Tom Waits

I've really liked Tom Waits for a while now but only though his film roles. I hadn't even heard his music really. I had one song on my ipod, 'Goin out west' and thats only because it was in Fight Club and i only discovered this about 4 days ago. I was given two of his albums by chaney about a year and half ago but never really got around to listening to him. I think i was a bit ' his voice is weird' about it and then my harddrive died which the albums were on, so thats that story. Anyway, on holiday i saw a book 'the life of Tom Waits' and thought i read it because 1) It wasn't very thick 2) I wanted to know about him. It was quite good as it was really just about his music which i suppose is the prime intent on a book about a musician. He seemed hardworking, funny, insanely talented and a pretty decent guy. One quote from him in the book is,

'You gotta keep Busy. After all no dogs ever pissed on a moving car'

or allong those lines. I think thats pretty good advice and one that i'll try to live by in the coming months. I asked mum and dad if he was good and i got a yes from mum and a yes but... from dad. Anyway it was this point that i discovered 'Goin out west' on my ipod where i went past the 20 second mark that i would usally stop at and ACTUALLY LISTENED TO IT. And I was 'holy crap this is actually good!'.

I got home and downloaded the albums that the book went most on about which are Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years and again I was, 'dude, this is all really good!!!'. Only mabye one or two songs of those albums i'm not to keen on but thats a pretty good track record. I prefer the more raw, bluesy songs through those such as Gun Street Girl and Clap Hands which are both on the Rain Dog album. They remind me of songs that would be played in a dark dirty bar in deep deep alabama or something. But i think that was the intention, so, yeah.


Anyway, he's really good and i think that reading the book helped understand him. Like his influseces and what he went though. For example, in 'Small Change' its quite pessemistic )or so wiki tells me) because he started dinking heavily when he went on tour which really took his toll on him.

Anyway, i've downloaded 'Bone Machine' which i will propperly losten to tomorrow. I looked up his more critcally aclaimed albums as i dont want to download a crap album then hate him. His albums are quite cheap on hmv so i may actally pay for them. But might have to wait untill japan, but i quite want to buy them.


Anyway untill then heres a taster for poeple who might not know, whiich thinking about it, is probberly not that many!

This is 'Clap Hand' and as of this moment its the one that ive listened to the most. Keeping in mind i only dwnld these albums today!

'through it all, I'll clap clap clap

hands for this treasure

a million bad dreams

in my memories

I'll never return to them

instead, I'll

clap, clap , clap hands'