Tom Waits

good piece

https://tomwaits.ffm.to/alicebloodmoney

vinyl reissues + 2 live tracks

Tom Waits will be releasing limited edition vinyl of his albums “Alice” and “Blood Money” to celebrate their 20th anniversary.
Originally released on May 7, 2002, the re-issues will be available on October 7.

All The World Is Green (Live)
Fish & Bird (Live)

Leading up to the official release date, Waits is putting out previously unreleased live versions of songs from the records,
starting with “All the World is Green” from ‘Blood Money’ and “Fish and Bird” from ‘Alice.’ “All the World is Green” was
recorded at a live show in 2008 in Milan, Italy and features a dramatic faux flamenco guitar intro, while “Fish and Bird”
is taken from Waits’ celebrated return to the London stage in 2004 and is a stripped down raw piano version of the ballad
that featured a chamber orchestra arrangement in the studio recording.

(text is quoted from the mail & link is without identifying crap)

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