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Palmer’s Pay-Per-Hug Hot Button
Palmer is touring in support of her album Theatre is Evil. The tour, along with her latest recording, were launched by a Kickstarter campaign that raised $1.2 million in contributions from fans. Most of the money went into the recording, Palmer said.
She is touring with musicians dubbed the Grand Theft Orchestra, but the horn section is made up of de-facto volunteers.
“Every night we’re going to have this circus of local musicians,” Palmer told Pollstar prior to the tour. “We’re emailing all of the charts and they’re only going to have an hour to rehearse. Then that’s it. We’re going to throw them onstage with us and we’re going to mic them up.”
The musicians were recruited via her website:
“Wanted: Horn-y and string-y volunteers for the Grand Theft Orchestra Tour!!!!” it read. “We will feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch and thank you mightily for adding to the big noise we are planning to make.”
It’s common for local musicians – the kind that play electric guitar or bass and, with a drummer friend, are forced to do “Mustang Sally” at the local bar – to be paid in beer and a little cash for five hours of play. That’s not necessarily the case for saxophonists and violinists, who tend to belong to unions.
So began the backlash, with musicians blasting her on the Internet.
“If there’s a need for the musician to be on the stage, then there ought to be compensation for it,” Raymond Hair Jr., president of the American Federation of Musicians, told the Los Angeles Times. “Playing is work, and there’s a value associated with it, and that value ought to be respected.”
Palmer told the Times that she supported paying touring artists, but extra musicians on the tour would cost $35,000. And she rejected the criticism.
“If you could see the enthusiasm of these people, the argument would become invalid,” she told the paper. “They’re all incredibly happy to be here.”
Recording engineer Steve Albini wasn’t supportive, blogging that Palmer wasn’t so smart.
“[If] you are forced by your ignorance into pleading for donations and charity work, you are then publicly admitting you are an idiot,” he said, “and demonstrably not as good at your profession as Jandek, Moondog, GG Allin, every band ever to go on tour without a slush fund or the kids who play on buckets downtown.”
Tour dates are lined up through mid-November.