Tom Waits for No Man

It’s been five years since Sparklehorse last put out an album, but at long last a new recording will be released on September 25th. Also exciting, the album, which is titled Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, will feature a guest performance by Tom Waits:

The new release also features guest appearances by a bevy of stars, including Dangermouse, Tom Waits, The Flaming Lips’ Steven Drodz and producer Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev), who was a major contributor to It’s A Wonderful Life.

[Via:Cult Favourite Sparklehorse Return After Five-Year Absence]

In related trivia, front man Mark Linkous produced Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered which featured the cover of King Kong by Tom Waits.

In more fan news, Jesca Hoop, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter from Northern California, recently received some high praise from Tom Waits who said her “music is like a four-sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch, or a red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night.”

Apparently he also was instrumental in getting her some mainstream press exposure by passing her demo CD over to Nic Harcourt at KCRW. I took a listen to some of the samples from her latest album, Sliverscreen Demos and I’m pretty impressed and thought some of you might like to take a listen.

You can also listen to a full track from a recent piece on NPR’s Open Mic.

Following on her concert performance at Amazon’s 10 Year Celebration, Norah Jones has listed some of her favorite albums of all time. Included on the list is Mule Variations to which she adds:

I realized that this is the album I have listened to the most in the past seven years. I never ever get tired of it.

Though maybe not all that surprising, Lyle Lovett lists “Heart Attack and Vine” as one of his five favorite songs:

Tom Waits, “Heart Attack and Vine”: “That kind of blues, I could listen to over and over and over.”

[Via: SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Features — Five of Lovett’s favorite songs]

I know she isn’t as trendy anymore, but she’s still got a warm place in my heart. And for today only, you can see her do a nice performance of Mr. Waits’ “The Long Way Home” during the Amazon.com 10 year celebration concert. Check it out here. Remember, this will be gone tomorrow.

Blues singer and slide guitar extraordinaire John Hammond suggested that working with Mr. Waits had something to do with his recent desire to start writing his own songs for the first time in his long career:

“What an extraordinary experience! Tom Waits is such a tremendous songwriter, and someone I’d always admired, and all of a sudden he calls and wants to work together on an album of his songs,” Hammond says. “It was such a great experience working with him, and he ended up playing rhythm guitar in the band.
“It was real progression from there,” he says. “It just opened me up a lot and probably had something to do with my getting around to writing.”

[Via: TownOnline.com - Merrimack River Current - Arts & Lifestyle]

I’m sure this one has been around, but I just found this great quote from Mr. Waits in an article about Ray Charles. It is certainly a great eulogy to a great artist:

“Your collection could be completely filled with nothing but Ray Charles music and you’d have a fairly complete picture of American music.”

Marc Ribot, the multi-talented guitar player who appears on Real Gone as well as Mule Variations, Rain Dogs and others, has written a rather scathing letter to the Editor of the Seattle Weekly in response to their review of Real Gone by Rod Smith. He specifically attacks the snobbery of the critics assumptions of exactly where “rock” begins and other music ends.

Read the whole thing here (it’s the fourth letter).

Well, so far this year, Tom’s shows have been too far away from my home in Oklahoma for me to attend. But I wanted to comment on the Norah Jones concert I attended last night to say that her version of “The Long Walk Home” is fantastic. It is a truely worthy cover.

The Sunday Herald has an intresting story from Gavin Bryars about recording with Tom Waits which he describes as “probably one of the most sublime musical experiences of my life.”

Full Story

Mr. Eben Morton sent me this little tibit he gleaned from the Anti- website. It looks like Mr. Waits will appear on the upcoming Eels album. I can’t say I know much about the band except I like everyone else, heard “Novocaine for the Soul” about a million times on the radio. However, Mr. Wait’s has excellent taste in picking out people to record with (Los Lobos, Primus, etc.) so I’ll definitely give it a listen.

Robert Quine, one of the guest guitarists on Mr. Waits’ Rain Dogs was found dead last Saturday in his New York City apartment. Apparently he died of a heroine overdose. Quine also toured with Lou Reed and played on several John Zorn albums.

Full Story

Here are the final details on The Silver Hearts’ tribute to Rain Dogs show:

JUNE 12 THE SILVER HEARTS The band performs a live interpretation of Tom Waits’ deeply inspired Rain Dogs. 7pm & 9:30pm. $20. Annex Theatre, 730 Bathurst. 416-530-1999.

eye - Summer fun calendar - 06.03.04

Here’s a small bio piece from the San Francisco Chronicle about Ralph Carney who has played horns on many Tom Waits album’s including the incredible Rain Dogs. He also tells how the two first started working together:

Music producer Hal Willner, who was the sketch music coordinator for “Saturday Night Live” in its heyday, was an avid supporter of Carney’s music. Willner got Carney’s band Swollen Monkeys a small record deal and, in 1984, introduced him to a new transplant to New York named Tom Waits.

“Tom was doing a couple songs for a documentary called ‘Streetwise’ and he wanted to have a kind of Salvation Army sounding band,” Carney says. “I had a street band at the time and we just hit it off, I guess.”

CARNEY’S LITTLE CARNIVAL

A Peterborough (Canada) band, The Sliver Hearts, will be covering the complete Rain Dogs album for two performances on June 12th. Apparently the first performance in May caused caused quite a positive uproar among the Tom Waits community and they have given in for some more shows. But the uproar seems well deserved. They apparently are going all out to make this a true Tom Waits experience:

The Silver Hearts are pulling out the stops to make it worth your dough. They’re setting up a vaudeville-style cornucopia of performers culled from Peterborough’s art community. Dancers, clowns and other fringey types will put on a show that the Hearts have described as “a cross between a traditional medicine show, a rock concert, a cabaret and Tony & Tina’s wedding.” Since the actual Tom Waits only tours once every seven years or so, this is the closest you’re going to get to the actual thing.

ChartAttack.com - The Silver Hearts Breathe Life into Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs

Thanks to Jarlath Golding of the Raindogs Mailing List for bring this to my attention.