Interview: Pete Pidgeon of Arcoda, part two

In part one of my interview with singer/songwriter Pete Pidgeon of Arcoda, we talked about his musical approach, his insights into the Front Range music scene, and how his career has developed, both here and on the East Coast. Part two finds us discussing his influences, some of the recognition he's received and exactly what to do (and what not to do) if you find yourself face to face with Paris Hilton or Trey Anastasio.

Enjoy part two of our conversation, which has been condensed and lightly edited.


Earlier, you mentioned that the legendary Levon Helm of The Band contributed to your upcoming album. How was it playing with him?

Pete Pidgeon: It’s still number one. It’ll probably always be number one. One of my earliest memories, my parents were big music fans. They had a huge vinyl collection, which really influenced where I came from. Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon, Billy Joel...all these great singer-songwriters. They had Big Pink and they put on “Chest Fever” and I remember this distinctly. I would crawl up on the couch and jump on the couch when they’d play music. So I remember doing that and then “Chest Fever” coming on and being completely terrified, because it was the scariest sounding organ. It was this huge, monstrous Garth Hudson organ sound. It was overwhelming how powerful this tune was. From my earliest memories of music, I’ve been exposed to The Band and Levon’s playing.

The biggest thing about Levon is that, of anybody in the last 50 years or so who cared more about music, I think he’s probably the number one dude. I don’t think anybody cared more about playing as hard as he could every single night and really giving everything he had to the music. There was this story that Larry Campbell said, if I’m not wrong. [ed: Theresa Williams mentions it in this interview on For the Country Record] In his last days, when he was playing a show, he was sitting in the corner of the room and he wasn’t even talking to anybody. He was talking to himself and talking to God, and saying, “All I ask for is just these 90 minutes on stage. That’s all I ask for. The other hours of the day? Whatever. You want to make me sick, that’s fine, but I need these 90 minutes right here to go out.” You can’t get bigger than that. So, the honor of being able to make music with him, to have him play my music? Come on. That’s just the biggest honor of all time.

Your bio includes things like the Jeff Buckley tribute, which I think exposed you to a lot of bigger named people and gave you some public visibility. I’ve also seen that you were in the running for some Grammys in 2012.

PP: Yeah, ‘11-’12. The ceremony was in 2012, but it was for the 2011 Grammys.

What categories were you considered for?

PP: It was for the EP called Growing Pains. There was a single on there called “Will” and we did a music video for it.

Oh yeah, I saw that on YouTube. Didn’t you write the storyline?

PP: I directed it. I co-wrote the story with Wes Mock, but I wrote the screenplay for it. And I did all the fieldwork for it and financed it.

That was a pretty heavy video.

PP: Thanks. It was dealing with some serious issues. I was volunteering at the time at Road Recovery, which helps children dealing with addictions. A lot of those kids were going through suicide problems and really major stuff. It was actually written about this girl, I’m sure she was suicidal, but I can’t tell you that for sure. But going through a major breakup: outside the lines of regular people breakup. Major stuff. She just had a huge impact on me and I wrote a few tunes about her and that was one of them. “I am more than the sum of my mistakes;” that’s the lyric that everyone responds to. She made these mistakes, but they weren’t really her fault, necessarily. It just had a big impact.

So, that video got nominated for Best Short Form Video, the single, “Will” was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. And then I was also up for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.

But I’m very clear to mention that these were Grammy-recognized. That’s because a technical Grammy nomination only refers to the top five people that go to the awards ceremony. We made the second round of three, with the third round being the Top Five nominations.

I also noticed that you’re teaching guitar here, which is a good way to make ends meet as a musician. What’s your teaching philosophy?

PP: My curriculum is based on the individual student. Some kids want to learn theory, some kids don’t want to learn theory. Some kids want to learn how to play heavy metal, some kids want to play folk songs or pop tunes. When I came up, I didn’t have a teacher. My brother and my father taught me how to play guitar, but they weren’t sitting there saying, “This is how you’re supposed to do it. You need to learn these songs and do this.” It was more like coaching. So, with my students, I try to incorporate that into the lesson.

I’m glad you brought up your roots. I was wondering what your family background was with music. You mentioned your parents’ vinyl collection and now that your dad and brother both play.

PP: Yeah, my dad and my brother both play guitar. My dad was a campfire folk singer: Everly Brothers, Beach Boys, that kind of thing. Even way back in the day, when he was in high school and college, he had a couple of bands and was doing that style of music. My mom played piano and sang. My dad sang and played guitar. And my grandmother, my mother’s mother, she loved playing piano, too., She played at Christmas and I think she played at church at one point. Her husband, my mom’s father, was in the church. He played hymns and stuff on the piano. He died before I was born, but my grandma played a lot of those tunes. So there was a lot of music in the house. We had a music room in the house...My family called it the living room, but I called it the music room because it had baby grand piano, a bunch of guitars, xylophones, percussion instrument, trombone, violins, trumpet, recorders, flute. There was just all sorts of instruments, plus the record player, the reel-to-reel player. I couldn’t ask for more, you know.

Do you just have the one brother? Does he play as a hobbyist?

PP: Yes. The first live gig I ever played in public, I played bass in his progressive rock cover band. It was Yes, Rush, Triumph and maybe a couple of other groups, but that was the core of it. I was either 13 or 14. They were playing “Yours is No Disgrace” [by Yes] and the bass player couldn’t hang with the bass part. It wasn’t necessarily technically difficult, but there’s a lot of notes to memorize, and there’s a bass solo and stuff. A walking bass thing. So I just picked it up and played it. So, my brother brought me on because I could play the whole thing. They called me the Iceman, because I just stood in one place, staring at the bass, not moving, not looking at anybody.

Total shoegazer...

PP: Exactly. A shoegazer before shoegazing. So he was a shredder into progressive rock and shred: Satriani, Malmsteen, and Vai, Paul Gilbert, that kind of thing. He was a major influence. Probably the biggest influence. He had a bunch of bands. He doesn’t gig out as much now, but he definitely gave it a good go for a long time.

What other influences would you cite for your music?

PP: Oh, Man. it’s been a long road. The first exposure was the singer-songwriters that I mentioned. The first band I liked on my own was Huey Lewis and the News. There was this one live performance of "The Power of Love", where he’s playing onstage and he gets on his knees and he’s just yelling. I was like, “That’s amazing. That the coolest.” I must’ve been around 7 or 8.

I saw Robert Palmer when “Addicted to Love” came out and he had that video with all the girls dressed in black and doing their thing. I didn’t know what love was at the time or what any of the lyrics were about, which my parents found amusing, but I saw that video and I connected with it right away. I thought, “This is the greatest music I’ve ever heard.”

And there was a black and white Kiss show that I remember from when I was super young. Just the fact that I remember these things means that my brain was hardwired for music. I’m barely an infant and I recognize what’s going on.

So that was the earliest stuff. Then my brother got me into progressive rock and shred and then that graduated into jazz in high school and college. Then that graduated into jam bands: Allman Brothers, Phish, Dead, Santana, that kind of stuff, which taught me how to improvise. Coming out of progressive rock and shred, there’s no improvisation. Although there was some in Yes, I’ll give them some credit because they were an organic progressive band.

So I did the jam band thing. After that, I started getting back into my roots of songwriting, around ‘03. I’ve sort of been in that scene for the last ten years: song craft, how to write better tunes. Definitely more stripped down, trying to make it more compact. That’s one thing New York definitely taught me: you got to have a three minute tune. maybe a four minute tune if you can, but no more of this 7 or 8 minute progressive, long form stuff, That was sort of the purpose of the Growing Pains EP. How can I be concise and write a hit tune or a radio tune? And it’s still too progressive for most people, but it’s the best I could do without sacrificing my creative interests.

You brought up the jam band thing, which is a good segue, because I wanted to talk briefly with you about your book, Hampton '98: The Dephinitive Experience about the Hampton shows and Phish. I read the interview you had with Glide and I found it really intriguing. I wanted to ask you was about a teaser quote from that Glide interview. You talked about getting experience meeting the guys in Phish and that you finally learned how to meet and talk to famous people. So what’s your advice for people? What is the proper way?

PP: (laughs) It’s exactly how you and I are talking right now. That’s exactly how you do it. You’re just another dude. “Hey what’s going on? What do you have happening? How’s the road been? What’s up?” and not get overtaken. It’s easier said than done, but not get overtaken by -- there’s almost a palpable energy that comes off of people that are famous. I don’t know why. I’m theorizing that it has something to do with their influence and also how they’ve been influenced. The amount of energy that they can play in front of 100,000 people and affect 100,000 people simultaneously by playing one note on their instrument or them being influenced by those 100,000 people giving all their energy back to them. They’re very electric people.

If you can talk to your brain and say, “Just be cool, man, it’s just a normal person,” have a regular convo, keep it on the level. I think that breathing and pausing is a big part of it. Because your brain’s on fire, “Oh my God, I’m talking to this person, this is so amazing! Keep talking, keep talking!” But if you can have that natural flow of conversation, you have to consciously put that pause in between your sentences, so you’re not just blasting this poor person the whole time. That’s what makes them anxious and not want to really hang out and talk. You’re just throwing so much at them, so fast.

One of the hardest parts is that there’s so many things that you want to tell this person and you don’t have more than probably 15 seconds to get it out and you’re probably going to screw it up and you’re probably also going to forget all those things and just say something, The first time I met Trey [Anastasio] was like that. I met him outside of his lodge at Sugarbush in 1995. I was just, “blah, blah, blah”, you know. I couldn’t really form sentences and said stupid things. I gave him a hug and he was all freaked out. Good for him, because I freaked him out. Over the years, I’ve tried to tone it down.

But battling the energy field is still difficult. Like being at the Grammys on the red carpet with Paris Hilton and Sting where you are right now. Just being cool, “Hey what’s up Paris, How are you doing?” “Oh, I’m a little cold.” “Have you got a sweater?” “No, I didn’t bring one…” Just bullshitting, but that goes a long way. Just be a normal person, you know.

Thanks for being a normal person for this interview

PP: (laughs) Hopefully, I can be one for the rest of my life.

Interview: Pete Pidgeon of Arcoda, part one

A relative newcomer to the Front Range, singer/songwriter Pete Pidgeon moved here from the busy New York music scene. In the few months he’s been here, he’s fallen into the local music community and also made strong connections on the business side. Part of what makes him fit in so well here is his earnest, engaging nature and his open stylistic approach that includes pop, Americana, jazz, and even some funk.

I had the chance to talk with Pidgeon at DazzleJazz club in Denver, before we both enjoyed listening to his Arcoda bandmate, pianist Adam Bodine, lead his jazz combo through a solid set.

This is part one of our conversation, which has been condensed and lightly edited.



How would you define your music, if you had to do it?

Pete Pidgeon: I usually say songwriting because that’s really the core of it. If you listen to Bob Marley or Paul Simon, or if you listen to Whitesnake, all of those bands are songwriting. It’s based on form and a verse-chorus and lyrics and all that kind of thing as opposed to jazz or jam band, which are mostly instrumental.

If you took Billy Joel, for example, he’s got a genre of songwriting, but his style changes from tune to tune. So, he can do a doo-wop '50s song and then he can play a straight out pop tune, and he can do piano ballads. He has these different styles within his own genre. So when you think Billy Joel, you think Billy Joel. You don’t think he’s a reggae guy and then he’s a world music guy

I think we - we meaning the band and myself; I write the tunes -- we sort of fall into that category. There’s a genre for the band, which is the umbrella of songs. I may write a song in a reggae style or an R&B style, but the genre is based on this verse-chorus type of organization.

I do hear a lot of different influences in your music. I can hear some some Phish on a few things. I can even hear a little bit of Moxy Fruvous. Certainly I get what you’re saying about songwriting because you have that kind of singer/songwriter stage presence. Listening to your songs, you tap into that to either tell a story or create a mood.

PP: No matter what the style is that you’re conveying, you can still get a similar message across. If you listen to Tesla’s albums, like their Five Man Acoustical Jam record and you break that down, it’s straight ahead songs. You think of them as a hair metal band or whatever, but really, if you strip all that stuff away, it’s just song forms. And part of the genre aspect of that was hair metal '80’s, but stylistically, they’re pretty much a songwriting band. Whether it’s disco or pop. It makes it more fun and more flexible as a musician to be able to do different stuff and keep it interesting and not be limited.

With the kind of eclectic sound that you have, do you think that’s it harder or easier for you?

PP: I think it’s 50-50, but in the long run, it’s easier. Because, for example, we could open for Leon Russel or Bonnie Raitt and do a stripped down show. We could do a straight ahead rock show because of songs like “Will” and “Whirlwind” and “She’s Right”. We could play a folk situation, like Newport Folk Festival or something like that. I could play solo acoustic. I just did that “Wharf Rat” performance for JamBase, for the GD (Grateful Dead) 50 “Songs of Their Own” series.

I saw that on YouTube.

PP: So, it gives me all these opportunities to do different things with different people and different areas of the field rather than being limited. If we were only a folk band, we can only play in that little niche. I also have so many songs at this point. I probably have 120, or 130 tunes that are completely finished, recorded, polished and everything. Within that set of a hundred or so tunes, say we do thirty on a gig, that gives me almost four or five complete sets of music that we can play in these different venues. If we did a show at Dazzle, I’ve got a jazz instrumental set. If we did a show at Cervantes or at OneUp, we have enough jam band style material that we can make that show a success and get people off.

You said that it was 50-50, though. What’s the downside?

PP: The downside is probably just when you book shows or when you’re asked to define yourself in very limited circumstances, you have to come up with a thing. Like with ReverbNation: they ask you to come up with your genre. I think currently our genre is Americana. That’s what the new record is for the most part. So, if we’re focusing on what’s one thing we are right now, I have to come up with a response and coming up with that response is sometimes difficult if I don’t have a defined situation. I think Americana is what we’re doing in 2015 and where we’re headed with the new record and everything, so it’s a little bit of an easier answer, but if you had asked me three years ago…we’re rock. I guess, because there’s no songwriting genre. Coming up with that definitive answer can be difficult at times.

Talking about the different kinds of gigs you say you can do, though, doesn't it make it harder to have an identity that you fans can connect to? Your fans have to work a little bit to figure out what is it that makes you their thing.

PP: I think that’s what is so great about Denver that’s not really present in a lot of other areas of the country is that the fans here will go to an EDM show one night, the next night they’ll go to a country show, then they’ll go to a folk show, they’ll go to a rock show, They’re almost tuned into accepting the eclecticism of these bands. So, here we’ve been very successful. We can do different styles of music and people aren’t going to say, “Oh, this isn’t what I thought you were.” And they’re not only accepting of it, but they like seeing that diversity. It makes it an interesting show. We’re not going to come out and play the same show every time. It’s always a different setlist, depending on who’s on the bill or what room we’re playing in. I think that’s probably our biggest asset. Because if you’re a hard rock band and you end up playing a rockabilly club, you’re kind of in trouble. But if we play Little Bear in Evergreen, for example, we’ll play rockabilly for two sets and people will love it.

So, what brought you to Colorado? You’re pretty much an East Coast guy -- New York and Connecticut.

PP: Yeah, I was born in Connecticut and then I spent a few years in New Jersey at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers. Then I moved to New Paltz, NY, about an hour and a half north of Manhattan. It’s out in the woods. It was the hippie town of hippie towns in America when I was there, anyway, between ‘95 and 2000. I lived in a house called the cloud house, which was yellow when I lived there, but it used to have clouds and sky painted all over it like a Peter Max painting. It was like the San Francisco of the East Coast, but in very small, subtle town.

That’s where Arcoda started. I sort of made this band thing and tried to sort of congeal all of these ideas to one name and one direction. The lineup continually changed, but just having that idea of a band that’s a repository for all these songs that I’m writing. No matter who’s in the group, we’re going to do these songs and play out.

I graduated SUNY New Paltz with a Jazz Studies degree and then moved to Boston until the end of ‘07. That was a great time. From 2000 to ‘02, '03, there were a lot of great bands on the scene: The Slip, and Percy Hill, and Madison Project, and Uncle Sammy. There was this great vibe but then the dynamic of the town and the clubs changed and a lot of the bands broke up and the clubs started shutting down or being bought out by corporate companies and stuff. Then I moved to New York City, I lived in Brooklyn for three and a half years and that was great because it was the kick in the ass I wanted about just learning the hardcore business aspect of everything and getting to meet some of the big names and work with bigger people.

Unfortunately, the skyrocketing rent and ability to live in that town became impossible. So, I moved back home for a little while and back to Connecticut to sort of figure out what I was doing. I bounced between Millerton, NY and Canton, CT, and Boston for a couple of years, just trying to make some money and save up, figure out where I wanted to go. I did a lot of research. I had come to Denver in 1996 for the Phish concerts at Red Rocks. I thought it was amazing. It was just the coolest town and a great buzz. I knew I always wanted to get back here. Then I was the lighting director for The Slip in 2000 and we played the Gothic and the Fox on that run. Just incredible people, great vibe, great music scene. So, I knew some people out here. Eric Imbrosciano, who was one of the drummers in Arcoda back in the day, he ran the funk jam at the Armoury on Wednesdays. So, he brought me down there and introduced me to a bunch of people during the Phish concerts at Dick’s in 2014, Labor Day. So, I hung out here for a week and I loved it and I came out and it‘s been...It was the right move, it’s been amazing.

You mentioned the changing lineup for Arcoda. Did you come here alone and then build the current version?

PP: Right. The band I was playing with in North Hampton, Mass, they were some of the most talented young players in central Mass. Really, really good players and good people. The trouble was that there aren’t any paying gigs in central Mass. That whole scene is very difficult to get paid as a musician. We did a few gigs, but they weren’t paying much money, if any money, and they were getting a little frustrated that the bread wasn’t there, and I was getting frustrated because I was paying out of pocket and losing a whole bunch of money. So, I knew I had to get out of there and make a change and move. I just came out here and with Eric’s help, he introduced me a lot to the scene and I got my feet on the ground. Slowly but surely, I met all the musicians and found out the ones that would work.

I’ve seen you open for Atomga’s CD release party for Black Belt at the Bluebird [review] and then I saw your recent show headlining at the Fox [review]. I think you’re getting out and about well in the area. Does this feel like where you want to settle in for the duration?

PP: It blows my mind. A lot it has to do with the talent buyers here being human beings. Like Chris Peck and Jake Nixon for example, who do Z2 [Entertainment]. They had faith in the band and in myself. I’m not used to people either taking a chance or having faith in us. I have a great bio, of course, but in New York City, everyone has a great bio. So, I was used to this sort of brick wall mentality. Where I’m just beating this wall until my hands are bleeding. I’d say, “Look I’m good, I’m really good. I’ve played with these famous people and I’ve been at the Grammy Awards and I’ve done these great things.” They’re like, “So is everyone else who’s trying to apply here. So why are you any different?” Being out here, where people are actually receptive, that’s been the biggest difference. It makes me work harder as a performer to live up to their expectations. If they’re going to believe in me, then I’m going to work hard for them and try to make sure that they’re going to get their money’s worth out of it. It’s a great symbiotic relationship. I’ll definitely stick around for that.

It’s interesting to me to hear about a musician coming to our market with intention. Coming from a hothouse scene like New York, and then seeing your performance of “Just Like a Woman” at the Jeff Buckley tribute show - your cover of his version is just fantastic…

PP: Thanks.

Your phrasing and the emotion you brought to it was really sharp. It was his version, but you made it your own. I respect that.

But you were in that sort of crowded environment, where people can get discovered, so moving to Denver is surprising. There are a few bands out of Colorado that have moved up, but I’m not used to people coming here to do that.

PP: In general, if you have money in New York, you’ve got a great shot. If you can get a publicist that can hype every one of your shows and get you into big time media, then you’re probably going to do well, if you’re a good artist. But the hustle on the ground to get the gigs, to get paid for playing your gig, and then retain that audience for your next performance in a city where you have people playing at Madison Square Garden… You’re going up against Billy Joel, you’re going up against Phil Lesh and Friends, you’re going up against these major artists that are playing for tens of thousands of people. And it’s not just one venue, you have Barclays Center, all these huge spots. So, no matter what you’re doing, your competition is so enormous, it’s so hard to draw in New York.

By coming out here, you don’t have that overarching pressure where you have to be in the New York Times tomorrow in order to get anywhere. or if you’re not spending $4000 on a publicist, you can’t play and get gigs. There’s enough of a grassroots scene here. If you do hustle and work hard, you can get the fanbase energized and get people out to your show and get people out to the next show, which is the biggest hurdle. No matter how many people came out to that first show, if they can bring a friend to the next show, and you keep growing on it, that’s the whole point. I think that’s possible out here.

Also the venue sizes are manageable. There’s a ladder here that didn’t exist in Boston. In Boston, there are very few mid-range venues.  You skip right up to 4000 at House of Blues and even, the Paradise, which I think is 600 people, is a generously sized room, but it’s considered a lower tier room in that town. Getting from ground one to the Paradise, you might have Church, which I think is a couple of hundred people, a couple of venues. Two or three venues, literally, and then you skip right up to 600, then after that, you skip to 4000. The ladder’s all messed up. Out here, you can play the Walnut Room for a hundred and something people or the Armoury for one hundred, two hundred people. All these clubs, there’s so many options where you can get on at a certain level to get up to the next rung of two or three hundred people, and then you’re at the Bluebird for 500 people. and then 800 at the Boulder Theater, 1000 people at the Gothic.

It makes the business much easier. And it’s not as expensive a town, so I can pay my band, which I couldn’t really do out East, unless I was really taking a hit. Also, literally the fans. What blew me away on day one, was that the fanbase in Denver is so energized. They go out to shows on a Monday at midnight. You can go to a show and there’ll be 100 people there. Meadowlark jam on Tuesday night or the funk jam that I do at the Armoury every Wednesday, we get people out at midnight in the middle of the week and that does not happen in Boston. Because the fans here love going out, they love supporting music, seeing music, being part of the scene. That’s the number one reason I moved here. It’s got an energy to it.

How do you see this playing out? In your dreams, how do you want things to go from here?

PP: Considering that the Arcoda launch party was at the Walnut Room in February -- in a little more than four months, I’ve already done more than I expected to do in four or five years. I’ve played the Fillmore, I’ve played the Boulder Theater, Bluebird, headlined the Fox., I’ve worked with a bunch of great musicians in town. So, my expectations have not only been met, but exceeded through this period of four months.

I mentioned those recent shows, but I know you have also some busy weekends lined up. By the time this interview has posted, you’ll have played the Colorado Brewer’s Festival in Ft. Collins and Crested Butte later that same day.

PP: Yeah, the Brewer’s Festival, there will be 20,000 people. We’re playing the mainstage. We got offered to headline that festival, but because we’re playing Crested Butte, we have to play an earlier slot, but still, it’s a great opportunity.

And you’ve already got things lined up in July, too, right?

PP: We have the Bluebird District Music Festival. Going back to what I was saying about the talent buyers, Tony Mason and Drew Gottlieb have been really supportive of our band and believed in what we’re doing. they put us on the inaugural Bluebird District Music Festival, which a huge honor and we can’t appreciate that enough. We’ll work really hard for that. And we just got the direct support spot for Anders Osborne at the Breckenridge Brewery Hootenanny after-party at Cervantes. And we’re co-headlining the Rialto Theatre July 17 with Miles Lee Band. He’s a really good friend.

As far as goals go, though,  the next big goal that I want to do is play at Red Rocks. I’m trying to get into the Film on the Rocks clique and hopefully we can get a call on that someday. We have an album coming out, called All the Little Things, probably in October, which has Levon Helm from the Band on it and Chris Pandolfi from the [Infamous] Stringdusters, and Ryan Zoidis from Lettuce, who just sold out Red Rocks

We finish our conversation in part two of my interview with Pete Pidgeon of Arcoda

Recording review - Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes/Under the Pink reissues (2015)

Who's that girl? Tori Amos reveals her assertive vulnerability

^4.25/5.0

How does the advice go? If you want to be successful, just be yourself. If anyone can attest to that, it’s Tori Amos. She got her start fronting a synth-pop group, Y Kant Tori Read, that never made much of an impression. For better or worse with that band, she let the record company call the shots and dress up her image, and none of that connected with a larger audience. Rather than give up, though, she turned around and came back with two solo albums that overturned everyone’s assumptions.

It's no coincidence that the cover of Little Earthquakes (1992) shows her emerging from her box. The airbrushed redhead from Y Kant Tori Read returned to her classical piano roots and found her sound, but more importantly found her voice. At first glance, she may have seemed like a normal singer-songwriter with solid vocal chops and pretty keyboard riffs, but she turned out to be a feminist poet with a talent for strong imagery and a yen to draw back the curtain on her own experiences. The piano and backing string arrangements reminded people of Joni Mitchell or Kate Bush, but her lyrics had a touch of Patti Smith and Lou Reed, yielding songs that flowed fluidly between ethereal beauty and self-aware grit. On Little Earthquakes, she processed and rejected a lifetime of repression, especially seen through lenses of gender and religion. Her authenticity was as honest as punk rock, but its strength came from its assertive vulnerability: she embraced her emotions but had the distance to put them into perspective.

That honesty actually increases the impact of her more confrontational songs. The provocative religious imagery in “Crucify” or righteous anger on “Precious Things” (“So you can make me cum/ That doesn’t make you Jesus”) are more shocking because they’re woven from her own life and frustrations. Amos also demonstrates a good sense of emotional dynamics. For example, the curdled fury of “Precious Things” gives way to crystalline calm on “Winter”, which stays with the theme of self-discovery, but dresses it in metaphor. The culmination, though, is the a capella lament, “Me and a Gun”, which recounts a rape experience with stark and ugly brutality.

Despite those challenges to gentle sensibilities, though, Little Earthquakes is also stunningly musical. String flourishes occasionally add some orchestral depth, the melodies develop rich complexity over time, and Amos repositions her classical origins into a pop context. She also introduces her idiosyncratic phrasing, both on the keyboard and in her singing. Like Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, or Elvis Costello, she instinctively knows how to stretch time and then catch up to color the meaning of her lines.

If that first solo album tried to erase the bitter memory of Y Kant Tori Read, two years later, she had become confident enough to integrate more of her rock and pop side into her music. Under the Pink still had the piano foundation, but Amos was willing to tap into a stronger rock feel on some songs, adding fuzzed guitar and harder edges. The richer stylistic palette gave the collection a more immediate feel. Like Little Earthquakes, though, these songs were the opposite of pop fluff. Even when she followed a verse-chorus structure, her progressions offered nice surprises and she gave her artier side free rein on songs like "Bells For Her".

The opening salvo of Under the Pink whipsaws between extremes of texture and emotion. The wistful piano line of "Pretty Good Year" provides sonic continuity to Little Earthquakes, but it incorporates a trigger moment accented with a gut punch of bombastic guitar before settling again. Then, Amos begins the album in earnest with "God", where she breaks loose from her past with spiky cactus guitar riffs, a funky rhythmic groove, and the cleansing fire of sarcasm. She had appropriated religious imagery on "Crucify" to make her point, but now she challenges the whole order, offering heretical condescension for the Patriarchy. The chaotic guitar noise seems symbolic of both the outraged reaction she expects and her own childhood conscience. Either way, it's unable to break her cool rationality, "Tell me you're crazy, maybe then I'll understand." It's a powerful moment, and Amos wisely leaves room for it to digest by changing gears with the dreamy "Bells for Her", which features a softly chiming prepared piano.

Both "God" and the catchy "Cornflake Girl" were rock hits, but Amos hadn't ignored her lusher musical side. The sprawling "Yes, Anastasia" revels in rich piano expression as it references both Joni Mitchell and Aaron Copland. But rather than a sharp divide in her musical persona, these two extremes were now integrated and gave a truer sense of who Tori Amos was as person, performer, and composer.

These two reissues celebrate that milestone, not only by cleaning up the mix -- Little Earthquakes sounds quite a bit crisper now -- but also by collecting most of Amos' early B-sides and several live versions. Many of the bonus tracks on Little Earthquakes were rejected songs from the recording sessions and demos she did for Atlantic Records. Some of these, while good, don't fit the mood she established on that album, but others like "Upside Down" and "Take to the Sky" would have been right at home. The peak is her stark performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which is as far from grunge as possible, but it captures Kurt Cobain's intent better than any other band has managed to do. The concert takes that round out the bonus material are all fairly good; in particular, her arrangements of "Mother" and "Little Earthquakes" are both quite intense.

The Under the Pink extras include "Honey", which was cut late from the album for "The Wrong Band". It's a tough trade-off and Amos has publicly regretted it. Head to head, "Honey" is a stronger song, but "The Wrong Band" lightens the mood between the introspective "Baker Baker" and the bitterness of "The Waitress". Some of the other bonus tracks for Pink feature Amos' improvisational skills, including the Gershwin-esque "All the Girls Hate Her", and the live material gives a great sense of how confident she got playing with the rhythms of her phrasing.

With so much extra music, there are a few misfits -- C.J. Bolland's remix of "God" doesn't do it any favors, "Humpty Dumpty" and "Home on the Range" are both fairly weak -- but these deluxe editions do a great job of showing how Amos recovered and reclaimed her Self and found her path towards becoming such an iconic musician.

What's cool - Geographer, "I'm Ready" (acoustic)

Unplugged, but the vocals are electric

Geographer's Mike Deni starts out with soft, simple fingerpicked line, but misses his second chord to blow the take. A whispered, "I'm sorry" of self-admonishment and he tackles it again. That false start humanizes his performance, but he's convincing enough on his own. While he doesn't engage with the camera, his singing is lush and warm, and the dynamic build to the chorus strum is powerful. I love the effortless way his voice slides into its upper register when he gets soulful. Geographer is known for solid songwriting and emotional depth and this version of "I'm Ready" plays to those strengths.



It's really interesting to compare this stripped down arrangement to the full band version. Aside from toning down the sharper extremes of soft and loud, the solo version has a looser sense of rhythm that adds a rueful edge to the wistful mood. The original is a beautiful song; the chiming synths and delicate strings add a lot, but it's nice to get a better sense of Deni as a solo artist.

"I'm Ready" is on Geographer's upcoming release, Ghost Modern, due out on March 24.

Recording review - Tori Amos, Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)

Unrepentant, but that's how she's always been

With a recent foray into classical music on Night of Hunters (2011) and Gold Dust’s orchestral interpretations of her back catalog in 2012, it seemed like Tori Amos had left her contemporary pop days behind. Last year’s musical staging of I for the National Theatre in London suggested that this was how she planned to grow old gracefully, abdicating her earlier career and setting herself new challenges outside the image and age conscious pop world. This new work was worthwhile, but lacked the visceral punch of Amos’ heights of righteous indignation, sly sedition, and her richr inner life.

Unrepentant Geraldines is so satisfying because it proves that Amos has not given up on pop music. More moody than confrontational, the album recalls both Little Earthquakes (1992) and Under The Pink (1994), its storytelling lyrics rooted to an inner truth, its intimacy and connection reliant on her piano and rich voice. From the very start, Amos weaves a spell that shuts out the rest of the world. The Beatlesque opening of “America” weaves a fine tapestry for her breathy sighs and vulnerable vocal catches. Her stylized singing stretches out, creating a dreamy detachment that complements the oblique lyrics. Her protagonist, “the other America,” is sketched with the barest of details, and it’s not until the flashy psychedelic pop of the bridge that her political message creeps in. Then the hypnotic lethargy of the piece becomes a commentary itself. The protective shell lingers even as she shifts gears and throws off the languor for the work-song cadence of “Trouble’s Lament”. It’s a strong lead single for the album, offering a frisson of dark abandon in her knowing tone as she sings, “If danger wants to find me/ I’ll let him in.”

At this point, the album seems to promise a roster of allegorical woman characters, but Amos breaks the pattern with “Wild Way” and this is where Unrepentant Geraldines moves into deeper currents of confession and disclosure. Although the arrangement gradually fills out, it starts out as a stripped down ballad of piano and voice that showcases her painful emotional ambiguity. Amos conveys the weariness of being worn down by the broken chemistry of her relationship, yet she’s still wistful for what once was. She sidesteps the wordplay and clever conceit of the first two pieces with lyrics that are stark and direct, “I hate you/ I hate you, I do/ I hate that you’re the one who can make me feel gorgeous/ With just, just a flick of your finger/ It is that easy.” It’s a powerful moment that shows that Amos can still capture the raw truth of songs like “Mother” or “Me and a Gun”, but with more clarity.

The album flows smoothly from this auspicious beginning, with plenty of notable moments. The duet with her 13 year old daughter, “Promise”, calls back to Amos’ smart pop and infuses it with modern R&B swoon. The title song is a stripped down, lazy evocation of “Cornflake Girl” and “God”, from Under The Pink. But my favorite track looks more forward than back. “16 Shades of Blue” is built upon Amos’ archly precise vocals and light piano accompaniment, but the production is thoroughly up-to-date. Producer-collaborators Mark Hawley and Marcel van Limbeek apply a heavy hand, twisting the initial recording into an arty remix. They add electronic fills and sound effects, program an understated beat and mutate the vocals. The contrast is particularly apropos because the lyrics are a jaundiced take on aging and relevance. The piece walks a fine line; it would be easy to slip into pastiche, but it works because it preserves Amos’ pensive and poisonous intent. Although this is one of two outliers on the album, the artistic risk pays off, even as she almost sneers, “There are those who say/ I am now too old to play.”

The other odd duck, “Giant’s Rolling Pin”, doesn’t fare nearly as well, more for context than content. It’s a whimsical potshot at the spooks and spies of the world, with the jaunty feel of early pieces like “The Wrong Band”. It doesn’t mesh with the rest of album, and might have worked better as a bonus cut outside the tracklist flow. Despite that minor quibble, Unrepentant Geraldines is a remarkably consistent, strong album. On “Oysters”, Amos sings, “‘Cause I’m working my way back/ I’m working my way back to me again.” It’s been a long time since she started, but she’s definitely still herself.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)