RDT Right Now #1880

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Really Deep Thoughts Right Now			Volume 03 : Issue #1880

              .
                    o - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - o
         .       o                                     o     .
               o                                         o
              O         "Thoughts right now...            O
              o        What will become of me,            o
              o       Become of her, become of we?"       o
          .    o                                         o     .
                 O                                     O
                    O - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - O
                             o                           .
                               o
                                  o
                                      o
                                         Tori Amos, "Thoughts"
In this issue:
o-o-o-o-o-o-o

  not a herostrates, but...             [ "Gabriela Kulka" <gabakulka@wp.pl> ]
  if it ain't broke, don't fix it       [ "Bethany Rose" <hejira@u-town.com> ]
  TOAL thoughts                         [ Violet <fluffy@annihilist.com> ]
  limping in the streets                [ John Bragazzi <utown@worldnet.att.n ]
  A Peaceful Idea...                    [ "Beth Coulter" <betheqt@voicenet.co ]
  A story of triumph                    [ "Beth Coulter" <betheqt@voicenet.co ]



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Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 10:04:15 +0100
From: "Gabriela Kulka" <gabakulka@wp.pl>
To: "RDT Right Now" <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: not a herostrates, but...

Hello me hearties.
For an unknown reason I kept having the impression I already posted this
around here. If I did, forgive me. Seeing as Brian C. asks for opinions on
the new CD, I'll take the liberty of posting my review...

. Bittersweet is how I feel, and more than less keen on the Artist to take a
decent break she deserves to recuperate and get some new ideas (and,
perhaps, perspective?).

All in all - a fascinating album - for better or for worse. Some songs make
me leap up and down in wonder and excitement, and with others I want to
slaughter her barehanded, so horrid they are.



In short - What we all know: she came back to the multis, not the masters
and "reconditioned" the original material, the way she saw fit. No
additional recording was done for the old songs - but  often she used
recorded material which did not surface on the original release - for
example additional instruments that were kicked out of the mix.



***Most importantly***, I think the tale of this librarian saying she
reconditioned the songs to the form they were initially intended is a bit of
a stretch. Yes, with "little earthquakes", yes, with some of "Under the
Pink", but I can hardly imagine ANYONE was holding a gun to her head during
the recording process of "From the Choirgirl Hotel", in the Cornwall barn.
Unsurprisingly, from Choirgirl on, the remodel on this collection becomes
less and less believable.

I'd VERY gladly accept another explanation/approach; namely, that the songs
were reconditioned to make a whole coherent  album, unlike most 'hits'
collections, which tend to be patchy.

In that respect, Tori did a GREAT job. The album reads as a whole, although
for some songs it is a boost, for some a damage...

For example, I adore the Little Earthquakes tracks reconditioned. For the
first time I can listen to these compositions without bemoaning those tiny
flaws in production that ruin a genius piece of songwriting. I love the new
quirky stuff in Silent all these years (the plucked strings in last verse?
LOL) and Winter (for example the percussion in the finale). Precious Things
is WONDERFUL, and the dry, rough backing vox in Crucify materialising out of
the blue do the song justice. I actually wish she'd do that to all the
remaining LE tracks and released a re-visited edition of it. Like THAT will
happen. sigh. She even managed the impossible and made me listen to "Tear In
Your Hand" with great attention and pleasure. (only track I'd usually skip
on the album) In these cases the "closer" vocal works extremely well in my
opinion. Which can't be said about a lot of others.



The Under The Pink stuff, I'm not entirely sure of. I like the new
"Cornflake Girl" even though the crispier snare and a general boost in the
low end made it rather different. I EVEN like the new distribution of
reverbs in the "it's a...peel out the watchword, just...". Does "God" have
the piano a bit more legible than originally? I think so. I like that. But
then again, ridding the last backing vocals of the reverbs is...well..
weird.



"Choirgirl" is where the trouble starts for me. I mean, fine, she wanted to
bring the vocals closer, make them more natural, more stripped. But I
remember how she said that with "Choirgirl" she wanted the sounds to be
crawling out at you out of the speakers, even if you don't have a
mega-audiophile equipment, and all those little electronic strangenesses in
production (which then culminated on "Venus..." in the rich, cosmic reverbs)
did the job brilliantly. It was slightly psychedelic, lush, spiralling
sound. Now she simplified it, covered the weird sounds with the louder
guitar strumming, brought the vocals into three-dimensional realistic
studio-space... Consequently, "Spark" fell somewhat flat, and "Venus.."'s
"Bliss" is like watching the back of a theatre decoration - all scaffolding
and sawdust. Rather unentertaining. Fascinating from the technical point of
view, especially for a sound and recording-geek like myself (peeing my pants
with excitement, listening to the two versions alternately, trying to find
the distinctions), but not half as glamurous as the original.

Jackie's Strength, while I'm not entirely sure how deeply she tampered with
it, is probably disappointing for me only personally - I'm so in love with
every millimetre of the original, so it just upsets me. But that's just
subjective.

Similarly "Playboy Mommy" became somewhat heavier, less swinging, in other
words, like it was recorded for "Scarlet" (no offence).
Don't-like-it-at-all.

The two "Boys for Pele" tracks, surprisingly, I like very much (I'm not
counting the remix, which was a mistake to put on the original edition to
start with, in my most personal opinion). Even though she blatantly
near-removed the piano from Mr Zebra - I didn't mind. It became quite
playful with just the brass.

Way Down takes the cake, though --- with the gospel choir reprise - it's
just amazing. Gorgeous!



The b-side re-recordings are, I'm awfully sorry, s-h-i-t-e. As someone said,
if "Mary" puts you to Sleep, "Sweet Dreams" is downright COMA inducing. And
the fact they were picked according to a political agenda for the day (oooh,
the earth polution, oooh the dolphins, oooh the political hypocrisy, oooh
dubya, who's your daddy, oooh...) TWO WORDS. "sister janet". TWO WORDS
"upside down". ONE WORD "sugar". Why not? Why the hell not?



Two originals. "Cherries" are cute. "Angels" are very nice.

Watch those adjectives and remark my slight sadness. Where's the spark? They
are both very good and catchy songs (especially cherries), but I guess I've
come to expect a little more.



The second CD, or rather the DVD  - is excellent. It contains a 5.1 mix of
"putting the damage on" with a picture slideshow, the original version of Mr
Zebra with some wonderful video footage from the Boys For Pele recording (in
an Irish Church). Yet another cross-career picture slideshow is done with an
instrumental version of "putting the damage on" (it even contains a pic from
the     Y Kant Tori Read era!). To top all this, there is a 3-song,
sound-check performance footage - containing "Pretty Good Year" (should have
been on the Collection, methinks), "Honey" and "Northern Lad".



Another thing I should add - I really LOVE the way she segregated the songs
into the Dewey Decimal system. So this way "Precious Things" were filed
under 920: Collective Biography, "Silent All These Years" under 410:
Linguistics 414: Phonology, "Cornflake Girl" under 170: Ethics 177: Ethics
of Social Relations (betrayal) etc etc... I found this VERY interesting and
a great idea. I don't see it as a superfluous concept at all



Summary:  an incredibly interesting record, both in a n overwhelming and at
times slightly disappointing wayt - with a tracklisting that should have
been a little different, and an incredible load of stuff to chew on - in
that matter I love it.



Should have been called "Tales of a Sound Engineer's Wife", though.





Yours,

gaba.



(www.gabakulka.com)

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Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 05:38:59 -0500
From: "Bethany Rose" <hejira@u-town.com>
To: "Dipfucks" <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: if it ain't broke, don't fix it

Brian sed:
"Money and fame can certainly change a lot of things, but then she's gone
through many changes in her lifestyle over her career as well. I know I for
one I have changed a great deal over the years I've been listening to Tori
and I'd be surprised by anybody who hadn't."

i've actually been thinking a lot of same things Kerri articulated a few
digests ago. it's strange, how can i explain it...lately, in a lot of
interviews Tori has given i've gotten the feeling that she just doesn't
respect her fanbase anymore. either that or she thinks we're a bunch of
idiots (or like i said before, a bunch of screaming 13 year olds). this
interview posted on the Dent is a good example of that:

http://thedent.com/more.php?id=1261_0_1_0_M

almost no straight answers on any of the questions her fans asked. her FANS.
i mean, come on. i understand the need to be private, but frankly,
elusiveness like this is no longer cute, in fact, it's just fucking
annoying.

i was thinking for a long time it's just me, like Brian said, that i've
changed, but the fact is, good music is good music and mediocre music is
just that. I haven't been truly moved, rocked to the core, by something Tori
has produced since Choirgirl. five years is a long time to hold out hope
that something will change. maybe a break is what the woman needs, to just
live and be a mom and not worry too much about producing a new album. lord
knows i understand that.

as for a Tales of a Librarian, i wouldn't even have it in my possession if
it weren't for a friend of mine who knows a rep at Atlantic that secured me
a promo copy. and largely, in my opinion, it's just not worth it. any artist
who decides to rerecord or recondition songs that had nothing wrong with
them in the first place (Joni did the same thing with her last album, and
frankly, it made me want to cry) should have their head examined. as a
listener, i hear these songs, am disturbed by the fact that are just ever so
slightly off from the versions i have been listening to for the past 9
years, and thus never want to listen to them again. "Angels" could have been
a good song had it been rescued from the mid-tempo hell that seems to bog
down most of SW. "Snow Cherries from France" is a really lovely song. it
makes me miss the mid-90s. "Mary" and "Sweet Dreams" just made me dig out my
B-sides and listen to the originals and marvel at how good they were to
begin with.

so, in conclusion, yes, Tales of a Librarian was just really a way for
Atlantic to make easy money on all the hardcore fans who would buy it. sad
but true.

with that, she was gone.
-bethany
_______________________________________________________________
a journal : http://hejira.u-town.com

she runs through the streets / with her eyes painted red
under black belly of cloud in the rain / in through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea / she is raging she is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes / she will suffer the needle chill
she's running to stand still     (U2)

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Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 04:52:33 -0800
From: Violet <fluffy@annihilist.com>
To: rdtrn@torithoughts.org
Subject: TOAL thoughts

I'm now officially a carrier.  Yes, I have the frickin' flu.  In December,
of all times, which totally sucks.  It's been really bad ... 103 fever and
all that good stuff.

But it's forced me to spend more time online than I'd been able to for a
while, so...

The new album: some of it I like, some of it I hate.  The redone version of
"Mary" falls into the latter category.  It's so slow and plodding and the
chorus of voices droning out "Ma-ry" sound like a bunch of half-asleep
drunkards.  IMHO, all the freshness and passion have been sucked right out
of it.  It sounds like Tori attempting to do a karaoke version of herself.

Did we really need the dance mix of "Professional Widow" included on this?
It's a great version, as dance mixes go, but as a [supposedly]
representative track on a best-of album, it sucks.  It's a dance mix, it
has no substance to it.  It's not the kind of song you can sit and listen
to in any meaningful way, yet it's included on an album that, for all
appearances, is intended to be *listened* to, not just used as background
filler.   Its inclusion is all the more jarring having been plunked down
ungracefully right after "Way Down," the extended version of which is quite
powerful and moving.  So there you are listening to a gospel choir one
minute and then ... a hyper dance mix piece of fluff.  Ugh.  No, no, no.
My honest thought when I first listened to the album and got to this was
that it was incredibly self-indulgent and a total turn-off.
If it could have worked anywhere, it would have been after "Mr. Zebra."
But I only say *if*.  I really don't think it supports the intent of the
album no matter where it's placed.

I was shocked by "Cornflake Girl."  The piano, which was always my favorite
part, sounds completely muffled and muddy and dull.  I thought maybe it was
my speakers, but everything else sounds fine through them, so it has to be
the mix.  It made me really sad.

I only really have a strong opinion of the songs I really disliked.  The
songs I "liked" weren't so much a case of actually liking them as not
disliking them.  Perhaps in time, and with a lot of listens, there are some
versions I'll grow to love.  But it will take time.

The only song I can say I truly loved as soon as I heard it was "Way Down."
I wish this version had been included on B4P.  It would have made that
album even more amazing than it already is.

Hmmm, I feel like this should have been more cheerful somehow.  I had no
idea I was going to be so whiny.  I'll have to try harder next time.

Violet
xoxox

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Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 08:56:19 -0500
From: John Bragazzi <utown@worldnet.att.net>
To: RDT Right Now <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: limping in the streets

Brian said:

> Aaahhhh, the release of a new album. Nothing fills a digest more.
> If only it wasn't mostly press releases.

I guess it's an album only press agents can get excited about.

I'm certainly not excited, I haven't bought it and I can't imagine I
will.  It wasn't in the budget even before I found out that I need to pay
$250 for physical therapy (torn meniscus) over the next six weeks. No CDs
or DVD for a while, that's for sure.  I did buy three DVDs last month
(doubling the size of my collection), so I have entertainment to tide me
over.  (The Kids Are Alright, X2, and LoTR:The Two Towers, for those
interested).

The cover of Librarian amuses me, since my parents were both librarians
(in the 1930s), and my image of a librarian is pretty much based on that
period.  Even the older people who work in the library at work (the last
generation of librarians to deal with books more than with the internet)
look kind of like that.  As my mother says, "library ladies don't change
all *that" much."


> you can't help but think Bruce Springsteen was really
> whacked out early in his career

He was trying to be Dylan, and that's one of those things which is a lot
harder than it looks.  I assume that's why he stopped.  He did say that he
wanted "Born to Run" to sound like it was written by Dylan, produced by
Phil Spector and sung by Roy Orbison.  He did pretty well at the first
two, and (of course) failed miserably at the third.


> if you're going to do [covers], either play them
> as they were done originally or turn them into something
> else completely,

I agree.  I was in a reggae and ska band once, and we did "Dancing in the
Streets" as a ska song.  It worked really well.  Very different from the
original (of course), but still true to the spirit of the song.


Shameless plugs:

I'm working on finishing a mystery novel I started in 1990
(http://text.u-town.com/sane), and I posted something about Kill Bill
(http://movietown.u-town.com) and a new (short) dream
(http://text.u-town.com).

As B/4,

John


--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

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Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 16:04:43 -0500
From: "Beth Coulter" <betheqt@voicenet.com>
To: "RDT Right Now" <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: A Peaceful Idea...

Hi All!

My daughter called me a few days ago to tell me about this idea of hers.
Many years ago (5 or 6), I bought little glass angels and other ornaments
that signified all my new internet friends who I couldn't see at the
holidays, but wanted them with me.  I still have them and remember those
days fondly.

My daughter has a friend who is in boot camp and is due to ship out who
knows where.  This Christmas, she is hanging a little silver bell for him,
and will every year till he returns home.  She thought it would be nice if
everyone who knows someone missing from their homes this year (for whatever
horrid reasons) would get a bell or angel for that person to hang on their
tree or sit in their window, or... you get the idea.  We all have an
ornament that signifies someone involved in the atrocity we call the world
now.  When peace arrives, we give these ornaments to those people.

I guess it's a little like the POW bracelets girls wore in the 70's.  These
people need to be remembered.  It sends good energy out to the universe.

So that's it.  You all can go back to your lives.  Thanks for your
attention.

Peace in our Lifetime,
Bethey
My country right or wrong:
When Right to be kept Right;
When Wrong to be made Right.

www.bethcoulter.com

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Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 20:23:48 -0500
From: "Beth Coulter" <betheqt@voicenet.com>
To: "RDT Right Now" <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: A story of triumph

I've really agonized about sharing this with the amount of people on these
combined lists, but as this day comes to a close, the need to share it is
stronger than my fear.  Warning:  This may be TMI about Bethey.  But it's
part of the story that I share with the world.  You have been warned.

Twelve years ago on this day (The Day that will live in Infamy, no less), I
was nearly successful in a suicide attempt.  I swallowed over 200 pills of
various types, and downed a fifth of rum over the course of the day.  I went
to bed highly intoxicated with the comfortable knowledge that I would never
wake again.  I had been convinced that the world would be so much better
without me.  My daughter and husband would be better.  I had nothing to
offer and the world had nothing to offer me.  The only escape I had from
pain in the preceding months was the thought that I didn't have to worry, I
would be dead soon.  I spent three months planning it, and I refused to
fail.

My husband found me in the middle of the night, ice cold.  He managed to
wake me and get me up out of bed.  When I couldn't find my way out of the
bedroom to the bathroom, he called 911.  The EMT's kept waking me up in the
ambulance, and I was angry at them for taking me away from sleep.  In the
ER, they started to stick a hose in my nose and I fought them tooth and
nail.  I passed out as they put me in four point restraint.

I woke up two days later in the CCU.  The nurse told me I had been in a coma
and that my blood pressure had gone to 60/20, "about as low as it can ever
go dear", she said condescendingly.  I spent 10 days in the psych ward,
where I convinced everyone that I had a situational depression.  By the time
I left, visitors would thank me for working with their family members and
ask how long I had been employed there.  I went home, and attempted suicide
again in February by slitting my wrists.  I simply can't kill myself.  I can
do anything, but I simply can't kill myself.

And twelve years later, I find myself relating this to over 2000 people who
I think are interested in my life, and find me a contribution in some way.
I've spent a good ten years in intensive therapy (no drugs), and find myself
to be a person I never dreamed I could be.  Have you ever amazed yourself?
Look at something you've done and gone, "Wow!  I didn't know I could do
that!"  That happens to me all the time now.  Better yet, others look and
say, "Wow!  Thanks for sharing/doing/making that!"

I have so much to give the world.  I didn't know that twelve years ago.
But, I think if I hadn't been almost successful, I never would have realized
the depths I have to give.  I may have stayed average, not affecting too
many people outside my inner circle.  And thanks to you, all of you who
listen to me, I am grateful for being alive.  I am grateful I have the
opportunity to make a difference.  I'm grateful I'm here.

Thanks for listening.  Thanks for being there.

Peace,
Beth
"razors pain you
rivers are damp
acids stain you
and drugs cause cramp
guns aren't lawful
nooses give
gas smells awful
you might as well live"
(attributed wrongly to Dorothy Parker)
Anonymous




    o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o  o-o-o

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