Tom Waits- Bad As Me

Like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits has, over the past 20 years, grown into his aesthetic. Both artists spent years playing at being eccentric old men with bruised, whiskey soaked voices, mining pre-rock 'n roll music to craft their own unique blends of roadhouse R&B, country, folk, blues, and various ethnic idioms. Now they're both well into their 60s (actually, Dylan is 70!) and have, in a manner of speaking, become their personas, right down to long periods without new releases, meaning every record feels like an unexpected gift from a mercurial Grandfather or uncle you see once every few years. This is especially true of Waits, who spent the first half of the last decade releasing three well received studio albums and an exhaustive (but essential) three CD set of odds n' sods, then mostly puttering around touring and doing this or that.

Thus Bad As Me is his first proper studio album in seven years and still somehow sounds rushed and half-hearted. It's hard to imagine any fan of Waits being outright disappointed by this record—he has long since become too consistent a songwriter and too unique a performer to turn in a truly bad or dull album—but at the same time, it's hard to imagine anyone truly loving it the way people love Rain Dogs or even Alice . This is music which, at its best, is only good because it reminds you of the past. Moreover, this is the sort of record which, at its worst, is only tolerable because you remember the past. If 'Pay Me' and 'Back In The Crowd' weren't by Tom Waits, they would be amusing on-the-nose Waits parodies...except that they were recorded by him, and they're hollow shadows of what he's done before.

Bad As Me makes consistency into a weakness instead of a virtue just as it makes succinct song lengths into an issue. Much of this album either mimics or mines Waits's past yet as a whole these songs sound less distinct and unique because the production and overall aesthetic is perhaps the most consistent since his jazzy crooner/barfly pre-Swordfishtrombones era. Where 'Big In Japan' was a unique stomping opener to Mule Variations, its descendent here, 'Bad As Me', feels like an obligatory rocking song sandwiched in between two slower, more mellow tracks. Were Waits not singing these songs, they'd be as boring as any cover band playing standards and hits on a Wednesday night in a Minneapolis biker/dive bar. It's his performances that save this album and even then he seems barely invested, as if he's going through the motions.

Waits has been quoted as saying that this would be a collection of short, relatively straightforward material, and perhaps that helps explain why all these songs feel like first or second takes with unfinished, vague arrangements. Waits has never been at his best when he's limiting himself, and it turns out that self-enforced short songs, at least on this record, were not going to help the subpar songwriting. If 'Chicago' were slowed down a bit and allowed to breathe, it could've been a classic track. Likewise, 'Face To The Highway' plays like a sequel to the languid lament of 'Sins Of My Father' yet tries to do so in half the time.

It all comes down to two things: 1) an artist can't release a safe record like this after a seven year break, and 2) you can't spin consistency into a virtue if the songwriting isn't top-of-your-game. As stated above, it's hard to imagine anyone being disappointed by Bad As Me, but it's also hard to imagine anyone truly loving it.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Shuffling VI

OK people, you know the drill.

Shuffle!!

1) Maybe Maybe by Pavement- This is the version from the Brighten The Corners deluxe reissue, which I think is some kind of radio station/John Peel session piss take. Somehow it's even sloppier than the original lo-fi version you can hear on the Westing (By Sextant And Musket) compilation. Anyway, this kind of song wasn't made for a full band so it doesn't come off well here.

2) The Smallest Weird Number by Boards Of Canada- This short track reminds me of how fascinating this band is even on a small scale. Though a bit over one minute long, it is perfection in microcosm, packing in all kinds of interesting textures and sounds.

3) Puttin' On The Dog by Tom Waits- Ah, one of those gin joint, roadhouse blues stomps from Tom Waits. Someday there really oughta be a movie made of Charles Bukowski's work that has songs by Waits as a soundtrack. Listening to a song like this, you feel as though you're in the dark corner of a dive bar nursing a scotch and water that you bought with the last four bucks in your wallet, wondering what you're going to do now. Then a woman walks by and makes you feel something after you assumed you couldn't anymore, and hell, you figure you have nothing to lose...

4) Shooting Star by Elliott Smith- Man, if he had actually finished From A Basement On A Hill, it would've been one weird album. It already is a helter-skelter affair in its half-finished, post-humous state, but there truly is a paranoid late 60s pop/rock atmosphere that runs through it, recalling The White Album and the unfinished-until-2004 Smile project. This six minute song proves that Smith could've really made something out of a full touring band kind of sound rather than the lonely singer/songwriter stuff he's known for or the studio perfectionist, borderline orchestral pop of Figure 8 and XO. The guitar stuff around the 3:35 mark is especially good--hell, who knew he could play like that (assuming it isn't a sessionman)??

5) Back Of Your Head by Cat Power- It's too bad (for me) that Chan Marshall is caught up in 60s soul/R&B-isms and being all happy, because her earlier work is impossibly sad and beautiful. As much as I love Nico's The Marble Index, I think that Cat Power's Moon Pix is more enjoyably dower. 'Back Of Your Head' is a lonely willow of a song, its lyrics reminding me of so many bittersweet, and simply bitter, moments in my own life and romances. Also, "you hold the big picture so well/can't you see that we're going to hell?" is a chilling summation of a relationship that always gets to me. Sniff....

Album of the Week: Tom Waits- Swordfishtrombones

There are many great lines from 'Pulp Fiction.' Every time I see the movie, I latch unto one quote or another. It's a movie where the visual action captures the imagination just as much as the dialogue. On the last viewing, the line "I'm an American honey, our names don't mean s%^&" caught my interest. Most American bands really have this same unpretentious attitude toward their music even if they perform under high falutin' names. American rock bands of the same era as that film, like Guided By Voices, showed us that being almost accidentally great is better than British rock bands striving for and demanding praise but falling far short of actual greatness. You know, like Oasis.

Tom Waits embodies the American artist for me, because you get the distinct impression that even when he's making serious 'art' he still has a sense of humor about it. He also isn't affected by trends in music. I personally think the 1980s was the worst decade of music so far because I can't stand how albums from that era sound. The ultra-slick, clinical, plasticky, and synthetic sound of it all. The way bass and drums don't sound right. But Swordfishtrombones has a unique, timeless aesthetic, just as Waits's other albums afterward owe no obvious debt to any genre or trend. Furthermore, 'Pretentious' is one of the last words I would associate with the man. If you sat down and talked to Tom Waits about his songcraft or his approach to his art, I imagine he would just shrug and say he's an entertainer like any other trying to make a buck while recording the kind of music he wants to.

However, it's easy to fall into the trap of romanticizing such artists. Swordfishtrombones has some interesting stories behind its creation, and sits at the tipping point of Tom Waits's career between his earlier late-night jazz club, alcohol soaked singer/songwriter albums and his later lucid junkyard, Captain Beefheart-inspired excursions. But the best way to approach the album is to experience it without context. To go back to the Captain Beefheart thread and tug until its loose, the first time I listened to Trout Mask Replica I didn't know anything about it, other than that my friend said it was a legendarily weird and 'out there' album. It's rare that I hear an album which shocks me so utterly I have no way of describing it. And we all know that a critic's worst fear is to be unable to make easy, lazy comparisons to other music. Whoops...forget you read that.

The thing that really strikes me about Swordfishtrombones is how play-like it is. Not play-like as in childish and fun, but as in "like a stage play." I know that it was the first of a trilogy of albums that would eventually see Waits writing a musical with his wife called 'Frank's Wild Years', but even without that knowledge the album is incredibly visual and theatrical. There is just something about its spacious production (it's like you can feel the streets and scenes he's singing about), the variety of instrumentation, the stripped down number of instruments used, and the odd sounds on display that create powerful imagery in my head. As with 'Pulp Fiction's visuals and dialogue, Swordfishtrombones's lyrics and music are equally great. So, yeah, I always picture the album playing out on a stage in my head. I don't mean a concert, though; moreso I see Waits on stage with his band members coming on and off as required, with sets and lightning and everything. The three instrumentals give some traveling time or scene changes to the "story" I imagine going on, in particular the hushed curtain fall of 'Rainbirds', a beautiful mostly-solo piano piece.

Swordfishtrombones still fascinates today for two musical reasons. One is, as I said above, the instruments used. Waits employs what you'll so often see referred to as a junkyard orchestra on this album, with all kinds of things that sound like percussion, guitar, bass, etc. but in warped or twisted ways. The marimbas--another idea borrowed from Captain Beefheart, which gave such interesting texture to his Lick My Decals Off, Baby--accordions, harmoniums, and bagpipes give the album a very, very distinctive sound. But unlike many bands who used non-traditional music in a rock context, none of it feels gimmicky or forced. These odd sounds shade and highlight the songs. The second reason Swordfishtrombones captures a listener is Tom Waits's voice. He never was a traditionally 'good' singer on his barroom crooner albums like Small Change, favoring a raspy baritone, but with this album he absolutely sets his voice free, howling and shrieking and contorting along with the characters and songs. Again, a debt is owed to Captain Beefheart here. But whereas Trout Mask Replica sounds like Howlin' Wolf fronting a surrealist rock band that aspires to free jazz from time to time, Swordfishtrombones sounds like an ex-barfly piano man leading an ethnic, European folk music band that aspires to rock music from time to time. How else to describe the angry rant of '16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six', with its percussion seemingly played on baking sheets, steam pipes, pots, and pans while a bassist and guitarist try to be heard over the clangor. Or the majestic march step, brass-band-parade-through-town of 'In The Neighborhood.' Or the B-3 organ smooth jazz spoken word of 'Frank's Wild Years', displaying Waits's personality, humor, and skill with words. Or the smoky piano ballad 'Soldier's Things', which feels to me like a final nod of the hat (with raised drink in hand) to the first phase of his career.

Swordfishtrombones is an album I find impossible to criticize. Rain Dogs is a very similar sequel that I also like immensely, but at 19 songs it drags a bit. No such problems with Swordfishtrombones. It often shows up on 'best of' lists by magazines and websites, and once you're a fan, it's easy to feel the same way.

Video: Tom Waits- God's Away On Business

Tom Waits is a champion squinter. Every time I see footage of him, his face is contorted in a look of either pain or passion, perhaps both, as if singing his damaged, idiosyncratic songs has a physical effect as much as an emotional one. Which kinds of makes sense due to his scratchy, whiskey soaked growl, though if you've heard him speak you know his voice isn't an affectation so much as, well, all he can really manage.

Anyway, this video is an old fashioned artsy one. Waits mugs for the camera in a desolate 20s/30s set that mirrors the old timey sound of the song. At various points he can be seen standing in a room with large birds (my best guess would be emu) and the lyrics of the song as well as the visuals imply that God has left and the animals have re-taken the Earth. Perhaps Waits is the devil or an angel letting us know that our time is coming to an end.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into that.

Look-A-Likes

Where I work, I get to see a healthy cross section of the population. And one thing people always do in these sorts of situations is they make up names for especially unique or awful customers. However, in my own head, I am always doing a mental check to see if each person looks like someone famous. For instance, there was a guy who used to come in who looked like the spitting image of the guy who played Ash in Alien aka Ian Holm. I've tried to figure out who I resemble, but nobody can seem to figure me out.

Flash back a few years, and my then-girlfriend and I had gotten out of a Shins show near Dayton. She remarked that James Mercer, frontman of sorts for the band, looks like Kevin Spacey. As we walked back to her car, we overheard another couple talking about the show, and when we brought up the look-a-like, they said that they were just discussing the same thing.

Kevin Spacey

James Mercer

So, over the years, I began to also mentally compare various musicians and other famous people, and here's the best ones.

David Byrne (Talking Heads/Solo)

Bill Nye (Science Guy/Bowtie Aficionado)



Tom Waits (One of my personal heroes)
Ron Perlman (Hellboy, narrator from Fallout, Beast from the Beauty and the Beast TV series, all around bad ass and most obvious choice to play Tom Waits in an inevitable future biopic)



Britt Daniel (Spoon--the band, not the utensil or The Tick battle cry)
Gary Busey (terrifying human being)