Stereogum's Piano Giveaway

Stereogum, one of the more well-known music blogs on the net, is giving away a copy of A Piano: The Collection. To enter the drawing to win a copy of the boxed set, just post a comment on that entry telling them your favorite Tori song. The winner will be picked at random on Monday, December 18th at 6PM Eastern time. Good luck!

Tori Produces "Ballerina" For Leona Naess

Back in February of 2004, the following item was reported on the Dent:

I earlier reported that a trusted anonymous source confirmed that Tori had been in a Los Angeles, CA studio producing and playing keyboards on a single by artist Leona Naess. This has been completely confirmed by Leona Naess herself in her diary on leonanaess.com. (Be sure to read that Feb 18th diary entry. Leona says some interesting things about Tori!) The song is called “Ballerina”. There is some confusion about the fact that Tori worked on this song, because this song is already a track on Leona’s new self-titled album “Leona Naess”. It appears that Leona has recorded it again with Tori, and the new version of Ballerina will be released soon as Leona’s new single. The version currently on the album apparently does NOT include Tori. Tori produced and played keyboards on the new version of the song, but does not sing.

This song appears to be finished and ready to go. Estrella pointed us to Leona’s website, where the song was announced (as having been produced by Tori) on the entry page with a link to the MP3. Unfortunately, as I was writing the story up — and I do mean AS I was writing it up — Leona’s entire website changed and the song file disappeared completely; it’s nowhere to be found on the redesigned site or her MySpace page. I managed to get in a quick listen before it went poof and can confirm that it is indeed a new version of the song that appeared on Leona’s 2003 album. I can also confirm that it sounds VERY Tori … so much so that I’m certain Tori herself is likely playing piano on it.

We don’t yet know whether this version of “Ballerina” is slated to be on Leona’s forthcoming album, Thirteens, or whether it will be released separately, perhaps only digitally, or even at all.

If anyone sees an MP3 of “Ballerina” turn up anywhere else, please let us know.

Cate and Tori: Separated at Birth?

Some of us at Undented have long thought that Cate Blanchett sometimes looks like Tori (not that we’re naming any names). So we weren’t surprised when Marlina told us that Perez Hilton thinks so, too. It looks like most of Perez’s readers don’t agree (maybe it was the pictures they chose), but head on over there and offer them your own opinion on the matter.

WYEP Discumentaries

Radio station WYEP 91.3FM has two discumentaries on Tori — one for Little Earthquakes, the other for Under The Pink — available in their online archive. The station describes discumentaries as “part artist biography and part album spotlight.” These are a fun listen on a rainy day (it happens to be raining just now, and I’m having fun listening to them, so….). And there are quite a few discumentaries for other cool artists that you can move on to … after you’ve listened to Tori, of course.

Thanks to Kim for passing this along.

BBC Radio 3 Private Passions Transcript (November 12, 2006)

Thanks to Katran_sama for providing us with a transcript of Tori’s Private Passions interview from November 12th.

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A Piano Goes Digital

A Piano: The Collection is going digital in a big way this month.

Tuesday morning, “Walk to Dublin” will be available on Yahoo! Unlimited, though you must be a subscriber to access the song.

Also Tuesday, “Take Me With You” goes up for download exclusively through MTV Urge.

For those with more patience, the entire 86-song set will be made available for purchase on iTunes starting December 19, just in time for the holidays.

For all the details on Tori’s box-set bonanza, check out Undented’s A Piano section.

Hurry, Hurry: Tori On Demand

Those of you in the U.S. who have Comcast Digital Cable can check out Tori’s 1995 performance of “Mr. Zebra” from Later With Jools Holland on On Demand. It expires today, November 30th. Access the On Demand menu, then select Music > concert.tv > Singer-Songwriter > Tori Amos.(Our apologies for the late notice. jenwshirled and Kam were on the ball and passed us the news earlier this month, but we didn’t realise it would be expiring this soon. Mea culpa.)

Tori in Robert Plant Box Set, BT Interview, Margera's "Walk"

Two of Tori’s past collaborators, Robert Plant and BT, have recently emerged with tidbits that Toriphiles will want to hear.

Robert Plant has just released a new box set, “Nine Lives,” a nine-CD-and-DVD collection. According to Mod Lang (a cool record shop in Albany, CA—previously located in Berkeley—which has always been a top spot for finding Tori rarities), Tori is among the musicians featured on the DVD, along with Roy Harper, Roger Daltrey, Bobby Gillespie, and Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun.

Meanwhile, electronica artist BT recently namechecked Tori in a podcast interview called Dawn and Drew. She’s mentioned in the second part of the interview. Thanks to Noah for sending us the link.

And, while we’re nowhere near the subject, Bam Margera (of Jackass fame) was quoted in the November 2006 SPIN magazine as being a fan of Scarlet’s Walk: “I’m planning my wedding that’ll hopefully air on MTV and everybody expects [my brother’s band] CKY and HIM to play, but I’d like to tell everybody to go to hell and have Tori play, just to throw them for a loop,” he said. Christy and Ally were the sharp-eyed fans who spotted this for us—thanks!

Send a Tori-riffic Holiday Greeting

OK, that pun is a little too much even for us, but The Tori Store is selling a bevy of Tori-oriented holiday items, including greeting cards, T-shirts, and some cute little beehive-shaped candles. Several of the cards have holiday messages written by Tori, including one showing the front door of her Cornwall home that says, “From my door to yours. Wishing you magic, good friends and loads of carbs.” Now that’s what we’re talking about. Thanks to Marlina for giving us the tasty news.

Little Blue World Contest Update

In order to conform to U.S. law, Little Blue World has had to adjust its ongoing holiday contest. Full terms and conditions are posted on their website.

The most essential changes are that no purchase is necessary to enter and entrants must be at least 18 years of age.

LBW apolizes for any eyestrain or confusion that may result from their new rules. Those who entered the contest between November 7th and November 16th may contact LBW’s subscription editor at subscriptions@little-blue-world.org for a refund if they don’t wish to participate under revised rules.