I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS: The Original Bootlegs (2005).

I have commented before about how much of a diehard Tori Amos fan I was. [See What I learned… (5)] I have seen her live many times, on a few different tours. One of the things that I never got to see was a live solo show. She has always had a few piano-only segments during her shows, but from the time I started seeing her, the shows were always full band. And the thing is that I really like her with the band. Her drummer, Matt Chamberlain, is first rate and her bass and guitar fellows make great noise together. But even though I enjoyed the band, I still wanted to hear the solo article. Then, for her Original Sinsuality tour, she did an all-solo tour. And here are some recordings from it. Six concerts selected from the tour. The Holy Grail of Tori live. Or so you would think. I am shocked at how disappointed I am by this collection. I have found that Tori’s newer material is more slow and “mature,” if you will. And that’s not really my thing, I much prefer the earlier more raucous stuff, including Little Earthquakes which, albeit mostly piano, really has, if you’ll pardon the expression, balls. Some of the newer stuff is still okay because she can pull out a great melody, but I found her last two albums to be rather meandering and unfocused.

On these live recordings, she slows down all of her songs to near interminable length. On some discs you get nine songs in sixty minutes. You expect that from Yes, not Tori Amos. On many occasions she loses the melody altogether. She stretches out words, turning one syllable into three. Some of the songs have minimal keyboard accompaniment; you’d think that coming from the woman who gave us the stunning a capella “Me and a Gun” that she could do wonders reworking these songs. And yet, they are so languid that sometimes even the vocal melody drifts away. There are times when she drags a word out so long that I can’t even tell what she’s singing anymore.

“Caught a Lite Sneeze” on the Boston disc bears almost no resemblance to the original song and is one of the worst renditions of one of my favorite Tori songs. I mean, where did all the hooks (and that song has a bunch) disappear to? On the same disc, “Winter”–a beautiful, moving song with an awesome bridge–becomes a limp nonentity for nearly eight minutes, losing any impact the song should have. “Tear in Your Hand,” another great early song drags on for almost nine minutes! One would normally look at this and say, oh, did she add a two minute solo in the middle? And the answer is No. She simply plays it much much much more slowly. And you see the hooks coming and then they just float off somewhere else. Now, I’ve said before that I love long songs, and I really dig the prog rock thing, so a ten minute song to me is usually pretty good. But Tori is no prog rocker. And ten minutes of “The Beekeeper” is really four minutes too much. I’m not sure if she was making a statement with these versions, or if there was some motive for stretching things out so much, or even if it was just fun to allows these songs to breathe, and, heck, maybe seeing it live was a different experience. But wow, what a disappointing set this is.

There are, of course, some positives to the set. She does some great covers, and Tori has always been one to put a unique spin on covers. Every show has two 1980s songs that she covers in her ‘piano bar’ section. And that’s very good fun. Also, she dusts off “Cool on Your Island” from the much maligned Y Kant Tori Read project, which is a real treat. And of course, it is nice to hear the varied set selection that she thought of (except of course “The Beekeeper” is in every show…that’s one hour of your life devoted to one song if you listen to all the discs. Sigh.

[READ: August 20, 2007] The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman

The cover of this book has been stuck in my head evidently for years. I thought that my wife had had the book lying around the house, and that’s why it seemed so familiar, but that was not the case. The cover is so eye-catching that it sticks with you after one viewing and I had remembered seeing it from 2000, when it was published, not 2005 like I thought (shame the paperback cover is so lame). I’m not entirely sure where I read about this book. But as soon as I found out it was by the writer/creator of the fabulous movie Withnail and I, I knew I had to read it.

“Peculiar” is certainly the right word for this book. It begins as a very broad “comedy” about a teenage boy who enjoys, and there’s no polite way to put this, shitting his underpants and leaving the offending articles in obscure places. This is paralled with Thomas’ grandfather, a war veteran who has a tantalizing collection of astonishingly deviant pornography. The fact that, by the end, you feel a great sense of loss and empathy for young Thomas really proves what a long journey this book takes.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. There were some parts that dragged a bit, but generally it was a really good read. Thomas’ family is so excruciatingly awful, that you can feel the oppression coming from the pages. It parallels the visual darkness of Withnail and I. If you haven’t seen the film, and you ought to, Withnail’s flat is just chock full of dingy squalor. It is visually appalling, and the atmosphere created in the book matches that entirely. Thomas’ parents are in a constant state of argument. And their methods of passive aggressive and outright aggressive abuse towards each other is revolting to imagine.

Initially, Thomas’ only solace comes from his grandfather, the only family member who treats him with anything resembling respect. Then, when the love of his life actually agrees to go out with him, we see a happier side of Thomas’ existence, one that isn’t full of bitter parents, sickly grandparents, and dog crap on the living room floor.

The book sounds dismal, and it is, and yet, Robinson is able to eke, if not joy, then at least some sort of satisfaction from this poor boy’s life. This book is not for everyone by any means. The gross bits are quite gross (think teenage boys in post WWII Britain getting up to all manner of mischief, and of course the pants shitting). The perversions are quite perverse (think waterfowl and unmentionable orifices). And the redemption that Thomas ultimately receives at the hand of his grandfather’s paramour would be, in any other situation, utterly devastating. Yet somehow, for Thomas, it can only lead to possibly better things ahead. Despite all this, when his grandfather tells the story of his lost love, and when he reveals to Thomas that all-important truth, it is impossibly touching. I’m just not sure why I thought this book was supposed to be funny.

Oh, and this book concerns cancer as well, so I am officially tagging it from now on.