Bit part in Dracula.
Love Tom Waits. Don’t really understand his obvious obsession with Chinese, Cubans and Puerto Ricans though.
I’ll be a rain dog too.
I LOVED that- I WANT A BLAMETHROWER!
My favorites will always be Tom Traubert’s Blues- “No one speaks english, and everything’s broken, and my staceys are soaking wet…”
and Frank’s Wild Years- “Franks wife was a spent piece of used jet trash made good bloody mary’s & kep her mouth shut most of the time.”
B.
Never could stand that dog…
My vote would be something from Blue Valentine. $29 maybe or Never Talk to Strangers with Bette Midler. Tango 'Till They’re Sore is also a big fave. Gotta love the line “let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair”. BTW: Who else wants to kick Rod Stewart’s ass for what he did to Downtown Train?
-LabRat
If you’re talking Blue Valentine, then for me it’s Sweet Little Bullet (From a Pretty Blue Gun). The first second of that song gives me goosebumps.
The Big Time version of Sixteen Shells From a 30-0-6. Never has a guitar sounded more visceral, more menacing, more… evil.
What amazes me most about Tom Waits, though, is his incredible emotional range. He does everything from light comedy (his duet with Bette Midler, I Never Talk to Strangers) to intense drama (Ruby’s Arms), with amazing variation, never revisiting a theme without revamping it completely.
I would have killed to see the LA show last year that featured both him and Tonio K. Oh, well.
I don’t actually own a Tom Waits album and I probably wouldn’t recognize him if he was singing to me right underneath my window.
However …
If you like the blues, you must get the disc Wicked Grin by John Hammond, in which he sings all Tom Waits songs. I think Waits also produced it and plays guitar on it. Awesome album. Songs on it include “2:19” (my favorite), “Shore Leave,” “Murder in the Red Barn,” “Heart Attack and Vine,” “Sixteen Shells from a Thirty-ought-six,” and lots more.
Well, even though I only own Bone Machine, I think Tom Waits is spectacular. It’s just one of those things where you always mean to pick up more stuff by the person or group, but never get around to it.
What I like about him, as most of you have mentioned, is that he is truly a poet. But what I appreciate is that he is not pretentious or bombastic about it. That really just rubs me the wrong way, how some people have to be “artists” or “poets”. Waits just “is”.
Another really good cover album is by Holly Cole, she puts a really nice jazzy, lounge-singer kind of spin on things.
As far as movie appearances go, I thought he was great in Short Cuts, as Lilly Tomlin’s drunk limo-driving husband. Good stuff.
Great guy who isn’t as popular as he should be.
I’m a huge fan of tom waits; just check out the quote! I actually was fortunate enough to see him in Toronto during the Mule Variations tour. Maybe the best concert I’ve ever been to. Every album from Frank’s Wild Years to Mule Variations has been absolutely outstanding, and should be required to be in everyone’s record collection. I’d say my favorite album is The Black Rider; William S. Burroughs and Tom Waits? Yes, please!
Right on, MrVisible. Tom’s emotional range is very impressive. Also, he can be sentimental, but it’s never embarrassing. Mule Variations has some good examples of this in “Georgia Lee” and “Take It With Me” – the former is about a tragedy, the latter is about love, and boy, you feel it in your gut when he sings those songs but you don’t wince. He keeps his dignity.
My favorite album of his, historically, is Rain Dogs (with Small Change and Bone Machine in the running), but Mule Variations has grown on me. “Pony” – man, oh, man, it’s like he was made to sing that song. Only his voice could do it.
It really gets my goat when people dismiss him because they can’t take his voice. It’s an acquired taste, like the whiskey and cigarettes that made it…don’t give up too early or you’ll miss out on the goodness of his art.
Say, HP, a question. I downloaded something from Napster called “T’ain’t No Sin”–it’s attributed to Burroughs and Waits, but the only voice I can hear is Burroughs’. Is this from The Black Rider? If so, I need to get it. I love both their voices.
My favorite Waits album would have to be Nighthawks at the Diner, the first one I ever encountered. Probably my favorite album of all time, actually.
Also, for film appearances, has anyone mentioned “Down by Law?” One of my favorite movies of all time. I’ve never found anything that Tom Waits was involved in that I didn’t love.
Checking in again with more TW memories…
Ever seen the film “Wolfen?” There’s a seen that takes place in a bar with a drunken piano player carrying on in the background. You’ve got to look closely or you’ll miss it, but I’m pretty sure it’s TW.
Back in '78 at a long since closed Atlanta club I saw a double bill: Leon Redbone and Tom Waits on the same stage! Billed as an evening of the avant-garde, and indeed it was!
Saw TW at the same club again a few years later. He had a '57 Chevy and a street light brought on stage when he performed “Small Change.” There were soap flakes or whatever being sprinkled on him from above to approximate snow in the glow of the street light. That song was pure theater!
Yeah, T’aint no Sin is indeed from Black Rider. Tom wrote the music and William wrote the lyrics and did the vocals. Buy the album; it’s fafantastic.
Re: The Black Rider, it’s one of my least favorites of his. Of course, that is still better that 99.8% of all other music that exists, but I like other albums a lot more.
Indeed, VH1’s “Storytellers” had Mr. Waits on. One hour long, and a good mix of his old and new songs and funny stories. I am lucky enough to have this on VHS, right after (same tape) Waits’ “Austin City Limits” performance.
What a genius. I own all but about 3 of his albums on disc, and I there’s a very good chance that he is my all time favorite. Other bands come and go, but his music still gives me the same feeling it does when I first heard it about 9 years ago. He’s one of the true good things in life.
::stomps around in a circle::
I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM!
sorry, I’ll go away now.
I absolutely agree with you.
I wasn’t aware that Tom Waits had been on ACL.
I don’t suppose you’d perhaps be so kind as to let me have a copy of the tape, would you?
Well, he came home from the War
With a party in his head
And an idea for a fireworks display
He knew that he’d be ready
With a stainless steel machete
And half a pint of Ballantine’s each day
I LOVE TOM WAITS!! I love the songs where he sounds like he’s drunk and has been smoking unfiltered Camels since he was 5 years old (Tom Traubert’s Blues, Piano Has Been Drinking), I love the songs where it’s just him and the piano. Kentucky Avenue has the ability to make me cry. I don’t have any albums, just a compilation that a friend made, and stuff I got off Napster. I don’t like his stuff that sounds more like modern jazz, I like the slow piano bar stuff. Grapefruit Moon, Time, Shiver Me Timbers, Ol’55, San Diego Serenade. I got a version of him performing Silent Night from Napster, I really like it. Anyone ever hear his version of Somewhere from West Side Story? Great stuff.
“And it’s a battered old suitcase
and a hotel someplace
and a wound that will never heal” -Tom Traubert’s Blues
“My goodbye is written/ By the moon in the sky” -Shiver me Timbers
Poetry, man, sheer poetry.
BTW, what the heck are “stacys”? (mentioned in Tom Traubert’s Blues) Some kind of shoe? Or a brand of raincoat?
Yep, shoes. Stacy Adams. Used to have a pair myself. Mine were ankle-high, lace-up, leather-soled dress shoes. Looked very cool, but I don’t care for leather soles.
I’m surprised by this; why is it one of your least favorites? I thought the album was absolute perfection. You have your eerie instrumentals, your W.S.B. touch, and several of his all-time great songs thrown in there as well. Lucky Day may have my all-time favorite Waitism; “When youve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!” Awww yeah.
I agree that the “campfire and a can of beans” is golden. And there are some other high points mixed in:
The swirling, moody feel that “Black Box Theme” has to it – Like being lost in the woods on a windy night. “Just the Right Bullets” is classic Waits, and “I’ll Shoot the Moon” should be included with the best of his quirky love songs. “Crossroads” utilizes that spaghetti-western style gee-tar as nearly perfect as it can be done. This song actually seems to be a better fit on Bone Machine – Or is that just me? WB’s lyrics for “Crossroads” are great (but notice that Waits is singing, not ol’ Willie. He should stick to writing, not singing. Well, not that he should stick to much of anything these days, but… The only thing I liked his voice on was his narration on the audiobook of Junky. It just fit.)
But “T’aint no sin”, as much as I like Waits and Burroughs individually, sucks. Sorry, but I find it really hard to get through. And that sort of clunky, eastern European old world music can be really nice when it’s done right (See an album called Helium by The Tin Hat Trio – Waits even does guest vocals on the last track). Some of that style works here for me, and some of it doesn’t.
“Oily Night” – the music is OK, but I can really do without the ‘Death Metal on quaaludes’ style of vocals.
“The Last Rose of Summer” – Feh. Nothing doing here – just dull.
“That’s the Way” – I should like this song, but I don’t. It almost seems as if it’s Waits trying to do a caricature of his own music. If that makes any sense…
Like I said, just because this is my least favorite Waits album does not mean I don’t like it. I just don’t like it as much as I do the others. In fact, I have a 2 hour drive to do today, I think I may pull out The Black Rider for the trip. That usually happens to me (I want to hear the album) after I think about it for a bit.
I heard and fell in love with “Goin’ Out West” which is now on my all-time faves list.