As many of you are probably aware, I'm something of a Tom Waits fan. A review of his works is something I've always wanted to do, but as a Mod, MB was starting to feel like work. Now that I've stepped away from the reigns, I feel unrestricted to write, and not worry about what international spam unit is here crowding up the forums with bull****.
I try to make my first post on each of these Discography reviews my experience with the artists. This is my story.
Sometimes, something will happen in your life that has so many eerie coincidences surrounding it that you believe the universe is telling you that you must do it, that this is your fate. My running across the greatness of Tom Waits was something like a negative image of that phenomenon.
I'd known of him, off in the peripheral of music. I'd seen a photo of him once and thought to myself he looked like the love child of James Hetfield
[Metallica] and an orangutan. But it wasn't until my father, who spend his life in a Corrections Officer uniform, or ripped up, paint stained jeans, brought home an issue of GQ. I didn't know where he got it, but I picked it up because Chris Rock was on the cover. As it was, there was a lengthy interview with Tom Waits in that issue that would change my musical reality forever.
Because of its length I never intended to read it, but the imagine of him pounding what I recall being a calliope and a side bar of lyrics made me change my mind. I'll never forget the first thing to reach out and grab me...
Quote:
The captain is a one-armed dwarf
they're throwing dice along the wharf
in the land of the blind
the one-eyed man is king
|
Anyone,
anyone who paints such a bizarre and savage landscape like that in one stanza can have one of my kidneys and a bi-weekly paycheck.
From there it was over and done with. I used whatever peer-to-peer software was the rage of the day and just scooped up the fastest downloads possible. I ended up with most of
Mule Variations and went off and bought the record. From there, I would walk a million miles in the world of Tom Waits with all the circus freaks, and down-and-outs dotting the country-side; with every old-time fan, and shiney new novice to his collection.
Reviews are sometimes collaboratives with memories - These are my stories.