For your weekend reading, a piece from the LA Review of Books by Alex Harvey that is ostensibly a review of Barney Hoskins’ 2010 biography of Tom Waits, Lowside of the Road. To call it just a book review, however, seems limiting because it’s about fathers and sons, femme fatales, lust, music, addiction, influence, Los Angeles, film noir, biography, autobiography, Tom Waits, “Tom Waits”, and finding one’s voice. And it is pretty fascinating.:

When he and Jones split up, he moved out of the Tropicana and into a more laidback East Hollywood neighborhood, close to his father. By day he worked in the old RCA building on Sunset and Ivar, pushing his images and verbal fragments into a new kind of coherence. Gone was Chandler’s white knight in the form of Marlowe, or the melancholy search for the urban epiphany. In its place is the voice of a semi-psychotic street predator, snarling over savage guitar and bass.

Incidentally, Tom Waits is going to be on The Simpsons on January 6.

And here is the Fresh Air interview with Mr. Waits.

-Nell

image by Anthony Corbijn (2004) via  lifecomesfromwithin

exitpursuedbyasloth:

It’s not Christmas until someone’s decorated the Tom Waits.

The Best of Fresh Air 2011: Tom Waits

Our Christmas weekend show this year: Tom Waits and Jimmy Fallon. That’ll be on Monday’s show.

Fresh Air Weekend this week is Trent Reznor and Elmo. And Tuesday looks like it’ll be Margo Martindale.

Happy, Merry, Etc. Etc. Etc. 

I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

— Tom Waits (I did not post this because my name happens to be Melody and audio is now available for our Tom Waits interview.)

She’s Amelia Earhart and Jane Goodall and Joan Jett all rolled into one. She’s really great to work with and amazing. She doesn’t like the light of the business we call ‘show.’ She stays hidden, and that’s where she likes it. But she’s an amazing collaborator, and I feel like sometimes I have a map in my pocket that folds up and I pull it out and it’s bigger than the table, and there’s 1,000 places to go with her.

— Tom Waits on his wife and songwriting partner, Kathleen Brennan. 

A Tom Waits pumpkin template.

A Tom Waits Interview.

You play for an hour and he would yell across the room, ‘Scribe!’ And I looked around. ‘Scribe? Who’s the scribe?’ And he’d say it again, now pointing at me. I was supposed to have written down everything we said and dreamt of and played. And I realized we needed an adult in the room. I’ve never been the one that one would consider the adult. It was an interesting dynamic.

— Tom Waits on collaborating with Keith Richards on his latest album. [related: Keith Richards on Fresh Air]

thisisnicksblog:

Artist: Tom Waits
Song: Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard
Album: Blue Valentine

Seems appropriate, since it’s a) Halloween and b) TOM WAITS IS OUR GUEST TODAY. [interview here]

Monday: Tom Waits. [More from NPR Music]

good day at work

1. halloween-themed donuts courtesy of david bianculli

2. listening to tom waits so i can write about tom waits

3. we’re currently discussing the pros/cons of love, actually 

Some Music For Your Monday Morning: NPR Music is streaming Tom Waits’ new album ‘Bad As Me.’ Enjoy! (Also, Tom Waits will be on our show next week!)

Tonight Dr. John will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He spoke to Terry Gross about performing his early productions, which combined voodoo psychedelic elements with old medicine shows: “When we first presented it, it was a little too authentic for the labels. They weren’t quite ready for a guy biting a chicken’s head off and stuff, so we modified the show down to be a lot less authentic [and made it] more showbiz-style and took it on the road.” 

Other Hall of Famers on Fresh Air: Neil Diamond, Darlene Love, Alice Cooper, Tom Waits

Tom Waits, on stage fright: (full interview here) “My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult. I was kind of like the rectal thermometer for the audience, and it was a little awkward for me. I was alone, and I was performing in front of large groups of people, and they were verbally abusive. And I’m like a dog. I was so beat as a dog.”

Tom Waits

lukehallohgawd:

Tom Waits - Kentucky Avenue