Tori Amos Confessions

Personal Stories about Tori Amos

This page was officially declared OBSESSIVE
by Billboard Magazine, January 13, 1996.

Prologue

Welcome to Tori Amos Confessions!

(If you have no idea who Tori Amos is or what this page is all about, you should read this brief introduction to the Who, What, When, Where & Why of Tori Amos.)

From The Choirgirl Hotel, Tori's fourth album, was released on Tuesday, May 5, 1998 in the U.S. Hurrah! A lot of people seem to like it better than Boys For Pele, Tori's third album, which came out in January of 1996. Tori was recently touring with a full band in support of the new album.

For news and information, there's just no competing with the fabulous A Dent in The Tori Amos Net Universe" by Mike Whitehead. It has it all.

I also highly recommend Greg Burrell's T.O.R.I. page. Greg's page has great features, such as live audio and lyrics for most of Tori's songs, interviews, collectibles, charts, FAQs, and much, much more.

My page isn't about the latest Tori news, nor do I have song lyrics or sound samples or pictures or movies. Tori Amos Confessions is different... keep reading to see what I mean. And I have to admit I don't really have the time to maintain this site at all... So what you see here is pretty static. When I first began this site (in '94), it was pretty exciting to be one of the first pages about Tori. Now that she has an official site, an official fanzite site, and such amazing sites as The Dent, it's hard to get excited about my site...

Tori News

The following is a random assortment of old information about Tori:

Did you miss a song that's not on any Tori album? "Blue Skies" is a song by Brian "BT" Transeau, featuring Tori's voice. There are two singles and an album where the song is available.
Tori's official site is up-to-date. Information and samples are available from Atlantic Records' Official Tori Site.
Richard & Missy Caldwell's Boys for Pele Press Release of 16-November-95 is just one example of the many news items that you'll find on the Really Deep Thoughts Fanzine Home Page (as well as information about subscribing to the fanzine).

Happy Birthday, Tori!

Tori turned 35 on Saturday, August 22, 1998. According to MadGuy006@aol.com, she was born at 5:35 p.m. on August 22, 1963 in Newton, North Carolina. (Several people had asked me if I knew the EXACT time of her birth, I assume for astrological reasons.)

Why ANOTHER Tori page?

After Tori's second album, Under The Pink, came out, she became my favorite musical artist -- because of her honesty, her beautiful voice, her searing piano-playing talent, and her well-written, quirky and personal songs. I wanted to make a home page for her, but there were already so many other Tori Amos home pages.

Why not?

I ended up archiving some things about Tori and decided that I'd make a page for her anyway. To make mine different, it consists mostly of personal experiences and stories about Tori.

I don't have a lot of pictures (as you can tell)... I just wanted it to be simple, personal.

Bear in mind that I wrote the above words way back in December 1994! Tori Amos Confessions was probably about the twentieth Tori page to go up on the Web; now there are hundreds if not thousands...

Now then: on with the Concert Reviews, Confessions, Personal Stories, Reviews and Interviews.

Concert Reviews

Dew Drop Inn Tour (1996)

Tori's previous tour ran from February '96 to November '96. I started a collection of concert reviews; unfortunately, I never had time to post them all.

However, you can read these reviews from the beginning of the Boys for Pele tour. (If you want current reviews, check out The Dent's Tour Dates.)

Ipswich (UK): Regent Theatre, 23-Feb-96
- Review posted to the RDT mailing list by Janet Susan Robertson (J.S.Robertson@uea.ac.uk).
- Review #2 posted to rec.music.tori-amos by Mike Snowden (snowdenm@syntegra.bt.co.uk).
Sheffield (UK): City Hall, 24-Feb-96
- Review posted to the ToriNews mailing list by Cara (MsKIA716@aol.com); the review is written by Stuart Ellershaw.
Manchester (UK): Apollo, 25-Feb-96
- Review #1, posted to RDT by Charles Farrell (CFarrell@dataware.com).
- Review #2 sent by Stuart Ellershaw, author of the Sheffield review above, sent me this e-mail excerpt; he describes his friend Sonia's impressions of the Manchester show, along with a set-list.
  Stuart would love it if you send him a comment on his reviews; his e-mail address is a little strange, but the link should work.
Edinburgh (Scotland): Usher Hall, 27-Feb-96
- Review posted to rec.music.tori-amos by John Muir (john.muir@almac.co.uk).
Aberdeen (Scotland): Capitol, 28-Feb-96
Glasgow (Scotland): Royal Concert Hall, 29-Feb-96
Hull (UK): City Hall, 1-Mar-96
Nottingham (UK): Royal Centre, 3-Mar-96
- Review mailed to me by Dayle 'Jess' James (hd2jamd@doc.ntu.ac.uk) in response to my pleas...
Liverpool (UK): Philharmonic, 4-Mar-96
Newcastle (UK): City Hall, 5-Mar-96
- Review posted to rec.music.tori-amos and to the Precious Things mailing list by Paul Tweedy (Paul.Tweedy@durham.ac.uk).
Wolverhampton (UK): Civic Hall, 6-Mar-96

Under the Pink Tour (1994)

The bulk of the articles here at Tori Amos Confessions are concert reviews from the Under The Pink tour of 1994. To start with, I saw Tori in concert twice in 1994:

August 31 at the Orpheum in San Francisco with my friend Kyrie, (here's a review), and
September 10 at Zellerbach Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus, with my friend Ellen. There's a review from the East Bay Express typed in, so you can read about that concert.

Tori also played several other dates in the Bay Area on that tour. Here are some concert reviews about these concerts, taken from the Tori Amos mailing list, Really Deep Thoughts (RDT):

Lolly

Lolly has a great Mini Tori Shrine called little fascist panties that includes pictures, a quiz, some humor and much more. She also wrote the following two reviews:

Lolly's review of the 8/31/94 Orpheum concert
Lolly's review of the 9/1/94 Orpheum concert

Greg Burrell

Who is Greg Burrell? Is he a dangerously-obsessed T.O.R.I. fan? Does he write letters? The truth is that he's a well-known Tori information resource as well as a very generous person (thanks for the tapes, Greg) who writes a lot of great reviews and articles about Tori. He is the News Editor for RDT (the fanzine) and writes articles on the Tori Amos newsgroup.

Here's Greg's chart of songs that Tori has covered. (an article that was written for the printed Really Deep Thoughts fanzine).

You can read Greg's reviews of Tori's nine Bay Area appearances in 1994:

Review of Tori's first appearance on the old Live 105 Alex Bennett show.
Review of Tori's 8/30/94 appearance on the old Live 105 Alex Bennett show.
Review of Tori's 3/21/94 San Francisco concert.
Review of Tori's 8/30/94 San Jose concert.
Review of Tori's 8/31/94 San Francisco concert.
Review of Tori's 9/1/94 San Francisco concert.
Review of Tori's 9/8/94 Santa Rosa concert.
Review of Tori's 9/9/94 Sacramento concert.
Review of Tori's 9/10/94 Berkeley concert.

Please let Greg (gregb@netcom.com) know if you enjoyed his reviews (or beg him for a tape...).

Other Folk

Joel Siegfried's journal of seven concerts up and down the West Coast
Bob McDowell's review of the 8/31/94 Orpheum concert
Bob McDowell's review of the 9/1/94 Orpheum concert

Rare Interviews

Here's the Nomad interview with Tori from 1992, for Australian TV, thanks to fellow fan Spacecadet Tori.
Read this SF Gate story about Tori by Julene Snyder.

Soundtrack Review: Toys

Tori Amos sang "Happy Worker" in the movie Toys; a couple of versions of that song appear on the Toys soundtrack. I have some excerpts from RDT that review this soundtrack: Toys Reviews

CD-ROM Review: Blender 2.2

I wrote a review of Blender 2.2 (which features a Tori interview and live performance) for Enterzone.

(Here's the original version of that review.)

Tori Stories

I have a few stories about how people first started listening to Tori; I haven't posted them here yet, due to lack of time...but they will appear soon.

Zeigen's story, and the beginning of a thread on RDT
(Others forthcoming, depending on free time to actually do this project. Please feel free to contribute your own personal story about Tori Amos. Everything will appear here eventually.)

I'd love to see any kind of story from you. For example, I wrote about my Tori Amos pendant. for alt.lucky.w (a Usenet newsgroup reclaimed by Cat Yronwode for the discussion of good luck charms).

A Small Confession

This whole thing may seem obsessive and all...and it is...
But you mean there's no musical artist that you care about this much?
(Maybe there's something wrong with YOU?) Also, I want to say that I respect Tori's privacy. I am much more interested in her music and what she says in interviews than I am interested in her private life.

Write to Tori

She doesn't have an e-mail address, but here's the best way to reach her. Send a letter to:

Tori Amos
c/o Spivak Entertainment
11845 West Olympic Blvd., Ste 1125
Los Angeles, CA 90064

Your Turn

You're here because you're interested in Tori. Do you have a story, review, interview or anecdote of your own you'd like to share? It can be added to this page and in that way we can make a Tori Amos scrapbook of personal recollections.

I have received many contributions, and I'm organizing them and getting them ready. They'll be here soon, when I get some breathing time to make them appear...

Please contribute or write me private mail about what you think or whatever you'd like to see here.

13-Aug-98 -- E. Stephen Mack -- (estephen@emf.net)