Tom Waits

Man, I love Tom Waits.

There's an interview with him on Pitchfork today, and its really good. I've always been interested in sounds, and if you listen to Tom Waits, I'm sure you know that he is too. Apparently his favorite sound is bacon:

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"In a frying pan. If you record the sound of bacon in a frying pan and play it back it sounds like the pops and cracks on an old 33 1/3 recording. Almost exactly like that. You could substitute it for that sound."
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His perspective on his personal mythology is always something I've loved too. As you read interviews with him over the years, and from different places in his career, he will tell outragious stories. Some are so bizarre that they can't be true, and some are just weird enough that they could be, but after a while, you begin to accept that there is little you can really know about the person he really is if all you rely on is what he tells you.

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"The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you "know" about me only what I allowed you to know about me. So it's like a ventriloquist act."
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His new album Orphans was released last week.
You Can Never Hold Back Spring (mp3) (LINK REMOVED)

Tom Waits

So I just discovered that Tom Waits has a new album coming out this Fall. Entitled Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers. and Bastards, its a mixture of rare and unreleased material, coupled with 30 new recordings, each of the three discs having it own, unique character.

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“Brawlers” is chock full of raucous blues and full-throated juke joint stomp, “Bawlers” contains Celtic and country ballads, waltzes, lullabies, piano and classic lyrical Waits’ songs, while “Bastards” is filled with experimental music and strange tales.
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Sweet. Something for everyone, and I love every bit of it.

You can hear Bottom of the World from the "Brawlers" disc on the Anti website, or here on my server (just my work machine really) (LINK REMOVED). I can't promise that either will stay up forever, so listen while you can.

An excellent song, in the Tom Waits lonely, rambling ballad tradition. It is simultaneously sad, yet somehow hopeful. He encompasses a certain spirit that permeates American folklore in a way that no one but Woody Guthrie ever has. This is why I love Tom Waits.

Orphans are due November 21st.

Source.

Tom Waits

So I'm super excited.

One of my all-time favorite musicians is touring for the first time since... '99 I believe? I've never had the chance to see him, but now Tom Waits is going on tour.

He's playing both the Detroit Opera House on August 11, and the Auditorium Theater in Chicago on August 9. I don't know which show I'm going to but I will make it to one.

I generally have rules about how much I'll spend on concert tickets, but for Tom Waits? I'll pay a LOT more. I'm so fucking geeked.