From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V3 #261 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Tuesday, July 21 1998 Volume 03 : Number 261 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Tori on Jeopardy! [Tripp Gwyn ] Extra Tix- Philly & Richmond [April Maute ] boots [BHaak3@aol.com] Q Magazine tomorrow... [brainbir@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Ben)] name names everywhere III [Bobdel123@aol.com] Rosie O'Donnell ["Jungalikamane Hala" ] Sirens [HopelsDrmr@aol.com] little earthquakes tape ? [FireSpyrit@aol.com] tori in scene [Inuit97@aol.com] Meet and Greet [Dan Ryan ] Tori in Massachusetts ["heliotrope 27" ] meet and greet pics up [roller girl ] landslide [ToriBoi@aol.com] Re: onyx ring [Carrie-Ellen ] Tori on the radio [the Mermaid ] Toronto concert ["Luna 17" ] tori trades .... again.. [muscare@mdp.edu.ar] FS: 2 Tori UK CD-5s [ben ] Tori's double voices [GLWNGFMNST@aol.com] question about meeting tori...please help :-) [Estrella45@aol.com] Unique Tori [HopelsDrmr@aol.com] Live Tori Stuff ["Toriieee (raven)" ] Tori Amos in Q Magazine [brainbir@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Ben)] Meet and Greet Answers!! (fwd) [Michael Curry ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:42:27 -0400 From: Tripp Gwyn Subject: Tori on Jeopardy! I don't know if this episode was re-run or not, but anyways, on Jeopardy tonight one of the answers was Her 1988 debut-album was titled Y KANT TORI READ. Of course the answer was TORI AMOS. I kind of thought it was funny that they dug that up. I thought if there was a Tori question it would deal with LE. I wonder what Tori thinks of this. She is making her mark on history. Tripp Gwyn tgwyn@infoave.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:30:40 -0700 (PDT) From: April Maute Subject: Extra Tix- Philly & Richmond Hey everybody! I'm in need of some serious help. I have two extra tickets for the Philly show (Wednesday 7/29) AND two for the Richmond show (Tuesday 8/11). The ones for Philly are in Section 36, Row 9 and in Richmond are in Orchestra AA. I paid $73.60 for the Philly tix and about $63 for the Richmond tix, and won't be able to use either pair. If there is any nice soul who can rescue me (best offer goes) I would be grateful enough to throw in a custom Tori video compliation (I have almost everything from 1992 on...) Thanks and have a great time at the shows!! April _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 20:12:02 EDT From: BHaak3@aol.com Subject: boots I'd like to hear from anyone who has attempted to record a tori show. What was the quality of the tape, were you succesful? What tips would you have? Please e-mail me privately. Thanks! Brenda ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 11:51:56 +1000 (EST) From: brainbir@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Ben) Subject: Q Magazine tomorrow... I will put the Q magazine interview up tomorrow then. Sorry I couldn't do it today but I don't have much spare time! Ben ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 23:31:56 EDT From: Bobdel123@aol.com Subject: name names everywhere III okay here we go again who is: ginger phoege lucy superfly thanks again and sorry once more bob snow can wait i forgot my mittens ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 21:06:03 PDT From: "Jungalikamane Hala" Subject: Rosie O'Donnell Hi everyone, I'm new to the list...but who cares :) I was just wondering if Tori was ever on the Rosie O Donnell show or if she will be on anytime soon Thanx, Jamie ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 14:46:07 EDT From: HopelsDrmr@aol.com Subject: Sirens has anyone heard it live, or have it taped live? I would love to hear it. I don't think she sang it live yet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 14:42:05 EDT From: FireSpyrit@aol.com Subject: little earthquakes tape ? hey does anyone own LE on tape? just wondering because right after Happy Phantom there is this long break, and i turned my stereo WAY up and you can hear Tori singing in the background. It's very hard to make out. A hidden song maybe?? jes ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 13:30:01 EDT From: Inuit97@aol.com Subject: tori in scene since tori's going to be in cleveland tomorrow, northeastern ohio's music 'magazine'.....scene.....is featuring her on the fron cover....the article is good, but nothing we've never seen before....i picked up a few extra copies and if anyone not in the ohio area would like one...just email me =) britta ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 10:38:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Dan Ryan Subject: Meet and Greet Can someone post to the list info abouut the meet and greets at the concerts, ie. what time they happen and so on. There are alot of people on the list that would like to know about these. Thanks alot. Daniel ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 23:15:23 -0700 From: "heliotrope 27" Subject: Tori in Massachusetts If anyone has extra ticket(s) for Tori's Boston and/or Springfield shows at the beginning of August, please email me privately. Ideally, I would like two tickets for the Boston show (I need good seats, but who doesn't?!), but I'd consider a single ticket for either show. Thanks so much! Free web-based email, Forever, From anywhere! http://www.mailexcite.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 22:30:39 -0500 From: roller girl Subject: meet and greet pics up hi guys, i've got the minneapolis and ames meet and greet pics that i took up (: they are at http://members.xoom.com/notsosoft/tori/m&g.html if you or anyone you know is in them, let me know so i can attach some names (: .ally. we nego t iate with c h a o s for some sense of satisfaction ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 21:31:19 EDT From: ToriBoi@aol.com Subject: landslide I was listening to a copy of Tori's rendition of this song tonight, a friend of mine made a tape for me last year of a bunch of stuff that I still dont' have... I think this particular version is from TORI STORIES... before she sings it she says "i like to play this sometimes when i'm sad, it doesn't mean i'm sad, i just like to be sad sometimes..." anyway, it's breathtaking... i've heard her do it once before back in 1996 at the Roanoke show, and i've listened to this tape over and over again, but tonight, it really touched me... My point is, for those of you who have live recordings/boots containing this song, which one would you say has the best version, both recording and quality wise, and performance on Tori's end also.... I'd like to buy a boot with this on it... THANKS Joey ToriBoi@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 23:50:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Carrie-Ellen Subject: Re: onyx ring I think its the one a fan gave her... |\ .(' *) ' . Carrie-Ellen Batcheller | \ ' .*) .'* UNH Babcock Hall BOX 2110 |(*\ .*(// .*) . Durham NH 03824 |___\ // (. '* ((("'\ // ' * . Starfire's Circle: ((c'7') /\) http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/9523 ((((^)) / \ Tori Amos Trade Page: .-')))(((-' / /9523/tori.html (((()) __/' )))( | Des' Page: (()http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/6580/des.htm ( __ * __ |\ /| /\ / _` | / ` | ` | /~~\ \__/ | \__/ __ __ __ __ | |__| /\ |__) |__) |_ |\ | /__` | | | /~~\ | | |__ | \| .__/ | * ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 08:47:06 -0500 (CDT) From: the Mermaid Subject: Tori on the radio Just wanted to pass along that Tori got a mention on the radio this morning. I *think* it's 94.7 (the one w/JB&Sandy in the morning) in Austin TX (it's whatever my clock radio is set at), and they were doing their morning news update, and it was mentioned about Tori liking shoes, and how men walk on the cuddly side of the street cus our shoes are so much cuter than theirs; that shoes are an important piece of architecture, and she's got shoes that haven't ever left her bedroom. Sorry I can't remember it verbatim, but it was 6:30am :\ Jen Frediani and Alyxa! 21 Sept 97 velvet@khazad-dum.ccsi.com http://www.cname.com/~lestat/velvet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 13:00:24 PDT From: "Luna 17" Subject: Toronto concert my girlfriend is going to the Toronto concert, and I was wondering if anyone knew things about the meet and greet for that particular show, and other sneaky things like that, since I live nowhere near Canada and I have no idea what to tell her. It's her first Tori concert and I really want it to be special for her 'cause she means the world and then some to me and she's been having such a hard time lately. So any help at all would be appreciated, you can just email me privately, 'kay? Thank you so so very much... love, leanan ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 18:14:25 -0300 From: muscare@mdp.edu.ar Subject: tori trades .... again.. hi people! i sent a message asking for trades on toris new tour and i got a few replies but i lost them ... i just got the messages but no the emails addresses so i sent a reply to some people that sent me an URL but no the the others .. im so sorry.. so please anyone how wanna do some trades please get me back here and at this address lacasona@overnet.com.ar thanks!!! nicolas ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 15:27:50 -0500 (CDT) From: ben Subject: FS: 2 Tori UK CD-5s I have one of each of the following for sale, first come first serve. 1. "Talula (Tornado Mix)" - CD-5 UK 3 tracks - $5 2. "Caught a Lite Sneeze" - CD-5 UK 5 tracks - $5 shipping: $1 for first CD, $.50 additionals. - -ben - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ the cycle of words ever said is complete when they become untrue. - -mp - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 12:04:36 EDT From: GLWNGFMNST@aol.com Subject: Tori's double voices Halo everyone. I've been a Tori fan for almost seven years and have finally come to the conclusion that my favorite part of many of her songs are when she sings two parts, such as the normal chorus, and then in the backround another part, quieter. When she sings like this it builds up so much energy and excitment, and it just empowers me. Songs such as Spark, God, and Talula to name a few do this sort of voice doubling. I was wondering if any of you had ever taken the time to dissect what she sings in the smaller, quieter voice. I would really love to hear what everyones take on this is. IF anyone knows what she says, or thinks they might know, please let me know. Not just for the three songs i've mentioned, but for all of her songs that do this. I have never seen this topic posted to the list before. If interset on this topic is picked up by the rest of the group, than possibly you can post to the entire list. We'll have to wait and see. Thank you all. ***faerie kisses**** Sadrah - - Founder of APO, the anti penis organization. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 05:53:19 EDT From: Estrella45@aol.com Subject: question about meeting tori...please help :-) hey everybody...excuse me if i sound extremely ignorant in this message :-)... i'm going to see tori at the opry in nashville, and because of unfortunate circumstances surrounding my life in '96, this will be my first tori show (and my only one on this tour---i'm so EXCITED!). anyway, i read all those DDI reviews in '96 and recently i've been reading many reviews of her latest Plugged shows, and of course they talk about meeting tori, so i'm anxious to have this chance too! so...i would really appreciate it if someone would e-mail me and tell me everything i need to know about meet 'n greets/backstage/whatever/etc. how early do you need to show up, where, will security scream at you, etc?... even if i only have a few seconds, i want to tell tori how much her music means to me and how much it has done for me in the past few years...and...just to thank her for her contributions...(and an autograph wouldn't hurt either )... so if anyone would please give me some information about how i could meet her at this concert, i would GREATLY appreciate it. thanks, estrella45@aol.com (p.s. sorry if this has already recently been answered on this list, but i've been having problems with my e-mail account lately and had to resubscribe to a few tori lists!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 15:22:26 EDT From: HopelsDrmr@aol.com Subject: Unique Tori Well, hello. it has been three weeks since my sight has been up. Well here are the quicklinks again. to go to the mainpage of the site please click below noTORIous_Amos If you are interested in the Tori Amos Auctions, portions donated to RAINN everytime, please click below Auction If you are interested in trading with me, my boot list is available here Discography I have a section called the tori fan of the week, if you would like to request to be it, or maybe just write the other fans of the week, click below: Tori Phile of the Week A mailing list you can join, you can e-mail me here directly to join, or you can check out the page at: Mailing List Thank you for your time and your patience. I hope to receive your comments to make this all the better site for all of you. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 17:12:13 -0700 From: "Toriieee (raven)" Subject: Live Tori Stuff I'm looking for a few things here...I'd like a tape (or MP3 or Real Audio or WAV...you get my point) of the following three songs done live and in the best quality I can get. Please email me at : ravens.call@mailexcite.com if you have a copy and would be willing to send a copy my way. The songs are: Mr. Zebra Agent Orange Twinkle Thanks in advance, Toriieee aka Raven - --- - --------------Tori Amos : The Light in the Dark------------- http://ravenwood.dragonfire.net/tori/maintori.html - -----------The Official Dallas ToriFest Webpage------------- http://ravenwood.dragonfire.net/tori/fest/mainfest.html - -------Ravenwood (My forest with its many paths...)--------- http://ravenwood.dragonfire.net Free web-based email, Forever, From anywhere! http://www.mailexcite.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 10:15:56 +1000 (EST) From: brainbir@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Ben) Subject: Tori Amos in Q Magazine This is the interview Tori Amos did with Q magazine in the May 1998 issue (she's on the cover wearing a skin tight gold top). READY, STEADY, KOOK! It's been a harrowing, then hallowed, typically switchback 18 months for Tori Amos. Miscarriage, marriage, a perspective altering retreat into deepest Cornwall, and finally an album of towering and volatile new music. Tom Doyle gingerly places his head in her old joanna and waits for the fairies to turn up. Just after four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon and the concourse of Paddington station is already infested. Ranks of commuters stare up at the flickering announcement boards and then scurry away the very second their platform number is called. None of them casts a second glance at the slight, flame haired woman in the brown jacket and faded blue jeans, gripping the handrail of a trolley, her neck craned, eyes scanning for any information on the 16:35 to Exeter. In this setting, at least, there is no glittering star-like aura or huddle of attention-attracting minders surrounding Tori Amos. Nothing to suggest, to the casual passer-by, that she's not just some mature student or year out world traveller waiting to catch her connection. It's an enviable and unusual anonymity for an artist who - at last tally - has sold upwards of eight million albums globally. Although in England (her on-off home for the past six years) she can drift unnoticed through a crowd, in her native America, where her fan base borders on the near religiously fanatical, she is far more likely to be accosted in public places. In the US, web pages document every aspect of her life history, discuss her tangential, often brutally candid lyrics. Freakily, there are lists of every foodstuff she has ever mentioned in her songs and interviews. "I don't have a computer" insists Amos, keen not to add cyber-stalkers to her menagerie of over-obsessive fans. Coaxed further, while she and Q each take a handle of her hefty bag and struggle down the platform, she adds, "Well, I'm *aware* of them. This might sound strange, but I really live independently of all that." Although she is often forced to gravitate towards the accepted music business capitals of London, New York and Los Angeles, Amos is a rustic girl at heart. Today our destination is the 300 year old North Cornish Cottage that houses Martian Engineering, the studio purpose built in a renovated barn where work had just been completed on her fourth album. From the Choirgirl Hotel ("My *fifth* album actually" she points out, mindful to include the debut effort of her failed Los Angeleno rock band, Y kant Tori Read). Reluctant to parade the trophies of a successful career, she is coy when questioned about how many properties she owns - dot joining detective work revealing two, a Georgian house in County Cork and another retreat in a "geriatric community" north of Miami. The farmhouse studio in Cornwall is owned by Mark Hawley, Lincolnshire-born recording veteran of the last two Amos albums, and since February 22 of this year, Tori's husband. Strangely, she refers to him, along with partner Marcel Van Limbeek, as "the engineers". "I talk about so much in my songs that I really need something for myself," she offers, sliding into a seat. Amos is full of such dichotomies - appearing guarded at times when the topic seems slight and inoffensive ; yet, as the questions probe more conventionally sensitive zones, she will prove unsettlingly frank. The kooky affectations often attributed to her appear, close up, to be natural eccentricities, and although she often lapses into therapy speak, even her most earnest divulgences can be puncuated with little gaspy laughs. Still, you have to wonder about the two torn off Teletubby heads peeking out of her handbag. Amos is razor-sharp, fond of unflinching eye contact, not shy of peppering her sentences with what video censors refer to as "sexual swear words." She insists on paying for Q's gin and tonic when the buffet trolley rolls our way. Any polite protestation on Q's part is met with a comedy rolling of the pupils, the millionairess flatly stating, "Look, you're a cheap date, OK?" On March 31, 1977, in an edition of the Montgomery Journal, the first published photograph of the 13 year old Myra Ellen Amos in mid song, seated at a small piano, appeared above the headline "Top Teens in Talent Test". She scooped first prize in this local competition, winning $100 ("I played my own song that night, something called More Than Just a Friend"). But by the dawning of her teenage years, Amos was already a prodigious talent, having first clambered up onto a piano stool at the milk-toothed age of 30 months. By five years, she'd won a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland, their youngest ever admittance. By 11, having forcefully revealed her disdain for classical studies and her passion for Led Zeppelin, she had been expelled. This, she admits, was a crushing blow to her Methodist minister father, who had firm designs on his daughter becoming a classical pianist. "You see, I'm not music theory smart," she reasons. "To me, it's an internal, instinctive thing. It's like, I don't care if this is making mathematical sense, I am not *creaming*. If I'm really honest, looking back, I wanted my father to be proud of me. But I couldn't do it in that way, because it has to be in your soul to be a great concert pianist." Even if she was often at odds with her reverend father, it was Amos's Protestant grandmother who became the target of her youthful hatred. "I'm sure I would've been the youngest child in jail for murdering my grandmother," she says, her temper flaring even now. "At five, I just wanted to take the butter knife and slit that bitch's throat. At the same time, if I ran into her between the worlds, y'know, I'd have a margarita with her. I'd fucking make her *inject* it before I talked to her. The problem with my grandmother - and a lot of Christian women from the Calvinist side - was that there was so much shame for a woman, with all the self righteousness and the guilt and the finger pointing. It was very hard for them to claim the dark side of their femininity. They couldn't say, Jesus, how can I be a sacred pure being *and* a hot pussy?" As such, in puberty, Amos claims to have harboured sexual fantasies about both Robert Plant and Jesus Christ (iconic, long hair etc). When eventually she recorded a duet with the Led Zeppelin singer, "Percy" fancied his chances ("He asked me to marry him and I said, *You* are late"). Later, at 13, Amos's desire to shag Plant was supplanted by the desire to *be* Jimmy Page. Chaperoned by her father, she began fulfilling hotel bar engagements in and around Washington, performing easy listening standards. At home, she composed and recorded her own songs. Reverend Edison Amos then dutifully mailed them to record companies and dealt with the stream of rejection letters. For nigh on a decade, it seemed as if the minister's daughter was destined to burn eternally in the fires of piano lounge hell. "It got to the stage, " she sighs, "where I was sick of playing Feelings seven times a night at The Marriot. I thought I was going to kill the next person that asked me to play Memory from Cats." In the midst of all this, at 17, she changed her given name to Tori, a matter she rarely discusses. " I just hated my name, " she bluntly reveals. "If a guy even started to look at me and they heard my name was Myra Ellen, it just created (smiles)... a limp dick immediately. I just couldn't bear it. You wouldn't have believed some of the names I was going through at the time." Come on then. Give us three. "I'll give you one. Sammy Jay (winces). Obviously that was my Dallas period. That was my late 70's prime-time soap opera name. Or it could have been my porn name. I'll remember that when I date Tommy Lee." How did you stumble on Tori? "A friend of mine was dating some guy and she brought him to one of the clubs I was playing and he just looked at me and said , You're a Tori. I just went, You know what? I *am*. So from then on, I made out my cheques aka Tori. Then of course I found out that it meant "little chicken" in Japanese. By the start of the 80s, despite Tori Amos's dogged efforts, the consensus among dis-interested A&R personnel was that the appeal of the girl-and-a-piano concept had died in the 70s along with the dwindling commercial fortunes of Carole King. Narada Michael Walden - celebrated funkateer and future producer of Whitney Houston - disagreed, having spotted Amos playing in a hotel lobby and likened her to a young Joni Mitchell. Following a year in which the singer-songwrited posted off a succession of cassettes to Walden, at 19, Amos flew to San Francisco to work with him on her first serious demos. The resulting tracks featured her voice tweaked up a vari-speeded notch to make her sound more girly - which she hated - and no record contract was forthcoming. In desperation, in 1984, at the age of 21, Tori Amos moved to Los Angeles, heralding the beginning of her ill-fated rock-chick makeover. In teased hair and thigh-length boots, she became a Sunset Strip metal fashion atrocity, although this transformation was to fleetingly pay dividends with the signing of her band Y Kant Tori Read to Atlantic Records. Following a fraught recording period in which the outfit disintegrated and the record company seized the creative reins, the band's eponymous album was released to mass critical derision and negligible sales. Amos woke up to the reality that she had become "a musical joke". In licking her wounds, she turned once again to the piano and began to pen the confessional songs that would make up her 1992 solo debut, Little Earthquakes. Although, lyrically, these were dominated by Amos's incisive, angular ruminations on sex and religion, the most shocking inclusion was the a capella Me And A Gun. It's true story begins at a Y Kant Tori Read show in Los Angeles, after which she offered an audience member a lift. some miles down the road she was raped by her passenger in the back of the car with a pistol held to her head. In the past, Amos has been understandably less then keen to relive this horrific experience (once chillingly pointing out that "he's still out there), although she is now open to talking about the lasting aftershocks. "I have horrible nightmares," she admits. "My nightmares are just like a horror movie. I mean, Mr Blond live in my head. It's that repressed anger, it doesn't just go away, It breathes in another form in your psyche. You begin to know who your demons are and I think that's where you grow as a being." Amos has also hinted that part of her psychological unburdening involved Carlos Castaneda-like experiences with Native Americans in both Los Angeles and New Mexico, where she supped the ritualistic brew. "Yeah, there was a period in the late 80s where I was working with different shamen," she says. "Myself and my friend Beene would take Iowasks - - but it wouldn't be in the liquid form, it would be a freeze dried pill - and mushrooms. Some of those trips were eighteen hours long and I'll never forget, once I ended up sitting by this bush trying to ask the flowers why they didn't like me (laughs). It's like, Why can't I be your friend? I was crawling out of my skin at that time. In my twenties I was really...I was just losing my mind." If the songs on LE served to heal the emotional scars of their creator, then the reviews for the album threw up one recurrent comparison: Kate Bush. The debt's there in the songs' skewed perspectives on the world outside, and the singer's contortion of certain vowels. "I'll never forget the first time I heard about Kate, " Amos recalls. "I was playing in a club, I was 18 or 19 and somebody came up to me and said, Kate Bush. I went, Who's that? I wasn't really familiar because Kate didn' t really happen in the States until Hounds of Love. I was shocked because the last thing you want to hear is that you sound like someone else. Then people kept mentioning her name when they heard me sing, to the point where I finally went and got her records. When I first heard her, I went, Wow, she does things that I've never heard anybody do, much less me. But I could hear a resonance in the voice where you'd think we were distantly related or something." So you were never influenced directly by her? "Well...I must tell you that when I heard her, I was blown away by her. There's no question." Did you sing along with the records? "Absolutely. But I knew I had to be careful, so I didn't voraciously learn her catalogue. I left the records with my boyfriend at the time, because I didn't want to copy her." The kook rock torch passed from Bush to Amos but it didn't stop there. LE had a massive influence on the formative Alanis Morissette (Quoted in Q as saying that the first time she heard the album. she played it "in it's entirety, lying on my living room floor...I just bawled my eyes out"). For her part however, Amos is careful when offering opinions on the globe-seducing phenomenon that is Jagged Little Pill. "I really like her. She's such a good person. I like her as a person a lot." So you don't like the record? "I like the songwriting and I think I like her singing, but I've gotta tell you, I have a hard time listening to the record, just on a sonic level. It would make a dog's ears hurt. I hate records that have so much high end and no bottom." This is mild criticism however. In the version of Professional Widow that appeared on Amos's third solo album Boys for Pele - as opposed to Armand Van Helden's remix - Amos appeared to be attacking another of her key contemporaries, Courtney Love. Since then, the singer has fiercely denied that Love was her target in the song. Lines like "Don't blow those brains yet/We gotta be big boy" are fairly unequivocal though. "Let's put it this way, " she hedges daintily, "Courtney and I have never spoked. We've never spoken about it and we've never spoken and I think it's best kept that way. We have mutual friends. I don't want to put them in a bad position." The songs on each of Amos's albums have always borrne a central thematic link - LE (catharis), UTP (the female condition), BFP (the emotional fallout of her split with long term boyfriend/co-producer Eric Rosse) - and in that sense, From the Choirgirl Hotel is no different. Amos explains that many of her new compositions are under-pinned by a more recent wrench, a tragedy in the wake of the BFP tour as she recuperated in Florida. "I was pregnant," she softly states. "I got pregnant on tour, it was a surprise, but I was deeply thrilled about it. I was almost three months pregnant...Christmas 96...and I miscarried. And it was very difficult. The sorrow was just really deep. I know some people who've gone through it and they move on quickly. Everybody responds differently to a loss. I got quite attached to the spirit of this being" Do you know if it was a boy or a girl? "It was a girl. That's why on Playboy Mommy, I sing "Don't judge me so harsh little girl." I had so many responsed to it before I could get to the place where I am now. You see people hit their kids in stores and you just go, What force of judgement gives these people these little lives? I have a lot of questions right now. I know it's a free-will planet. Things happen. But you know that saying, Bad things don't happen to good people? That's a painful lie, and it hits you on such a core level. I know now that I have an appreciation for the miracle of life that I didn't have, but I don't believe in the saying that it all happens for the best...It's just not appropriate. Did it overshadow everything? "Yeah, It did. It took over, I think, the way I...y'know, once you've felt life in your body, you can't go back to having been a woman that's never carried life. The other thing is feeling something dying inside you and you're still alive. Obviously when it was happening, it was already over, but in your mind, you don't know that it's over yet. You're doing anything, thinking, Oh God, maybe if I put a cork up myself, maybe it'll keep this little life in. That's why in Spark, I say, "She's convinced she could hold back a glacier/But she couldn't keep baby alive." You just start going insane. There's nothing you can do so you surrender and then...start again." There have since been happier times, enjoyed in calmer waters. Let's talk about your wedding. "(Suddenly bashful) Oh let's not talk about that." A photograph appeared in Hello! magazine. "(Wearily) Oh, can you *believe* that? I though I'd really pulled it off and there it was...Hello! magazine...right there." It seemed to have a medieval, Arthurian theme. "It wasn't medieval in as much as...it's not like I ransacked the set of Camelot doing dinner theatre up in Sheffield. We got married in West Wycombe and I just wanted something that...we wanted it to be really private. But there is a side to me that believes in magic." It was the definitive fairy-tale wedding then? "Yeah. I really believe in that force. I believe in the elementals. I believe that when you call on certain forces and if you respect them, sometimes, they are there for you. I figured if I had it where there were trees and water then maybe the fairies would show up." Bright and Early the following morning, the air in the kitchen of the Amos cottage is suffused with the twin aromas of coffee and toast, as the housemistress emerges comfortably attired in T-Shirt and combat trousers, towelling her damp hair. Grabbing the studio keys to conduct a guided tour, she leads Q across the courtyard. Outside hangs the overpowering smell of dung. "Yep," Amos smiles, nostrils aloft for a cartoon sniff, "it gets to you sometimes." Inside the studio , she introduces one of the two Bosendorfer pianos she owns as "my baby". Always referring to her instruments in the female third person, a year ago Amos told Q that this piano "had no character, she was boring". Now she admits, "She's making me pay for that statement daily, " before beckoning Q under the piano's lid, saying "Here, put your head in," for the full cochlea rattling experience. Following a torrent of expert arpeggios played by a swaying, trance like Amos, she holds ths sustain of the last not, and then emits a breathy "Isn't she Pretty?" In the control room, the window of which frames a suitably calming natural spring, she flops into a tall backed, black leather studio chair. The talk turns to the freedom of lyrical speech, something that - as a provocative writer - is a key issue for Amos. Specifically, she experienced a strong reaction to the Prodigy's shoulder shrugging defence of Smack My Bitch Up. "I don't find anything cutting-edge about Smack My Bitch Up, " she begins, her voice raised in passion. "The thing that bugged me is that if you're going to say something, you stand by what you say. Or you just be honest about it and say, Look, I hit my girlfriend and that's my statement, love me or hate me. I think it's honest that all sorts of feelings come up, but you have to stand by your work as a writer. You can't say stuff that's gonna stir people up and not be willing to stand by it." "But then it's not fair for me to say it's wrong for them to have that thought either. Look at the thoughts I've had - killing people, mangling people, hurting myself, having sex with God. But these were my thoughts. Whether I acted on them or not, that's between me and my maker." But then you must be aware of the shock value of some of your songs. Do you ever think, This'll get them going? "Well, what I know it that how I think and how I feel and what I believe are not things that people really want to talk about. So yes, I know that in my unconscious there are things that are kinda pukey. Even if I'm saying it to get you going it's like, Hey, this thought came from me, so on some level I'm OK with talking about it. If I talk about anything in my songs, and I tell you I never have these feelings, that I'm just writing about it, then I'm lying through my teeth. That's like, y'know (fuming anger giving way to slowly spreading grin) showing up at a porno movie to eat the popcorn." In Mid-April, the wheels of the Tori Amos touring freight train grind into gear for the first of a staggering 200 dates, offloading emotional baggage at every destination. A self confessed "road dog", in 1996 Amos was named as the most tour-hardy act in the US (followed by Garth Brooks and Kiss), notching up 600 shows since LE. For every one of her devotess, each night will mark an epiphany of sorts. But she's smart enough to realise that the pungent brew of characteristics that make up her music divides public opinion. Even after all this time, there are still those who can't stand Tori Amos. "You know what?" she feistily announces. "I could have a drink with those people." Q Apologies for any typos, I will put the other bit "Tori Amos's Cornish Diary" up later cos I now have to go! Ben ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 22:56:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael Curry Subject: Meet and Greet Answers!! (fwd) Since several of you have asked about the meet and greets I thought I forward this info which was posted to the other Tori lists. - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 10:05:18 -0500 From: cloud To: torinews@smoe.org, rdtrn@torithoughts.org Subject: Meet and Greet Answers!! Ok, here's the deal... The Minneapolis show was my first Tori concert ever, but I feel I now know a lot about how it runs. I really really wanted to be at Tori's Meet and Greet, but failed in arriving at the right time because I didn't really have any clue. So now, I'm going to post MY experience and hopefully you guys can make your judgement calls from here. I just wish someone would have done this for me a while ago. Here we go: + Tori arrives at the theatre anywhere from 4:00pm to 5:00pm. She rolls in at her leisure. I talked to one of her main tour security guards so I know this as a fact. If it were me though, I'd get there at like 3:00pm (this is if you REALLY want to see her) and just hang out - you can always walk around the city or whatever after she arrives. + She does her Meet & Greet for about a half hour. It's not as long as I would think and she doesn't make a point to talk to EVERYONE because there are so many people at them now. Look for barricades. The security guards said a good sign she'd going to be near some place is if there are barricades there. He was right because that's where she came in for our show and went out afterwards - no where in between. + It's almost impossible to get into the soundcheck. You need to either make good friends with a REALLY nice MAIN guard or fall through a hole in the pavement to get in. Don't try and go up to one of the rent-a-security people, they don't really have any power when it comes to visitors. + Don't worry about getting merchandise right away. At our concert, they were open the entire concert AND afterwards. So there's no need to rush in right away, you can get that good stuff any time you're ready. + Afterwards, again, look for the barricades! We ended up standing by a door for an hour before realizing that she wasn't really going to come out of it! It wasn't hard to find the right place, however. There were about 350 people crammed up against the barricade waiting for Tori when we showed up - it was quite humbling. I ended up sneaking in by the side and actually getting only 2 people in front of me. I was so happy because I actually got to talk to her, give her my letter, and got her autograph!! Ok, these hints are all here to help you meet Tori and be amazed with what a cool person she is, but don't use these if you're going to rush up and be psycho on her. When I finally got to the right door, they had three rules they announced for us: 1. No flash photography. 2. IF she signs anything, one per person. 3. No pushing. So respect those rules and realize that Tori is a HUMAN and deserves to be treated like one, don't make the experience any worse for anyone else. Sorry this was long, but I hope it helps! Let me know if any of this worked for you!! cloudboy brett.swankarmy.net "just say yes / you little arsonist" __________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from ToriNews, e-mail torinews-request@smoe.org with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body. ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V3 #261 *************************************