Tom Waits

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?

Was listening to Rain Dogs yesterday and I think that was definitely his peak. Franks Wild Years and Bone Machine and Mule Variations all have a couple of good songs, but it's been diminishing returns since '85.

I like "Hell Broke Luce" because I'm feeling sympathetic to his groanin' and moanin' this week but so far the album sounds like it won't convert any skeptics.

the kinda auto herk-&-jerks didn't grab me when i streamed this one time, but a bunch of the others did. it's weird how his records somehow sound very 'tidy', in spite of the unruliness therein, like maybe they're put together a little too neatly. he has some great players. guitars are lovely, a beautiful fiddle came in halfway through a song.

Hell Broke Luce is amazing - ultraviolent shellshock crunk-metal.

Still can't get behind the Mule Variations. A few good songs, but loads of slow, repetitive clunkers - those first four tracks are a real hurdle.
(I really like this new album on the whole).

Maybe two tracks aside, I think Mule Variations is pretty unfuckwithable!

Gimme the ballads and "What's He Building?" and you can have the rest. But the ballads are amazing.

it's weird how his records somehow sound very 'tidy', in spite of the unruliness therein, like maybe they're put together a little too neatly. he has some great players. guitars are lovely, a beautiful fiddle came in halfway through a song.

― mid-song laughing elvis (schlump), Friday, October 21, 2011 8:51 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i was listening to bone machine and i remember thinking it was so "weird" when i was younger but he's really a classic songwriter type

but he is ultra-violent shellshock crunk-metal do u see

i find tom waits ultra classical-definition Pretentious i.e. a lot of to-do about not much. i like some of his ballads because i like ballads and his sad clown is more palatable to me than his grotesque clown.

yeah i was listening to bone machine and i remember thinking it was so "weird" when i was younger but he's really a classic songwriter type

i think that's true, and that there's a lot of interesting ways in which his weirdness reinforce his normalness (like i remember hearing that he wrote a lot of real gone on a drum, & you can kinda see how that might encourage the kind of very straightforward melodies that you are limited to if your palette is a drum and singing, making the record v melodic if in a roundabout way). i was really talking about his production though; i think i wish that he was recorded kinda 'off mic' so you got more of an idea of the sound and scale of his voice than the kind of very literal and throaty recording of how bluesy and fucked it is.

+ lol @ sad clown

BM was my first Waits album too, and it took a few listens to ballads like "Who Are You" and "Whistle Down the Wind" that the guy has a sentimental streak a county wide.

*to realize that

Amazing to have that ever being in doubt, having started with Waits with FRANK'S WILD YEARS and giving everything before that a listen before long after.

Goes all the way back to "Grapefruit Moon."

yeah, the dude is sort of a walking sentimental streak. i think he makes it work though.

First album is mostly sentimental ballads, no? "Martha" etc

the new one is really good! kinda surprised i thought he'd jumped the shark and tipped into self-parody on real gone

LOVE the recession ballad in his falsetto (!)

lex you liking tom waits is quite incomprehensible to me.

I mean, I believe you obv, but I'm a bit shaken too.

yeah that is surprising. i had to read that twice.

It's a shame he tours so infrequently, since in many ways live presents him in the best light. The "Mule Variations" comeback jaunt was memorable awesome, and the "Real Gone" tour was tons of fun, too. The guy's theatricality is made for an audience.

i've always loved tom waits, i thought this was common knowledge

ranking the albums i've heard, not inc the new one

rain dogs > blue valentine > closing time > mule variations > alice > swordfishtrombones > blood money > heartattack and vine > real gone

absolutely adore the first three espesh

Ooh crumbs the Lex, if you like those, you must seek out Franks Wild Years, Small Change and Heart Of Saturday Night. I find Blue Valentine and Closing Time just a little too hammy. Mule Variations is a bit boring in places.

Think these were reissued/remastered in 2017 and are still available, but the live tracks will be nice to hear.

will probably pick these up but holding off on a preorder until i can confirm he hasnt fucked with the mixes or added overdubs or anything

"Digital deluxe versions of both records, featuring newly released live performances, are out today along with limited edition vinyl reissues. Unfortunately, Alice vinyl is delayed until October 21st everywhere except for Europe and the UK."

https://tomwaits.ffm.to/alicebloodmoney

the stickers say "Newly remastered with Waits/Brennan" - anyone check them out yet?

I can't imagine them being that radically reworked the way he did with Real Gone, but you do get five live tracks with each and they're pretty good...

https://tomwaits.bandcamp.com/album/alice-anniversary-edition

https://tomwaits.bandcamp.com/album/blood-money-anniversary-edition

The only strings that keep me here
Are tangled up around the pier
Man troll gas beany jim-jam

I was watching Richmond, VA gospel group the Legendary Ingramettes perform live and one of their vocalists said that on an Irish tour they just did, they saw a singer do Tom Waits song "Time" and it reminded them that they had a different song with that tile but a similar theme. The Singer suddenly started singing the Tom Waits song in an a cappella church powerful way and then their band joined in and the rest of the singers and they segued into their own song with that title

listened through to these anniversary editions today and the albums dont sound like theyve been fucked with, thankfully. some of the live tracks are very good but the sound quality varies widely for some reason. some sound like clean & clear soundboard recordings and some sound like rough bootlegs recorded from the back of the hall, which is... strange. not quite enough there for me to justify buying the full albums again vs just buying the individual live tracks that i like on bandcamp

https://tomwaits.ffm.to/store

Celebrate 50 years of Tom Waits’ highly influential debut album ‘Closing Time’ originally released in 1973.

The album’s 50th anniversary vinyl is available in black and clear versions as a double 180g LP cut at 45 RPM with half speed mastering by London’s Abbey Road Studios. The gatefold jacket was also specially created with thicker board and black poly-lined inner sleeves.

Called “a minor key masterpiece filled with songs of late-night loneliness” by All Music Guide, ‘Closing Time’ features the distinctly lyrical storytelling and blending of jazz, blues and folk styles that would come to be associated first with Waits.

(also for sale: door hanger & poster)

TOM WAITS’ ENTIRE METAMORPHIC AND GROUNDBREAKING MID-PERIOD ISLAND RECORDS STUDIO CATALOG NEWLY REMASTERED FROM ORIGINAL TAPES AND PREPPED FOR RELEASE ON VINYL, CD AND DIGITAL FOR FIRST TIME

ALL REMASTERED ALBUMS AVAILABLE TO STREAM TODAY

Personally overseen by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, Waits spectacular middle-period albums–released on Island Records between 1983 and 1993—have been newly remastered from the original tapes and will be reissued on vinyl and CD this fall via Island/UMe.

Waits’ transformative creative breakthrough, Swordfishtrombones (1983), its sprawling and superb sequel, Rain Dogs (1985), and the trilogy-completing, tragi-comic stage musical, Franks Wild Years (1987), will kick off the series September 1, 40 years to the day that Swordfishtrombones was released into the wild, ushering in a new and critically acclaimed musical era for Waits and his longtime songwriting and production partner, Brennan. The epic song-cycle, Bone Machine (1992) and the Waits (with Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs) musical fable, The Black Rider (1993), will follow October 6. September, incredibly, marks the 40th anniversary of Swordfishtrombones, and the 30th of The Black Rider.

Ahead of their physical releases, all of the albums are available to stream today featuring the newly remastered audio, allowing you to hear how these landmark recordings now sound better and more vivid than ever.
Stream The Albums Here. https://tomwaits.lnk.to/IslandVinylReissues

In addition to streaming and download, each album will be released on CD and in two vinyl options: 180-gram black vinyl and a limited edition color variant that will be available exclusively via TomWaits.com and UDiscover Music. Swordfishtrombones will be pressed on canary, Rain Dogs on opaque sky blue, Franks Wild Years on opaque gold, The Black Rider on opaque apple and Bone Machine on translucent milky vinyl. Pre-Order The Album Here. (EU/US links differ)

All albums were remastered from the original source tape. The new vinyl editions will come with specially made labels featuring photos of Waits from each era in addition to artwork and packaging that has been painstakingly recreated to replicate the original LPs, which have been out of print since their initial release. Surprisingly, The Black Rider and Bone Machine were never released on vinyl outside of Europe and will be making their vinyl debut in most of the world.

Waits shifted gears, or rather, deliberately ground them. New York Times music critic Stephen Holden wrote: “Miles away from the (music) he used in the ‘70s to evoke the wrong side of the tracks, his evolved style is an abrasive, lurching honky-tonk that at its most adventurous suggests a fusion of Captain Beefheart's Dadaist extensions of the delta blues with the Kurt Weill of 'Threepenny Opera.'”

These critically acclaimed works are a monument to an artist’s ability to break through into new creative territory. Waits went from ‘70’s-era “bluesy, boozy” wordsmith and melodist with seven albums behind him to sound sculptor, miner of the subconscious, abstract orchestrator, sonic cubist—while retaining his innate lyricism, melodic invention, humanity.

feels like he's kind of underrated these days

seems unlikely to ever happen but i always fantasized about vault-scraping double disc reissues of those Island albums. always got the impression they must have tracked a ton of stuff in all those sessions, would love to hear some of the experiments and outtakes. i suppose Orphans is the closest we'll get to something like that

I really want to understand why BIG TIME still doesn’t have an HD release

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