From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V6 #212 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, October 30 2001 Volume 06 : Number 212 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: st louis [ToriBoi@aol.com] Epic ["Danny.Weddup" ] Re: Epic ["mr zebra" ] RE: sneakin in a recorder.....suggestions? ["Pete Lambert" ] Some general tour thoughts [Richard Handal ] Re: Some general tour thoughts [RHPSshock@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 11:05:35 EST From: ToriBoi@aol.com Subject: Re: st louis can someone give me the link to the site that provides the stats of the tour?? Somebody has put together a really nice page, that even includes the last few tours' stats as well... :) Joey ToriBoi ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 13:29:46 -0000 From: "Danny.Weddup" Subject: Epic Hi everybody, Epic records - does anyone know that much about them? From looking at the cds at my house, I've found that Fiona Apple, Macy Gray, Sade and Michael Jackson are all on Epic...I can't think of anything wrong with their promotion in recent times (although Fiona Apple could do with a higher profile in the UK.) Hopefully they will do a better job of promoting Tori than Atlantic - I mean what do Atlantic think they are doing with the Strange Little Girl single? With most artists, one date is set and then the single is released on it. And don't get me started on Tori's singles in the UK - Raspberry Swirl cancelled, Jackie's Strength cancelled, Glory of the 80s misprinted and withdrawn....gah! :o) Does anyone else know more on Epic? Bye Danny ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 16:22:33 -0600 From: "mr zebra" Subject: Re: Epic > Does anyone else know more on Epic? Some of their more popular and recently successful artists: Incubus Shakira Ben Folds Five Celine Dion Gloria Estefan Fuel Ginuwine Good Charlotte Indigo Girls Korn Jennifer Lopez Mandy Moore Mudvayne Nine Days Oasis Ozzy Rage Against the Machine Tenacious D Travis I think that's about all you need to say. Good call on Spivak's part going for Epic. matthew. ever hear of someone love you so much that they try to kill you? like perhaps suck you down in a hole and you had to kill them to get away? me either. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 01:26:17 -0000 From: "Pete Lambert" Subject: RE: sneakin in a recorder.....suggestions? > hey.. as a warning.. at the grand rapids shows.. they had > everyone seperated > into boy/girl lines.. girl lines got girl security, boy lines got boy > security.. and they were searching ALL bags.. so i don't think the tampon > thing will work.. way hey! riot poofdom has it's perks. now how many recording devices can i find before the London/Manchester shows ... ;o) Anyone here going? Don't know what my plans are yet but will be all on my lonesome (as am suddenly enjoying teh silence... more about that later...) and it'd be nice to say hello. Cheers, pete "Coping? Ben, she killed an archbishop - I don't call that coping!" maria - sunset beach ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 22:23:07 -0500 From: "aleksandra bida" Subject: river i read at the dent that tori did "river" at one of the shows not too long ago. if anyone has or has stumbled across an mp3 of this (or any other kind of file for that matter) could you please let me know. please please please... a. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 22:50:32 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Handal Subject: Some general tour thoughts Hi, Gang: Alrighty, then. Got home Sunday morning from being on the road, having seen concerts through Cleveland before needing to go off-tour due to a personal situation my loyal travel companion had crop up. I have to say, although it's been fantastic to spend time with some really great people, for me this tour so far has been *the* most logistically tedious of any tour. Needing to deal with some car problems prevented me from attending the Minneapolis concert, but I feel humbled to have witnessed the other eighteen of the first nineteen concerts of this Strange Little Tour, and I have a few observations I want to share. First, I love the hell out of this tour--absolutely love the hell out of it. It's easily the most musically rich of any of the tours. I saw nearly three dozen Dew Drop Inn shows, even more of the plugged '98 tour shows and *all* of the 5 1/2 Weeks Tour and post-Alanis band shows in '99, and although all of them were amazing experiences for me, this one has more going on purely in terms of musicianship and musicality than any of those earlier ones. There seem to be some clear reasons for this--as well as some alchemical ones that I don't fully understand, but that's part of the mystery that keeps me coming back as if an abandoned, starving dog to the kitchen door. One clear reason for such a high level of musicality is the material she has to work with now. As much as I like Silent and China, when placed on this tour between more recent material, the glaring differences in musical depth are stark. I've complained about the musical dullness of Winter for years so I won't even start going on about that now, but it's interesting to note that the song Little Earthquakes holds its own on this tour. I know Precious Things would as well, but even before this tour began I didn't think it would be appropriate for her to come out on this tour, and I see that T has so far agreed that Precious should take a well-deserved vacation. I won't be shocked if she comes for a visit once or twice before this tour is over, though; but honestly, this tour is much less about pounding the crap out of the piano than was the DDI Tour, and overall, there's no clear place on this tour for Precious. But as much as I consider Precious to be *the* song of at least the early era of Tori Amos songwriting, with Sister Janet, Lust, Josephine, Little Amsterdam, Playboy Mommy, Northern Lad, Past the Mission, Here. In My Head, Concertina and 1000 Oceans, one is hardly being slighted on this tour by its lack of Precious. Some of the most intense emotions of my life were experienced on the DDI Tour, but it's wonderful now to see how expressive she can be while remaining in complete control of her playing--as opposed to being more a vehicle for personally cathartic volcanic eruptions. On this tour the songs can take center stage more than the playing; but while less pyrotechnic than on the DDI Tour, the playing is ASTONISHING. It truly takes my breath away to see her so on top of every move she makes. It's crazy. Some shows--the most recent example I saw being Cleveland--she nearly floats from one part of the keyboard to the other, and even between Boesey and Rhodes. She puts her hands in position, and her fingers glide to their marks between the other keys as if suspended in some sort of state of slippery weightlessness. This continues for the duration of entire concerts to an extent I've *never* seen before. I hope Mark won't mind my sharing some of a conversation I had with him after the Detroit show, when I finally had to ask about some suspicions I had. I told him how I saw that she was so clearly playing with such improved concentration from any previous tour that I wondered if she was doing something specific to heighten it. Was she doing hypnosis or meditation or anything else that she'd not been doing over the course of prior tours? Mark said no, adding: "She's a mother." Some people I told this to were satisfied with that as an answer--spoke of hormonal changes, what not--but it remains remarkable to me that she would experience such a dramatic increase in her ability to concentrate from becoming a mother. I first noticed some things about this improved concentration in D.C. I saw her smiling in such a way that seemed to belie a separation of part of herself from the part that was playing the piano. It seemed that she needed only, say, 82% of her consciousness to play, and the remaining 18% was free to roam, often being used to observe the concert experience as if from somewhere above. Frankly, I think she was able to enjoy seeing us in the audience, and was getting off on how much she saw we were reeling from her hitting us upside the head. Her sense of humor and mischief seems lost on many, but there is plenty of both. Clearly, she enjoys thinking of songs to add on a given evening that no one would have anticipated, and she then loves to see how we respond with both shock and delight. [I doubt either Imagine or Let it Be will make second appearances on this tour. She likely worked them up--lighting and everything--as one-offs for increased effect. Gotta love it.] My expectation is that the current overall shape of the concerts will remain through the end of this tour, but that she'll continue to add two new songs per night as possible, one often being a one-off such as when she did Please Come to Boston in Boston. So, yeah; in Cleveland she was really in the zone. She didn't even make mention of the Wurlitzer when she went over and played it. This is a convention I noticed on the DDI Tour, when in the opening weeks of it she tended to make a big deal of the harpsichord being wheeled out and the harmonium brought in, even having the audience say goodbye to the harpsichord. Later on in the DDI Tour she would simply motion to the stagehands to come take the harpsichord away and bring out the harmonium. I happily agree with her decision to trade off a cutesy ritual for a smoother flow within the concerts. Good deal, I say. For years I've disliked the sound of the Fender Rhodes as it was played by the likes of some jazz players who would use it to play fast leads, but this isn't Chick Corea's Rhodes we're getting on this album and tour: What we hear is more akin to the full, rich sound of an organ played with big, rolling chords; and combined with the wonderful piano used on this tour, the complementary nature of the two instruments is like a lush, vintage port with plenty of legs. Tori's caused me to rethink the Rhodes as an instrument. She's shown me the error of my ways for thinking that in this era of portable pianos with both strings and action, the Rhodes would be best assigned for use in creating special effects. I've seen--or I should say heard--the light, and I admit I was wrong. I can't go without some bitching. If you are blessed enough to be able to attend one of these concerts, do not have a conversation with your friends during it; and do not sing along to Me and a Gun! Do not sing at *all* unless prompted by Tori to do so! You are in a concert hall with people who paid good money to be there, not in your private living room! It distracts *her* if she can hear you, and the people around you will be too busy plotting your imminent demise to be able to pay enough attention to the music to enjoy it. I partly blame the sale of strong spirits at some of the venues for all the talkers and choir members, although I have to say overall I've been quite pleased with the respectful enthusiasm exhibited by most of the members of the audiences on this tour. As for the rest of you--just shut the hell up. The life you save may be your own. One last thing. Sometimes the shows can validly be compared to sex. She pulls one different flavor show out after another, but some of them, undeniably, can be compared to sex. I'm not afraid to say so publicly, and I have no apologies for the "chocolate syrup" quote I gave Michael for The Dent after the Wallingford show which seemed to cause some eyebrows to be raised. A friend of mine happened to be going backstage after that show and I gave her a brief note for T that was more explicit than that Dent quote, and she totally got the humor and laughed, so give me a break. I remember some ancient quote from her about music to the effect of, "If I'm not creaming, I'm not interested," but I can't find it right now. Suffice to point to this recent interview quote: http://thedent.com/bigissue01.html "I didn't care if Beethoven made mathematical sense". . . "I wasn't creaming." I feel the same way about music. If you're so uptight that an amusing sexual/musical metaphor causes you some sort of problem, I have to wonder how you can ever *possibly* listen to her music or read her interviews. I suggest you try listening to some Kenny G. :-) It's nice to be back on my own computer, but I best go now. Be seeing you, Richard Handal, H.G. "Marcel, do I vibrate on this?" --Tori Amos at the Wang Center Boston, Mass., 15 October 2001 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 23:19:09 EST From: RHPSshock@aol.com Subject: Re: Some general tour thoughts Richard-- Thanks a lot for your thoughts on this tour. Because you have been to so many of the shows, and because you seem to at least have some talent for words, you have been able to wrap up my thoughts on the one show I did get to see. You even put a nice little bow on it. :) It is amazing what motherhood has done not only for Tori's concentration, but her spirit. To me, these setlists show a contentment with who she is, was, and will be. During the Venus and Back era, I remember she said that she was becoming fufilled as a woman. Now I think she must be becoming fufilled as a spirit, and I not only find it warming, but very inspirational. I know there very well may be people who think that I am reading too much into things, or thinking "seesh...Tori is just a musical aritist, get over it!" but truthfully, I don't care. Tori has helped me through some incredibly rough spots...I am where she has been, and seeing her where she is now is a very wonderful and hopeful thing for me. - -Angelina. ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V6 #212 *************************************