Notes on the Dresden Dolls-Aberdeen City connection
By JIM SULLIVAN | August 7, 2007
VIDEO: The Dresden Dolls, "Shores of California"
The DRESDEN DOLLS played Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” tour this summer. They released a DVD, Live at the Roundhouse, London. And just when you thought singer/pianist Amanda Palmer was finally back in Nashville, working on her solo debut with Ben Folds, she pops up on July 26 playing five new songs with alt-rockers ABERDEEN CITY at the Middle East upstairs. Does this mean Ab City may be on the new disc? “I am still in la-la land about what is actually going to be on the record,” says Palmer, “but anything’s possible at this point. Hearing my music played with guitars is a totally wonderful mind fuck. I love the guys in the band so much that the most fun part of the process was rehearsing. Sweaty rehearsal spaces in Allston! Amps! Miller Time! Amazing.” Dolls drummer Brian Viglione — in heels, dress, and wig and playing acoustic guitar, closed the Cambridge set with Palmer on “Mein Herr” from Cabaret. (Various combinations of musicians also covered Avril Lavigne’s “Together,” Magnetic Fields’ “Take Ecstasy with Me” and Prince’s “Kiss.”) As for the new songs, there was the kind of tension and release you’d expect from Palmer, but, at least with Ab City as a backing band, this was not Dolls-like punk cabaret or piano balladry — more rock and roll. None of which tells us how they’ll come out in her collaboration with Ben Folds. Currently — through August 18 — Palmer is in the midst of solo gigs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Brad San Martin wrote and played guitar in OKAY THURSDAY for two years. When the Boston quartet split, San Martin, drummer Rebecca Mitchell, and bassist Clint Reeves continued as ONE HAPPY ISLAND, and they’ve just released a homonymous EP, with the aim of creating, as San Martin writes us, “humble, hummable pop songs.” The trio play P.A.’s Lounge August 16 and T.T. the Bear’s Place September 27.
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All dolled up, Growing pains, Boston muisc news: April 13, 2007, More 
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Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991, Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, Songwriters on Songwriting, and more.
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Local cabaret-punk duo the Dresden Dolls are unveiling a multimedia spectacular called “F#%k the Back Row” at the Brattle Theatre this Sunday. Watch the trailer for Unearth's "Giles" (QuickTime)
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The Dresden Dolls have been crazy busy since the release, earlier this year, of Yes, Virginia (Roadrunner), and their autumn itinerary ensures they’ll be applying the pancake make-up well into winter.
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So it’s the eve of the release of local sensation and Dresden Dolls vocalist/pianist Amanda Palmer’s solo debut album, and I’m sitting in her bric-a-brac-filled South End apartment drinking herbal tea.
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There are tears but no onions in The Onion Cellar. But who needs emotionally catalytic root vegetables when you have the Dresden Dolls?
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Last night, Amanda Palmer kicked off this season of the Boston Pops EdgeFest.
- Crying game
The Onion Cellar that Amanda Palmer envisioned is not the one that the ART will present at Zero Arrow Theatre.
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The first thing you’d have noticed about the Dresden Dolls’ CD-release show at the Orpheum April 21 was how different it felt to be seated in a theater while the duo played.
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New England Music News
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, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Dresden Dolls, Avril Lavigne, Cyndi Lauper, Brian Viglione, Ben Folds, Rebecca Mitchell, Less
