He's one of the artists my wife forbids me to play in the house because she detests him so much. But recently i played some of his early stuff and she totally didn't recognize it was him.
Closing Time (to me) is like night and day compared to later material.
Fun Fact: His tour for Closing Time's first stop was the Cellar Door in DC
to date, one of my precious musical moments was going to Chicago to see tom at some grand theater ...two rows away dead center on the Mule tour
3/4s of the way in the set , ribot takes a break and some solo piano songs start
I yell out Old 55 ...and that was the next song he played
not sure at all if my shout and was his inspiration, but I'd like to think it was so
BTW hutch was supposed to join me at that show, can't remember his excuse was
I saw him in NYC, weren't you there? same tour..
Also saw him in NYC on that tour (weird seats ...literally behind a pole way up high)
went with George and judd from UofD....don't remember you going to that
I was there..shitty seats... bad sight line...
anyways, seeing him once was enough for me.... love Tom Waits but I'd need a time machine to 1975 or so to see the Tom Wait shows I'm interested in... unless I'm wrong he hasn't played a DC area show in probably over 30 years...
I'm actually not that interested in any new Waits music... he's been letting his wife Kathleen Brennan co-write too many of the songs and its just not that interesting for me....very predictable....I also get the sense his heart is no longer in making music or performing so whats the point?
the Orphans box is pretty cool though...and Mule Variations is great..I guess the last one was kind of cool too now that I think about it...but I don't go back to it.. I like all his stuff but when I want to go back and listen to Waits its almost always the 70s records....the first two and Nighthawks are my favorites
Tom Waits is one of those guys I used to listen to a lot more than I do now...