Indulgence

Drowning in the Music

Neil Young from The Painter
It's a long road behind and it's a long road ahead. If you follow every dream you might get lost.

Soaking up the Tori Amos book like a sponge. I was hoping for something more sequential and gave facts about the recording process and how much money each album made and what she thought of those moments and what she did on the tours and how the public accepted her. But I was so wrong. The book is nothing like that at all. It really dissects Tori Amos' creative process and her philosophies and her ideologies and how it all translates into her work and her daily life. The book is really a complete inside look into her mind, her brain, her heart. I don't know if this would be as successful with any other artist because Tori Amos is extremely aware of the process and she's very literate and articulate. She reads so much and, much like a sponge, just absorbs so much information into her. Like she mentions many times, she's not just a song writer, or to put it closer to what she said, a song writer is not just a creator of music -- he/she is a translator, a teller of stories, an investigator and a shape-shifter. A song writer is many things in order to properly create this artform that can move, that can push. It's an amazing book. It's not what I expected but I'm happy with it. I'm really soaking it up.

It's really a far cry from the Kate Bush book which was written without Kate Bush's involvement, rather taking interviews from people around her and the few interviews she did conduct. Here, the book's author Ann Powers has interviewed and spoke with Tori Amos intently and constantly to help formulate the content. Talking with Tori Amos, apparently, about her creative and artistic processes requires quite a bit of appreciation for archetypes, mythology, and some previous reading of the universal subconscious. Oh yeah, and a whole lot of religious knowledge -- especially about the Gnostics and stuff. It's such a treat. She talks about things we really discussed in length in our literary criticism class. To know that Tori Amos is so well-versed in archetypes and the Jungian theories is just chillin'.

Rockstar Supernova is up again and I just finished watching the newly uploaded reality episode from the net. I continue to favour the following and hope that they reach the final five -- Toby, Dilana, Jenny, Storm and Patrice. I wish these 5 would be the last ones standing with either Toby or Dilana fronting Supernova and the other 3 ladies (and the one not chosen) having their own illustrious solo careers. I find Jill a drama queen and her voice is powerful but not very emotive. It's strong but I find it cold and not containing much feeling. Magni has a gorgeous voice and he might come up to the number 6 spot. I said Lukas is an amazing performer and has a great voice, but if he continues to sing with his throat; he won't last in this competition.

And then, I found their spaces where they put their blogs and everything. I was just giddy with excitement. Too bad they haven't put up much yet but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

Haven't been feeling 100% but I continue to plod along and getting everything together. Getting a little overwhelmed by the amount of work going on but hey! It's definitely better than what was going on before so I won't complain.

I've been bringing my CD walkman everywhere with me now, completely filling up all the time in-between human interaction with music. I love it because the music blows straight into my ears and I can hear instruments in the background that I didn't hear before. Listening to the music on speakers lets you "see the whole picture," let's you receive the whole sound as one whole. But on the ear phones, you can start picking the instrumentations apart. You can start separating the sounds and layers. I'm so tickled by the whole experience. I love it. I'm discovering new things, little details, in the music I've loved for so long.

I'm really just throwing myself at the music thing. It is my one big frustration in life.

posted by wanggo @ 5:02 PM