Tom Waits

I KNOWWWW there's some Tom Waits fans in here, so i have a question:

I've recently been told that I would like his music, and I really want to check it out, but what CD would be a good place to start?

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https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

I think Bone Machine is a good place to start.

I dig Swordfishtrombones.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

If you would give me some of your favorite artists it would be easier to tell you the best place to start, but since you didn't I'll give you an overview of what I think are some good starting points.
I think Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones are probably the best places to start - they have a sort of addictive quality (if you like Tom Waits, that is). Though, I think Heart of Saturday Night is easily one of the most accessible albums, though it doesn't quite do it for me. I started with Mule Variations, and it's still my favorite today, so I guess that's also a good place to start. Or you could even try Beautiful Maladies, which is a sort of "Best Of" from his days on the Island record label (some of his best stuff came from his years on Island), but that collection might be a little too eccentric for someone that isn't sure that they even like Tom Waits yet.

He also has a new album (Real Gone) coming on October 12(?) and having heard some tracks off of that one, I'd say it's going to be a pretty good starting point too.

Mule Variations is good too. Cold Water and Come On Up To the House are two favourites from that cd.

My favorites are "Filipino Box Spring Hog" and "Chocolate Jesus".

Monkeypunch, I believe there was an instrumental track from The Black Rider on that tape mix I sent you a while back. Waits' style varries a good deal from album to album so asking which one is a good jumping off point is to some extent a pointless question. I tend to like his weirder, post-swordfishtrombones stuff the best, with the possible exception of Blue Valentine.

So that would include Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, The Black Rider, Bone Machine, Mule Variations, Alice, and Blood Money.

Yeah, there was. That was cool. We should seriously start up the Mofo mix tape experiment again, that was wayyy too cool.

yeah, I just won 100 dollars at Foxwoods casino, and a lot of that is goin to cds, so I'll check some of these suggestions out. Thanks!

I agree, it was a great idea and really just too bad not too many folks caught on; I thought it worked out pretty well. Happy hunting.

Just got "Beautiful Maladies." I love it a lot, especially "The Earth Dies Screaming." This is brilliant, and a good cd to torture my less open minded friends with. haha

Tom Waits is a god among men. His most recent discs, Blood Money and Alice, are actually two of my very favorites. But it's all great.

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Waits is gonna be on Letterman tonight at 11:30, for those who are interested.

makes me think of Hellboy........

Waits was hillarious. It's cool when Letterman talks to the musicians before they perform. And Waits was of course great when he played that song too. Cool to see the two Blues Explosion guys backing him up.

I think the drummer from Primus was with him too.

Nope. That was the fantastic Russell Simins of The Blues Explosion. It was Judah Bauer on guitar, also from The Blues Explosion. I don't know who the bass player was though.

Les Claypool does play bass on several tracks on the new album, Real Gone (which came out monday) though. Anyone else get it yet? It reminds me a lot of Mule Variations.

I never caught the Letterman performance but that's what I heard.

I just scooped-up tickets to see Tom in concert, a week from tomorrow in Seattle!

Fu*kin' A! Can't believe I'm finally getting to see him live!!!

I congratulate you! I have a friend who saw him a couple of years ago on one of his very few visits to Scandinavia. My buddy said it was amazing. He started the show by coming in through an audience entrance or something, making his way through the crowd singing "Black Rider" through a megaphone. Coool...