Better a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Innocent When You DreamI've just heard that one of my all time musical heroes ... no scratch that ... all time heroes period, Tom Waits, is to play the Edinburgh Playhouse at the end of July. He's going to be there on both the 27th and 28th and these are his only UK shows. I'm expecting a bit of a fight to get hold of tickets but I'm in tenacious mood.

As it happens, I have just finished reading Innocent When You Dream (Tom Waits: The Collected Interviews) edited by Mac Montandon and thought I might chew the fat a little about it and about my long time admiration for Waits. I received the book as a Christmas present from my good friend Dave Scott who shares with me both a great appreciation of Tom Waits's music and a comfortable relationship with the Waitsian world. It has proved to be a wise choice of gift and the book gives the reader a good insight into the head of this enigmatic and prolific artist, even though whatever Waits tells you about himself may or may not have any truth to it. "I'm going to pull your string from time to time" he tells the interviewer from Playboy magazine at the start of their 1988 conversation in a seedy downtown L.A. cafe.

It was an easy introduction to Waits's music for me. Hearing his 1976 release Small Change during a late night whisky-soaked wind down after finishing my shift as a bartender in Aberdeen during the early 1990s. I was immediately hooked. Some people I know are put off by his scabrous rasp of a singing voice but for me they are missing out on one of the true greats of modern music. That voice, whether screaming through a police bullhorn as on Hang on St. Christopher (Franks Wild Years 1987) or whispering close to the microphone as on Poor Edward (Alice 2002) can convey emotion in such an immediate way.

The inebriated troubadour blues of the early records on the Asylum label gave way to more experimental instrumentation on Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years during the 80s to great effect and the book gives the reader a fascinating insight into the unique methods Waits has employed over the years to make his music. Over the course of 35 years in the business Waits has become a greatly respected artist through his uncompromisingly single-minded stance, dismissive of any commercial concessions. "You know, when a guy is singing to me about toilet paper - you may need the money but, I mean, rob a 7-eleven! Do something with dignity and save us all the trouble of peeing on your grave" (Tom Waits, Musician Magazine 1987). His feeling is, rightly in my opinion, that an artist's work no longer carries the same weight when it is adorned with someone else's logo. He has successfully sued several advertising companies for using his material without permission or even using a sound-a-like singer. His distaste for the commercialisation of culture is an aspect of his personality that I heartily applaud.

The chronological story of Tom Waits's life is held within the pages of Innocent When You Dream but, then again, alternate versions of his story orbit around the truth with casual ease. He may have been born in 1949 in the back of a taxi ... or in a truck, or perhaps somewhere a little less unconventional. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story? He has had a varied career as an actor too. Starring alongside Jack Nicholson, Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Keanu Reeves, Richard E. Grant, Gary Oldman and Roberto Benigni among others. Waits has penned several film soundtracks, had his songs covered by artists as diverse as The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Tim Buckley, Scarlett Johansson (yes, you read that correctly) and Screamin' Jay Hawkins and taken part in several theatrical collaborations. He has also somehow found the time to raise three children with his wife Kathleen Brennan.

He tells a nice tale about being asked by his kids why he didn't have a normal job like all the other dads. "I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day".

If you have never listened to Tom Waits in the past I urge you to do so now. With so much music these days amounting to little more than "jingles" you can safely dive into the vast back catalogue of an artist such as Waits and feel that all is not lost with the world. I'll end this post by giving him the last word.

Interviewer: What is a gentleman?
Tom Waits: A man who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
Written by Kevin
Friday, 23 May 2008
 
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