| CD REVIEW Tom Waits |
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Band : Tom Waits When the occasion arose for me to review the live album by this American cult figure, I gladly accepted, as it would not only finally get me acquainted with his music (would you believe that even though I’ve been collecting music for over 30 years now – I was a later starter, at 18 – I never came across any of this artist’s albums or material…except unknowingly). Also, having to review the album would mean I had to get acquainted with his history…and that was another thing I was looking forward to! Now it would take me too long to get into àll of that history (and at any rate there’s a very and elaborately nice article at Wikipedia to consult in case you would become interested after reading this review – all you Waits fans of course know about this already), but I’ll give you a few key events anyway. Waits started his career as a teenager, playing unpaid gigs in nightclub bars…from whence he developed his particular style of playing the audience with spoken word interludes. From the very beginning, he opted for a musical style which drew from Blues and Jazz, those best fitting his rather deep bass voice. His first album Closing Time was released in 1972, and although some of his songs have been covered by mainstream musicians (Tim Buckley, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, and Rod Stewart, for instance) Waits himself never made it into that scene, only a couple of his albums (1976’s Small Change and 1999’s Mule Variations) making it into the Bilboard 100 Album Charts. Nevertheless, he has a legion of faithful fans the world over, and with the 1992 album Bone Machine he even won a Grammy Award in the category “Best Alternative Music Album”. 1978 saw him start a career as movie soundtrack composer, as well as cameo actor (he can be seen in some 25 movies to date). Next important event in the live of Tom Waits, would be his marriage to screenwriter Kathleen Brennan, whom he met on the set of the Francis Ford Coppola movie One From The Heart (in which he acted, and for which he wrote the complete soundtrack). In the years to come, his wife would indeed very often co-write Waits’ material. Waits himself described his relationship with his wife as “a paradigm shift” in his musical development. The Glitter And Doom album is a compilation of recordings done during Waits’ Glitter And Doom Tour, done in the US and Europe during Summer 2008. It’s a two-disc affair, the first of which sees no less than 17 songs pass the revue, lasting almost 65 minutes. With a length of only 36 minutes, disc two is far shorter, compiling a series of his already famous monologues. According to the biography, Waits is also known to alter songs of his quite completely on stage, re-arranging songs to suit the mood and band he goes out on the road with. In my own mind, that’s probably a trick he’s taken from Frank Zappa, whom is cited as one of Waits’ main influences from the ‘60s & ‘70s! I have no idea of what’s posted at either Waits’ own website, his fan website, or any fan site opened at any of the other music websites (MySpace, Last.fm, Purevolume.com)…if indeed you càn find a page on him there…but if you’re into “something different”, with a wacky twist both musically and lyrically, I strongly suggest you check this artist out. Abstain if you are a purist in either Metal, Punk, or whatever. Your mind possibly ain’t “open” enough to appreciate this artist. On the other hand, you could do with far worse artists to start opening your musical tastes with! Personal end conclusion : I’ve loved the first acquaintance with this artist to death, and am definitely adding Glitter And Doom Live to my 2009 year-lists! Looking forward with a degree of anticipation towards getting acquainted with the new material he’s already started work on with his wife, planned to be released somewhere in 2010. Oh yeah, as this is a live album and therefore some sorts of “best of”, you’re not getting a rating out of me! Tony. |