Tom Waits for No Man

Well I’m finally getting close to being caught up on old news. This one came out about a month ago, but it’s still worth reporting on. The Guardian published a list of Tom Waits’ favorite albums along with descriptions of the albums by the great artist himself. Apparently, 20 wasn’t enough room for a good list because The Guardian’s blog then published an extra eight albums. So here is the complete list:

1. In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra
2. Solo Monk by Thelonious Monk
3. Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart
4. Exile On Main St. by Rolling Stones
5. Sinking of Titanic by Gavin Bryars
6. The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan
7. Lounge Lizards by Lounge Lizards
8. Rum Sodomy and the Lash by The Pogues
9. I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen
10. The Specialty Sessions by Little Richard
11. Star Time by James Brown
12. Bohemian-Moravian Bands by Texas-Czech
13. The Yellow Shark by Frank Zappa
14. Aria: A Passion for Opera (I think this is the right link for the album, but I couldn’t find one under the title listed in the article. The label and year match at least.)
15. Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks
16. Prison Songs: Murderous Home from the Alan Lomax Collection
17. Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos by Marc Ribot
18. Houndog by Houndog
19. Purple Onion by Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade
20. The Delivery Man by Elvis Costello
21. Martinis & Bikinis by Sam Phillips
22. Shakin’ the Rafters by The Abyssinian Baptist Gospel Choir
23. Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton by Charley Marvel
24. Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music by Ray Charles (Just as a side note, this is one of my favorite albums as well. But what can I say, I’m a country boy at heart.)
25. Harry Partch Collection Vol. 1 by Harry Partch
26. Let The Buyer Beware by Lenny Bruce
27. Last Sessions by Leadbelly
28. Ompa Til du Dør by Kaizers Orchestra (I couldn’t find a purchase link for this one. There are a bunch of sites out there, but my Norwegian is a bit rusty.)

The timely documentary “ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room” features “What’s He Building in there”:

This fine documentary opens with an overhead shot of the Enron building in Houston accompanied by the suspicious, sinister strains of Tom Waits’ “What’s He Building in There?”

[Via: THE BLACK LIST: WE’RE JUST A BUNCH OF FUCKING MARTYRS.]

Seems like an appropriate choice to me.

Gomez will cover “Going out West” by Tom Waits on their live album “Out West”:

U.K. rock act Gomez has rounded up highlights from a Jan 20-22 stand at San Francisco’s Fillmore for its first live album. The 20-track, double-disc “Out West” is due June 7 via ATO, marking the band’s first release for the Dave Matthews-co-owned label after a long association with Virgin.

In addition to such favorites as “Bring It On,” “We Haven’t Turned Around,” opener “Get Miles” and “Here Comes the Breeze,” the album also features covers of Tom Waits’ “Going Out West” and Nick Drake’s “Black Eyed Dog.”

[Via: Gomez Goes ‘West’ For Live Album]

The North Dakota Ballet Company’s spring concert (April 28th and 29th) will feature an unnamed Tom Waits tune:

The repertoire also will include contemporary jazz and modern pieces by U2, Tom Waits and the classic Benny Goodman tune “Sing, Sing, Sing,” classical pieces such as “Swan Lake Waltz Act I” and Chopin’s “Les Sylphides” and a reprise of Christenson’s “The Hours,” a ballet piece to the music of Phillip Glass from the movie soundtrack “The Hours.”

[Via: Grand Forks Herald | 04/22/2005 | DANCE : It’s a ‘Red Hot Spring’]

Tickets range from three to eight dollars and are availible at the Chester Fritz box office (701- 777-4090).

From the New York Times comes the following statement from Opel:

In a statement, Opel responded, “We actually are surprised about the fact that Tom Waits considers the music that goes with the current TV commercial ‘Lullaby’ for a range of Opel cars as a potential misuse of his voice and style of singing.” Opel said that the underlying music was by Brahms, that it had not approached Mr. Waits and that the only celebrity singer it had considered was Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. “But before even starting any negotiations, a Frankfurt-based singer was found who delivered an excellent rough voice interpretation for the ‘Wiegenlied’ theme in English,” the company added, referring to the Brahms “Lullaby.”

[Via: The New York Times > Arts > Arts, Briefly]

You just gotta love people that are willing to practice irony without a license. Yeah, I would have never thought Waits when I saw the ad. There’s just no similarity in the performance.

I reported on this quite some time ago, but it looks like the Eels album which features Tom Waits on a track will finally see the light of day on April 26th:

Alt rockers the Eels began work on their epic, two-disc album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations (April 26 release) way back in ’98. But four other albums, the loss of frontman Mark Everett’s mother to cancer, his sister to suicide and a cousin to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 kept the album from completion. Fortunately, the finished product appears worth the wait. It is the band’s most sonically ambitious work, featuring layers of acoustic instruments melded with electronic elements. Tom Waits even makes an appearance on the dance track “Going Fetal.”

[Via: The Wave Magazine - The Bay Area’s Best Entertainment Magazine… Ever.]

Liz Durrett has a cover of “November” on her website. She also has a cover of my favorite Lou Reed song a “Perfect Day” as well.

[Shamelessly stolen from The Eyeball Kid] (Thought I should return the compliment.)

Just barely in time with this one, Curtis Stigers is doing a four night show at The Jazz Standard starting tonight. He apparently does a great cover of “In Between Love”.

Charismatic Crooner Curtis Stigers Takes Up NYC Residency, Performing at The Jazz Standard April 21st Through 24th. New Album, “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” Covers Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Mose Allison and Randy Newman.

[Via: westcoastmusic: Curtis Stigers “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” new album, Curtis Stigers new album]

Anti- released a press release announcing an expanded selection of Tom Waits downloads on WarchildMusic.com. They have tracks from Used Songs, Heartattack and Vine, Small Change and The Heart of Saturday Night. They also have an exclusive recording of “Baby Gonna Leave Me” available as well. All proceeds from the downloads go to support the following mission:

By harnessing the commitment to the commonly held belief that children should never be the victims of armed conflict, War Child exists to:

• prevent, wherever possible, children from being affected by armed conflict,
• protect children who live in areas of armed conflict
• provide emergency relief to children and those people they depend upon in areas of armed conflict
• work with local communities, their organisations and local authorities in areas of long term conflict as well as in areas where it has recently ceased in order to ensure sustainable security and livelihood opportunities for their children and address the effects of armed conflict

[Via: WARCHILD: History]

Here’s the full press release:

Tom Waits tracks now on www.warchildmusic.com!

Thursday April 21, 2005

Here’s a very quick and easy way to help War Child, the charity that works with the many children affected by conflict around the world.

Tom Waits tracks are now available on http://www.warchildmusic.com for a very competitive £7.99, or 99p per track. Each individual back catalogue track raises 20p, and albums up to £1.50 for War Child. Also, you can download our exclusive Tom Waits track “Baby Gonna Leave Me” at http://www.warchildmusic.com.

Whilst at the site you can download from www.warchildmusic.com ’s catalogue of exclusive tracks. This includes music unavailable elsewhere from Radiohead, The Bravery, Bjork, Tom Waits and many others. Because these tracks are exclusive to http://www.warchildmusic.com the charity gets even more money - 70 pence per track.

War Child is currently rehabilitating child soldiers in DR Congo, operating a music therapy project in Bosnia, reconstructing livelihoods in Iraq and working with juvenile offenders in Afghanistan.

[Via: ANTI-]

Dorene on the Raindogs mailing list found a story on BrandRepublic.com which contains a link to the actual commercial in question. Watch it here.

I have to say, it’s gonna be pretty hard for Opel to argue coincidence on the vocal style.

In his continuing efforts to protect his music from commercial uses, Mr. Waits is going after the car manufacturer Opel for their use of a Waits imitator in one of their recent car commercials. He released the following statement this week:

“In answer to the many queries I have received: No, I did not do the Opel car commercial currently running on TV in Scandinavia. I have a long-standing policy against my voice or music being used in commercials and I have lawyers over there investigating my options. But I got to tell you, it doesn’t look good. This is the third car ad, after Audi in Spain and Lancia in Italy.”

“If I stole an Opel, Lancia, or Audi, put my name on it and resold it, I’d go to jail. But over there they ask, you say no, and they hire impersonators. They profit from the association and I lose — time, money, and credibility. What’s that about?”

“Commercials are an unnatural use of my work … it’s like having a cow’s udder sewn to the side of my face. Painful and humiliating.”

[Via: filter magazine - news]

There is currently no response from Opel on their website.

You can read the whole story from Filter Magazine here.

Sarah V. of the Raindogs Mailing List has a wonderful internet radio show dedicated to all things Waits on Krankit.com every Wednesday morning from Midnight to 3:00 AM, Eastern Time. The show is appropriately titled “Tom Waits’ World of Adventure”. I’ve been listening for the last 20 minutes and it’s great stuff. Lots of live tracks. If you can stay up that late, it is well worth the listen.

I was driving home last night listening to my Sirius Satellite Radio and heard an odd Tom Waits cover. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band doing a cover of “16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six”. Anyone know what album this is from and when was it recorded?