Written by Jason Bilsky (fuzzbox@theworld.com)

Many people seem to be confused lately about the Y Kant Tori Read album. Since Tori has pretty much distanced herself from the album and will not talk much about it in interviews except in passing, many people have gotten wrong or misleading information about it. This guide is intended to clear up the issue for those who are confused or just want more information.

What's this I hear about a Tori Amos album that came out before Little Earthquakes?

That would be Y Kant Tori Read. It was released in 1988, on Atlantic records, 3 years before Little Earthquakes was released.

Did it sell at all? I don't remember it.

In interviews, Tori has said that it sold around 7,000 copies.

How many copies of it were made?

Best estimates suggest that Atlantic pressed between 15,000 and 20,000 copies af the album (a typical pressing size for an unknown, untested artist), divided among LP, CD, and Cassette releases. The vast majority of the LP copies went to radio stations as promotional copies for on-air play, as only a small percentage of radio stations were set to play CDs in 1988.

What happened to the rest of the copies?

They were shipped to record stores for sale, but very few did sell. Those that didn't sell were recalled by the record company. There, they were turned into cut-out releases, then sold back to record stores at a discount, who then sold them to customers at a discount.

For those not familiar with record-industry jargon, a cut-out release is a release that either had too many copies made or for some reason didn't sell up to the expectations of the company. The record company buys back the releases, and cuts or somehow otherwise "marks" the CD case, LP sleeve, or Cassette case and card, not destroying the music, but making the product distinguishable from full-price product. These cut-out CDs, Cassettes, and LPs are then sold back to record stores at a considerable discount, (usually 50 percent or more of the original price) which is then passed on to the consumer. The marks are there to prevent customers from buying releases at a discount and returning them for a full-price refund.

Can I still get it in stores?

Only if you have amazing luck. When Little Earthquakes started taking off, many magazine articles made reference to Tori's "past flop" and ToriFans, in their quest for completeness, snapped up all copies they could get their hands on. Since the rush happened so quickly, many record stores didn't realize exactly what they had, and many of the original copies of YKTR left record stores for ridiculously small prices.

This does not mean that copies do not still exist in stores, however. Copies still occasionally turn up in used record stores where the staff has no idea of their worth, but usually fans quickly find them.

What does Y Kant Tori Read sound like?

It doen't sound like anything Tori is doing now. The sound is primarily '80s female rock, like Berlin, Pat Benatar, or Lee Aaron (for Canadians or those who know who she is). But, there was still some diverse songwriting and musicianship on the album. "Fire On The Side" sounds closest to the piano-based songwriting that Tori is performing today. "Etienne Trilogy", starts out with a slow ballad, and ends with a bagpipe solo, of all things. People looking to hear an album similar in style to Tori's recent work will most likely be disapointed upon hearing YKTR.

So, is "Y Kant Tori Read" the name of the band or the album? Where did that name come from?

It was both the band and the album name. It was not considered to be an album by Tori Amos. In fact, all the credits on the album simply refer to "Tori" with no last name given.

Tori came up with the name as a reference to her days back at the Peabody conservatory, where she was able to play songs on her piano simply after hearing them once, but was never able to get the hang of reading and playing off of sheet music.

Did anyone famous or well- known now play on the album?

You mean besides Tori? Most of the guitar work was done by Steve Farris, who was a member of Mister Mister. The drummer was Matt Sorum, who is now the drummer for Guns 'N' Roses. Most of the Keyboards were played by Kim Bullard, a popular session keyboardist in California, who has worked with "Wierd Al" Yankovic, Poco and many other bands. Some of the background vocals were done by Robin Zander, who sings for Cheap Trick. Some guitar work was done by Steve Caton, and percussion by Paulinho Da Costa, both of who still work with Tori today. It was produced by Joe Chiccarelli, who has, among other people, produced some of Pat Benatar's albums.

I've heard that the cover artwork is kind of racy.

The front cover has a picture of Tori with bright red hair with LOTS of hairspray, wearing a tight push-up bustier, holding a samurai sword over her shoulders. It's not exactly a flattering image, but did pretty well fit the motif of the album. The back cover portrait was slightly more flattering, but not by much.

Were there ever any videos produced from the album?

Only one, for "The Big Picture". It was directed by Marty Collner, who went on to direct similar videos, with much more success, for Whitesnake and Aerosmith. The video is full of '80s rock cliches: motorcycles, scantily dressed women, (Tori among them) fog machines, flowing white curtains, and sports cars. It was shown for a brief time, probably less than 10 showings, on MTV.

What singles were released off of YKTR?

The first single was "The Big Picture", released on 12" and 7" singles with "You Go To My Head" as a b-side. "Cool On Your Island" was the second single. It was released as a 7" single, with "Heart Attack at 23" as the B-side. Promotional copies were sent to radio stations of a CD single featuring Phil Collins' "Groovy Kind Of Love" as the main song and "Cool On Your Island" as the B-side. Neither single got much radio airplay or saw any significant sales.

What? No unreleased B-sides or covers?

No. Tori didn't get into that habit until Little Earthquakes.

Did Y Kant Tori Read ever play any live shows?

Rumors are that an early version of the band, with different musicians, played a few times in California before they were signed. When the band went into the studio to record, the line-up changed, due to Atlantic suggesting better musicians. Tori has said that what appeared on the album was not truly representative of the original YKTR band.

How can I get my hands on a copy of YKTR today?

If money isn't an object for you, real copies of the CD are changing hands for upwards of $150 dollars for a mint condition CD. A signed copy of YKTR in a longbox was seen in 1994 for auction with a starting bid of $500. LP copies appear to top out at a price of $150 for a perfect copy, and cassettes rarely ever trade hands, but expect to shell out around $100 if you are able to find one.

The entire album is available on quite a few bootleg CDs that are easily available through independent record stores, record shows, or collectors fairs. Expect to spend between $18 and $30 for a bootleg of YKTR.

Why doesn't Atlantic Records just re-release YKTR? They know that they'll sell lots of copies.

Tori doesn't want them to. Tori has said that while she doesn't necessarily hate the songs on YKTR, she doesn't feel that they represent what she is doing musically now. As well, they remind her of a period in her life that she doesn't really want to remember, primarily her struggling years in California, and the sexual assault incident that led to her writing "Me And A Gun". Atlantic Records is smart enough to know that, at least while they still have Tori under contract, re-releasing YKTR would be a foolish move.

I just bought a copy of YKTR in a store for $25. The guy at the front desk told me it was an import. How do I know if it's real or not?

Y Kant Tori Read is not legitimately being produced by any record company today. If a record store employee tells you that the YKTR CD that they have is an import, it's probably a bootleg.

When dealing with internet auctions, there are a few good questions to ask to ensure that you are getting the real thing:

• What does the CD itself look like?
• What is the UPC code?
• What does the Spine of the jewel box liner look like?
• Are there any "bonus tracks" on the CD?
• What does the back of the CD liner look like?

An original copy of the CD has crisp, sharp artwork on the cover of the booklet and the back insert. The lyrics booklet will fit perfectly in the lid of the CD jewel box, and the printing inside is black type on white pages and is sharp and smudge-free. The spine of the CD is red block lettering on a white background. The catalog number that is listed on the spine will be 81845-2. The CD itself will have a red ring inside of a black ring on it. A genuine YKTR will NOT have any "bonus tracks".

Here is a picture of a genuine YKTR CD.

Here is a picture of the front and back artwork of a genuine YKTR CD.

To the best of my knowledge, no bootleg or counterfeit standard vinyl LPs or cassettes of YKTR have been produced, so if you find a LP (except for the Picture Disc listed below) or cassette, it is pretty safe to assume it is genuine. There are home-recorded cassettes of YKTR floating around, but they are usually produced on commercial cassettes, and with plain- paper or xeroxed artwork, so they are incredibly easy to spot.

Because there have been quite a few different CD bootlegs of YKTR, I've decided to divide them up into different categories, counterfeits and bootlegs.

Counterfeits are CDs that attempt to pass themselves off as legitimate copies of the CD. 2 of the YKTR CDs fall under this category. Here is how they appear in my Bootleg Discography:

Y Kant Tori Read Atlantic Records 81845-1

Total Timing- 47:19 (German Bootleg,made to look genuine)

1. The Big Picture 2. Cool On Your Island 3. Fayth 4. Fire On The Side 5. Pirates 6. Floating City 7. Heart Attack At 23 8. On The Boundary 9. You Go To My Head 10. Etienne Trilogy a)The Highlands b)Etienne c)Skyeboat Song

4:11 4:50 4:18 4:48 4:15 5:03 5:10 4:30 3:46 6:28

Source- CD

Quality- Very Good

This CD is recognizable as a counterfeit because of the incorrect catalog number on the spine and the incorrect bar code on the back. Both refer to the catalog number of the LP and not the CD. One can also tell by looking at the cover artwork. There is a great deal of cross-hatching (a remnant of computer scanning) in the reds, and the color of Tori's Hair is very orange, as opposed to the red it is supposed to be. There is also a blur in the artwork directly to the right of Tori's face. This is from the counterfeitter airbrushing out the promotional sticker that appeared on the cover of the LP.In addition, the spine of the CD has the incorrect Atlantic Records color scheme and font, replacing it with a white-on-black generic font.

The artwork on the CD is also incorrect, missing the trademark red and black circles around the perimiter that appeared on the original.

The quality of the transfer of the CD is very good, except for a blank space lasting approximately 25 seconds at the beginning of "On The Boundary". The songs appear to have been trimmed slightly at the beginning and ending of each song, but unless you are intimately familiar with the album, will probably never be noticed.

A newer version of this CD has been spotted in Canada and Singapore. It is almost identical to the "German" version of the bootleg, but it has slightly different artwork on the CD- "Y Kant Tori Read" appears in a different typeface, it now states "Made in USA", and now has the correct catalog number on the CD and spine. Here is a picture of this new CD:

This CD has recently resurfaced in some major chain stores in Europe but this time called "I Kant Tori Read". The artwork has also been changed and now looks like this:

Again, even though this says "Atlantic" on it, it still has the incorrect catalog number, and is still a Counterfeit. How it has made it's way into legitimate record stores (I have heard of people buying it from Tower Records and HMV in Europe) is beyond me. It does look very professional, even to being sealed in cellophane shrink wrap in some instances, but it is still not a real YKTR CD

The YKTR CD has also shown up in CD-R form for sale on Internet auction sites.

This is a CD-R with a printed design on the CD itself, and was sold on Yahoo! Auctions.

This is a CD-R with a printed sticker label, and was sold on ebay auctions.

Y Kant Tori Read (Gold CD, Unknown Origin)

1. The Big Picture 2. Cool On Your Island 3. Fayth 4. Fire On The Side 5. Pirates 6. Floating City 7. Heart Attack At 23 8. On The Boundary 9. You Go To My Head 10. Etienne Trilogy a)The Highlands b)Etienne c)Skyeboat Song

This CD appears to be a small private pressing, and probably only had 1,000 copies made. It was the first of the counterfeits or bootlegs to appear, and is very hard to find today. I do not have a copy of this CD, so I cannot attest to the quality of it. The fact that it is pressed on a gold CD as opposed to a standard aluminum CD is the giveaway that this is a counterfeit.

Anthony Horan tells me that this CD was probably produced by a certain store who had a DAT machine and recordable CD machine, as, for a while, they were able to produce this CD on demand. Quality is reported to be excellent. In all likelihood, this CD will have the correct catalog number on it, so please make sure you look at the CD itself before buying to make sure which CD this is.

Bootlegs are copies that try to present themselves as being other CDs, such as having other titles, different artwork, or other tracks that do not appear on the original. If you have seen the original artwork on the YKTR CD, these are usually easy to tell apart. 2 of the YKTR CDs fall under this category. Here is how they appear in my Bootleg Discography:

Ultra Rare Tori
AR4/BM2

Total Timing- 74:23

1. The Big Picture 2. Cool On Your Island 3. Fayth 4. Fire On The Side 5. Pirates 6. Floating City 7. Heart Attack At 23 8. On The Boundary 9. You Go To My Head 10. Etienne Trilogy (i) The Highlands (ii) Etienne (iii) Skyeboat Song 11. Ain't No Sunshine 12. A Case Of You 13. Imagine 14. Sentimental Journey 15. Little Drummer Boy 16. Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout 17. Ring My Bell

4:14 4:49 4:16 4:45 4:09 5:09 5:06 4:32 3:49 6:29 4:28 4:59 3:12 2:28 4:41 2:39 4:38

Source- Tape/CD
Quality- Beyond Poor

This CD has very poorly scanned artwork and almost unlistenable sound. There is a very large amount of tape hiss on almost every one of the tracks, and the volume is very low. Stay away from this CD.

Unreadable Tori, The
Tornado TOR004

1. The Big Picture 2. Cool On Your Island 3. Fayth 4. Fire On The Side 5. Pirates 6. Floating City 7. Heart Attack At 23 8. On The Boundary 9. You Go To My Head 10. Etienne Trilogy a)The Highlands b)Etienne c)Skyeboat Song 11. Ode To The Banana King 12. Song For Eric 13. Happy Phantom 14. Ring My Bell 15. The Happy Worker 16. Workers

4:07 1:54 3:37 4:38 4:22 1:13

The artwork on this CD is also different than the legitimate CD, as well as having a different title and extra songs on it. I do not know how the sound quality stacks up on this CD, as I don't have it.

One other CD falls in between the lines of a counterfeit and a bootleg. It has some of the qualities of both, so I am giving it it's own section.

Y Kant Tori Read And Other Rarities
Pacific Recording Corporation 001
Total Timing-

1. The Big Picture 2. Cool On Your Island 3. Fayth 4. Fire On The Side 5. Pirates 6. Floating City 7. Heart Attack At 23 8. On The Boundary 9. You Go To My Head 10. Etienne Trilogy a)The Highlands b)Etienne c)Skyeboat Song BONUS TRACKS 11. Ode To The Banana King (Part One) 12. Song For Eric 13. Happy Phantom (Live) 14. Ring My Bell 15. The Happy Worker 16. Workers

This is another version of the Pacific bootleg, more than likely not made by the same people that made the original pacific bootleg.

This CD does replicate the original artwork from the YKTR CD, but does also have the qualities of a bootleg, as it has extra tracks on it as well. The artwork is fairly close to the original, with some slight color variations. The booklet is also a bit too large to fit into the standard CD jewel box, so most of the CD booklets have small bends in the middle. Included in the CD booklet are the standard liner notes as well as a parody of the standard CD "Warning" notice. The spine is also parodying Atlantic records with the name Pacific instead of Atlantic, and in pink instead of red. The CD transfer is very good. The CD has also been reissued in this form:

Y Kant Tori Read And Other Rarities
Red Robin/Pacific Recording Corporation 001
Total Timing-

1. The Big Picture 2. Cool On Your Island 3. Fayth 4. Fire On The Side 5. Pirates 6. Floating City 7. Heart Attack At 23 8. On The Boundary 9. You Go To My Head 10. Etienne Trilogy a)The Highlands b)Etienne c)Skyeboat Song BONUS TRACKS 11. Ode To The Banana King (Part One) 12. Song For Eric 13. Happy Phantom (Live) 14. Ring My Bell 15. The Happy Worker 16. Workers

Tracks 1-10 from the YKTR album
Tracks 11-13 from the SATY Ltd edition Single
Track 14 From the Ruby Trax 3CD compilation
Tracks 15 & 16 From the Toys Original Soundtrack.

This is a reissue of the Pacific release of the same CD.

This CD is one of the most popular bootlegs of Y Kant Tori Read. It has shown up in a number of different forms. here are some of them:

Chance recodings copy:

Various CD-R bootlegs of YKTR and Other Rarities:

In 2000, a Picture Disc LP of YKTR appeared. Even though the artwork looks very professional, this item is a bootleg as well.It appears to be done by the same company that issued the bootleg vinyl of "To Venus And Back". This does say "Atlantic" and claims to be a promotional item, but it is still a bootleg.

Musicians:

Acoustic Piano: Tori Except on Fayth- 
Kim Bullard

Drums: Matt Sorum, Vinny Coliauta- "That 
Etienne Drummer"

Bass: Tim Landers, except on Fayth, 
Floating City,

 and Pirates- Fernando Saunders

Guitars: Steve Farris

Additional Guitars: Steve Caton, Gene 
Black

Acoustic Guitar: Peter White, Steve Farris

Mandolin: Eric Williams

Bouzouki: Richard Bernard

Percussion: Paulinho Da Costa (Courtesy of Pablo 
Records)

Programming and Keyboards: Kim Bullard

Additional Keyboards: Tori

Background Vocals: Tori, Ce Ce Bullard, Robin 
Zander,

 James House, Merry Clayton, Nancy Shanks, The 
Valentine

 Brothers and Rick Nelson

Bagpipes: Devon Dickson



PRODUCED BY JOE CHICCARELLI

Recorded by Joe Chiccarelli

Mixed by Ed Thacker

Co-Produced by Kim Bullard

Executive Producer: David Kershenbaum

Recorded at:

Hollywood Sound, Assistant Engineer- Martin 
Schmelze/

South Combe Studios, Assistant Engineer- Lois 
Oki /

Ground Control Studios, Assistant Engineers-
Angus Davidson,

 Will Rogers, Claudio Ordenes, Chris 
Furman/

Sound Castle Studios, Assistant Engineer- Mike 
Tacci/

Capitol Studios, Assistant Engineer- Peter 
Doell/

The Grey Room, Assistant Engineers- Jim Dineen, 
Dan Marnien.

Additional Engineers: Dan Nebenzal and Caba 
Petcoz

Production Assistance: Linda Maxwell

Drum Technician: Jeff Chonis "Have Drums 
Will Travel"

Photography: Aaron Rapoport

Stylist: Lo Rae Flemming

Art Direction: Bob Defrin

Management: Larry Kruteck