Tori Amos Live at Montreux 1991-1992

Let me just get this out of the way - yes, I first read about this at perezhilton.com. :/ hehe

Ok, now for the good stuff. A new DVD called Tori Amos Live at Montreux 1991-1992 is coming out of early Tori Amos performances. It's supposed to feature two performances she did at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

There's nothing at her website about it (that I could find), so I'm guessing she doesn't have much to do with the release. However, being a big Tori Amos fan, I'll still want it so I can see her perform her early stuff! (When it was new!)

While we wait for it to come out on September 30 here in the States, please enjoy this performance of Winter:



(or go to the video at YouTube here)

A Fine Frenzy

I've been listening to A Fine Frenzy's album One Cell in the Sea a lot lately. A Fine Frenzy is a 22 year old girl named Alison Sudol from the West Coast of the US, born in Seattle and raised in LA. She graduated high school at 16 and has been working on her music ever since. With the red hair, poetic lyrics, and girl-at-a-piano style, she reminds me a lot of another favorite of mine, Tori Amos, but as far as I know, Tori's not one of her inspirations. My favorites off the album are Rangers, Last of Days, Hope for the Hopeless, and Come On, Come Out. Her writing is great, but it's the music and harmonies that makes these songs stand out for me.

Some of my favorite lyrics:

watching the sky, you're watching a painting
coming to life, shifting and shaping
staying inside, it all goes all goes by

a blanket unfolds,
a blanket to lie
the pieces of gold
they light up your eyes
and now we're alone
and now we're alive
-Come On, Come Out

like an apple on a tree
hiding out behind the leaves
I was difficult to reach
but you picked me
like a shell upon a beach
just another pretty piece
I was difficult to see
but you picked me,
yeah you picked me
-You Picked Me

melancholy phantoms eye our skins
poisoned apples falling with the wind
hear the sigh of the trees
those who enter here never leave

...

further in and on we go
sightless creatures tugging at our clothes
cutting through the twilight, sword in hand
strangers once, united against the land
-Rangers

through wars and harvest moons
I will wait for you
-Last of Days

Radiohead's Jigsaw Falling Into Place

I think Radiohead's video for "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" is fantastic. It's funny, cool, different...and it gives a straight on view of the band members - something you don't see too often with these guys. I love Radiohead.

Ribbons Undone

There's no other way to describe it - I think Tori Amos is brilliant. Even more so after reading her book, Piece by Piece. Her songwriting goes above and beyond most artists today, especially in the way she can write from different perspectives or research a story, myth, or work of art and turn it into a concept for her music.

One song, however, is pretty simple. Ribbons Undone has a clear subject and meaning, and that's one of the things that makes it so charming. I love Tori's more obscure stuff because I know it'll be interesting to learn what it's about or take my own meaning from it, but this song always evokes such nice imagery about a mother and a little girl that I felt like sharing it.

an excerpt from Ribbons Undone:

she runs like a fire does
just picking up daises
Comes in for a landing
a pure flash of lightening
Past alice blue blossoms
you follow her laughter
And then she'll surprise you
arms filled with lavender

Yes my little pony
is growing up fast
She corrects me and says
'you mean a thoroughbred'
A look in her eye says the Battle's beginning
From school she comes home
and cries
I don't want to grow up Mom
at least not tonight

complete lyrics from: Here in My Head