Tom Waits (2 Viewers)

I've made a mistake:
when whatsay posted his link, I was able to watch it, but didn't download the new song immediately.

Now, only a few days later, when I click on it, it tells me, that in my country this video isn't available due to copyright reasons. Happens often in Germany. I shoulda known.

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I was wondering - since there might be a way to download the song - if someone of you cats in other countries, where it's still available, would do this ?
 
I did listen to it when this was first posted and loved it. Waits is one of the few musicians after so many years still keeping it freshly mind blowing! I'd love to have this mp3 and a few friends of mine would like a listen, a little help please?
 
Anyone seen him play live? Share your experience with a virgin.

(guessing some of you are half dead & saw some earlier shows too)
Just saw this post. Tom Waits opened for The Mothers of Invention at the Agrodome in Vancouver, BC, sometime in 1974. (March 14th, the web says.) Horrible echo chamber of a cow palace. And, for some reason, people wanted us standing in front of the elevated stage to sit down on the concrete floor. Lots of grumbling and the set didn't last long, partly because the grumbling got pretty loud and we philistines essentially chased him noisily from the stage. I remember Waits alternating from guitar to piano and making, what seems like to me now, a lame "colder than a brass monkey" joke between the few songs he did.

(And I'm "half dead" only on my good days....)
 
Me and my wife saw him live at a theater in Pasadena, the Huntington Hartford, in 1978. It was a great show., There were props on stage: an old sofa, gas station pumps, an old car. We had good seats, up near the front. He's an excellent live performer.
 
Far out! I just made a trip through Nashville and my three main things I do when i show up in some town to visit people is 1) go to the top of a tall building and take pictures 2) go on a boat tour and 3) visit used book stores and ask about bsp Bukowski. Well, I managed to get my hands on a Black Sparrow edition of Septuagenarian Stew, took my girlfriend and her nephew on a boat tour of the Cumberland (they even made a balloon hat for the kid and let him drive the pontoon). No tall buildings open to the public in Nashville.

Anyhow one of those book stores didn't have any Bukowski but in the DVD section where I often see if they have any Dog Whisperer I spotted what looked like a Tom Waits bootleg. Turns out to be a real deal re-edition of concert footage from a show he gave in 1978. Awesome stuff. His more recent shows seem cool in a way, but he seems to me to have become weird-for-the-sake-of-weird, a carnival of banging metal that turns my ears around. I dig Mule Variations, Cold Water is one of about 15 songs I ever learned to play badly on a guitar.

Long story still long grabbed this "Romeo Bleeding: Tom Waits live in Austin" dvd for 7.99. I'm not master pricer but I brought it up to the counter and asked the shopkeep lady if it was a bootleg or what and she said I hope not. Took it home and just popped it in the player and opened up the computer to see what it goes for on amazon and sure enough, the lowest price is 40 plus shipping. They put out the audio too, but it only seems to be available on vinyl.

Bottom line, anybody who is remotely into Tom Waits I can't imagine not digging this sound right here. Vinyl is on for $21 plus ship, dvd like i said is on for $40. Super stuff. As I type he slid from Romeo is Bleeding into Silent Night (yes, the Christmas song).

And David, the gas pumps are there on stage. He did his first piece, spoken word with muted trumpet accompany, sitting on a tire.

Is it an act, as some posters said? Sure, it's a performance but damn if the man don't feel it, too, and get to the heart of some things. When the man uses the words "red beans and rice" in a poem, it sounds like it was the meal that brought him back from the edge.
 
There's a great diner here, Little Pete's, that is the kind of diner described in poems, novels, movies that i just love. The waitresses all call you "hun" and always refil yr coffee asap. Every visit creates a cool, lasting memory. Pros indeed.
 
That sounds like every bar in the Hamden neighborhood of Baltimore. If you have seen John Waters' Hairspray or Cry Baby you know the area...

Bill
 
I love Nighthawks... also, but I can see why he might be embarrassed by it. It's a very affected performance but that's one of the reasons it works for me.
 
I'm an early Waits fan, so I getta lot of shit for not liking (as much) Rain Dogs and everyting that came after for a while. But I do love "Get Behind the Mule."
 
@BukFan Brad Have you ever heard Magnapop do a great version of "Big Joe.."? But I cant find it youtube.

No, will keep an eye out for it. What little I know about 'Big Joe' is that the lyrics were originally written by a chap named 'Red Sovine', Tom Waits credits him as being the one who penned the lyrics. I love folklore, ghost stories, and so when this song gets played I can't help but get out the lyrics and read along. Superb atmosphere!

My cousin sent me 'Rain Dogs', 'Pogue Mahone', some years ago but it doesn't grab me as well as some of his other albums.

Here's a favourite song of mine:

[This video is unavailable.]

I can only blame my muso brother for getting me into Tom Waits when, some years back while making a long distance call to him late one night, I asked him if he knew any musicians who played music that had a 'rustic' feel to it? He said 'have you heard of Tom Waits?' 'I said 'no, what's he like?'. He said 'Imagine some guy out on a farm somewhere and who's decided to start making music by banging some rusty old tools out in his barn, that's what it sounds like!' I thought 'Shit, I need to check this guy out!' ;-)
 
I respect his post-70s stuff a lot, but it just wasn't my thing. Until "Get Behind the Mule" came out and I loved the shit out of that one. But since then, I think he's his own worst enemy. He's become an "artist" instead of a musician. He knows that in order to be successful, you need to be an entertainer in addition to being a musician. But he's swapped being an entertainer for being an "artist" who has become very hard to listen to at times. I love the guy and I do not blame the Yoko factor, but if he wants me to buy something and not regret it, than he needs to stop being such an "artist" and get back to making music that non-artists may actually enjoy.
 
I respect his post-70s stuff a lot, but it just wasn't my thing. Until "Get Behind the Mule" came out and I loved the shit out of that one. But since then, I think he's his own worst enemy. He's become an "artist" instead of a musician. He knows that in order to be successful, you need to be an entertainer in addition to being a musician. But he's swapped being an entertainer for being an "artist" who has become very hard to listen to at times. I love the guy and I do not blame the Yoko factor, but if he wants me to buy something and not regret it, than he needs to stop being such an "artist" and get back to making music that non-artists may actually enjoy.

Like Bukowski and Crumb, Tom Waits likes to be different, he likes to be an outsider. And there's a good chance that he has always been an artist first and foremost, with the commercial entity following behind him. It takes a prescient genius to get the balance right, to get that harmony between making money from what you enjoy doing whilst also being innovative and cutting new turf with your art.

From a fan's pov, like you, I love his older music, it holds a certain nostalgia. From an artist's pov (who can only cut it as a hobby), I can appreciate his desire to be experimental, to break new ground, make new discoveries. I'm sure he must get loads of fans coming up to him and saying 'what happened to your music? Why do you play like you do now?' And he's probably thinking in his head - well, that was me back then, this is me now! And I get tired of having to play the same old crap all the time...

the same old crap that we love to listen to! :)

 
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Like Bukowski and Crumb, Tom Waits likes to be different, he likes to be an outsider.
In the old time sideshow world there was a differentiation among the freaks. There were natural freaks and then there were made freaks. A made freak was someone who purposely did something to their body to earn their way into the show. Covered in tattoos, swallowing things normal people don't swallow, that kind of thing - an act. The natural freaks were born different, and held positions of higher esteem in the sideshow world. Lobster Boy, Dog-Faced Man, those kinds of people. People who couldn't help being different and certainly didn't choose to be different, but took a certain amount of pride in their difference.

Bukowski and Crumb are natural freaks. Tom Waits is a made freak.

So I don't think you can really compare them.
 
Waits had a very normal upbringing and even served in some (non-wartime) branch of the armed forces, didn't he? I don't recall ever reading about any horrors visited upon him in his life. Granted, I've not read much about him.

Of course you can still be an outsider in your thoughts and actions even if your life is pretty normal, and you don't have to suffer to be an artist. Though those artists who have suffered usually wind up striking me as being more genuine and enjoyable than someone who is posing as whatever. That's just me. But I've always had a gut feeling that Waits was/is full of shit. Maybe I'm wrong. I usually am.

I don't usually comment on him or his music, but I found the comparison to be a bit hard to take. Take away my opinion and assume that all three men are on the same plane, as far as life and authenticity or whatever you want to call it. Even then, Waits is not on the creative level of the other two. Not even close, not ever close.
 
Waits puts on characters much like Bowie did. That can come across as inauthentic, for sure. I get that. But it doesn't matter to me. I see the affectation, accept it for what it is, and am still able to enjoy the music. But there is the rub, I like the music; if you don't, all the pose around it is going to become amplified and all the more annoying.

But I don't think you can compare Waits to Buk or Crumb. I don't see why anyone has to.
 
Waits puts on characters much like Bowie did.
He comes from the time when almost everyone adopted a "character," since reality didn't cut it in the entertainment biz. I suppose he lucked out in picking an enduring one that he didn't have to abandon or change. Elton John, Bowie, Zamfir, they had to morph into different characters when the glitter stopped shining. Unlike those guys though, I never felt any humor from Waits. Maybe that's what didn't click with me. There was humor, but it seemed obvious and heavy-handed to me, like "Weird Al" Yankovic or Jay Leno.

(Almost) everyone in pop music puts on a front. I can't put my finger on why some grate and some seem right. It's just a feeling, and I suppose you can't have the feeling for everyone. If we all liked the same things -- well, that would just be weird. And not Weird Al weird.
 

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