Tom Waits for No Man

The “heavy, beautiful, dark, slow” music collective The Book of Knots has a new track called “Hammer” that features Tom Waits. You can hear a rough cut of the track at their MySpace page. It’s very much in line with his stuff on “Real Gone” and as such is pretty cool.

UPDATE- I just noticed that this was posted back in May, so it’s probably a little misleading to call it new. However, it’s the first I’ve heard of it so it’s still worth passing along. Enjoy . . .

Seems like the Tom Waits tattoo craze is catching on all over . . .
First, the tattoo I reported on a couple of weeks back is now complete.

Then I find another one!

Man, you people are dedicated . . . .

The roving reporter Jarlath of the Rain Dogs Mailing List sent me a couple of French interpretations of Tom Waits songs. The first set are performed by the trio “Strange Weather”. They are sung in English but with that ever so sexy French accent: http://www.totom.free.fr/.

Even stranger is the cover of “Just the Right Bullets” (Les Bonnes Cartouches) performed by Oscar Matzerath. You have to dig a little bit on the site. Go to http://www.oscar.free.fr/ and click on the MP3 link. It’s the last song on the list.

Additional thanks to Mr Confetti on TomWaitsFan for bringing these to the surface.

Paste Magazine has a very complimentary and poetic review of Innocent When you Dream. I appreciated this description of the enigmatic artist:

Tom Waits is a liar: “I’m going to pull your string from time to time,” he understates to Playboy in 1988. But his lies are truer than most people’s truth, and in a bravura performance spanning four decades, Waits’ derelict koans astound, delight and disturb. Even when paired with talented journalists, he quietly fills all the space in the room without ever fully appearing—he’s always shambling late into his own narrative and vanishing when the check arrives

[Via: Paste Magazine :: Review :: The Tom Waits Reader :: Innocent When You Dream, edited by Mac Montandon (Thunder’s Mouth Press) (Page 1)]

Joey Weiser over at Tragic Planet has made a cartoon based upon the lyrics to “The Lucky Day Overture” from The Black Rider:

When taking the “Which Fucked Up Genius Composer are You?” quiz I came up with the following:

Tom Waits… charismatic story-teller with a
penchant for freaky people and unusual
settings. You thrive on the concept of the
underdog coming out on top.

Which fucked-up genius composer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

How about the rest of you?

I reported last year about Peterborough brothel band, The Sliver Hearts, doing a complete show that consisted of a full album cover of Rain Dogs. These live performances will be released later this month for purchase. I’ll let you know when they are available.
[Via: eye - MUSIC WEEK - 08.11.05]

Well, this is the first time I’ve heard of this one even though it’s apparently been going on for quite some time. In any case, the Belgian music ensemble Ictus has a touring show throughout Europe featuring the music of Tom Waits and Kurt Weill simply entitled “Waits/Weill”. The show has been touring since 2002 and has three more dates this year:

8.9.2005: WAITS/WEILL
Settembre Musicale, Torino (I)

16.9.2005: WAITS/WEILL
Kursaal, Oostende (B)

6.12.2005: WAITS/WEILL
MC2 - Maison de la Culture, Grenoble (F)

The set list is quite impressive including quite a bit from the The Black Rider. In fact you can see a short video clip with the music of “Lucky Day Overture” here.

Thanks to The Eyeball Kid.

I have to say, that I was tempted to run out a buy a plane ticket to Albuquerque when I heard that Mr. Waits was going to appear. However, apparently the award ceremony was extremely short and the interview even shorter:

Tom received an award of some sort, but the exchange happened so fast I’m not sure what it was for

[Via: alibi . august 4 - 10, 2005]

What can I say, it’s a slow news period . . . However, there is a piano up for raffle that has been played by Tom Waits, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Ray Charles and many others:

“Tom Waits played the piano, and the piano was not drinking,” piano owner Eddie Wilson said. “Jerry Lee Lewis walked all over it, and I wanted to kill him, but I was scared of his entourage. We’re looking at the first time the piano got used at Armadillo Headquarters for a Fats Domino show.”

[Via: KXAN.com - Famous Piano Charitable Giveaway To Help Eldercare]

All proceeds from the auction go to support Eldercare, a local Austin organization that provides care to the elderly and disabled. You can buy your tickets from here. Get them quick, the raffle ends August 29th.

Well there are more rumors about the so called “Orphans Box Set” which will be a large collection of b-sides and rarities. If you believe the gossip, the set will be released towards the end of the year which could also coincide with all of the end of the year concert gossip we’ve heard as well.

In any case, there is at least one website listing an end of the year release of the album:
marsRED Music & Movies - Haddonfield, NJ

This has to be the wierdest Tom Waits spoof I’ve ever heard of:

“Tom Waits” is a franchise. The last album of his that he was involved with was Small Change. Not coincidentally, everything he did back then was crap. At one point the label realized that he had a marketable image, but not a speck of talent. So they hired a team of eleven silent technicians to make records and release them under Tom Waits’ name. This is why “his” style changed on or about Swordfishtrombones, when he became great: It wasn’t actually him any more. It was a team of technicians in lab coats. The man who actually sang “Union Square” and “Temptation” doesn’t even exist: It’s all done with a sophisticated vocoder. All of the instruments are simulated. “Marc Ribot” does not exist. He never existed. That character was created by marketing people in an epic latté-fuelled brainstorming session. Every “musician” who “plays with ‘Tom Waits’ ” is a fictional character.

[Via: The Damnation of Tom Waits@Everything2.com]

Make sure to read the whole thing, it’s a riot.

The 1998 Academy Award winning short “Bunny”, which features the haunting lullaby “Bend Down The Branches” will be featured in an upcoming screening by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:

Eighteen Oscar-winning animated short films, dating from the 1930s to the 21st century, will be screened by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, August 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. “Oscar-Winning Animation: Make ‘em Laugh” will be presented as part of the Academy’s Gold Standard Series and will celebrate the expression of humor in animated film.

. . .

“Bunny” (1998) — A hairy moth pesters old Bunny in this computer-animated short, with music by Tom Waits.

[Via: Computer Graphics World - Academy Features Animation at Upcoming Screening]

I missed reporting on the original run of this show in Australia, but the Waits’ inspired “Tom Waits for No Man” (no relation to this blog), now titled “Belly of a Drunken Piano” is making it’s way for a run in New York. It’ll be running from August 28th through October 9th at the SoHo Playhouse. You can find ticket information here or at the SohoPlayhouse show page.

For more information on this show, check out this story about the show’s performer at The Age (Registration Required).

Thanks Mark T. for the heads up.

I’m not sure how to feel about this, but Hootie and the Blowfish continue to use “I Hope I Don’t Fall in Love with You” in their concert set list:

They stayed with energetic songs throughout the night, rarely slowing down except for I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love With You, a Tom Waits cover the band used for their MTV Unplugged appearance. They went through the entire song, unlike when they skipped a verse on MTV.

[Via: Blogcritics.org: Hootie and the Blowfish, Toledo Zoo Amphitheater, 8-1-05]