I’ve developed an odd enthusiasm for Live Music DVD’s. I well up with excitement when I see them at the local independent; I get the archiving completist’s itch to own every accessible item put out by my favorite artists – then I get the thing home and don’t know what to do with it. Sometimes it gets filed immediately, sometimes I go so far as to flip it on – note that my favorite artists are surprise! – playing live music, or surprise! – editing in footage of how normal and boring their lives really are when not performing; just like you and me. Either way, I feel like it’s a waste or a wash – I don’t have the patience to watch a concert in my living room; I don’t want to spend money to watch you dissolve the mystique.
This, to explain how I could sit on Dresden Dolls: Paradise for several months before bothering to watch it. Despite my Amanda Palmer shrine, screen saver, and perhaps someday: a framed restraining order. Chalk it up to a lack of time: I could make a second career from watching her YouTube videos or keeping up on her blog. Amanda has taken the fast track to rock worship despite my – I like to think – pretentiously high standard for what does and doesn’t sound good.
Whether solo or with the Dresden Dolls, Amanda embraces art in process - separating this DVD from so many others. She’s riding a bike where the visual and the auditory are pedals kept in constant motion, creating an effect of over-stimulation. Since there is no competing market for ‘punk cabaret’, the Dresden Dolls have created a new universe all to themselves, and you are invited to watch how they want to populate it, what natural laws they want to govern it, and no – they aren’t going to demystify it, because this is their world now. Even the attempts to show the drudgery of maintaining this movement will build no bridge back home; even the footage bereft of spectacle will make you feel like a foreigner in a new land.
The concert is amazing too – warts and all. It’s an interesting song set (surprising to not see Coin-Operated Boy, though a different live performance is included in the extras), mostly for the covers and surprises. A love song to the person who just interviewed you before you took the stage, cutting away to the audience to film his reaction (Christopher Lydon)? Covers of Black Sabbath & Carole King (Pierre, with lyrics from the Maurice Sendak Children’s book)? It is the beauty of the Dresden Dolls, that they take inspiration from such unlikely locales and are adept at turning them into something immediately relevant.
This, to explain how I could sit on Dresden Dolls: Paradise for several months before bothering to watch it. Despite my Amanda Palmer shrine, screen saver, and perhaps someday: a framed restraining order. Chalk it up to a lack of time: I could make a second career from watching her YouTube videos or keeping up on her blog. Amanda has taken the fast track to rock worship despite my – I like to think – pretentiously high standard for what does and doesn’t sound good.
Whether solo or with the Dresden Dolls, Amanda embraces art in process - separating this DVD from so many others. She’s riding a bike where the visual and the auditory are pedals kept in constant motion, creating an effect of over-stimulation. Since there is no competing market for ‘punk cabaret’, the Dresden Dolls have created a new universe all to themselves, and you are invited to watch how they want to populate it, what natural laws they want to govern it, and no – they aren’t going to demystify it, because this is their world now. Even the attempts to show the drudgery of maintaining this movement will build no bridge back home; even the footage bereft of spectacle will make you feel like a foreigner in a new land.
The concert is amazing too – warts and all. It’s an interesting song set (surprising to not see Coin-Operated Boy, though a different live performance is included in the extras), mostly for the covers and surprises. A love song to the person who just interviewed you before you took the stage, cutting away to the audience to film his reaction (Christopher Lydon)? Covers of Black Sabbath & Carole King (Pierre, with lyrics from the Maurice Sendak Children’s book)? It is the beauty of the Dresden Dolls, that they take inspiration from such unlikely locales and are adept at turning them into something immediately relevant.
2 comments:
I was always more of a Laura Palmer fan than Amanda, although we're talking two totally different Palmer's. I can barely get to a live concert much less go out, buy a DVD, bring it home, and WATCH a live concert on my TV. That sounds like a lot of work. Kudos to you for prevailing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE6UOHJcyjE
I had to think of Oren when I saw this...and Amanda's all over it: I think her first solo release is going to be called "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?"
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