I'OM WAITS
1 He was born Thomas Alan Waits on 7 December 1949. one day after Blues legend Leadbelly died in New York. His parents were teachers who divorced when he was 10.
2 He had a band in the early 70s called The Nocturnal Emmissions.
3 The first of Waits' 25 appearances as a screen actor was in the 1978 movie Paradise Alley. written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. Waits played a drunken piano player named Mumbles.
He was nominated for an
Oscar for his soundtrack to the 1980 Francis Ford Coppola film One From the Heart.
Waits met his future wife.
Kathleen Brennan. on the set of One From the Heart. She was working as a script analyst at the movie studio. They married in August 1980 and now have three children, Casey. Kelly and Sullivan, the oldest of whom. Casey Waits (21), is the drummer on his father's current tour.
6 He keeps a notebook full of interesting facts, including gems such as the fact that the average cockroach can live up to two weeks after decapitation.
7 In 1982. Asylum Records refused to release his seventh album. the now legendary Swordfishtrombones. Label President Joe Smith warned. ‘with this record you will lose all your old fans and gain no new ones'. Waits was subsequently dropped by Asylum and the album had to wait a year until 1983 to get its release on Waits' new independent label. Island. The album is regarded by many as his finest record.
The Eagles made his song ‘Ol’ 55’ a hit in 1974. He described their version as ‘antiseptic’.
9 His favourite contemporary artist is Missy Elliot.
‘0 During the Asylum years Waits toured hard as a support act for various bands including Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and Martha and the Vandellas. The crowds
TOM WAITS
The chance to see Tom Waits, one of the planet's
didn’t take to him and he was frequently jeered and spat at.
I Aged 19. Waits was a doorman at a San Diego music hole called the Heritage Coffeehouse. He eventually took to its stage as a performer. but he made less money: 88 an hour on the door, 86 on stage.
1 After Island Records were taken over by multinational Polygram, Waits jumped ship to
the smaller Anti Records, releasing l
his label debut, Mule Variations, in 1999. He signed the contract with Anti’s parent company, Epitaph, after, he claims, they bought him a brand new Cadillac.
. II He has won two Grammy
awards — for Bone Machine (1992) and Mule Variations (1999).
‘4 ‘There ain’t nothin’ funny about a drunk.’ Despite an early career built on his persona of
i the world-beaten, cocktail-lounge ; boozehound, Waits has been
. sober for the past 16 years. In
1977 he told Rolling Stone
journalist David McGee ‘You know, I was really starting to believe that
i there was something amusing and wonderfully American about a i drunk. I ended up telling myself to
cut that shit out.’
15 Five different versions of the Waits song ‘Way Down The Whole’ have been used in the opening credits of each of the seasons of hit
US TV show The Wire. Performers
include Waits himself, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Steve Earle and a group of Baltimore middle—school students.
16 He has worked as a club
doorman, in a pizza restaurant, for the US Coastguard and has driven an ice cream truck. ‘The hardest thing about driving an ice cream truck’ he once said of his teenage job ‘is getting the little bell out of your head at night.’
I A recording of France's premier
mime artist entitled The Best of Marcel Marceau is Waits' favourite dinner party soundtrack. It features 40 minutes of silence followed by two of thunderous applause. He gets annoyed when people talk across it.
‘8 Bookmakers put him at 10-1 to be Christmas number one in Ireland last year when an Irish
; blog site launched a campaign to make the 1978 Waits track
‘Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis’ top of the charts. The attempt fell short, but the song did
reach 28 in the singles sales chart
and 11 on iTunes, ahead of ‘I Wish
It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ by Wizzard.
19 In 1992 Waits won 82.37m in a lawsuit against the potato chip
company Frito Lay. (who make Doritos and Walkers crisps in the UK) when. after Waits refused permission to use
the song ‘Step Right Up' in an advert. the company recorded and used a
I jingle with a sound-alike.
3 It is widely reported that
g Waits cried when he first saw This is Spinal Tap, finding it a little too familiar for comfort.
' 2
Of the many rare instruments used on his recordings through the years including the calliope (or steam piano) and a bow-played.
water-filled. tubular creation known as
the waterphone. Waits‘ favourite is the Chamberlain Music Master 600; an early analog synthesizer that contains inbuilt samples of everything from
3 galloping horses to owls hooting.
‘ 2
There have been 13 outings of the Tom Waits festival,
- Waitstock, held on a farm in
Poughkeepsie near New York.
Highlights from 2003 included a
potato cannon, ‘Tom Waits Gong
Show’ and the release of several
. black cats during ‘Mystery Hour’.
In 1988 Waits reworked ‘Heigh Ho' from Snow White and the
Seven Dwarves for a film song
compilation album.
In a press conference video
released in May this year, Waits claimed the tour route of his 12 US performances was planned
to follow the shape of the
constellation Hydra.
25 His favourite sound is bacon frying in a pan.
I Tom Waits plays Playhouse, Edinburgh, Sun 27 8 Mon 28 Jul.
true music raconteurs, is worth £100 of anyone’s money. But did you know he once worked for the coastguard? If not, Jonny Ensall suggests you
read on . ..
LIVE REVIEW
13“" i is
TOII WAITS
Orpheum Theatre, Phoenix, Arizona, Wed 18 Jun
The seldom touring ‘Iove or hate him’ artist transported his trademark whisky-soaked growl to the desert to kick off only his third tour of the decade. And, judging by his polished performance, one can only ask - why so few and far between Tom?
Tom Waits is one of those artists whose enigma runs parallel to his creative aura. And Waits’ stage presence - porkpie hat, vintage suit, board-stomps and colorful megaphones - did little to distract from his almost literary persona. While witty, odd and weighty, Waits missed some queues, restarting songs from the middle and his interaction with the crowd seemed a little forced at times. But are you going to complain? Come on! Give the 58-year-old a break for being a tad grouchy in the sweltering heat.
Opening with the obscure ‘Lucinda’ from 2006’s Orphans . . . he came off as more of a rocker than the smoky lounge lizard personified in his earlier work.
‘Hoist That Rag’ featured Tom’s son Sullivan joining his other son Casey on percussion. Other highlights included ‘Lost in the Harbour’, featuring Waits on a tiny organ and ‘16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six’, which had the gravelly one stomping over the stage like a scalded dog.
After ’November’ and ‘Eyeball Kid’ Waits tipped his hat and said goodnight. Highly theatrical but undeniably natural, Tom Waits is and always will be an American original. (Shane Handler)
I This article was originally published in Glide magazine. www.glidemagazine.com
17—31 Jul 2008 THE LIST 19