Tom Waits

good show

She is great.

Eight million Tom Waits threads, I know, but I might as well use this one for this info:

For his Atlanta stop, recorded at the city's historic Fox Theater on July 5, Waits delivered a stunning and epic two-and-a-half-hour performance, including songs he says he's never attempted outside of the studio before. Backing Waits is a five-piece group featuring Seth Ford-Young (upright bass), Patrick Warren (keyboards), Omar Torrez (guitars), Vincent Henry (woodwinds) and Casey Waits (drums and percussion). "They play with racecar precision and they are all true conjurers," Waits says. "They are all multi-instrumentalists and they polka like real men."

---

Setlist:

"Lucinda / Ain't Going Down to the Well"

"Down in the Hole"

"Falling Down"

"Chocolate Jesus"

"All the World Is Green"

"Cemetery Polka"

"Cause of It All"

"Till the Money Runs Out"

"Such a Scream"

"November"

"Hold On"

"Black Market Baby"

"9th and Hennepin"

"Lie to Me"

"Lucky Day"

"On the Nickel"

"Lost in the Harbor"

"Innocent When You Dream"

"Hoist That Rag"

"Make It Rain"

"Dirt in the Ground"

"Get Behind the Mule"

"Hang Down Your Head"

"Jesus Gonna Be Here"

"Singapore"

ENCORE

"Eyeball Kid"

"Anywhere I Lay My Head"

Link near the top of the page to listen.

thanks Ned, listening now. this set is pretty similar to what i saw him play in Houston, plus a few songs i didn't hear -- Chocolate Jesus, Such a Scream, 9th and Hennepin, On the Nickel, Singapore (maybe a couple others) -- but overall very similar. Recording quality is excellent too!, this is really really good.

Live double CD at the end of November 2009:

Trailer: http://vimeo.com/6985723

8 free tracks: http://www.tomwaits.com/news/article/60/Free_Glitter_and_Doom_Live_Album_Preview/

Preorder: http://kingsroadmerch.com/tom-waits/

http://i37.tinypic.com/10pye5k.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTi8mATzSTI&NR=1

whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

So I don't want to start yet another TW thread, but there's hardly been any discussion of Glitter & Doom yet. What did people think?

I get a guilty conscience every time I see it in my record collection, as I've hardly played it since I bought it several months ago. I was put off a little by the boomy-ness of the sound at first. But I clearly owe it to him to listen more.

i listened to it a ton when it came out, and then i haven't played it since. it's good! i should dig it out again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH_EwRjrldc

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li342nNZnS1qdf09mo1_500.jpg
old guys play some sort of event

(ribot in the back there!)

Ribot good enough that he gets to sit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVVDrPEQZt4&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiJ2E0xGOv8

http://www.tomwaits.com/news/article/146/Peek_At_A_Lyric_From_New_Tom_Waits8217_Album/

never seen this before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCNDZY4vXPs&feature=player_embedded

also finally getting around to the brawlers box set thing. some amazing stuff! kind of frustrating that the info about when the tracks were recorded / who played on them is so vague, but oh well.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kunmz1iWzo1qz6gpyo1_500.jpg

I'm not a huge fan but I really enjoyed the Boxers set, especially the third disc with the spoken word stuff. The poem about the boy waiting at a diner during a bus ride stopover is particularly great.

aw that's nirvana by bukowski. but yeah what a beaut. what a beaut.
there's some real gold on this that used to live on bootlegs, i think a long series called tales from the dimestore?, vols one to nine or something. almost wonder if they might theoretically hold a little more info about what's what. i like never let go, & lie to me a bunch.

Thanks to Chuck Tatum for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5X4N2exOsU&feature=player_embedded#!

HAW!

http://www.somekindofawesome.com/journal/2011/8/22/listen-tom-waits-bad-as-me.html

I like it

was that actually taken down within the last 9 minutes?

Woah! Yes, I guess it was!

It sounded much like Tom Waits FWIW. Brash, honking, stompjng Tom Waits rather than sad Tom Waits. U know the drill

anti ppl be lurking ilm

I'm anti-ppl

You guys are right about Nirvana upthread. It's been on every Christmas compilation I've made since I first heard it.

The poem about the boy waiting at a diner during a bus ride stopover is particularly great.
yeah! almost wish there was a whole album of this sort of thing. he has an amazing speaking voice, even when he's not hamming it up.

I made a compilation of many of his best spoken word pieces, stuff like "What's he building in there". A bit disjointed in feel but it captures that incredible side of his work. I wish I flat-out loved his singing but I just don't.

U know the drill

yeah it's funny how much this is exactly what you expect a new tom waits song is going to sound like, but, you know, nice also. spoken bits are v wolf.

am i totally reactionary if i prefer his pre-swordfishtrombones stuff?

nope, otm.

it's like loving the complex human sprawl of a man but remembering the innocence of the child he was

thanks, i feel validated!

you're all wrong.

Nah, I'm kidding - you can like what you like, you don't have to ask me!

There is something quite devastating and melancholy and genuine about a lot of early Waits. Albums like Small Change are gut-wrenchingly desperate while Heart Of Saturday Night is so wistful and starry-eyed. I have a lot of time for this era. He had a tendency to go from genuinely affecting to full-on hammy, but by reinventing himself in the early '80s he managed to hit a happy medium through pure theatre.

I love that cartoon "The Street Tom Waits Grew Up On" upthread. Who did that?

So, the new album is out. Ilxors?

The soundtrack to Night On Earth (lots of cool junkyard instrumentals) isn't part of this reissue program, either...too bad.

Thrilled to be able to get Black Rider on vinyl finally! It might be my fave of his.

i've got a couple of these on LP (Rain Dogs and FWY) but really psyched for Bone Machine, which was the first Waits i ever heard.

I think about this Tom Waits story all the time. pic.twitter.com/njGUWEsdx4

— Christopher Smets (@CWSmets) July 7, 2023

hahaha

The download version of the new Swordfishtrombones remaster sounds great. NO compression either, surprisingly, which bodes well for the physical release.

Or rather no ADDITIONAL compression, at least none that's egregious.

I was listening to Rain Dogs on Tidal earlier and yeah, they sound great. No brickwalling, just more clarity and fullness (which brings sounds to the fore that I hadn't noticed before, though TBF I started listening to that album on cassette).

Waits is about the one guy whose records didn't sound shitty in the 80s, so good to see they're continuing with this idea.

he hasn't messed it up like they did real gone then?

completely pivotal albums for me in college in the early 90's, glad to see these coming since vinyl copies used are priced through the roof and my CDs are long gone.

I had bone machine and black rider on either sides of a tape in college, wore that shit out

Get Behind The Mule (Spiritual) - In celebration of Mule Variations' and ANTI- Records' 25th Anniversary, a previously unheard rendition of the song “Get Behind The Mule” will be released tomorrow, August 9th.

In this alternate take of the album's iconic track, Waits' gospel moans resonate with raw emotion, accompanied only by a gritty Wurlitzer. This stripped-down rendition amplifies the dark narrative of murder and perseverance, with the lyrics even slightly altered, rendering it with an even starker intensity than the original LP version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brVbfzTHods

The alternate take is great

That take is fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U97QlK21nM8

Interesting mix of the Brennan and pre-Brennan songs. Id never thought of it this way, but after Swordfishtrombones the material is harder to perform without a complete band.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DAqfsLKRy4d/

Original Real Gone masters (and others perhaps) are coming back to streaming

The Heart of Saturday Night

50th Anniversary
Available on Limited Edition 180-gram Slightly Gold Vinyl and 180-gram Raspberry Beret Vinyl

Fifty years ago a young and aspiring Tom Waits released ‘The Heart of Saturday Night’, his attempt to immerse himself in the romance of longing for adventure trouble, mystery of love and lust, and the after- hours clubs where jazz, blues, lounge, piano bar crooners would gather and play for and with each other in their search for the ruby eye of the heart that only shone on a Saturday night.

He imagined a concept album with a small bebop jazz ensemble, filled with the literary influences of the two Jacks - Kerouac and London - along with classic American songbook songwriters and the language and sound of the piano played in intimate clubs for and with musicians who had finished their regular Saturday night engagements. In searching for the voice for these characters, he evoked Sinatra’s ‘In the Wee Small Hours’ and was inspired to mold his fingers to the keyboard by the bold, improvisational and unique Thelonius Monk.

180g Raspberry Beret-colored vinyl, limited to 3700 copies, will be available in worldwide record stores on December 6 and 180g slightly gold vinyl, limited to 800 copies, is available for pre-order via the Tom Waits webstore now.

great album, have been revisiting lately

I learned the title track on guitar recently. Really love that song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbktJytZvTY

thanks for that.

i find it a little strange (and disappointing, if i'm honest!) that his old-man singing voice is so similar to his young-man similar voice!

saw that posted elsewhere, love it

Tom Traubert's Blues was the first Tom Waits song I ever heard. Played on KZON in the 90's as I was driving around in the central AZ desert trying to sell process control equipment. I was hooked for life.

Waits' Spotify top 10 seems evenly divided between his romantic standards that are often covered and clanky tracks which must syncs from edgy TV shows.

I've really enjoyed the Song by Song podcast which works through his entire discography, discussing each track. Really reawakened my appreciation for his depth and empathy, makes him seem less like an artist with distinct phases and schticks - there is a broad vision there.

Oh this podcast is great! Must have been challenging to cover absolutely everything including live tracks and instrumentals etc

New compulation, Waits songs covered by beginning artists like Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seger

https://officialtomwaits.store/products/where-the-willow-and-the-dogwood-grow-compilation-cd

surprised they couldn't fit Scarlett Johansson in this

Bob Seger! Which given the track covered, seems preferable to Pete Seeger. These are all existing covers, right?

yea i saw this and thought this was just a compilation of existing covers

yeah, nothing new as far as I can tell indeed (+ apologies for mentioning the wrong Se(e)ger)

Surprised Rod Stewart isn't on there, he covered at least a couple of Waits songs that became hits (and paid for a swimming pool as Waits joked). They sound pretty MOR, but so are a few others on there.

That compilation is not being marketed to Rod Stewart fans.

i don't know, I kind of love Rod's "Downtown Train"

His version of Tom Traubert's Blues is excellent as well. I'm agnostic on Waits but I certainly prefer Rod's covers to the originals.

Shawn Colvin's version of "Heart of Saturday Night" is the first way I heard it

Wolfgang Ambros recorded a Tom Waits covers album with all of the songs translated into Viennese dialect. Think I prefer a couple of them to the originals, such as 'Groß in Kagran' ('Big in Japan').

Ace does tons of these songwriter comps, I own the Randy Newman, Paul Williams and Willie Nelson ones. Don't think they usually get advertised on the artist's website tho.

Shawn Colvin's version of "Heart of Saturday Night" is the first way I heard it

When I I saw Jonathan Richman years ago, he opened with it, and that was the first time I’d heard it. Holly Cole’s version soon after.

Dion did a great version in the 1970s too.

Collab with Massive Attack

https://tomwaits.ffm.to/bootsontheground

I love Tom and I love Massive Attack but that's a lotta money for one song and a spoken word thingy.

Will wait for it to show up on a benefit CD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-57FrioeuE

When asked about the collaboration, Waits said:

"One day many years ago, I accepted an invitation from Massive Attack to collaborate. Their long release delay never worried me. Today, as in all of mankind's yesterdays, guarantees this type of song will never go out of style. Man's folly of fiascos is a feast for the flies. Hence, the B side of Massive Attack’s upcoming 12 inch "The Fly" features my appreciation for the winged nuisance."

Massive Attack is embracing an eco-conscious vinyl pressing and packaging process for this record to leave a smaller carbon footprint. This ‘EcoSonic’ edition will be 180g vinyl in colors, red, white and blue and are packed at random.

I thought I had misheard the lyrics on first listen but it really is "big titties, big titties, holler and burn down cities" which frankly is better then 99% of the chants I've taken part in recently

just in case not everybody noticed it, the song is built with a slowed down sample of The Earth Died Screaming (from 1992's Bone Machine)

okay thanks now i've got the Scorpions absolute banger Big City Nights in my head but its got Titties.

welcome to my 12 year old brain