From: owner-precious-things-digest To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V1 #82 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest 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 Thursday, 16 May 1996 Volume 01 : Number 082 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Appearances of Tori Tori on Regis & Kathy Lee Re: Appearances of Tori [none] replies and reviews New Haven 1, Megastore tori in nyc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Curry Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 00:38:24 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Appearances of Tori 1) Tori will be on Conan on Wednesday night. 2) For Tori news you can sub to the torinews list. :) Just send a message to torinews-request@chihuly.com with a body of: subscribe torinews your-email-address Its a good place to hear about various Tori appearances and articles and such. Mike | Michael Curry / mcurry@world.std.com / mcurry@io.com | | Reaching-From-Nowhere -- The Milla Mailing List | | reaching-from-nowhere-request@ecto.org | | Precious-Things -- The Other Tori Amos Discussion List | | precious-things-request@smoe.org | ------------------------------ From: syau@attila.stevens-tech.edu Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 09:13:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Tori on Regis & Kathy Lee Did anyone see Tori on Regis and Kathy Lee? I was disappointed by the performance. They said she was playing a 150 year old "Harmonia". At first I thought they meant Harpsicord. But it sound differrent, like a bagpipe. After the performance, Tori mentioned that she have to pump air with her foot. She did "Hey Jupitor" and it was shortened. The doesn't sounds good at all, partly due to the Harmonia. __________________________________________________________________________ Steven H. Yau syau@attila.stevens-tech.edu Clifton, NJ http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~syau "Pinky, do you know what a subliminal message is?" "Ehh, something you leave on a subliminal answering machine?" ------------------------------ From: Chris Allbritton Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 08:49:28 -0500 Subject: Re: Appearances of Tori At 1:02 AM -0500 5/15/96, joshu@umr.edu wrote: >When is she going to be on conan??? I didn't think something like that >would creep up on me without hearing about it. Are there any other >upcoming appearances on tv or radio that we should look out for? She's going to be on Conan tonight! - -- Chris Allbritton http://www.aristotle.net/~callbritton (501) 660-4165/FAX (501) 660-4549 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette [Standard disclaimer] ------------------------------ From: "Vanessa Cox" Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:31:10 -0400 Subject: [none] Did any of you know that Y Kant Tori Read is not Tori's first album? I was just listening to the radio (CFNY, Toronto) and I heard that Tori had an album before this. Done in 1980 on her own label - MEA (Mary Ellen Amos), her real name. This album is apparently impossible to get a hold of. Does anyone have it or know anything about it????? Cheers! Vanessa ------------------------------ From: flaky white stuff Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 19:18:29 -0400 Subject: replies and reviews grrr. i was almost done with this note when the phone line blipped and i lost everything i had written. *sigh* since it's been such a long time since i've posted (the past month has been busy at work and the past weekend busy at tori shows), i'm going to dutifully write it all again, including a pseudo-review of the first new york show. Also sprach Neile Graham : >I'm beginning to think that if I can't see her in a small club anymore I >would like to see her out from behind the piano sometime with a band. dunno. we've discussed the music/lyrics spectrum before and i fall squarely on the music side (though i must admit that i usually pay attention to tori's lyrics much sooner than most other artists). since the piano is the cornerstone of the music, i don't think i'd go for frontwoman thing. on the other hand, i've always been one of those people who think she should play *with* a band. however, after seeing the two new haven and the first nyc show, i've revised my opinion a bit: tori should play with more accompaniment, not necessarily a full band. the addition of steve caton ons guitar was a brilliant stroke of genius. >Funny, I never thought this before but the girl-and-a-piano thing has to >be intimate to work and it just isn't anymore. i thought this once too, but, after the weekend's performances i have to admit that i was wrong. she can still pull it off if the crowd is cooperative. i know that's a big if, but when it works out, man, wow! imagine a thousand or two totally rapt people, focused on one person. yow! oh yeah: a good setlist always helps too. ;) Also sprach abbe@MIT.EDU: >I've gone through different phases of looking at the world in terms of >magic, psychic energy, fantasy creatures, and other such perspectives, >and when I was first introduced to Tori's music one of the first >things I noticed was that it just *felt* magical. i think meredith replied to this a while back, and i'm guessing that what she said (don't seem to have saved her post) mirrors a lot of what i think: tori's music does more than feel magical, it's just plain enchanting. someone sent me a tape of _little earthquakes_ early in 1992 and it ended up being the only thing i listened to that february and march. i was ensorcelled, and had no will or choice in the matter - the tinkle of ivories laid a geas on me and i had to bide by the spell. >But listening to a bunch of tidbits of things in Tori's interviews, >I've started to notice just how much Tori seems to view the world in >terms of this stuff too it's pretty clear that tori is half in this world and half in the realm of fairie (or maybe the dreaming). i think that appeals to many folks, including me. i'm not a terribly spiritual person, but i do think that there is a piece missing in humanity that was lost sometime in our relentless advances. tori's regained that piece and i feel that most people still yearn for some kind of magic in their lives, whether they know it or not. tori's connection with her audiences, i think, comes from this. sure, there's a fair amount of carnal attraction from her audiences, but the level and type of devotion is different from other performers' and bands' fans. not more pure or somehow "higher", but certainly more magical. Also sprach Tracy Sefl : >Anyway, while I obviously don't recall the exact context of their >discussion, I *do* remember Tori explicitly saying that she recently >reworked/redid/remixed (something!) the "bridge in Talula". i thought she re-whatevered the introduction to the song, not the bridge. Also sprach JLitges@aol.com: >Bankhead, Tallulah (1902-1968) >Gravelvoiced, highly theatrically leading lady of american stage & screen. wonder if there is any connection with the ex-band tallulah gosh. Also sprach Miguel Antonio Gonzalez : >Subject: Middle show at The Theatre at MSG >Covers for the >evening included I'M ON FIRE, OVER THE RAINBOW and A CASE OF YOU for the >final encore. do you have a full setlist? (so i can go kick myself for opting to skip the second two nyc shows due to financial pressures.) Also sprach syau@attila.stevens-tech.edu: >Did anyone see Tori on Regis and Kathy Lee? I was disappointed by the >performance. i was more amused than disappointed. she sliced and diced "hey jupiter" to make it fit whatever time constraints the producers placed on her. if i recall correctly, she went into the "hoooo hooo hooo hooo" part after the first chorus and then segued into the second to last verse. in any event, anyone familiar with the song would have found it jarring, to say the least. i guess i've come not to expect much from tori's tv appearances since they never seem to capture her magic. this regis and kathy lee appearance was no different. >They said she was playing a 150 year old "Harmonia". harmonium. >She did "Hey Jupitor" and it was shortened. The doesn't >sounds good at all, partly due to the Harmonia. fret not - it sounds *wonderful* live when proper sound techs have micced the harmonium properly, the sound signal isn't being contorted for television broadcast and steve caton strums those shimmering chords. *swoon* okay, here's the setlist for the first new york city show: beauty queen/horses icicle professional widow/blood roses little amsterdam cornflake girl doughnut song pretty good year leather putting the damage on not the red baron upside down precious things caught a light sneeze me and a gun over the rainbow china in the springtime of his voodoo talula/hey jupiter. as you can see, a pretty "typical" set, with no surprises aside from "professional widow" and "talula" finally coming out to play. in both cases, someone yelled very loudly for them and tori replied something to the effect of, "yeah, that's a good idea." she cut both short and segued them into the following song, but it was nice to hear them nonetheless. i've already mentioned my joy in having steve caton on stage. he was a perfect addition. his guitar work is subtle, but adds many dimensions to tori's live sound that i nearly had heart attacks during the opening chords to "cornflake girl" and the crescendo of "pretty good year". never mind the so-mind-boggling-beautiful-it-was-painful fingerpicking in "honey" during the second new haven show. that one strum in "honey" slayed me - yow! i also rather liked the light show. aside from the lights that everyone is complaining about (yeah, they are a little annoying, but i like the fact that the audience gets a little blinded since the artists are almost always incapable of seeing the audience), there are some nice backdrop light effects and a projector which shows film on a triangular screen at the back of the stage. films are often distracting, but in large theatres (such as the one at madison square garden and, to a certain extent, the palace in new haven) with relatively little stage activity, films can be a nice alternative to squinting at tori's tiny visage. the films are all very dreamy and make for a good visual focal point for listening to the music. needless to say, tori was brilliant. ;) think that's enough for now... woj ------------------------------ From: "Donald G. Keller" Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 21:59:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: New Haven 1, Megastore Tori Amos in New Haven, First Show, May 11 During the tumultuous applause that greeted her entrance, Tori Amos played a rapid but nearly inaudible piano figure; she waited until the audience quieted down before beginning the prelude to =Boys for Pele=, "Beauty Queen." And the spell was cast. There's something extraordinarily primal about that little song, that one anchoring piano note from which everlengthening strands of vocal melody exfoliate. Genuinely consciousness-altering; the first of a couple of truly extraordinary moments. Then as on the album she went into "Horses." And though it was a good performance, there was something antsy about it: she fussed over details, pointing up some things, underplaying others, and the lovely flow of the song became fitful. At the time I put it down to first hearing a live performance of a song I knew well from the studio version. To my considerable ennui she then did "Crucify." Most of her fans love this song, but I've heard it and heard it, and besides she does it really slowly at this point in her career, and it must last close to six minutes. I fidgeted. "This is only the second verse?" "She's still in the bridge?" But I endured through it. She then turned to the harpsichord for the first time, playing rapid Baroque-style figurations, and surprising me by singing "Bells for Her" (originally done, including on the last tour, on pinging prepared piano) to this accompaniment. I'd been hoping to hear this version, but it was so little what I expected that I didn't "get it," and I'll have to hear it again before I can tell whether the rewrite was successful or not. The bravura "Precious Things" has been a live standout since her first tour, like a sturdy punchbowl that has lasted through many parties; but this time it slipped through her hands and shattered into fragments. It was practically deconstructed: it started extremely fast, and almost immediately lurched to a near-halt while she worried each bit like a separate scene to be performed. Most particularly the "every nice girl" line, where she habitually extends and growls the "grrrrrrl," but this time turned it into (I'm not joking) a =30-second= grandstanding, almost electronic-sounding grinding vocal sound (with disorienting overbright light behind her). A startling stunt, to be sure, but musically egregious. I was excited when she brought out Steve Caton, her guitar player since =Y Kant Tori Read=, and he played the mandolin opening to "Cornflake Girl" on acoustic guitar. It's my favorite =Under the Pink= song, but even this go-round without the rhythm track to hold her down she didn't do much more with the piano part than play it as recorded; I keep hoping to hear her stretch out and solo a bit. It was just too literal, besides not being particularly energetic. "Father Lucifer" was properly bright and springy to start, and then got increasingly more interesting: she did the three simultaneous bridges on the recording in series, and the recap was =completely= rewritten, with new accompaniment and vocal chanting, and it worked tremendously well. The show troughed for a time at this point; "Doughnut Song" and "Putting the Damage On" from =BfP= sandwiched around "Pretty Good Year" from =UtP= were all nicely performed, but didn't excite me. "Happy Phantom" is another sprightly but well-worn =Little Earthquakes= tune, and "Not the Red Baron" is not the favorite =BfP= song. But "Caught a Lite Sneeze" pretty much saved the show for me. Surprisingly, she didn't use a rhythm track, which I had thought essential to the song's appeal as the one real rocker on the new album; this transformed the song into almost a ballad with that rapid but harmonically slow harpsichord figuration. It worked very very well. She turned (a hair awkwardly) to the piano for the bridge, and as she hit the recap there came that moment which a friend had described to me so accurately (down to its emotional effect on him) and which I had therefore been waiting for...but =nothing could have prepared me= for actually experiencing that moment. She stopped playing the piano, and while continuing to sing "boys on my right side/boys on my left side" she began tapping out the rhythm with her knuckles, then hitting the high note as she turned between microphones (the note still clearly audible) back to the harpsichord. No verbal description, whether dry or evocative, can account for a moment like this; I'm getting chills now remembering it. The instant she stopped playing I went =somewhere else=, and it wasn't because I was waiting for and expecting it; the experience itself took me by surprise and transported me quite involuntarily. It just confirms my feeling that there is real magic in the world, that music is magic, and that Tori Amos is one of the most powerful magicians alive. The rest of the song passed in a blur for me. Back to earth for "Mother," another sturdy but unexciting old =LE= song, and then a disgracefully audience-interrupted version of "Me and a Gun," strong and quiet and disturbing as usual. End set. The encore began with a lovely version of "Over the Rainbow," continued with a really fun, energetic version of the quirky "Space Dog" from =UtP= (Caton playing wah-wah guitar), and an OK version of yet another old =LE= track, "China" (though it's always nice to hear the extra vocal melisma she's added to the second half of the chorus). And yet another encore: the version of "This Old Man" from the first single, and the great "Hey Jupiter" played on the harmonium. I don't really like it that way as much as I like the piano version, so the show as a whole ended on a low ebb. I was really ambivalent about the show; disappointed in the set list (she did six =LE= songs, which seemed too many, and seven =BfP= songs, which seemed too few, plus four from =UtP=, which seemed about right), a bit disappointed with some of the performances and some of the rewriting, emotionally devastated by the moments that really worked. And physically tired from a long weekend. And so I made a really bad decision: I had the option of staying for the second show to follow, but I wasn't sure I was up to the experience (and it was a considerable extra expense). I took the train back to NYC. By the accounts of my friends who stayed (and who agreed that the first show was good but not that good), the second show was absolutely spectacular, with a =much= more interesting playlist. I'm still really upset about it. Small recompense followed on Monday, though: Tori Amos was scheduled to do an in-store performance at the Virgin Megastore that just opened. I did everything right: got up early and got to the store at 6 a.m. to get a wristband pass (I was among the first twenty people in line), went home and rested, went back to the store about 11:30 for the noon lineup. I hope the Megastore learns from their experience; the lineups were done at a small side door where there really wasn't room for the mob who showed up, and as you might imagine security's efforts to disperse the crowd until the official noon lineup were laughably ineffective: people moved down a few storefronts or across the street or behind trucks, and creeped up again when security went inside again. And everybody surged in a mob as soon as lineup was called. It was a very polite crowd; no angst, no violence; but nonetheless everybody =really wanted= to get inside as soon as possible, please. It was still a zoo. In thevent, because of soundchecks, etc., it took them =an hour= to process people inside in an orderly fashion and down one or two floors (depending on armband color, some people had to stay on the balcony above the bottom-floor performance space) to the stage. I was lucky enough to get about six layers of people from the stage, closer than I've been since the Toad's Place show in New Haven four years ago, and maybe closer than I'll ever get again. She came out to the announcements of the radio DJ (the concert was broadcast live on the radio and to the other two U.S. megastores in L.A. and San Francisco), and played four songs: "Crucify" (yawn) "Silent All These Years (double yawn; those are =LE='s two most popular songs), "Cornflake Girl" (with Caton again; and again good but too literal), and (melt) "Hey Jupiter" (those being the best songs from =UtP= and =BfP= respectively), all on piano only. The radio guy did short interview bits between songs, and after the radio broadcast was officially over she fielded questions from the audience(including feeds from the other two cities): about creativity (where she talked about Neil Gaiman and how stories or songs came to visit them), about her hair dye, about the pictures in the new album's booklet. Favorite quote: one guy said that he couldn't figure out just why he liked her music so much (some woman from the balcony shouting out "Because you're a guy!), and did she know why? Answer: "I don't know why I like guacamole so much. I mean, it's green, it looks like puke, but I love it." It cost a bit of struggle and most of the day to get there, and it was relatively brief, but to get to see her perform from up that close was worth it. A few more bits: the performance on Regis & Kathie Lee was quite amazing: cutting the 5:10 of "Hey Jupiter" down to 2:10 (I rewound the tape and timed it against a CD) is just another of her editing feats. The issue of the New Jersey magazine =B-side= with a cover interview is out; it features Tori narrating the entire progress of what's going on on =Boys for Pele=. Quite fascinating. ------------------------------ From: ariana@kbp.com Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 00:48:42 -0500 Subject: tori in nyc I forgot which list I mentioned this on but last nite Tori promised a fan named Frankie to play a song. When I heard this on Tuesday nite I thought she meant a y kant tori read song. Anyway she promised it for wed. So tonite was amazing and it wasn't a Y can't tori read but it made me gasp with happiness. She played my favorite song: Professional Widow! I never thought that song would be played. It was played on the harmonia. Although I prefered the sound of the harpsicord it was nice to hear it different. She also mixed in amazing grace. That song was a nice shock to the parents in the audience I am sure. :) Tonite was so much better than last nite. Either I got use to the crowd or she payed less attention to the crowd. She told her story of the lumps of sugar which an irc person told me. This was for the song Sugar. One of my favorite songs. :) She did Angie which was a nice surprise. Another one that through the annoying crowd for a loop. They didn't hate it but they were stumped. She told a story about in Connect. her piano for ransom or was it a dwarf. She wasn't clear. They wanted alot of snickers. And doopey dwarf died. And on the stag came a man dressed as snow white from the road crew. lol I don't remember if this was mentioned but at the end of caught a lite sneeze she doesn't play the piano she uses the piano as a drum. And the t-shirts are very nice. I got the blue and the black one. I ordered the Recovering Christian t-shirt from ticketmaster even though I am an Athesist Jew. I would like to wear the blue shirt to work on a Friday (dress down) but I could get in trouble since it has her nursing the pig. Oh well just to the gym I guess. Before the show I bought More Pink. I have all the songs but there taped from some nice people. They sound lousy after a while on tape. ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V1 #82 ************************************