerful, ever changing, intense.

I came here on Wednesday to rap with Amanda Palmer at the Sydney Opera House.

This is what I look like while waiting for a suitcase.

I had some very sparkly ladies on stage with me, they worked out a whole dance to 'Map of Tasmania' and included some special moves for my rap.

The Go Girl Gadget Go Go dancers! 

My very favorite part of the evening is that Neil Gaiman paid me a compliment. It isn't the first compliment Neil has ever paid me, but this one was special. As a writer, and a lover of language, Neil is someone who knows the value of words. He is not given to hyperbole the way that most of us are. He does not describe everything as "epic" or "amazing" or "fantastic" (I describe things that way all the time  - I have become stuck in the tantalizing honey of the hyperbole trap of our modern culture.) Neil says things are 'nice' or 'rather nice' or 'lovely.' He talks the same way he reads, in a very deliberate way. He uses words the way they are meant to be used, to mean the things they actually mean and he is very easy to understand.

But after our gig at the Sydney opera House Neil said,

"I really enjoyed your rap tonight. You killed it."

And I was so flattered and flustered that I said something like, "Thank you. I had fun killing it. Killing is fun. I like killing..."


***

Last night Amanda and I played a very special house show for about 40 people. It as intimate and rare and great. Before we played we ate and everyone went around the table and introduced themselves. Amanda said we should all state our deepest fear as well. And that was brilliant, it made us all vulnerable and powerful at the same time.

The concept of a 'deepest fear' is interesting. There are so many to choose from: visceral, physical, animal instinct kind of fears, like the fear of spiders or being eaten alive by lions (one of mine.)
Or emotional, philosophical, modern day fears, like being mediocre, getting stuck in a dead end job and never reaching the dream. And they are all real, all deep, all scary.

I said I was afraid of performing solo - which is true. And then I sang. And then Amanda sang. And then we took this picture with the group:

***

Sydney is a very beautiful city. I'm having a great time. I rapped (I RAPPED!) at the SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE - probably the world's most recognizable venue. I'm palling around with wonderful, kind, creative, intelligent people. I just released an album. I have a really wonderful partner who matches me intellectually, creatively, intuitively, emotionally, physically. And he's SO cute:

And sometimes I look like this:

I have to list these things for myself. To remind myself to look at the wonderful things I have. Because one of my deepest fears is that nothing will ever be enough, that I will be too busy reaching for the next shiny red apple to notice the juicy ripe peach that's in my mouth. I always want more. And striving is a wonderful thing, reaching for the stars is grand, but not if you miss the life while you're living it.

And sometimes I move too fast, reach too far, want too much to see that HOLY HELL: my life is fantastic.

Sure, things can always be better. Truth is, album sales are slow, I am COMPLETELY out of money - in the super scary, pit of nausea, heart aching anxiety, way. My computer is on its last legs and hardly ever concedes to connect to the internet for long enough to post photos or write blogs. And I may never be able to afford touring again.

But those things are all part of my job. Because I consider it the job of the artist to live on the edge. The edge of sanity, the too scary, too much, too close, too hard edge. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's loneliness, sometimes it's the art itself. And being out of money and scared and still moving forward even if it means not eating, or losing everything, is the edge that I am on.

And the view from here is AMAZINGLY EPIC and rather nice, as well:

***

All photos by Jim Batt (except the BBQ photo. And the photo of him, which I took.)