News: Boston Herald/EDGE Boston Concert Preview (October 16, 2007)

Since Tori (and Pip!) is playing her first night in Boston, we thought it would be sensible to post Christopher John Treacy’s preview of the concert from The Boston Herald.

Update: The piece in The Herald is an edited version of this article. A longer version can be found at EDGE Boston. Thanks to the author for letting us know!

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Welcome to the ‘Doll’ house

Tori Amos takes her ‘Posse’ on tour

By Christopher John Treacy / Music
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Tori Amos is back with another tribe, to recall one of her album titles, of “Strange Little Girls.”

Her American Doll Posse – also the title of her latest CD – invades the Orpheum for a two-night stand Thursday and Friday. It’s not a creation of her wild imagination, but five feminine archetypes rooted in Greek mythology:

Isabel, the political woman (modeled after Artemis)

Clyde, the emotionally naked idealist (Persephone)

Pip, the dark-side warrior woman (Athena)

Santa, the sensual goddess (Aphrodite)

And the fifth? Tori herself, the mother creator, modeled after Demeter.

According to Amos, who grew up in Maryland as the daughter of a Methodist preacher, the five create a psychological composite of the average American woman. Each night of the American Doll Posse tour, a different lady steps onstage to perform a six-song set. Then, after a brief intermission, Amos emerges as herself. It’s an elaborate two-hour-plus performance, and 20 selected shows will soon begin trickling onto the Internet as official bootlegs.

Of the five characters, Amos, 44, says that Tori was the hardest to home in on.

“The Tori that you’ve seen all this time isn’t the whole picture,” she said, calling in the midst of a week-long Florida retreat. “This project required much soul searching. I had to fragment my notions of self, look at other facets of my being and then let them play out. I had to push the envelope well beyond my comfort zone. But now I’m in touch with these other aspects of myself.

“The costumes may go in storage when the tour is over, but the girls aren’t going anywhere. I’ll wake up with them every day. I don’t need Pip’s rubber outfits to step into what she’s given me.”

Musically, “American Doll Posse” strays from the piano-based singer-songwriter template that is Amos’ trademark. It explodes into an unexpected guitar-centric glam-rock sound.

The biting lyrics, however, are more familiar. Amos rails at our commander in chief with the opener “Yo, George,” in which, as Isabel, she asks, “Where have we gone wrong, America? Is it just the madness of King George?”The Bush administration isn’t the only party her posse’s after. Amos believes American women, having willingly stepped into limiting stereotypes that relegate them to the political back row, need to raise their voices.This is where Greek mythology really comes into play.

“American women obviously need a jump-start,” she said. “We all harbor varying percentages of these archetypes, but too much of it never surfaces. If we’re not questioning our typecast roles, then we’re automatically agreeing to them. It’s unforgivable. I mean, where were the women in this last election? Why and how could we support a candidate that fundamentally doesn’t support us?

“In order to illustrate feminine power, I’ve reached back to an ideology that predates Christianity,” she said. “In Greek mythology women are authority figures. The Christian model (of) one god and many subservient women? That’s just way too myopic.”

Spoken like a true preacher’s daughter.

Tori Amos, at the Orpheum, Thursday and Friday. Tickets: $39.50-$49.50; 617-931-2000.

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Here’s the longer version published in EDGE Boston:

Tori Amos Redefines ’Posse’

by Christopher John Treacy
EDGE Boston Contributor
Wednesday Oct 17, 2007

Posse: (n) A group of men summoned by a sheriff to aid in law enforcement; a body or force armed with legal authority.

Tori Amos isn’t your average feminist and her ’Posse’ is anything but conventional – no men, no sheriffs … and the only laws being enforced are ancient ones of nature that our culture has wrongfully dismissed.

In fact, Amos’ new pack of “Strange Little Girls” has come to dismantle the male-dominated constructions responsible for words like ’posse’ and ’sheriff’ to begin with. So, when she uses the term ’posse,’ she’s debunking the patriarchy – a recurring theme in her work.

Amos’ expansive new 23-track “American Doll Posse,” her ninth release, takes a fresh stab at some old themes with music that seemingly comes out of left field – sonically, it’s a departure. And while her piano playing remains an integral part of the music, it’s not as prominent as it’s been in the past.

She does some more debunking and dismantling by pulling from male musical influences, albeit slightly gender-bended ones like Bowie and T.Rex, to arrive at a glam-rocking motif that employs more guitar than anything she’s recorded since fronting the metal-tinged 80’s band Y Kant Tori Read. Even when she’s toured in a trio over the past ten years, it’s been keyboards, bass and drums only, lending an unusual, tribal feel to the material.

“I became really excited when I could see this wasn’t going to be just another singer/songwriter record,” she said, over the phone from a week long break in Florida. “It’s good to change things up.”

And change things up she does. Using these five feminine archetypes from Greek mythology, Amos paints a powerful portrait of possibilities:

• Isabel, the political woman modeled after Artemis
• Clyde, the emotionally naked idealist modeled after Persephone
• Pip, the dark-side warrior woman modeled after Athena
• Santa, the sensual goddess modeled after Aphrodite

The fifth is Amos herself, the mother creator, modeled after Demeter. Fans long familiar with her spellbinding stage presence won’t be surprised that Amos’ personal archetype is blended with a touch of masculine energy from Dionysus – the male god that represents the beneficial, intoxicating qualities of wine.

Together these five create a psychological composite sketch of the average American woman, each with her own songs and individual physicality, developed by Amos over an eighteen month period with assistance from longtime stylist Karen Binns.

The disc begins on a political note by railing at our commander-in-chief during the weary opener “Yo, George.” Cloaked as Isabel, Amos asks, “Where have we gone wrong America… Is it just the madness of King George? Yo George… you have the nation on all fours.”

From there, her matriarchal lynch mob rotates characters through an exhaustive song cycle. Soon it becomes clear that the Bush administration isn’t the only party her posse is after.

Amos believes American women themselves – having willingly stepped into limiting stereotypes that relegate them to the political back row – need to raise their voices over the din of right-wing Christianity currently drowning out our culture.

This is where the Greek mythology really comes into play.

“American women obviously need a jump start,” she said.

“We all harbor varying percentages of these archetypes within us, but too much of it never surfaces. If we’re not questioning our typecast roles, then we’re automatically agreeing to them – it’s unforgivable. I mean, where were the women in this last election? Why and how could we support a candidate that fundamentally doesn’t support us?

“In order to illustrate feminine power, I’ve reached back to an ideology that pre-dates Christianity. In Greek mythology, women are authority figures. The Christian model – one god and many subservient women? That’s just way too myopic.”

Spoken like the preacher’s daughter that Amos, now 44, really is.

The resulting “American Doll Posse” tour, which invades the Orpheum Thursday and Friday, is just as exhaustive as the album that precedes it. Each night a different lady steps on stage to perform a six song set. Then, after a brief intermission, Amos emerges as herself. It’s an elaborate two-hour-plus performance, and twenty selected U.S. shows will soon begin trickling onto the internet as official bootlegs (she’s calling them “Legs & Boots”) mastered by Amos’ husband, sound engineer Mark Hawley. Visit www.toribootlegs.com for more details.

Additionally, a live DVD is slated to be filmed during her three-night stand in Oakland, California.

On a more intimate level, Amos admitted that the process of making her new CD became unusually daunting when she discovered her own character to be the most elusive of the bunch.

“The Tori that you’ve seen all this time isn’t the whole picture,” she said.

“This project required much soul searching. I had to fragment my notions of ’self,’ look at other facets of my being and then let them play out – let them under my skin. I had to push the envelope well beyond my comfort zone. But now I’m in touch with these other aspects of myself,” she said.

“The costumes may go in storage when the tour is over, but the girls aren’t going anywhere. I’ll wake up with them every day. I don’t need Pip’s rubber outfits to step into what she’s given me.”

Tori Amos at the Orpheum, Boston, 1 Hamilton Place. Thursday & Friday, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $39.50-$49.50. Call 617-931-2000 or visit either ticketmaster.com or link:www.livenation.com:livenation.com>

_Christopher John Treacy is a Boston-based freelance Music Journalist and a regular contributor to the Boston Herald. _