"I was born in the back of a Yellow Cab in a hospital loading zone and with the meter still running. I emerged needing a shave and shouted 'Times Square, and step on it!'" Thomas Alan Waits was born on December 7, 1949 just one day after the late great Leadbelly died in New York City. Later Tom mentioned in The Many Lives of Tom Waits by Patrick Humphries, "He died the day before I was born and I like to think I passed him in the hall and he banged into me and knocked me over." Tom was born in Pomona, CA and later moved with his family to San Diego. "I wanted to be an old man when I was a little kid. Wore my grand-daddy's hat, used his cane and lowered my voice. I was dying to be old." Shortly after high school he took his first jobs working various shifts at a Bible factory, delivering newspapers, as a short order chef, car-wash attendendant, salesman, toilet attendant, truck driver, jewellery salesman, bar tender and doorman. He also had a stint as an ice cream man. "The hardest thing about driving an ice cream truck is getting the little bell out of your head at night." Some of the characters that would later emerge in his songwriting undoubtedly came from some of his early work experiences. He took his first paid piano gig at a local San Diego nightclub.
Fast forward 40 years and Tom would go on to record 20 albums each odder than the first. I first heard Tom Waits when I was researching Neko Case music on the Internet. I had already owned all of Neko's stuff and was desperately looking for anything else I could get my hands on. The only track I was able to find was a Tom Waits song she covered called "Christmas Card From a Hooker In Minneapolis" off of a Waits inspired tribute album. Vocally, Neko Case has sung nothing better. The songwriting was nothing I had heard before. The song is equally as imaginative as anything Dylan has done, but darker. The first Waits album I went on to buy would later be my favorite. To say Mule Variations had an affect on me would be a bold understatement. Frankly, the album scared the hell out of me. The night I took it home I think I listened to it on loop 6-7 times till 3am. Every time the album went by I could literally visualize everything unfold like a play. Often labeled as "experimental blues" the artists on the album play the turntables, the bari-sax, alto-sax, guitars, dobro, trumpet, optigon, chumbus, dousengoni, organ, piano, drums, percussion, pump organ, chamberlin, bassoon, bass clarinet and the violin. Twenty five individual artists lent their talent to the album and the list reads like a who's who of the recording industry. Combine that with Tom's voice, often described "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car" and you can begin to see how the experimental got put into "experimental blues". After it's release in 1999 Mule Variations would later win a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. I own over 1500 albums and even counting Bob Dylan's entire cannon of music I rank Mule Variations a solid number one.
I promised myself I wouldn't listen to any Tom Waits music on the drive up to Tulsa on Wednesday for fear of having pre-show burnout. When I first drove in It was a no brainer to stop at Chipotle (the closest one to Little Rock) to eat. I used to go to Chipotle everyday after summer school my final year at San Diego State. Awesome food, awesome music, and a cool modern/retro vibe kept me coming back. I always knew Chipotle was notorious for playing awesome indie music. Much to my surprise and enjoyment a Waits song came smashing through the tiny speakers. I can't recall the name but it was something off of Rain Dogs (1985). Halfway through the song I looked around to see if anyone else was appreciating the irony. Aside from me there was a local suburbanite soccer-mom in typical gym-clothes-fashion and an old couple complaining that the food was too spicy. After Chipotle it was off to the Brady Theater.
I arrived at the theater 2 hours early and decided to stop by a local bar called Caz's pub in the historic Brady district. Turns out Waits has a very active online forum and about a week ago an extensive list of pre-show hangout spots was formulated from Phoenix to Edinburgh. The bar was packed with faithful Waits fans and a mix cd playing nothing but Waits tracks. I met a nice couple from Omaha that were also seeing Waits for the first time. License plates in the parking lot were from Arkansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Alabama and Nebraska. Tom Waits is only playing 13 US dates in two weeks. He typically tours every 5-6 years and only for about 1-2 weeks. People generally come far and wide to get the incredibly rare opportunity to hear him live. Humphries adds, "The increasingly rare live shows had fans flying from all over the world; his profile found him stalked by U2 and The Pogues."
The show was scheduled to start at 8:00pm but the "will call" only ticket sales created a line a mile long. The Brady theater is by far the most interesting place I have had the opportunity to see a concert. The building was built in 1914 as a public assembly facility. The building's interior was restored in 1930 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The interior design is described as "Western Classic Revival". The seats had not been replaced since 1930 and the way they were tightly arranged around the stage reminded me of the haunting back-alley concert hall in David Lynch's, Mulholland Drive. Tom's stage could only be classified as a magnificent colorful collision of musical instrument store meets pawn shop. A suspended twenty foot hat rack acted as the back drop and a massive chandelier mounted with antique bull horns and sirens was the set piece. A tiny circular circus stage would later be Tom's platform for much of the set.
When the lights finally dimmed at 8:40 a man in the back screamed at the top of his lungs "TOM WAITS IS GOD!". God? I would hardly want Tom Waits being in charge of my salvation. He would more likely soak it in whiskey, bottle it and try to pawn it off at a street fair. The applause was deafening and went on and on and on. The band took the stage and Tom jumped on to his 12' diameter circus platform. The concert started as all of the others have with a song called "Lucinda". As the first two songs of the night rang out, Tom stamped his foot into the platform with such vigor one would wonder how many they go through in a two week tour. The stagehands must have purposely layered his small platform with a dusty chalk-like substance. Every time his foot came down the chalk dust would kick up giving him the presence of a maniacal carnival barker. The lighting for the first couple songs was a faint rustic amber pitched directly on Tom's little stage casting a fifty foot tall shadow in the back of the stage. The rest of the band was not illuminated until a few songs later. He blew through several of his songs but the highlight for me did not come until the end.
During the middle part of his set the band seemed a little rusty and often took solos out of turn. A couple of songs were started off with poor timing and his son Casey Waits had to quickly vary his beat on the drums. In his blog, Andrew Gilstrap sums up Tom's stage demeanor well, "Waits himself was a wonder to behold, barking, crooning, and marionetting himself around the mic like one of his strings had been cut. He grabbed the mic stand, pressing its base into the floor like it would help him tap into an even more primal beat. Attired in his trademark porkpie hat, dark jeans, and jacket, he mugged for the fans, reaching out his hands like claws and adopting the old-man mannerism of clutching his jacket to his chest when he spoke."
My only real complaint of the night came with the crowd. Often yelling over each other, people just kept shouting out songs they wanted to hear. I had the impression that it turned into a "I'm a bigger fan than you are" contest as each request was more obscure than the last. During a couple songs Tom repeatedly tried to get the crowd clapping or singing along only to leave huge gaping moments of silence. Towards the middle Tom just simply stopped trying and had nothing near the passion of his first couple songs. You began to almost feel sorry for him after on top of everything else a couple of his jokes flopped. I can't put all the blame on the crowd though. I began to realize that if the Brady theater was last renovated in 1930, well then its ventilation and air conditioning are rigged to pre World War I standards. The outside temperature Wednesday afternoon in Tulsa was 99 degrees. It must have been 104 in the Brady Theater. It got so hot that at some point my back stuck to the antique wooden chair. It really was miserable and I think a lot of people just didn't have the energy to get into it.
Tom's best song of the night (one of my favorites) came right before the encore. I think Tom realised this was hit and summoned up his initial stage presence and screamed out the lyrics to "Come On Up To The House" for a showstopping ovation that brought the house down. The crowd was now pumped and Waits banged out three more "Make It Rain", "Eyeball Kid" and "Time" for the encore.
All in all it will probably not rank near the best in the two week tour. However, it was Tom Waits singing Tom Waits songs and what more could you really ask for. I challenge anyone to come out to his next tour in 4-5 years. Even if you are not a fan it is still a performance you will undoubtedly not forget.
-T
Quotes used without permission from:
"The Many Lives of Tom Waits" by Patrick Humphries.
"Innocent When You Dream" by Mac Montandon
and Various liner notes / Wikipedia...
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