Blueberry Girl Book Nearly Finished

Charles Vess reported recently that he’s nearly finished with the artwork for Blueberry Girl, which some of you may remember as the poem Neil Gaiman wrote for Tash. Work on the book began in early 2005; now Vess reports that “I’ll be finished with the paintings by the end of this month and then it will be a necessarily long wait for the actual book to be published.” Neil reported in February 2005 that proceeds from the book would raise money for RAINN and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Click the thumbnail above to see a larger image from the book, and go to Vess’ site to see several sketches and finished panels. Many thanks to rainonwater for the tip!

Matt Chamberlain, Dan Phelps Record New Track

Matt Chamberlain’s MySpace page features a dreamy new track called “Everest,” co-recorded with Dan Phelps, Viktor Krauss, and Eyvind Kang. Trent, who wrote in to tell us about the song, wondered aloud whether a Matt-Dan collaboration could signal a new musical venture for Tori’s touring musicians. If we find anything out, we’ll let you know.

Matt Chamberlain Happenings: Floratone and Sara Bareilles

One thing I’ve been meaning to post about, since seeing it mentioned on Matt Chamberlain’s MySpace, is Floratone, a collaboration between Matt, renowned guitarist Bill Frisell and producers Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend. Well, last week, Floratone’s recently released album was reviewed on National Public Radio and, as I listened to the spot while driving home from work, thought, “Self, there are gonna be a few mentions of this in the Undented mailbox tonight.” Sure enough, Richard Handal and SomaRiot proved me right.

Floratone is an intriguing project: the result of several days of free jamming by Matt and Bill back in 2005 followed by Tucker and Lee digging through the tapes to find and produce the 11-track album from the raw material that Matt and Bill laid down. Between the several songs streaming on the Floratone website and the NPR piece, curious parties can get a good idea of what the music sounds like. It’s all instrumental, but don’t let the lack of words keep you from checking out one of the, IMHO, more interesting releases of the year.

If you prefer music with words, Matt also worked on Little Voice, the latest album by singer-songwriter and pianist Sara Bareilles, which just happened to be produced by Eric Rosse. Thanks to Kate for that tidbit (and apologies for taking so long to mention it here) and Ryno for reminding me about Eric’s production credit, which I forgot to mention in last night’s adrenalin-powered update haze.

Neil Gaiman Featured in SF Chronicle

“I find if I stay here too long, then my value system goes Hollywood, and I don’t like that,” he says over tea and a fruit bowl. “You suddenly find yourself living in a universe where it doesn’t matter whether a film was any good or not. What matters is how much it made. It’s very weird.”

Neil Gaiman, currently making the rounds to promote “Stardust,” was recently featured in this San Francisco Chronicle article. Go behind the cut for the full extravaganza.

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'Death' Could Come Back To Life With Tori

In an MTV Rough Cut video interview, Neil talks about hanging out on the “Hellboy 2” set, asking Tori for musical favors and feeling guilty about a flying pirate ship. Thanks to Jill and Marla for sending that in.

Neil Spins "Stardust" on NPR

Lorna caught Neil Gaiman on NPR today making a pitch for Stardust, which hits the big screen Friday. Although it’s not a long piece, he managed to work in a mention of the fact that the “Tori tree” did not make it into the film. We’re sure it’ll be stellar anyway.

Neil Working on "Death" Movie!

The Neil Gaiman fans will be especially glad to hear that Neil says he’s now working with director Guillermo del Toro on a potential “Death” movie, based on Neil’s character from Death: The High Cost of Living, Death: The Time of Your Life and Sandman:

“Everything is moving, slowly, but it’s moving… Guillermo del Toro is executive producing, which is a wonderful thing… and I’m actually planning on going out to Prague very, very soon to do some stuff with Guillermo on ‘Death.’ I think it definitely seems like it’s going to happen.”

For complete info, you can always swing over to Neil’s blog and check for entries tagged “Death movie.” Amy, thanks for the news!

John Philip Shenale has a MySpace!

John Philip Shenale, the composer who has created Tori’s string arrangements since Day One, has a profile on MySpace where you can listen to a version of “Jackie’s Strength” that’s different from the one on Choirgirl and see many photos of him, Tori, and their string players. Jenn and Devin, thanks for the scoop!

Matt's Blog Drums Up Tour Excitement

Matt Chamberlain’s latest blog entry describes — in impressively geeky detail — the custom drum set he’s putting together for the upcoming tour:

One thing that has been going on that I am really excited about is I have drumbuilder extrordinaire (sic) Ronn Dunnett building me a titanium shelled ’70s era Drumkit for the upcoming Tori Amos tour. The sizes are all classic depths—24” kick—13” rack 8” Piccolo/bongo tom—16” 18” floor toms—28“x10” side kick—8” Piccolo Snare—6 1/2“x14” Ludwig Chief TI snare. The rest of the rig will be a Midi Kat pad with a Mac Laptop running Ableton Live. The Cymbals are a variety of Istanbul Agop and Pieces of Greg Keplinger Hammered Metal.

Thanks, Devin, for the tip.

Matt Hints at Summer Tour

Matt Chamberlain’s Web site today includes some new tidbits about his upcoming tour plans with Tori:

“A bunch of stuff is brewing up for this summer with a Red Headed piano playing female and [a] bass player named Jon Evans. Less vague news concerning that will appear soon.”

Matt also writes that he’s got a few gigs coming up in Seattle, in which he’ll play with Steve Moore, and then he plans to spend the spring recording an album of his own in Northern California with Viktor Krauss and Dan Phelps.