Ok,this is something I wrote for Tom Waits Glitter & Doom tour, a year ago. Submitted it to a few places, no one picked it up and so here we are. It seemed too good to languish without being read, so here is my self indulgent attempt to take advantage of a somewhat captive audience...of 3 people.
In a perfect world: ice cream would never melt, patience would be available in pill form and algebra would be outlawed. This fantasyland would need a ringleader, someone who can make sense of this madness; I nominate Tom Waits. We should, however, feel fortunate this isn’t the case. Tom Waits is like a secret handshake between music-philes, drinkers and beatniks the world over. His mere presence in a record collection is a silent admission to heartache, disillusion and a bizarre joy de vivre that most find unsettling. Truth is pop radio is the twisted caricature of normalcy, Tom Waits is the face of a waning Americana. His is the bourbon soaked soundtrack of those who throw caution to the wind, hit the road in search of fortune and glory and make sure that highway is steep and hard to tread. An amalgamation of: Blues, Jazz and carnival barker that is unrivaled and for some subject to much pretext. The Glitter and Doom Tour, Waits new road excursion has been summed up by the man in one word: PEHDTSCHJMBA. This saucy phrase is apparently an acronym for the cities that Glitter and Doom are rampaging through. Of course for Mr. Waits it’s an excuse to play with a word and shoot you a story that sounds like it could almost be true. Save for the glaring discrepancies that god, gravity and any other natural law would have to bend to be believed. Why not give in to a little magic about a singing head with no body (Tabletop-Joe) or go for a swim with a love smitten fish and bird (fish and bird), maybe even believe that shore leave in Singapore is some noir-ish nightmare with German dwarfs shooting dice and smoke masking danger at the edge of every street. (Singapore) Everybody needs to believe in something, Tom Waits just believes he can change the world spinning one yarn at a time, is that so wrong? Some suspect this tour to be for his 3-cd set Orphans, Brawlers and Bawlers, which was released a while back, others think it to be an excuse to make a few bucks and a beer run in a stolen Chevrolet while screaming through the bible belt on his way to Atlantic City, I prefer to think the man has lost his mind and found enlightenment; he may just be cruel enough to share it with us. A few months back the Earl hosted a tribute to the man’s music as well as like-minded luminaries Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. It was an evening of interpretation that left all in attendance hungry for the real thing. In Wait’s case we won’t want for long, his cavalcade of wonder rolls into the Fox Theater July 5th with the Glitter and Doom Tour.
NICE!
ReplyDelete