I’ve seen Tom Waits perform live before. He came through Louisville during the Real Gone tour – he said he came through to pick up fireworks and because “somebody here still owes me money.” It’s a god-damned miracle that I got tickets (which cost five million dollars,) and I sat behind two drunk scalpers. It was awesome. I drank bourbon and smoked Viceroys and tried my best to act like a Tom Waits cosplay. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I don’t mean that in as hyperbole. I mean dude doesn’t tour very often, and when he tours he tends to stay away from the big cities. I missed his last tour, Glitter and Doom, only because it didn’t come within 300 miles of where I was. There’s no LA or DC in PEHDTSCKJMBA.
Tom was gracious enough to record all these live performances and put them on a CD. I advise you to jump on it like you’re saving your baby from a hand grenade. First of all he’s amazing live. You cannot, of course, see him jabber and jangle like a leather scarecrow when you’re at home listening to it on your iPod. It’s small consolation for not having been there. But he gets even more delightfully Waits-y when he’s performing live; he turns up the snarl and growl. Normal Tom Waits sounds like a cross between Louis Armstrong and the Cookie Monster; when he gets fired-up onstage he sounds more like a rusted-out diesel engine.
Secondly, disc two is exclusively snippets of in-between-song banter, edited together into a continuous routine. That is to say, it’s basically a Tom Waits standup comedy album. Or, rather, sit-at-a-piano comedy, which is pretty fashionable these days. He’s got a taste for terrible puns, protips about the animal kingdom, and self-parody. Just like you’d expect. It’s pretty funny, and I’m not going to lie, it’s a little weird to listen to it all the way through, on account of his being a musical legend and all. Bob Dylan doesn’t tell knock-knock jokes. David Bowie doesn’t juggle. But then again, Tom has this whole Devil’s-Carnival thing going, so it works; the ringmaster’s got to have a lot of tricks up his sleeve.
And thing is, dude is the Devil. He’s playing the devil in Dr. Parnassus, of course, but I’m pretty sure he’s also the regular capital-D Devil. It hasn’t happened yet, but I fully expect him to appear out of the shadows some gin-soaked evening, convince me to climb in his rusty Pontiac, and drive me away to meet my doom. I’d get in the car; I wouldn’t think twice. And you know what, I know this isn’t popular to say, and the article doesn’t need it, but I would give him road-head. There, I said it, I’m not ashamed. I’d do it in a hot second.
Kay, this went to a weird place all of a sudden. I recognize that. I clearly have some complex feelings about Mr. Waits that maybe I need to work through.
Tom Waits – “Such a Scream”
Tom Waits – “Make It Rain”
Tom Waits – “Story”
