My nephew has gotten into Charles Bukowski and is also into music. His birthday is coming up. I don’t know a ton about Bukowski, but I have this sense that his work covers similar terrain to the Tom Waits’ stuff (particularly Wait’s earlier stuff). I own everything Waits has done and would like to create a mix CD called “Music for a Dark & Smokey Room” with a full-bleed photo of a used ashtray printed on the disc itself and give that to him as a gift.
Can anyone better informed chime in and let me know if I’m on the money with the connection or if this is a dumb idea?
One of my buddies has all the books and eats up everything Bukowski. I wanted to get him something for his birthday so I figured he’d like a copy of the movieBarfly. Of course it’s out of print and costs 100 dollars. But I found a dealer on ebay that sells Region 1 copies that aren’t just cheap bootlegs but officially liscensed. All the packaging is in some foreign language, not sure what…it’s all greek to me. I think I paid somewhere around 27 dollars with about 5 for shipping. I know there is some dissent among fans when it comes to the books and the movies (Barfly/Factotum) but still not a bad buy for a fan.
Interesting to see Bukowski and Tom Waits in the same thread title. Without really thinking about it I’ve always associated the two of them. I guess they cover some of the same ground, look a little alike, sound a little alike etc.
Sounds like a great idea to me, especially if you include some of Tom Waits’ spoken material. I’d also suggest chronological, since Tom Waits kind of ‘deconstructs’ over time, and I believe it might be easier to appreciate the later stuff if you’ve heard the early stuff first.
As goes for the movie Barfly,I enjoyed it personally, but really didn’t feel that it captured the tone or spirit of Bukowski. Didn’t see Factotum.
On the movie front Down by Law might be a good complement to a Tom Waits introduction.
My brother is a Bukowski nut. My dad sent him a documentary on him that was on cable recently. He’s a strange one, that Bukowski. My brother is (or was) damn near obsessed with him.
I think a Bukowski fan is definitely likely to be into Waits, and also more likely to listen to Modest Mouse if he’s part of the younger generation (not just because they have a song called “Bukowski.”) He probably also has a collection of R. Crumb comics.
By the way, for fans of Bukowski, I would recommend What Salmon Know, a collection of short stories by Elwood Reid, an obscure author who worked a series of depressing jobs in Alaska and uses many of the same themes in his stories that Bukowski does. They’re definitely more positive, but still quite depressing.
I’m a big Tom Waits fan who hates poetry. The only poetry I can read is Bukowski (I admittedly have not read much other poetry). I think the Pogues, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen have a similar appeal (I also love Modest Mouse’s lyrics).
I’m a fan of Tom Waits, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, and Modest Mouse. Maybe I should start reading some Bukowski!
Maybe. The first Waits songs I heard were from the sample station at a music store that had the album Blood Money. I thought it was interesting, but not enough to buy it. A few years later, I had a job driving around installing computers. One project was way the hell out in Fresno, several hours from my house. NPR did a review of Real Gone; I thought it was awesome, so I stopped and bought a copy of that, and also Good News For People Who Like Bad News. Now, I have some of Waits’ earlier stuff, but I actually like his more recent work better.
Yes, I basically agree depending on what’s ‘recent’ for you. I would say he really hit his stride around Rain Dogs. My chronological suggestion was more in regard to Waits ‘telling a story’ both in themes and music and even his voice changing.Some of his stuff is very spare and maybe more accessible if you already had the back story.
For the record, I’m a huge Tom Waits fan and I absolutely don’t care for Bukowski.
But I do get to share one of my favourite stories!
I shared this part in an earlier thread:
But I didn’t share the story about the time Tom observed Mr. Bunny reading The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and commended him on his reading choice, remarking “It’s a good young man’s book.” Heh.
Yep, Bukowski comes from the same street-wise sensibility as Tom Waits, and has a similar cadence.
To up that a notch, with literary sensibility, Henry Miller is the good grandaddy of that genre, but, depending on your nephew’s age, one to introduce in the early twenty years.
Tom Waits, himself, is a Bukowski fan. He provides a few short comments on the poet in the documentary Bukowski, which is available through Netflix. (and probably Blockbuster) And Bukowski didn’t much care for the movie *Barfly * either.
I was a Tom Waits fan in highschool when he put out “heart of a saturday night.” I came to Bukowski in my mid-20’s.
what they have in common is that both are real LA boys, albeit from a different generation. Tom Waits could probably keep up drinking with Bukowski. If he is a fan, I’m sure Waits also met Bukowski.
[hijack]I’ve met Waits but not Bukowski. He played at UCDavis IIRC 1981. Heart Attack and Vine Tour. He was accompanied by only a stand up base player because his band quit. The venue was maybe 1000 people, and it was Waits try out gig to see if it would work with just the base player sans band. He picked Davis because his recently married wife was from the Sacramento area. Before the gig, he asked the college radio station KDVS to give him 5 “wierd” albums. I don’t remember all 5 that we picked out, but one was the sound track to South Pacific. Then during the gig, tom took a break to smoke some cigarettes and played some of his “favorite music” for the audience. the one song/album that Tom liked was “gonna wash that man right out of my hair” from the South Pacific sound track. after his break, he continued the gig. It was great.
We did an interview afterwards. Tom Waits didn’t really want to do the interview and the interviewer couldn’t connect. Tom just kinda sat there swigging away on his bottle of red and after about 15 minutes it was over. [/hijack]
I’m not sure Bukowski hated Barfly. He certainly wrote a book about it that was pretty amusing but not his best work.
Back to the OP, yep, I’m pretty sure that a Bukowski fan that likes music would appreciate Tom Waits. I would highly recommend the early “stripper” years.
Bukowski wrote the book Hollywood. It wasn’t flattering about the movie but he never said he hated it in the book. Pretty amusing “Bukowski does Hollywood” type book but not his best work.