WILD CARDS AND WILD YEARS
Somewheres around when Tom Waits decided to double up, oddsmakers were telling baseball fans countrywide that the Yankees and the D-backs were bound for the fall classic again, unless the Oakland A’s pitchers could get their way through the playoffs. I didn’t think much of either at the time. The oddsmakers, or fifty-somethin’ Tom’s effort at a mega-music release so late in his own season. It’s not my game. I sit in the stands and drink beer waiting for the shit to go down. Or like Fred Gwynne mentioned to Nicholas Cage in Coppola’s Cotton Club: “I watch, I sees, and then I make up my mind.”
So whadda we got? The Angels and The Giants. And two CDs that have been out a little too long for this longtime Waitsian aficionado not to chime in on both matters…um…recordings.
Baseball ain’t what it used to be. The players are selfish. The announcers lack personality. And the games last forever. Really, forever. But the four hours is more than enough time to listen to both CDs twice, and come to the same conclusion- less is less, but sometimes more. Don’t worry Lucy…I’s iz esplainin’-
Everything about the way the discs were packaged; written about; and released makes for the necessary evil of looking at them as a set. The recordings are as similar as the Gee Whiz kids from Disney are to the Thuggish Druggish crew from San Fran. And while I spent a great many years by the Bay, and have little affinity for most things Orange County, I’m pulling for the Angels and plugging “Alice” all by her little lonesome.
Here’s the skinny- There’s two sides to the Tom we know and love. Tom’s either the guy who’s cooking us bacon and eggs while he pours us some more cowboy coffee, or, he’s Joel Grey at the Cabaret after all the serious meds have kicked in. Both Toms have risen to spirited heights. But there comes the point when enough oats have been sewn, and enough ‘Wild Years’ have gone by that the storytelling is best in its most intimate and quiet moments.
On “Alice,” Waits hits this mark on so many tracks it’s frightening. It’s like an Angels multi-run inning. Logic is defied. The title track and opening song will crush your heart and flood your eyes in an instant when he summarizes: “And I must be insane, to go skating on your name, and by tracing it twice, I fell through the ice…” It’s a lonely exploration, which makes sense considering the source material- a Robert Wilson sorta play kinda thing that probably has the loosest connection to the Lewis Carroll classic that he, Waits, and Tom’s wife and co-conspirator Kathleen Brennan claim it’s based on. No matter. By the time we’ve seen that “No one puts flowers on the Flower’s Grave” spent some time with “Poor Edward” and been told that “We’re All Mad Here” we could care less where the music came from, we just want more. Such is often the way of Tom: his music emerges from a place that’s all his own, but that’s been etched comfortably into our ears after the thirty years he’s been putting out records.
And even though the journey on “AliceUZXh80 continues long after we’re momentarily “Lost In The Harbour,” the song is without equal on the album, and may be Waits’ most inspired and breathtaking ballad since “Innocent When You Dream” from “Frank’s Wild Years.” Even on “Alice’s” more whacky tracks like “Kommieniezuspadt” Tom kicks ass in a more neighborly way than on the other Disc. Same with “Table Top Joe” which sounds a helluva lot like tracks from those drugged out diner records he released when he was slammin’ the sauce with Rickie Lee and eatin’ the Hangtown Fry at Duke’s Tropicana in the early 70’s. It’s a nice bit of nostalgia. A lot like the feeling I get every time the Fox Cam does a still shot of the Gene Autry banner that’s hangin’ in left at Edison Field. Go Halos!
But just because I root for Tom, and have been inspired enough by his gravel and grace to pick up, what nine? Jesus. Nine of his records…well it’s like David Eckstein leading off for Anaheim is what “Blood Money” is like. Don’t be fooled by late-train jumpin’ critics who squeal like Rally Monkeys every time Waits releases an album. They’re bein’ paid by the same chumps who waited until “Bone Machine” came out to give Waits a grammy nod in the alternative category. Alternative to what? To shit? Sorry, the World Series frenzy has given rise in me to wild exclamation and spontaneous bursts of fury and passion. I put up with Eckstein’s gnat antics and I manage to drudge my way through “Blood Money.” Honest Injun? I could do without both of them.
It’s not that “Blood Money” stinks. It’s just not very good. It’s an endless parade of Tom’s broken-down jalopy; sooper-dooper-rag-tag; tunes. The swinging from thUZXhll tower, diggin’ up the grave kinda grooves that he wisely avoided on “Alice” and 1999’s jaw-droppin’ return “Mule Variations.” When he screams insistently and without much irony that “God’s Away on Business” for the twentieth time or so on the song’s outro I keep thinking to myself: Tom? Are you sure? Or is that just what God told you so that he didn’t have to listen to anymore of this record? It’s just not the kind of music I want to hear from veteran players like Tom. Leave that kind of smack-me-over-the-head business to those ‘Thunder Sticks’ they’re giving the kiddies at the Ed for late-inning rallies. Speaking of late innings, the term’s not wasted on Waits, who should realize that we look at the Dylans and the Pettys and the Costellos (ed: apology for obvious sports-laden lingo) as our camp fire elders, not the ones making the fart jokes. Tom? D. Eckstein? It’s cool guys, you can chill out and we’ll still line up at the gate. 4 out of 10.
I’m saying: Angels in seven, and “Alice” are October’s magical moments …(Those commercials are from an ad agency that must really love the weed or something) It took me a long time to get with either, but it’s safe to say that at least one of Tom Waits’ latest offerings has become a true Fall Classic. |