Holiday Media Wrap-up

Just a quick reminder that the Coffee House Live session that Tori recorded for Sirius XM Radio will be broadcast at Noon Eastern today and repeated again several times over the coming weekend.

Also, Tori will be a guest on tonight’s Dysfunctional Family Christmas on WRNR. That starts at 6:00 PM Eastern and will be reboadcast Christmas morning at 6:00 AM Eastern.

Additionally, don’t forget that the episode of eTown that was recorded earlier this month at the Grand Ballroom is being broadcast this week. Check their website for a list of radio stations that carry the program world-wide or just swing by their website to stream or download the podcast of the program.

Blogcritics Midwinter Graces Review

Blogcritics’ Mark Saleski weighs in on Midwinter Graces, declaring it one of the two holiday records of 2009 that are worth adding to your collection. The other? You, you guessed it: Bob Dylan’s Christmas In The Heart.

Thanks to Mark-Alexis for catching this one!

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Last.fm Discovers Tori

Tori is Artist of the Week at last.fm/discover.

She is featured on their radio station throughout the week, including selections from a session she did for last.fm/discover which are also available on YouTube.

Thanks to Rabih for the tip!

Update And now it seems the session videos have been removed from YouTube. When and if they come back, we’ll replce ‘em here.

Metro Interview (December 21, 2009)

[Women would] bring different things to the table, because of our life experiences. The issue about war, for example, is that when you carry life and give birth to life, the idea of life being taken away, even if it isn’t your own child… there’s a sanctity a lot of women have for life.

This short interview appeared in today’s issue of The Metro — a free publication available in the London Underground.

Thanks to Mary and Brian for catching it and sending in the link!

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Lemondrop Interview (December 18, 2009)

My daughter is 9 years old and she still believes in Santa — and so does Mark. And I believe in fairies. My daughter will say, “Dad, do you believe in fairies? And he’ll say, ‘I married one!’”

Here’s a sweet little interview from Lemondrop in which Lauren Brown talk to Tori about Midwinter Graces, Santa Claus and family.

Thanks to Google for finding this one for us!

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MusicOMH Midwinter Graces Review

Thanks to Kevin Martin for catching MusicOMH’s review of Midinwter Graces, snuggled into their holiday album guide. While they generally have nice things to say about the release, they ultimately find it lacking a spark for repeated listens.

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The Times Midwinter Graces Review

The Times’ short review of Midwinter Graces appeared in the December 20th edition of this venerable newspaper but reviewer Dan Cairns’ opinion is less than stellar — although he at least recognizes Tori’s tack with creating the album.

Tori Amos: Midwinter Graces

From The Sunday Times
December 20, 2009
Dan Cairns

2 stars out of 5

A Christmas album by an artist who spent much of her early career skewering institutionalised religion (and once, unforgettably, sang about pleasuring herself while her family sang hymns downstairs) was always going to be an interesting proposition; and interesting is probably the kindest thing to be said about it. Amos opts to tinker with, rather than upend, the classics — We Three Kings, Coventry Carol, The Holly and the Ivy and the like — of the canon (alongside five of her own songs), for the most part failing either to subvert them or to improve on their innate beauty. The sense, which has grown of late, that Amos lacks a self-edit button — or someone who will say to her, “Oi, Amos, no!” — is less insistent. For once, though, more recklessness might have been welcome on an album that is occasionally lovely, but turgid for all that.

The Independent's Second Midwinter Graces Review

Mark-Alexis points out that UK newspaper The Independent has posted a second review of Midwinter Graces, this time giving it a much more favorable critique than their first one. Go figure!

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'Twas The Night Before Christmas...

…and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The radios were tuned to the stations with care,
In hopes that Tori Amos soon would be there.

You’ll excuse the poor poetic parody as there are two upcoming radio appearances slated for Christmas Eve.

First, at Noon Eastern, a live session recorded for Sirius XM’s The Coffee House (Sirius channel 30 and XM channel 51) will be aired. The session will be repeated later at Midnight and several more times before the end of the Christmas weekend: 3:00 PM on Christmas, 7:00 PM on the 26th and 11:00 AM on the 27th (all times Eastern). Sirius XM satellite radio is not freely available but you can also sign up for a free online streaming trial if you are not a subscriber and want to check the session out.

Later on that evening, Tori will be a guest during WRNR’s Dysfunctional Family Christmas — six hours of Christmas music and mayhem starting at 6:00 PM Eastern. One assumes that Tori’s guest appearance is pre-recorded and that she’ll only be on part of the program but we’ll have to tune in to see. The entire event will be rebroadcast on Christmas morning from 6:00 AM to Noon Eastern.

To whet the appetite for The Coffee House Live, Sirius has posted a video of Tori performing “Winter” from the upcoming session. Enjoy!

Thanks to Dawn and Josh for the tips!

Tori on ABC's Nightline Tonight!

Per Everything Tori and the other official news channels, an interview with Tori will air tonight on Nightline. Nightline is on the ABC television network in the United States and is shown at 11:35 PM Eastern/Pacific. Check your local TV listings for channel and exact time. The interview will be available on Nightline’s website after the program is aired in the Pacific timezone.

In the meantime, check out the article Nightline has posted to preview the interview segment.

Update The video has been posted on Nightline’s website.

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