The Reluctant Receptionist

in what continues to be a completely insane, red-letter week in the robert camp, my interview with tori amos went live on rollingstone.com last night, and was linked from the main page! so i’m definitely ending the week on a high note. the article can be found here, and i’ve also cut and pasted it below. i have to say a HUGE thank you to my friend caryn for making this happen—and for making my teenage dream of chatting with tori a reality. things happen, people. never give up.

Tori Amos on New “Sin,” Old Songs: “I Don’t Agree that Music Is Disposable”

4/2/09, 5:02 pm EST

Photo: West/WireImage

At her recent standing-room-only performance at this year’s South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Tori Amos premiered songs from her tenth studio album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin, due May 19th. It’s her first studio LP since 2007’s American Doll Posse, and the record finds the singer-pianist exploring familiar territory: power in all its guises, be it sexual, monetary or political. “Before, we used to think power was if you had a job and you had money,” she says. “And if that’s our definition of success, then very few people have it — the money part anyway. So [I’m] redefining what it means, because power is also an aphrodisiac.”

Working once again with her husband, engineer Mark Hawley, Amos says that the album’s production is key. “Sound is an instrument,” she explains. “It’s not just, ‘Let’s jam.’ ” But visuals were central to the record, too: the LP will be accompanied by a series of 16 “visualettes,” short films that Amos largely funded herself that were directed by Christian Lamb. The footage, captured during Amos’ world tour in support for American Doll Posse, actually inspired the songs that would become Abnormally Attracted to Sin.

“I’d see montages of our life on the road,” she says, “and I’d shut off the music, realizing this music is not the underscoring for what I’m seeing at all.” Near the end of the tour, she started writing the songs because she knew that Lamb’s films “needed another story. I said, I wanna give people something that says my favorite thing: If it’s too loud, turn it up. I wanna give people creative worlds to walk into so that they are getting a sensory overload. You give people treasures, not ‘How can I cut all the costs?’ ” Though the project took money out of her pocket, it was important to Amos, she says, because “people are just putting out the worst. And I don’t agree that music is disposable.”

Her own music certainly has staying power — especially for the die-hard fans that pack her shows hoping to hear early cuts. “I’m a different person,” she says, “but the songs, the faces, the life experience or the fantasies that you assign to certain songs in order for you to perform them, and to let them live in you, change. So when I perform them now, if I do ‘Winter’ or ‘Silent All These Years’ [both from Amos’ platinum debut, Little Earthquakes], I’ve surprised myself what stories, what photographs come up in my mind. And that’s why I do insert the catalog, because I don’t see it as my past, I see the songs as timeless for me. It’s just my perception that needs to change.”

Amos’ new music will be her first to come out on Universal Music. She landed the new deal after stumbling into a label rep while she was at lunch — with other, smaller distribution companies. The rep passed her table, said hello and took a phone call from “my boss’ boss,” Amos recalls: Doug Morris, the Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group. As Amos was finishing lunch, she noticed the woman still outside the restaurant, pacing and talking on her cell. “And in that moment, my life flashed before my eyes,” she says. “I thought, Doug Morris. He’s right there. We haven’t talked in 14 years. I miss Doug Morris. We didn’t always agree, but he’s still passionate about music.

“I put all my mother’s training of manners and everything I know to be right and good in the world, and I walked up and I looked at this woman who I’d barely met and interrupted her call, and said, ‘Would you send Doug my love?’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Right now?’ I said, ‘Now would be good.’ ”

well, folks, i’m 29 today. it’s impossible to say if i’m where i thought i would be at 29, because honestly i’m not sure i ever had a real idea of where i thought i’d be. i mean, i knew that i’d be in new york (or would’ve died trying); i hoped that i’d be in a happy, stable relationship; and i guess that somewhere in the back of my mind i thought i’d be making a living singing. i have the first two down pat, and i think that those are probably the most important. and i’m working on the third, as you all know, as hard as i can.

if there’s been a highlight to my birthday (so far, i should say, as i’ve spent most of the day at work and am going to dinner at walter’s after choir and going to celebrate on saturday night) besides the le creuset pot that amanda and phong got me (YES, i am that gay, and YES i am that excited), it’s been all the well-wishes from friends that i’ve gotten. i woke up this morning to a voicemail from robin and an email from dad. as the day’s progressed i’ve been flooded with emails, texts, g-chats, and facebook messages. it’s made me feel very special and very loved, indeed. i’m totally excited for my birthday party saturday, which we’re having at the phoenix. all of my favorite people in new york are coming out to celebrate, and i’m looking forward to it most of all because it’s just such a great group of people all smushed in the same room. all these people from different aspects of my life, all coming together. it’s gonna be fun.

and so i have one more year until i’m 30. 30 is the age, it’s always struck me, when you’re actually an adult. when you’ve grown out of all the vestiges of kid-dom; when you can’t be all that crazy anymore because there might actually be some consequences. but as i’ve gotten older, i’ve started to realize that that’s kind of a childish way of looking at things. yeah, i’m older now, but there’s always going to be a grain inside me that’s always me. no matter how i change, i’ll always have my fucked-up sense of humor; i’ll always be moved in some way by things that moved me when i was 16. i think that finding a way to find joy and excitement in those things the way that you did when you were a teenager is the key to—dear god, shoot me for saying this—staying young. as i’ve started to slough off some of the hangups of my teenage years and early adulthood—caring so much what people think of me, for one, and being increasingly able to see the bigger picture—i’ve almost gotten to the point where i can get back to being me. over the last couple of years, i’ve had experiences (live shows of tori and bjork, last spring’s trip to san francisco, dancing my ass off in clubs, the hundred laughs a day i share with phong) that have snapped me out of my day job tie-wearing dress-shoe subway commute 8-hour-a-day-at-a-computer drudgery and reminded me this life is a brief, wonderful, joyful thing.

my grandpa is 94 years old and going into a nursing home as soon as he’s released from the hospital. but you know what? he lived a crazy life with his wife, who he still crazy loves. 29 is 29. with any luck, i’ll make it to 30. and then 94.

in the midst of some difficult shit that’s been going down (most notably, my grandparents’ failing health and my father’s emotionally and physically exhausting quest to get everything squared away), and in the midst of all the opera craziness and day job stuff, a couple of really awesome things happened last week, and i’d like to share them with you.

first, my friend caryn, a music journalist, contacted me out of the clear blue sky at the end of last week. i thought that she was going to RSVP to my birthday party, but it was something even better: she asked if i could make it to a hotel in midtown in the next forty-five minutes in order to interview tori amos. now, if you know me at all, you know that tori used to be my end-all-be-all. she was (is?) the only artist whose every release i own; she’s one of very few i’ve stuck with through thick and thin; and one of the only i’ll move heaven and earth to see live every time she’s performing in a town near me. i’ve written many words about this woman on this blog alone, about how her music helped me get through growing up in a small town, how it helped me get through college in a small town. it got me through my first heart-wrenching breakup at 18, and every one since then. tori was the link that connected me with alyson, one of my best friends and the mother of my erstwhile godson. tori was the link that connected me with cory, who i’m still so close to 12 years and 1000 miles later. my point is, um, tori amos.

and i got to interview her. i got to sit on a couch with her, just the two of us in a room, for 30 minutes. we talked about music and recording and touring and boys for pele. we talked about singing and growing up. it was literally like a dream i’ve had, where i’m hanging out with one of my heroes (because, let’s face it, i don’t have many heroes. but tori is one of them.), and if i didn’t have it on tape i’d think that i dreamed the whole thing. but i didn’t dream it: i listened to the recording again yesterday, and sent a draft of the news blurb i wrote about it to caryn this morning. what else can i say? i’ve been smiling about it since it happened, and i’m going to be smiling about it for a long time. i met one of my heroes. and i didn’t just meet her, i got to talk to her, one-on-one.

the other thing that happened was that i got to sing at weill recital hall, which is part of carnegie hall. i sang a total of two lines in this opera that no one ever does, but you know what? 30 years from now, when i’m some fucking insurance salesman, i can tell my kids (who will be teenagers and sick of hearing their dad talk) that i sang at carnegie hall. and that’s a pretty good feeling.

i somehow got out of rehearsal for the next couple of nights (including last night), and i had forgotten how fun it can be to have a life. go out to dinner for crazy filipino food? sure, why not! go to a church choir rehearsal!? wait, i do that every wednesday. my point is, dear reader(s), that life is slowly but surely getting back to normal after the crazy whirlwind that was fledermaus/rhymes with opera tour.

part of that getting back to normal bit has me absolutely pining for summer. i think about getting my friends together to all go lay out at boypier, eating al fresco (a conversation the other night at dinner: “eating outside. is that really all that ‘al fresco’ means?” “yes.” “huh. i always wondered.” me using the term “al fresco” is kind of a joke, in the same vein as over-pronouncing BOEUF BOURGUIGNON, making myself sound like a smelly french chef. it’s entered my lexicon to the point that i don’t notice it anymore, and people who don’t know me may think that i’m either terribly pretentious or completely crazy. i am, in fact, completely crazy. so they’d be right on at least one count.), days in central park. of course, all of these things don’t really take into account the amount of time that i spend at a desk in an office, but honestly even though my job keeps me busy, i feel so much more like i have a life of my own. it’s probably because my commute is so easy (being nonexistent, i mean), but i feel more like i have more time to myself to do what i want to do than i have since grad school. the nights yawn and stretch (and try to come to life) in front of me, with plenty of time for the gym and dinner and television and video games.

have i just grown used to the grind? maybe. i think that for a while my aversion to the regimented schedule i often find myself in was a kind of bucking the system, trying to keep myself from joining the drones of office workers. after all, i was a musician, a difficult, moody artist who couldn’t be bothered to work a 9 to 5 job like every other person out there. i resented having to. maybe it’s getting older, seeing that every single person i know, even the uber-successful singers, have to make a living somehow. maybe it’s because this is such a cherry day job. who knows; i’m just going to go with it.

i didn’t expect to get caught up in logo’s “rupaul’s drag race” the way that i did. i’m not really one for reality television. sure, i’ve watched literally every episode of “project runway” and most episodes of “make me a supermodel” (sidenote: perry from season one has moved to our neighborhood, and i’ve now seen him three times outside my gym. i wish it was my true love from season one, ben the cop, but i’ll settle for perry. maybe he’ll start wearing tank tops when it gets warm.), but i’m generally suspect of reality shows, the way that producers and editors choose who wins and choose who you’ll hate. but there was just something about drag race that totally resonated with me.

for one, rupaul herself resonated. i’ve always loved rupaul, not least because she forced herself into the mainstream when the mainstream was anything but gay friendly. i mean, the queen had a music video that actually got airplay. and this was before ellen, will and grace, and the backlash to prop 8. before matthew shepherd. i mean, she was a trailblazer. i’d be remiss if i failed to mention that she’s also hysterical. i have now started hollering “CAMEROOOON!” for no reason whatsoever. i was falling off the couch last night when they replayed her telling one of the queens, “there are still too many snakes on this motherfuckin’ plane,” referring to her “tuck.” when the girls do their runway walks, she reads them all in the style of a caller of the old new yew york/harlem drag balls, and it’s easily my favorite part of the program.

so many people have never even heard of these balls, and it’s such an important part of queer history. rupaul will holler “house of labeija!” “extravaganza!” she’s referencing all of these old-school drag houses, some of which are defunct because all of their members died of aids (or were the victims of hate crimes) a decade ago. one of the challenges for the girls was to walk representing “executive realness,” which is one of the exact categories from the old balls in the 80s. and when they did, she read them from her seat up front, just like they would have been read 20 years ago.

so more than anything else, for me, rupaul’s drag race helped bring back to light something that we’d almost forgotten. cory has been researching these drag houses because he, like a lot of people watching the drag race, had never heard about them. cory’s drag house? the house of slots, because he, penny slots, is the mother. my drag name in the house of slots? what else: lucy slots.

CAMEROON!

i made a valliant effort to avoid catching whatever it was that sidelined phong late last week, and i’m not convinced that i’ve caught whatever it was he had. he had nasal symptoms, a fever of like 101, and was barfy (but didn’t barf). i woke up today with a scratchy throat and a general malaise, coupled with a weirdly itchy/runny nose, so i’m thinking that just as i succeeded in sharing a bed with a sicko and not getting sick, i also succeeded in catching a total stranger’s illness. which is worse? i’m going with stranger, although i do hate being barfy. then again, i sang for a total of about 7 hours yesterday, 4 of which was at a screamy, accomplish-nothing rehearsal for this opera in which i’m singing three lines (and the chorus…which i of course found out a week ago). i’m sorry, four lines. i sing four lines. although the last two lines i sing are “que donc!?” and “romeo!” so i count those as one. so maybe my throat is scratchy from overuse and my allergies are kicking in. long story short: i want to go home and play mariokart on wii with phong, which is what i spent my lunchbreak doing.

besides the two days of rehearsal, we had a relatively quiet weekend. we went out friday night in hell’s kitchen with our friends jorge and michael, who were visiting from baltimore. phong went home early because he was feeling like shit, but jorge, michael, and i ventured out to the eagle. it was so funny, because i always take out of town visitors to hell’s kitchen, assuming they’ll want something loungey and fancy. i was so pleasantly surprised when michael was like, “this is nice, but can we go somewhere darker and dirtier?” i was like, the eagle it is. and it was packed because black party was the next night. bears and beers. that’s a good friday night in my book.

except for rehearsal, we spent most of saturday recovering (me from going out, phong from his mystery illness). we went out to dinner with sean, cory, courtenay, and their friend hillary, then came home and watched burn after reading, which i can only recommend if you like weird, rambly films.

yesterday, after the aforementioned 7 hours of singing we went out to dinner (mexican a second night in a row, and good mexican at that—i have basically died and gone to heaven, and phong has died and gone to hell. which is almost certainly backwards from what will actually happen.) for austin’s birthday and then continued the party at the phoenix. i always forget how much i love the phoenix until i go there. it’s got such a great jukebox; there’s no scene; the bartenders aren’t bitchy; and they were running a special on two dollar domestic drafts.

looking back on it, it was a big weekend. but aren’t they always? yes. basically.

it’s a relatively warm day in new york city today, meaning that it’s 55 degrees instead of our usual 15 below. seriously, i know that it’s going to make me sound like a cranky old woman, but this winter has been especially brutal. is it because i’m getting older? maybe i’ve just been busier than in winters past, which means that i’m forced to walk around in it more. that’s the thing about winter in new york. sure, it may be colder in rochester or indiana (i know for a fact that it’s colder in indiana, and when i graduated i swore that i’d never spend another winter there.), but in those places you have cars to get in. even if you drive an ‘83 mustang with no functioning heater, at least the windows block the wind. here in nyc we’re just out in it. anyway, i’ve digressed so far that i can no longer see my starting point. let’s just say that winter here sucks, and that i’ve been looking forward to spring more than i have any year in recent memory.

the thing about spring is that i find myself just wanting to get out. i find it harder and harder to fight down the urge to get out of the city, specifically to california. i don’t know why, but i have been absolutely dying to get back to the bay area for the past few weeks, and it’s now gotten to the point where i’m listening to pet sounds and so much for the afterglow and reading long feature stories in the san francisco bay guardian. it’s been a long, difficult, cold three months since the last time i got out of new york for any extended period of time (i don’t count my 15-hour trip to philadelphia last weekend, though i should count my wonderful two-day trip to durham the weekend before that) and i increasingly find myself needing a break. not necessarily a vacation, but definitely a change of pace.

i know, i know. bitch, moan. i’m busy singing and working at a day job that i like. we’re busy every night of the week with rehearsals or activities with friends, and that’s nothing to complain about. still, i fantasize about being able to walk somewhere with my shoes off, the cool grass between my toes, and look up at a blue sky and take in a deep breath of clean air. that doesn’t work so well in manhattan.

i was one of only three people in my entire division today to wear green. and it’s not like i wore those shamrock-shaped sunglasses and shiny green plastic beads around my neck (i’m saving that outfit later for dinner at cory’s); i wore a green and navy tie, a tie that i wear at least once a week whether or not it’s the day of st. patrick. apparently i’m the only one who cares about this anymore, and even saying that i “care” is a stretch. i care about st. patrick’s day the way i care about, say, arbor day. if it were tradition to wear a tree t-shirt on arbor day, i might go along with it, as long as i already owned a tree t-shirt. okay, maybe that’s a bad analogy.

starting in grad school, i tended to avoid the st. patrick’s day festivities because they amounted to nothing more than thousands of people standing around in the cold being drunk. obviously i like being drunk but i hate the cold. and i hate people standing around in big crowds. only one of my close friends identifies as irish-american (i say identifies because, well, we’re basically all irish. i myself am like 3/4 irish but i look so jewish that nobody ever knows it. i’d say that most people i know except phong are of at least partial irish descent, and even phong’s had a little irish in him. ba-duh ching i’ll be here all week.) and we’re going over to his house for dinner tonight.

i’m hoping now that RWO tour is over things can get back to normal a little bit. normal meaning i only work a day job and a church job and sing one gig instead of all that plus the tour. i haven’t had time to go grocery shopping or cook a morsel of food for a few weeks now, and my checking account is showing it even if my waistline isn’t. have i ever written a more midwestern housewife sentence than that? no, i haven’t.

so i’ll stop here. happy st. patrick’s day. pass me a green beer.

i’m wondering when i’m going to recover from this weekend. i’m thinking that probably by the time we go to emily’s wedding in late august i’ll have made up for lost sleep. maybe not, though, so i need to be sure to pack my concealer for my under-eye circles. (reminder to self: buy concealer for under-eye circles.) this isn’t to say that this weekend wasn’t great, though. it was.

friday, i left from work to catch a train to philadelphia, where rhymes with opera was putting on its next-to-last show. george picked me up from the station at 8, and we went to the venue, where the other act was already playing. we walked up to the house—yes, it was a house—where we met robin. i was in the middle of telling her, rather loudly, not to have her friend come and meet us when i turned around to see the audience glaring up at me from their seats on the floor. let me tell you, if patchouli hate-rays could kill. the show itself was interesting: i fucked up all kinds of entrances, getting so wrapped up in my “acting” (as opposed to acting without quotes, which is what real actors do) that i forgot to come in. so that was fun. we got through it, though, and the basement full of philadelphia hipsters (not to mention robin, kate, and courtney) were an appreciative crowd. in robin’s friend’s words: “tell robert he needs to get a manager.” afterwards, i went for drinks with kate, courtney, robin, and george, and caught up. it was awesome.

george and i drove to nyc on saturday after brunch, had a rest, then went to the times square subway station where we met the rest of rhymes with opera and did a quick show. yes, you read that right: we sang in the subway. it wasn’t my idea. we did it, people had fun doing it (if not hearing it, as we were roundly ignored), and we lived.

ricky was in town staying with us, so after some rousing guitar hero we went to a new club called “santos party house” downtown. let me tell you, i didn’t think that clubs like this existed anymore. i thought they went extinct with the death of the roxy. i was wrong. this place is insane. will i be going back there? probably about as often as i went to the roxy, which was exactly twice in eight years. but it was a great adventure.

sunday morning, after dragging myself through church (and somehow sounding no worse for wear) we went to lunch, then finished up our RWO tour with a show at the gershwin hotel. if you ever hear about a show going on there, go. it’s a fantastic venue: an in-tune piano, comfy couches, friendly staff.

so if you’ll excuse me, i’m off to collapse another rehearsal for another show.

tonight marks the beginning of our second weekend as a band of traveling troubadour-ian purveyors of new music. (wow, if i’ve ever written a sentence that sounded more like i should be on my way to comic-con i don’t know what it would be.) i’ll go home during lunch today to pack an overnight bag (which, of course, would be like any sane person’s week-long-trip bag. what can i say? i need CREAMS and LOTIONS.) so that i can leave straight for the train station from work. then i’ll hop on the easy amtrak to philadelphia (easy assuming it’ll be on time), arrive at 8, hopefully get picked up from the train station since it could be a long walk and i have no idea hwere i’m going, then sing a show of really cool, weird music starting at 9. we haven’t talked at all about this tour, so let’s take a quick, um, detour.

what i’m talking about is george and ruby’s new shindig for their company “rhymes with opera.” since they aim to put opera in unconventional spaces, so far we’ve sung in a restaurant/bar (which had a great stage and a great PA, but unfortunately was surrounded on five sides by sound-deadening material. you know that you’re in trouble when your backup band—a saxophone quartet—says it can’t hear itself.) and an art gallery that was running an installation of televisions showing pictures of televisions falling out of windows. tonight’s show is in the basement of a punk rock/hippie commune on the edge of the ghetto in philadelphia, and our new york shows will take place in a subway station and a hotel. unconventional? yeah, methinks.

so anyway, i’m leaving for philadelphia tonight, then will stay with robin after having drinks with my friends courtney and kate, whom i haven’t seen in easily a year and a half. two years? god, i’m getting old.

speaking of getting old, my birthday is two weeks from wednesday. what should we do? you only turn 29 once.