Tom Waits
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
Anti-
originally published November 22, 2006
I first heard Tom Waits on a family vacation in the Smoky Mountains when, having exhausted all the other music in the car, my dad popped in his cassette of Rain Dogs. I had no idea what to make of the demented boneyard orchestra that issued from the Crown Victoria’s speakers, or of the obviously disturbed man who sang over it in his razor-throated bark. What I did know was that I’d rather listen to more Jimmy Buffett than that insanity.
Even as, over the next few years, Rain Dogs became one of my favorite albums, my initial assessment of Waits remained a central part of my admiration for his work: this isn’t what music is supposed to sound like. Rain Dogs was probably my first encounter with music so self-consciously strange, and that jolt of the new and unfamiliar, though not entirely pleasurable at first, is a major facet of the second phase of Waits’ career, a phase that has lasted more than 20 years now.
The danger, though, is that after 20 years, what was once shocking is now comfortable. “Waitsian” is now an adjective whose meaning is immediately graspable by nearly any music fan: it means junkyard percussion, demonic bellowing, Marc Ribot’s fractured Cuban guitar lines, saloon piano, musical saws and other unusual instruments, and vivid images of broken things and broken people. (“Waitsian” even extends to his image. Take a look at just about any magazine feature on Waits - you’re guaranteed to see him in some sort of dilapidated setting, probably surrounded by old musical instruments, maybe yelling into a megaphone.) Waits has updated the formula - on his last album, 2004’s Real Gone, he dropped the piano and added human beatboxing - but it is a formula, and Waits has worked it successfully since 1983. His gifts as a songwriter, performer and raconteur remain undiminished, but at this point you pretty much know what you’re going to get from a Tom Waits album. That’s hardly a bad thing, but it’s worth pondering.
And so Waits’ new rarities collection, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, fits the formula to a T. Its title even makes it explicit - each of its three discs covers one of the three main Tom Waits song styles: rockers (crank up the trashcan drums and Ribot guitars), late-night ballads (lots of piano and upright bass) and the weirdoes (time to break out the saw). The 54 songs (and two hidden bonus stories) in the collection are culled from soundtracks and compilations and who knows what else, though 30 of them are apparently new recordings (the accompanying 94-page booklet wasn’t included with the review copy, which is a shame, since scholarship is one of the main joys of an odds-and-ends collection like Orphans). There are covers of The Ramones (“The Return of Jackie and Judy,” returning the favor of “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”) and Daniel Johnston (“King Kong,” which sounds like a whiskey-drinking kid breathlessly recounting the entire plot of the film), more experiments with beatboxing, a political song (“Road to Peace”) even less subtle than Real Gone’s “The Day After Tomorrow,” and a cover of “Heigh Ho” from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that strips the song of all its recognizable elements until it sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of the dwarves’ diamond mine.
Sprinkled throughout are songs that rank with his best: the handclapping gospel “Lord I’ve Been Changed,” the gunslinging acoustic blues “Books of Moses,” a cover of Sparklehorse’s “Dog Door” with a menacing groove that legitimately sounds like nothing else Tom Waits has ever done, and two great songs from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. You could easily pick a handful of songs from each disc and create an album that could stand up next to Mule Variations, and the ones left over aren’t too bad either. For a Waits fan, Orphans is essential.
But as a listening experience, Orphans can be too much of a good thing; the tracks on the themed discs tend to run together into one big Waitsian goulash. A collection like this is perhaps better served small-plates style - load it all up on your iPod, hit shuffle, and let Waits jolt you with the strange again, song after song.
Todd Snider
The Devil You Know
New Door
originally published November 22, 2006
Singer-songwriter Todd Snider has sung about weirdoes, crooks and outcasts from the beginning, but his last two studio albums - 2002’s New Connection and 2004’s East Nashville Skyline - have presented the smartass, self-confessed “barefoot, folksingin’ hippie” at his best with ragged, detailed songs from both first-person perspectives and those of his often-distressed characters. Snider’s latest, The Devil You Know, continues that hot streak.
His knack for turning coal to diamond within a few verses always makes for good entertainment, be it the true-story mugging documented in "The Highland Street Incident” or the employee-to-employer kiss off from “Looking for a Job.” You might say he’s in serious Randy Newman mode these days, but Snider must first empathize with or relate to these characters in some way before he steps directly into their escapades and misfortunes. “You Got Away With It (A Tale of Two Fraternity Brothers)” is clearly aimed at Dubya, though the president's name is never once mentioned. And although the rocking “Thin Wild Mercury” can be placed in Snider’s ever-growing Dylan-obsessive file, it’s more of a shout out to Phil Ochs retelling the old story of how the late folksinger and activist was ejected from Dylan’s limo for offering unwanted constructive criticism.
The Devil You Know’s electric, small-room feel is kept assuredly in check by a sharp choice of accompaniment, including longtime team players like guitarists Tommy Womack and Will Kimbrough. More standard fare like “Unbreakable” reveals Snider’s tender side, but it’s when he lets his stable of real-life characters run loose and hijack his hi-tops that things really start to get interesting.
Winston Audio
Come On, Hibernate EP
Independent Release
originally published November 22, 2006
It’s rare that I find a band so intelligence-insulting as Atlanta's Winston Audio. Musically, the band is an unimpressive mix of “alternative rock” guitar, ridiculous vocal stylings and utterly unmemorable songs. The only thing the band has going for it, and I’m sure the members have considered this carefully, is the design sense ripped off completely from Factory Records designer Peter Saville. And it’s this last detail which is most insulting.
It seems the phenomenon of the digital-download revolution has created a generation of bands who fail to understand that an album's cover art and the music contained therein are all of a piece. You do the audience a disservice and pervert the artistic process by simply grabbing ahold of something you think looks cool and throwing it atop whatever else it is you create. Sure, irony and humor have their place in rock and roll, and in certain cases work to wonderful effect. This is not, however, the case with Winston Audio, which has covered a messy, unfocused turd of an EP in starkly attractive art.
Although it’s unfair to mention these bands in the same sentence as Winston Audio, it’s fair to characterize Winston Audio's songs as a tepid and silly mish-mash of Radiohead and Coldplay. Think about that: a band as obscenely worthless as Coldplay shouldn’t even be listed alongside Winston Audio. That’s how indecent and terrible Come On, Hibernate is.
If you’ve read this review all the way through, you’ve already wasted too much time on this band.
Chris Herbert
Mezzotint
Kranky
originally published November 22, 2006
It's been a while since I used the phrase "it really grew on me" concerning an album. But I must drag it out here for Chris Herbert's Mezzotint. Offered herein are seven slices of very lo-fi abstract ambient "techno." The bottom line is this sort of sound has been done a million times, ever since Stefan Betke broke his Pole 3 filter in the early '90s and Mille Plateaux later championed the "clicks + cuts" movement that, for a short while, was fascinating and fruitful. But the line beneath the bottom line is that there's something happening on Mezzotint that is truly mesmerizing. I've been trying to put my finger on it as I found myself listening again and again. It really grew on me.
Apparently Herbert considers himself to be a "non-musician," and he wastes no time setting the table for his argument. "Stab City" is built from a low-end wind-like drone and something like wind chimes. When the "wind" picks up, a crackle ripples through the scene while a beat murmurs far, far away. Sound messy? It is, and that's what I keep coming back to. It's obvious enough that Herbert employs a great deal of tape decay and collage like William Basinski's Disintegration Loops series. There's too much graininess and rot for an exclusively digital medium. Ambient and micro-sound and textures are all threads best woven together. Aural wallpaper has come a long way since Eno, and like that master's greatest works, Mezzotint is best heard at a relatively low volume, a few notches above the hearing threshold.
Bottom bottom bottom line: Perhaps the most pleasing record of its ilk since Fennesz's Endless Summer. A subgenre I thought had nothing left to say is whispering in my ear every night. Thank you, non-musician.
Evenescence
The Open Door
Wind-Up
originally published November 22, 2006
Evanescence's first album, a partnership between girl-with-a-piano Amy Lee and boy-with-a-guitar Ben Moody, exemplified the description "uneven" - if it wasn't a goth-pomp epic demanding hairbrush singing or a dramatic torch song, it was nü-metal crapola. But now nü-metal dude Moody is gone, leaving Lee, who really was singing songs with just a piano before Moody. This is not the worst thing in the world. Lee is an awe-inspiring figure, a woman with incredible pipes and a strong personality who refuses to trade on her sexuality. And, wisely, she seems not to have left the guitars behind.
Unfortunately, she also seems to have left the torch songs behind, and this is a problem. New album The Open Door is too even, with many songs seeming to share everything from chord changes to vocal melodies to structure to tempo. (And, you'll be disappointed to hear, neither the song titled "Lithium" nor the one titled "Lose Control" is a cover.) Lee's voice is a thing of wonder, but here it can be a crutch, as are the crunchy guitars and vaguely goth-y atmospherics.
That said, three of the songs on The Open Door are legitimately fantastic. "Sweet Sacrifice" is a great straight-up rock song; "Call Me When You're Sober" takes the dramatic shifts of "Bring Me to Life" and packs a dozen more hooks into a three-and-a-half minute song you can get lost in; and "Good Enough" finally lets the piano shine, brushing up against the outro of "Layla" and early Tori Amos B-sides on its way to a beautiful finish to this sometimes mediocre but often rewarding album.
Solomon Burke
Nashville
Shout Factory
originally published November 22, 2006
On his last two releases, rejuvenated “King of Rock ‘n’ Soul” Solomon Burke has given two impressive primers on how the 66-year-old performer has held onto his illustrious nickname. For his latest outing, Burke mixes country music with soul smarts to create a memorable set of weepers, rockers and ballads.
Burke’s music has long been influenced by country sounds, so it’s little surprise that he finally decided to fully embrace the genre. Accompanied by such session luminaries as guitarist/ producer Buddy Miller, keyboard man Al Perkins and Willie Nelson harp player Mickey Raphael, as well as a stellar cast of duet partners (Dolly Parton, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, etc.), Burke and his crack house band lay down some genuinely touching and uplifting performances throughout. Don Williams' “Atta Way To Go” has Burke’s best woeful croon on its side, Jim Lauderdale’s “Seems Like You’re Gonna Take Me Back” is turned into a gospel-powered freight train steered by Miller’s jittery guitar licks and singer-songwriter Shawn Amos’ obscure “Vicious Circle” carries the emotional weight of Burke heavies like “The Price” and “The Judgement.”
Nashville is longer than the preceding Make Do With What You’ve Got and a less intimate, more tightly structured visit than was Burke’s career-jump-starting Don’t Give Up on Me. Knocking a few songs off the track list would've worked in favor of consistency. However, Burke does wonders with the chosen medium as his always emotional, never overbearing vocals make Nashville a prime destination, indeed.
Outrageous Cherry
Stay Happy
Rainbow Quartz
originally published November 22, 2006
Sun Domingo
Go To Bed Grinning EP
Independent Release
originally published November 22, 2006
If you are having problems with the site, or have questions or suggestions, please contact us here. Thanks!
Care to comment on this article? Click here!
You will be the first person to comment on this article.