Tom Waits
My Top 20 Albums of the Decade
20. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois (2005) Sufjan’s Prairie State I wish he did all fifty (Yes, I fell for it) 19. Jeffrey Lewis – It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through (2003) Anti-folk hero Serves comic stripped down delight Raw, honest and fun 18. PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories [...]
Tom Waits, Kool Keith: Spacious Thoughts
Taken from hip-hop duo NASA’s Spirit of Apollo CD – which features a multitude of mouth-wateringly eclectic musical collaborations – here’s the video for Tom Waits and Kool Keith’s “Spacious Thoughts”. It is, of course, quite brilliant.
My Top 5 Gigs of 2009
Why Top 5? Why not a Top 10? As a lapsed Discordian I was going to knock out a rather elaborate, mind-bending explanation based on the ‘Law of Fives’ (which, according to Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy, claims that everything in the universe can be connected to the number five if you [...]
Rowlf the Raindog
I was watching The Muppet Show with Clare and Lily this evening. I’d bought Lily the season 2 DVD boxset for Christmas and we were watching the one where the special guest is Peter Sellers. I say that in such an off-hand way you might be forgiven for assuming that I’ve got a vast, ecyclopaedic [...]
Tom Waits, Le Grand Rex Paris, 24th July 2008: Gig Reconstruction
I’ll eventually get around to writing a proper review of what will almost inevitably end up as My Favourite Gig of 2008. Yes, I know it’s only August and I shouldn’t be writing the rest of my year off already, but this was a Tom Waits concert, Goddamn it! It’d take something pretty spectacular to [...]
The Gilded Palace of Cinema
I’ve never been a design nut, architecture addict or buildingophile, but when I first saw Le Grand Rex in Paris I was reduced to the state of a lovesick puppy. It was years’ ago (don’t ask how many), during my first trip to Paris. I was staying at a far-from-swanky hotel just a few far-from-swanky [...]
The Holiday is Over
Well, I’m back. Over the last week and a half I’ve driven from Birmingham to Kent, from Kent to Sussex and then back to Kent again. I’ve taken the Eurostar to and from Paris and, today, have driven from Kent back to Birmingham. At the Latitude Festival I’ve seen performances by (amongst others) Grinderman, Breeders, [...]
The Littlest Raindog
I’ve made no secret of the fact that next week’s Tom Waits gig in Paris has put me in a state of perpetual chomping-at-the-bit excitement. What I’ve now found out, however, is that this manic enthusiasm seems to be rubbing off on my nearest and dearest, too. I was driving my car to someplace or [...]
Tom Waits, Grand Rex Paris, 29th May 2000
I’m off to see Tom Waits at the Grand Rex in Paris in a few weeks time and, needless to say, I’m rather excited. It’s won’t be the first time I’ve seen him live. In fact, I saw him at the very same venue 8 years’ ago. Here’s something from the archives: He’d given two [...]
"Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends"
That, in case you don’t know, is a Waiticism – a quote by the legendarily quotable singer-songwriter Tom Waits. Like many of Waits’ lines I’ve used it at numerous society events and apologise now for giving anyone the impression that I’d invented it myself. I did, however, coin the phrase Waiticism. It’s not one I’m [...]
Johansson, Illinois
My significantly better half Clare (Bless ‘er) bought me Scarlett Johansson’s new album of Tom Waits’ covers this week, Anywhere I Lay My Head. Now, I’m a bit of a unrepentantly obsessive Tom Waits fan (you noticed?), so when I first heard about this project I was more than a wee bit sniffy. Over the [...]
Tom’s Wait is Over
Séance: Tom WaitsDate et heure: 24/08/07 20:00Endroit: Rex Theatre, Paris Translation: Fucking-A!
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