From: owner-ecto-digest To: ecto-digest@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto-digest V2 #370 Reply-To: ecto@nsmx.rutgers.edu Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Saturday, 3 February 1996 Volume 02 : Number 370 The Ecto digest is now being generated automatically. Please send problems and questions to: ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kerry White Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 00:30:49 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( Hello, On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, Neil K. wrote: > >SEATTLE--Rock icon Courtney Love, widow of Kurt Cobain, held a press > >conference this afternoon to denounce a song allegedly written about her > >by the singer Tori Amos. > >Love then produced the suicide note of her late husband and read alouda > >section which seemed to implicate Amos' rendition of the Nirvana song > >"Smells Like Teen Spirit" as the primary reason for Cobain's suicide. This article make no specific mention of "...the song allegedly written about her..". Did CL call a press conf. w/ subject given as the song about her and then only speak of Tori's rendition of Smells? Did Tori's rendition, that only underscored how good a poem it was, mean *so* much more than all the other troubles in his life? Why didn't NYT quote the section? "seemed to indicate" tells us nothing! KrW Commit senseless acts of kindness, and random acts of beauty! ------------------------------ From: gzverev@RPC.glas.apc.org (Russian Privatization Center) Date: Fri, 02 Feb 96 10:21:03 Subject: Re: Japanese on Ecto - watashi va Gleb desu > Now that he got your attention - can anyone tell me what the heck he > said? > > Laura 'Is it Laura?' or something like that. >>Oh boy, are we going to start speaking Japanese on ecto now? Rekordo wa >>ikura desu ka? Ima nanji desu ka? :) >> >>--Sue Trowbridge How much this record? What time is it? Skolko stoit eta plastinka? Kotoryj chas? (in russian) Gleb ------------------------------ From: chocolate covered damond Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 00:38:20 -0800 Subject: Re: Japanese on Ecto - watashi va Gleb desu >> Now that he got your attention - can anyone tell me what the heck he >> said? >> >> Laura > >'Is it Laura?' or something like that. actually 'anata wa laura desu' means literally 'you are laura'. if there were a 'ka' on the end it'd be a question, 'are you laura?' damon, the guy who took japanese for a few years but then decided he didn't like the asian department here at ubc _/\_ damon_harper@mindlink.bc.ca __\ /__ "Life is pain, Highness. Vancouver, BC, Canada \ / Anyone who says differently http://www.dfw.net... |/||\| is selling something." .../~soulmate/damon/paukarut.html - from The Princess Bride ------------------------------ From: NyxNight@aol.com Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 03:45:05 -0500 Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( In a message dated 96-02-02 01:42:44 EST, zzkwhite@ktwu.wuacc.edu (Kerry White) writes: > This article make no specific mention of "...the song allegedly written >about her..". I believe she's referring to "Professional Widow". The rumor is that said song is about Courtney Love. Unfortunately, none of the critics who claimed this bothered to ask Tori whether or not the song is about Courtney. Tori says it's not. That's enough for me. - -Ariel ------------------------------ From: Kerry White Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 03:09:35 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( Hello, On Fri, 2 Feb 1996 NyxNight@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 96-02-02 01:42:44 EST, zzkwhite@ktwu.wuacc.edu (Kerry > White) writes: > > > This article make no specific mention of "...the song allegedly written > >about her..". > > I believe she's referring to "Professional Widow". The rumor is that said > song is about Courtney Love. Unfortunately, none of the critics who claimed > this bothered to ask Tori whether or not the song is about Courtney. Tori > says it's not. That's enough for me. > > -Ariel I did not make myself clear: altho' *I* know the song, I questioned why NYT did not memtion it in the article. *Was* it brought up at that press conf? Does CL see herself as fitting the "Lady Macbeth Syndrome"? Has anyone told her how little sense both her claims make? Why didn't NYT quote the section of the note that CL read? Why do I ask all these questions? What is reality? KrW KNOCK,KNOCK "Who is it?" "It's not the cake!" "Come in." EEEEK!! ------------------------------ From: Don HARLOW Date: Fri, 02 Feb 96 01:23:00 -0800 Subject: My take on the BfP pics. (weird) HI everyone, it's 1:15 in the morning, I haven't done my homework yet, and I have 2 tests tomorrow. Life of a high schooler for ya. So I was just sitting here writing some essays and lsitening to Boys for Pele, and a new idea popped into my head about the pictures in the booklet. And I'm pretending that I havn't seen any of the other interpretations, this is the sort of objective interpretation a stranger to tori might make. :) (US) Reconstruction (1865-1877). The front: Tori is a white cracker poor farmer who has to slog through soggy georgia marshes (Ok, so I don't know what a georgia marsh is like). thus, the mud, gun, etc. 2nd pic, kids in barn: poor starving kids because she didn't have enough money to feed her children. 3rd, half cloudy/half bright sky: the end of the war is coming. 4th, feeding the piglet: the mom pig died and they have to keep this pig growing so when it's full grown they can have some bacon, and they'll do anything ot keep it alive. 5th, mattress by pasture: pasture belongs to some rich planters and that's one of their discarded beds (like, their waste) (Ok, so it's a modern interp :) like the new Richard III movie) that she's sitting on, resenting them because they're rich enough to throw out a whole bed. 6th, pool reflection of burning piano: the burning of atlanta, the almost-end of war, the south "sinking to its knees" (to quote Rhett butler/margaret mitchell) 7th, Tori in front of burning piano: crackers emerging form the burning/end of the south to become 'scalawags' 8th, tori in carriage: her cracker persona is now rich thanks to the abolitioning northerners (I'm drawing strongly from 'gone with the wind' here...remember the Slattereys?) Ok, well that's baout it....I better go...sorry to waste so much bandwidth... Esther (tired) ------------------------------ From: anthony@xymox.apana.org.au (Anthony Horan) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 96 19:54:54 EST Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( Sue Trowbridge wrote: >I heard that Tori was in tears during her Saturday Night Live rehearsal >because she was so upset about the Rolling Stone review of BFP. Apparently >she is tremendously down in the dumps about the beating the album has been >taking in the press at the hands of a few ignorant music critics. How >awful! Since BFP is debuting at #2 on next week's Billboard album chart, >I hope she is confident that her *fans* still love her, and that's all >that matters. If the Rolling Stone interview brought her to tears, imagine what the New Musical Express review would have done. "She's not one of us. She's one of the useless." Idiot. That's sinking to new depths even by the turgid standards of the NME. If I was that reviewer's editor, he'd be fired by now, regardless of whether I liked Tori's music or not. And then the next week they run one of their sucky little stories where they pretend to be taking her seriously but actually spend the entire article sending her up. (A feature in which, incidentally, she is more open about her life than I've seen her be in a long time). Tori should take comfort in the fact that these poor excuses for humanity that pass themselves off as "controversial" music writers are very rare (well, outside of London they are, anyway :-) and their opinions, in the end, are no more valid than anyone else's. Unlike them, though, we *listen* to records before passing judgement. My first couple of listens to "Boys For Pele" had me worried - could Tori have lost her gift somewhere along the tortuous road experience? She hasn't, of course. "Boys For Pele" clicked with me somewhere during the fourth playing; but the thing is, every time I hear it, I hear more in it, more musical nuances and counter-melodies, more lyrical depth, more emotion. And as my Anglophile housemate puts it, if the NME cans your record, you know you've done something right. :) - - Anthony > >On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, paul angelosanto wrote: > >> Anata wa Laura-san desu > >Oh boy, are we going to start speaking Japanese on ecto now? Rekordo wa >ikura desu ka? Ima nanji desu ka? :) > >--Sue Trowbridge - -- - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony Horan, Melbourne Australia - anthony@xymox.apana.org.au http://daemon.apana.org.au/~anthony/ Physical mail: P.O. Box 40, Malvern 3144, Victoria, Australia "The red sky was bleeding glimpses of heaven, in sections of seven..." - Rose Chronicles reaching lyrical perfection on "Awaiting Eternity" - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: anthony@xymox.apana.org.au (Anthony Horan) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 96 20:30:13 EST Subject: Re: Tori's Chicago Radio Appearance >Oh yeah.. I picked up my own copy of BfP this weekend - my first listen to it >- the word that came to my mind first and formost was *OWCH!* them's >some pretty big wounds there girlfriend!!!. I think it's brilliant. and >yes.. a departure from her previous work. But the *way* she sings....the >emotion... is so very very very raw and painful. maaaaan.... especially on >"Hey Jupiter" and "Blood Roses".... different vocal effects in places made >her voice sound very un-Tori like. (maybe less compression). Tori's voice has, for this album, been EQ'd very strangely - lots of midrange, a brittle top end, and almost no bottom at all. At times, too, there's very little effects processing going on at all. It's quite alarming when you first listen to the album, but the effect seems to be to try and bring the vocal "closer". Full marks to Bob Ludwig, who masterd the album, for not applying too much compression - heavy compression is the norm for most pop records these days, and it wouldn't have suited this album at all. This is also another reason why I do not recommend anyone buy or listen to this album on cassette. "Boys For Pele" appears to be a digital recording. Whether it is or not, I'm glad the wall of tape noise that was all over "Under The Pink" has been taken note of. :-) - - Anthony - -- - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony Horan, Melbourne Australia - anthony@xymox.apana.org.au http://daemon.apana.org.au/~anthony/ Physical mail: P.O. Box 40, Malvern 3144, Victoria, Australia "The red sky was bleeding glimpses of heaven, in sections of seven..." - Rose Chronicles reaching lyrical perfection on "Awaiting Eternity" - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Michael Bowman Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 08:21:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( I looked in my copy of the New York Times for the day in question but couldn't find this article at all. Of course I get the national edition not the local. Can anyone in the NY area confirm that this article actually appeared in the Times? Michael Bowman bvmi@odin.cc.pdx.edu ------------------------------ From: Neile Graham Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 08:22:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( About this whole Courtney Love blaming Tori press conference thing--I think it's weird that here in Seattle we haven't heard boo about it, and Courtney is big news here. There was a little piece about her carting Kurt's ashes around the world in a teddy bear, but that's it. Has anyone actually seen a copy of this article?? - --Neile ------------------------------ From: VNozick@tribune.com Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:28:40 -0600 Subject: Re[2]: Sad Tori news :( I'm starting to question this story, too. I did a search on the wire service here at work (KRT) for any mention of it, and didn't come up with a single item. Seems pretty strange, considering that it involves two high profile people. Has anyone looked at the NY Times online? ==> Valerie _______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( From: Michael Bowman at Internet_tco Date: 2/2/96 8:21 AM I looked in my copy of the New York Times for the day in question but couldn't find this article at all. Of course I get the national edition not the local. Can anyone in the NY area confirm that this article actually appeared in the Times? Michael Bowman bvmi@odin.cc.pdx.edu ------------------------------ From: "Joseph Zitt" Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:29:02 +0000 Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( On 2 Feb 96 at 19:54, Anthony Horan wrote: > If the Rolling Stone interview brought her to tears, imagine what the New > Musical Express review would have done. "She's not one of us. She's one of > the useless." Idiot. That's sinking to new depths even by the turgid > standards of the NME. If I was that reviewer's editor, he'd be fired by now, > regardless of whether I liked Tori's music or not. And now hotwired's slammed her too, in an artcile blurbed "Toxic Tori": L et's begin with a tour of the confessional grrl-rock Hall of Fame. In the newly expanded sound-bite exhibit, the Tori Amos plaque hangs somewhere near those dedicated to Liz Phair ("I want to be your blowjob queen") and Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hannah ("It's hard to talk with your dick in my mouth"). With lines like, "So you can make me come/That doesn't make you Jesus," Amos always seemed to plumb her secret life for material - even before every Alanis-six-pack was marketing female rage. On 1992's Little Earthquakes and 1994's Under the Pink, this classically trained minister's daughter came off as an inner-child prodigy, reexamining victimhood, powerlessness, and youthful shame through adulthood's corrective lens. If lyrics like, "God, you need a woman to look after you," seemed canned, her operatic wail lended them an aura of authenticity. And although she lacked even Courtney Love's talent for making the personal political, she got bonus points for using her piano bench as a sex toy during concerts. On Boys for Pele, though, Amos slips into self-parody. The entirely self-produced album overindulges every one of her trademark gestures - highly mannered vocals [260Kbytes .aiff], musical non sequiturs [260Kbytes .aiff], and loose, rambling song structures - until they become cartoonish in proportion. The album is "inspired by my relationships with men," she says in her record company bio, but the only "revelation" on Boys for Pele is that men are from Mars, and women are from Venus. Amos used to show a flair for writing eerily potent, elliptical lyrics (see Pink's "Cornflake Girl"), but now she mostly whispers sweet nothings like, "Talula, you little Fig Newton." Worst of all, she reaches a nadir of tell-all songwriting on "Blood Roses," admitting, "I shave every place that you've been." Talk about razor burn. By Sia Michel - ---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------- |||/ Joseph Zitt ==== jzitt@humansystems.com ===== Human Systems \||| ||/ Organizer, SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List \|| |/Joe Zitt's Home Page\| ------------------------------ From: Sue Trowbridge Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 13:37:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( On Fri, 2 Feb 1996, Michael Bowman wrote: > I looked in my copy of the New York Times for the day in question but > couldn't find this article at all. Of course I get the national edition > not the local. Can anyone in the NY area confirm that this article > actually appeared in the Times? For what it's worth, my husband (a journalist himself, with an excellent b.s. detector) looked at the article and pronounced it "completely bogus." For one thing, he says the NYTimes would never quote such an obscenity- laden sentence ("If [Tori Amos] ever comes near me again, or is ever invited to the MTV Music Awards again, I'm going to ____ her up the ____ with a _____ and a plastic _____ attached to an electric ____.") As a piece of satire, it's pretty funny, though. I particularly like the bits about Love "sporting rows of bandages on both arms" after emerging from rehab (quite plausible actually!) and her prompting Frances Bean to say "I hate Tori." Please guys, let's not start any rumors or Courtney will come over from AOL and beat us all up. :) - --Sue Trowbridge ------------------------------ From: athol-brose Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 14:54:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Re[2]: Sad Tori news :( > Has anyone looked at the NY Times online? Yeah. It's not there. Article looks bogus, by all evidence. (Consciously trying to remember to redirect this to ecto... sigh.) - -- r. n. dominick -- cinnamon@one.net -- http://w3.one.net/~cinnamon/ ------------------------------ From: "Chad E. Lundgren" Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 15:19:13 -0600 Subject: I just saw Poe! 'Lo all, Earlier in the week, I won Lenny Kravitz tickets through the local alternative radio station. For some strange reason, I thought that the band PAW was opening for him. Since my brother saw them a couple of years ago and came back with an unfavorable impression. I wasn't in a hurry to make the concert on time. When I was corrected and found out the opener was Poe, not PAW, I was still not prompted to get my butt in gear. I arrived at the concert at 8:05pm to a concert scheduled to begin at 8. The opening set was in progress and as I heard a female voice a 2000 lb. acme (tm) anvil levelled my head. Oh yeeeaahh. Now I remember. I saw mention of Poe on Ecto. I then hurried to my seat to check out the rest of their set. Needless to say, I was impressed; and a little surprised to find out that they'd been getting airplay locally and that I just hadn't connected the band to the song I've been hearing. The song was, I believe, called "Psycho". I like this song. The set was very good. I will be checking out their album. As for Lenny, he put on a great show. I listen to the critics call him "derivitive". THey say he's a knock off of Hendrix, Zeppellin, the Who...I kinda think that most conventional rock and roll has roots in someone else's "original" sound. Plus, if the music's good, who cares? I like his music. That's all that matters to me regardless of originality. Unconventional music doesn't automatically become good music to me just because there's nothing like it out there. Well, I gotta fly. I've got to get ready for next week's Jewel concert. Yeah, I know it's a week off, but it's best to be prepared. Later. Chad ------------------------------ From: maeldun@i-2000.com (Michael Doyle) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 96 18:27:35 EST Subject: Re: I just saw Poe! At 03:19 PM 2/2/96 -0600, Chad E. Lundgren wrote: >'Lo all, > > Earlier in the week, I won Lenny Kravitz tickets through the local >alternative radio station. Lucky twice! For winning and for seeing Poe. (The upcoming NYC Kravitz/Poe show is sold out.) > The song was, I believe, called "Psycho". "Trigger Happy Jack" actually. I just picked up a CD copy for myself the other day. (The first copy I had I gave to someone who *really* liked "Trigger Happy Jack.") - - Mike Michael Doyle maeldun@i-2000.com =================================================================== "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes" - - Alexander the Great ------------------------------ From: neilg@sfu.ca (Neil K.) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 16:18:38 -0700 Subject: Re: Sad Tori news :( Well sorry if the story turned out to be a hoax. I probably should have checked to see if there was any truth in it, as it did seem unlikely. But as I noted in my original post I couldn't really be bothered to spend hours fact-checking, so... - Neil (have I unwittingly helped spread another infovirus?) K. - -- Neil K. Guy * neilg@sfu.ca * tela@tela.bc.ca 49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada ------------------------------ From: chocolate covered damond Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 18:22:22 -0800 Subject: tori frownies is it just me, or does anyone else have the feeling that all those frowning emoticons from the reduplicated "sad tori news" subject lines are staring at them? :) damon, interjecting a random, silly thought. _/\_ damon_harper@mindlink.bc.ca __\ /__ "Life is pain, Highness. Vancouver, BC, Canada \ / Anyone who says differently http://www.dfw.net... |/||\| is selling something." .../~soulmate/damon/paukarut.html - from The Princess Bride ------------------------------ From: Mike Matthews Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 00:15:07 -0500 Subject: Today's your birthday, friend... i*i*i*i*i*i i*i*i*i*i*i *************** *****HAPPY********* **************BIRTHDAY********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ******************* Timothy S. Devine (menion@epix.net) ******************* *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Timothy S. Devine Tue February 03 1970 Aquarius Stephen Thomas Fri February 04 1966 Aquarius Doug Burks Tue February 14 1956 Blank Jim Sturnfield Thu February 18 1954 Aquarius Juha Kannisto Wed February 18 1970 Aquarius Linda Saboe Tue February 20 1951 aimless Michael Curry Fri February 24 1967 Pisces Paula Shanks Mon February 25 1952 Pisces Brni Mojzes Fri February 26 1965 the vanishing boy Pamela Pociluk Fri February 28 1964 Pisces - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ From: "Deep Space" Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 00:54:01 +0000 Subject: Diverse Airs On Sundry Notions Having reached the not quite mystical age of forty-nine, I felt wont to send ecto a little message. As an elder statesman on this list, I wish once again to thank everyone here for making ecto such a fuzzy blue wonder. Still flame retardant after all these years; who'da thunk it? Bless you all. At this juncture, my son Richard bought home the new Tori album today. In a word: Wow. I think it will take a few hearings to sink in, but it may be the best work she's done! I loved everything I heard. I am reminded of a scen in Waiting for Godot in which Vladimir and Estragon, bored from waiting, begin to attack each other with words. They take turns calling each other names, and the scene builds up until one of them hurls the ultimate insult at the other: "Critic!" and the game is over. I read the RS review and the local paper's review of BfP. Because the reviewers were unable to literally understand the words, the blew off the album. Mindboggling. Anyway, I think it's wonderful. In other music news, my first rehearsal for the new band is tomorrow. I am very excited and I kinda feel young again. I guess staying in practice was a good thing to do. I am still pinching myself. In closing, I remember Happy coming to town about a year ago for the concerts at the Middle East. Kevin mentions they will try to tour more for the upcoming album, so we have hope that more of us will get to see this amazing talent(s) performing live. I'm very fortunate to say that I know them personally, and the only thing greater than their talent is their kindness and generosity. Hugs to them, hugs to you, hugs to Tori, extended middle fingers to the critics, and Happy Groundhogs Day to all, and to all a good night. Robert, on the occasion of age 49... ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V2 #370 ************************** ======================================================================== Please send any questions or comments about the list to ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu