Frownland

You know I don't have time for that reason business. I usually skip your intros, no offense.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

The Batlord

Considering how much TH updates, how long his entries are, and our differing tastes, I tend to pop into this journal only every now and again, but I'm happy I looked at some of his Tom Waits posts. I fell in love his PBS live performance a couple years ago, but have only checked out a small bit of his studio work. Just listened to Swordfishtrombones last night and loved it.

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Trollheart

Nice to know my hard work goes unrewarded! But you see, if you HAD read the intro then you would have realised I already noted Beefheart's influence on Waits. So what's the moral...?
If you liked that you'll probably love the next two.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

You should listen to Beefheart?

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Trollheart

I'll have to, won't I, in the Prog Rock journal...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Mwa. Ha. Ha.

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Frownland

Safe as Milk is child's play.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

Having branched out on the previous album Waits continued to explore the limits of his music, almost inventing instruments and shunning the popular digital electronic recording process. As he said himself, “If I want a particular sound I'd rather get it by going into the bathroom and hitting the door really hard with a piece of two by four.” No samples for our Tom! Although he did, technically, use samples in the recording of this, his eighth album, when he used an old-style cassette recorder to capture the sounds of the street --- traffic, people walking, dogs barking etc --- in order to infuse this new album with a feeling of being right down there among the people. His second album without Bones Howe and the continuation, in many ways, of Swordfishtrombones, this album is, if possible, even weirder and in places even more beautiful.


Rain Dogs --- 1985

A double album, this would be, apart from Nighthawks at the diner, Waits's longest yet, clocking in at almost fifty-four minutes and with a total of nineteen tracks. He explores many different genres in it, and it opens with a boppy cousin of “Underground” melding with “Shore leave” as “Singapore” kicks right out of the traps. Waits's vocal is again that hoarse, ragged whisper we've started to become used to, the song driven on thick double bass and powerful percussion. There are some great lines in it, such as ”In the land of the blind/ The one-eyed man is king” and ”Every witness turns to steam/ They all become Italian dreams.” Next it's a slow, almost funereal tune with timpani and miramba in “Clap hands”, Waits more restrained on the vocal here, then it's a polka as he brings in accordion for “Cemetery polka”, with the hilarious line ”We must find out where the money is/ Get it now before he loses his mind!”

Typical of Waits, of course, after all this madness and experimentation he's back to simple acoustic guitar for “Jockey full of bourbon”, percussion again playing a big part in the song, with a kind of muttered vocal from Waits before he comes alive for “Tango till they're sore”, one of the first songs of his I ever heard --- and I hated it --- but I can see his genius now. He sings like a man drunk, reeling all over the place as he sings ”Put my clarinet beneath your bed/ Till I get back in town”. The discordant piano from “The piano has been drinking” is back, as he weaves expertly in and out of the tune, fat trombone adding a real New Orleans touch, delivered by the perfectly-named Bob Funk. He kicks into full gear then for the manic “Big Black Mariah”, featuring guitar from the legendary Keith Richards. This melody and vocal style, at least the beginning, foreshadows the later “Earth died screaming” on his Bone machine album. There's a lot of blues and swing in this, and it rocks along nicely.

Things slow down then for a few tracks, as “Diamonds and gold” is a low-key short track with banjo from Robert Musso, the return of the marimbas and a sort of almost slurred vocal, tracing the basic melody of “Hushabye mountain” before Waits interprets the folk standard “Tom Dooley” in his own inimitable way as “Hang down your head” is his first collaboration with his wife, Kathleen Brennan. It actually has a nice country-ish electric guitar from Marc Ribot and pump organ from Waits himself. Good solo from Ribot, then we're into one of the standouts with “Time”, the first real ballad on the album. Again it's a low-key, almost disinterested vocal from Waits, lovely sad accordion as William Shimmel reprises his role from “Cemetery polka”, soft strummed guitar from Waits.

Shimmel remains and opens the title track, which is then taken by Ribot with some uptempo guitar, mournful trombone from Funk and those marimbas again. The first of two instrumentals follows as the quite frenetic “Midtown” is driven by the Uptown Horns with a kind of sixties cop-show theme, dashing all over the place and bringing us into another standout, “9th and Hennepin”. Again I've written extensively about this song, but in case you haven't read that, it's a spoken word piece backed by clarinet, marimba and piano. Some incredible lines in the lyric: ”I'm lost in the window/ I hide in the stairway/ And I hang in the curtain/ And I sleep in your hat.” Banjo and percussion drive “Gun street girl”, very folk-oriented; one of the lines is ”Bangin' on a table/ With an old tin cup” and sure knowing Waits, maybe they are!

“Union Square” hits the tempo back up then, with a raw, manic vocal from Waits in a sort of jazzy rocker, Keith Richards making another appearance, then after that Waits turns his attention to Country with his first pure Country song, “Blind love”, and it could certainly hold its own among the likes of Haggard and Nelson. More guitar from Richards, who also adds backing vocals to this gem, and some superb violin from Ross Levinson. We're back then in “Blue Valentine” territory for “Walking Spanish”, and a song made famous by Rod Stewart is another standout in “Downtown train”. If you've only heard Rod's version then you need to hear the original. That's all I'll say.

The second, and final instrumental is barely a minute long and features just harmonium, sax and drums as “Bride of rain dog” reprises some of the melody of the title track, messed about in the lovingly chaotic way Waits loves to do, then we end on “Anywhere I lay my head”, as the Uptown Horns return to finish us off on a gospel-inspired hunk of craziness as Waits really goes for it on the vocal. Testify, brother! Testify!

TRACKLISTING

1. Singapore
2. Clap hands
3. Cemetery polka
4. Jockey full of bourbon
5. Tango till they're sore
6. Big Black Mariah
7. Diamonds and gold
8. Hang down your head
9. Time
10. Rain dogs
11. Midtown
12. 9th and Hennepin
13. Gun street girl
14. Union Square
15. Blind love
16. Walking Spanish
17. Downtown train
18. Bride of rain dog
19. Anywhere I lay my head

Rarely have I listened to an album with so many different styles, genres and ideas mixed together which still managed to be a cohesive whole and come out triumphantly on top. With this album, once and for all Waits proved that he could not be boxed, labelled, categorised or indeed equalled. A man with whom, quite literally, you did not know what was coming next, he would forever surprise, confound and delight. With almost impish glee, he would change his style, then change it back, do something new, look back to his past, subvert genres and even invent new ones as he continued his crusade to be something utterly different, indefinable and absolutely magnificent.

At this point, it seemed the time might have arrived to declare a new genre of music: Tom Waits.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Would anyone else title an album after a track from a previous one, and not include that track, or any reference back to it? Well, probably not. But then, this is just another example of Waits not so much breaking the rules as gleefully pounding them with a sledgehammer, in the process taping the sound to be used as another effect on his album. Two years after the herculean Rain dogs completed, he was back in the studio and this time he had help. New wife Kathleen Brennan was beginning to have a little more of an input on her maverick husband's music now, arranging all the vocals on the new album and also helping to write three of the songs.

Originally conceived as a play, and premiered in Chicago more than a year before the release of the album, this next recording would continue Waits's foray into the world of experimental music, and lead to him playing even stranger instruments, such as the Optigan, Farfisa and, um, rooster? It would also feature the only collaborations in songwriting he had allowed since Bob Alcivar wrote the music for “Potter's Field” back in '77 on Foreign Affairs, and though he would count the co-writers he worked with on the fingers of one hand, Kathleen would become more and more involved in writing songs with him, until with 1992's Bone machine they would share equal songwriting credits; Waits would finally have someone who knew his music as well as he did, and who could be his muse, and perhaps vice versa.

Franks Wild Years --- 1987

If you've been following my writings on his discography, you'll remember that the title of this album, as mentioned above, comes from a song off Swordfishtrombones, about a guy who finally snaps under the pressure of suburban living, burns down his house and drives off in the direction of Hollywood (Frank Goes To Hollywood?) in search of a new life. Although the album is subtitled “Un operachi romantico in two acts”, and was, as mentioned, based on the play of the same name, oddly enough it does not appear to be a concept album. At the same time, there does appear to be a general thread of motifs running through the songs: themes like loneliness, depression, failure, regret all crop up and the songs could to a degree be said to be linked to form a loose story.

“Hang on St. Christopher”, which kicks the album off, can certainly be seen as following on directly from the song on the '83 album, as Frank, driving north on the Hollywood Freeway, goes over in his mind the actions of the last few hours. Whether he regrets them or not is unknown, but it seems he is determined to put his past life behind him as he joins the great swell of humanity heading down the highway. With a down-and-dirty brass section backing him, Waits sings the vocal in a sort of mechanised style, as if he were talking on a really old radio or microphone. There's something of a shuffle in the rhythm and again it's a song with no real verse or chorus, just all the lines sung in the same melody. “Straight to the top (rhumba)” is indeed just that, backed by brass and double bass with congas going and Waits with another strained, hoarse vocal which seems somehow divorced from the melody and yet works well. Glockenspiel on “Blow wind blow” and pump organ recalls “Tango till they're sore” in a slower, moodier vein, with some lonely horn blowing. Waits changes his vocal style halfway through here, affecting a kind of operatic tenor, while ”Dancing at the slaughterhouse” recalls a line from “Gun Street girl”.

I have to admit, this is not one of my favourite Waits albums. After Swordfishtrombones and Rain dogs I was pretty disappointed with this one, but that's just me. He changes his voice again for “Temptation”, a slowish, almost tangolike piece driven by bass, maraccas and congas, with some freaky guitar from the returning Marc Ribot. We're back in familiar territory for a moment then as one of two versions of “Innocent when you dream” takes us back to the bar, with Waits a slurring drunk singing ”The bats are in the belfry/ The dew is on the moor” and the song moves in a sort of slow waltz carnival rhythm, a real drinking song. Some nice violin from Ralph Carney and accordion maestro William Schimmel takes the seat behind the piano. One of the better songs on the album, certainly.

Schimmel straps back on his squeezebox for “I'll be gone”, and there's that rooster I spoke of, crowing at the very start. It's one of those madcap songs Waits loves so much, bopping along on a bouncy bassline as he sings gleefully ”I drink a thousand shipwrecks/ Tonight I steal your paycheques”. By contrast, “Yesterday is here” plods along in a slow, measured western-style rhythm, bass and guitar driving the tune and Waits returning to what could be called a normal vocal for him, a lot of echo on it giving it a very sombre feel. A screechy baritone horn runs “Please wake me up” in as the vocal comes through almost unnoticed, a slow, Beatley tune with elements of Sinatra and old twenties Vaudeville there too, with another carnival organ outro before a short accordion piece prefaces one of the better tracks on the album, one of my favourites. “More than rain” is like a Waits tune of old, and could have been on Blue Valentine or Heartattack and Vine.

Featuring an accordion intro that really recalls the album cover, it moves along on again a sort of slow carnival rhythm, with bells, bass and of course the accordion and horn. Great lines like ”None of our pockets are lined with gold/ There are no dead presidents we can fold” really make the song. Fans of “The Wire” will be familiar with “Way down in the hole”, which was the theme for that show all through its run, though performed by various different artistes each season. Waits screeches the vocal in a sort of semi-gospel tone allied to a lowdown funk melody driven on Ralph Carney's soulful sax as well as Ribot's guitar. Echoes of the melody from “Hang on St. Christopher” coming through here, while a second version of “Straight to the top”, subtitled “Vegas”, gives us a different interpretation of the second track, with a very Sinatraesque turn. Cocktail piano from Schimmel and super little bass lines from Greg Cohen as well as Carney's sax really put you in the front row of a Vegas nightclub as Waits sings, with obvious relish in the irony, ”I can't let Mister Sorrow/ Drag ol' Frankie down!”

It kind of ends on a bit of a confused mess though, like a reverse tune-up, and segues directly into the again Sinatra/Armstrong-like “I'll take New York”, with some very dissonant organ and a melody that is cheekily very close to that of Frankie's classic, then a Rain dogs style infuses “Telephone call from Istanbul” with some picked guitar and banjo from Ribot. Good advice from Waits: ”Never trust a man in a blue trenchcoat/ Never drive a car when you're dead!” Vocally this is probably closest to “Heartattack and Vine” or maybe “Mister Siegal”, but musically I can hear the likes of “Big Black Mariah” and indeed “Rain dogs” itself.

An almost fifties rock-and-roll fusing with Country/folk takes us into the “Cold cold ground”, with a fine performance by David Hidalgo on the accordion and some hypnotic bass from Larry Taylor, while there's a whole lot of slow gospel in “Train song”, almost coming back to the Small change era. That would have been a great ending, with the tagline ”It was a train that took me away from here/ But a train can't bring me home” but Waits decided to throw another version of a song that is already on the album into the mix, and for my money the alternative version of “Innocent when you dream” (it's not a bonus track; this is part of the album) is completely superfluous. I liked the original but this is just silly. A sad end to an album that could be a lot better.

TRACKLISTING

1. Hang on St. Christopher
2. Straight to the top (Rhumba)
3. Blow wind blow
4. Temptation
5. Innocent when you dream (barroom)
6. I'll be gone
7. Yesterday is here
8. Please wake me up
9. Frank's theme
10. More than rain
11. Way down in the hole
12. Straight to the top (Vegas)
13. I'll take New York
14. Telephone call from Istanbul
15. Cold cold ground
16. Train song
17. Innocent when you dream (78)

There are a lot of things to recommend this album, but somehow it just doesn't do it for me. After colossi like Rain dogs and Swordfishtrombones I was just expecting more, and whereas normally I might --- might --- point to one, maybe two tracks on a Waits album I'm not totally into, here I can easily count off at least six, and on an album with seventeen tracks overall that ain't good. I've listened to this a few times, not as many as other Waits albums, and when I make playlists it's one I take very few tracks from. It's not that I think it's a bad album, but it fails to give me the vibe I've got from every single one of his recordings prior, and to be completely honest, from here on in, with a few exceptions, I found much of his material quite inaccessible and disappointing. Not saying I hated every album from here, but it does make Rain dogs for me a high watermark, leaving everything that came after --- as I say, with a few notable exceptions --- just slightly lacking.

Mind you, as I review them now I may start appreciating them more. Here's hoping. But for me anyway, Franks wild years just fails to reach the high standard Waits has set himself for, at this point, fourteen years, and the next twenty-plus would continue to test my faith in the man, occasionally proving it, more often than not though unfortunately straining it to often breaking point. I think the real problem with Waits, for me at any rate, is the expectation. Every album up to this has been top-drawer, and once you slip even slightly it really shows. This is a good album, even a very good album, but at this stage I'm a Waits purist and I want great, not good.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Another unbelievable milestone!

I'd just like to take the time to thank everyone who stops by, reads regularly, or comments here and who has taken the time to read what I write. Your continued interest has allowed me to reach the incredible milestone of
Two Hundred Thousand Views
a feat, so far as I can see, never equalled in the annals of Music Banter journals. In fact, from what I can see, this journal has now received more views than all of the other journals in the first two pages added together! That's nothing short of amazing.

However, it's quite clear that I would never have reached this staggering total if people were not interested in what I am writing, so my eternal gratitude goes to you all for keeping my belief alive that what I write is being read, and in turn keeping me interested in continuing to write.

I don't want to make a big song and dance about this (two hundred thousand balloons? Yeah, just put the boxes over there please mate. Sign here? Sure. Thanks) but I think it's important to mark the occasion, as it's a massive vindication for me as a writer and probably a searing indictment that a lot of us need to get out more!

When I started this journal all I wanted was somewhere I could write about my favourite music, and maybe share it with like-minded people. Though many of you hate my music taste, I think a large percentage of you recognise and respect the passion with which I write, whether I like something or hate it, it will get a fair and (ahem) thorough review here, and I in turn respect and am grateful for that acceptance. Now I have NINE journals, and even the least popular of them still gets respectable views, so some of you out there are reading most, if not all, of what I write, and again for that you have my thanks.

I have great things planned for the coming year, but as ever if there is something you would like to see, something that you think I'm not doing right or at all, or some way you feel I could improve this, or any other of my journals, please let me know. Comments are always welcome.

In addition, let me just thank the mods who tirelessly approve my many entries: Janszoon, Urban, Goofle, Vanilla, Pete, Burning Down, Pedestrian and anyone else who may be, or have been in the past, a mod, and whom I have either forgotten or missed out. My journals would be empty without your work, and it is appreciated. I hope I don't drive you all too mad!



So thank you once again and I hope I can keep writing the stuff that keeps bringing you back here.

Cheers, and thanks to you all!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018