On Friday, we posted a guest post from singer Amanda Palmer, all about her thoughts on connecting with fans. If you didn’t get a chance to read the whole thing, at the end she included a music video that she did. However, the story behind that music video is so good that it deserves a separate post of its own. We already know that Amanda has been a big fan of using Twitter to reach out to fans, and she did exactly that in this case — but not to film a video. Just to hold an impromptu “flash gig” on the beach with two days’ notice. Cool idea. Other bands should try that as well.
And then… one of her fans suggested the morning of the gig that she learn this song by Cat Stevens. So she did. And she went to the beach and a bunch of her fans showed up and she played some music and everyone was happy. And then they realized that the setting was great to film a music video. One of the people there was Danna Kinsky, who hardly knew Amanda, but is a filmmaker, and had her camera. Another person there was Lindsey Barnes, a photographer, who agreed to shoot some photos of the group. And, with the help of Kirsten Vangsness to corral and organize people, they created an impromptu music video…
The whole thing was thought up, organized and completed in 20 minutes. There was some after the fact editing and sound work, which appears to have taken a few weeks, but the end result is really amazing. It’s a better music video than an awful lot of expensive professional music videos… and it was a spur of the moment thing. As the video notes at the end, musicians shouldn’t fear Twitter, but learn to embrace it:
It’s really an amazing example of what you can do by connecting with fans. We’re so thrilled that Amanda is taking part in our CwF + RtB experiment, that this week’s special promo is that you can just buy her book and CD by itself (the book is signed by both Amanda and Neil Gaiman), or for a little bit more, you can also buy the whole Techdirt Music Club and get a bunch of other stuff as well. If you just want the Amanda Palmer stuff separate from The Music Club, it’s only available until midnight August 10th, so don’t miss out…
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