WEBVTT - Tom Waits' 'Bone Machine': Everything You Didn't Know 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:08.440 Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.360 Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.160 that brings you the secret histories and little known, fascinating 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.560 facts and figures behind your favorite music, movies, TV shows 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.480 and more. Where your two swordfish, trombones of Scintille, your 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.680 rain dogs of random facts, your mule variations of magnified 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:32.560 views on stock, I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Roun 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.920 talk and today, as the nerdy among you may have 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.559 picked up on, we are talking about America's original steam powered, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.200 part tree, part tombstone, Carnival Barker playing a piano made 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.760 out of mammoth fossels, an old era almost didn't get 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:47.559 to the end of that sense, that's right. We are 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.840 talking about Tom Waite and his epical nineteen ninety two 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:56.120 album Bone Machine, maybe a runner up right after Eraserhead 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.400 for like least commercially popular thing we've covered on here. Yeah, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.240 it's up there, like critics loved this album, and writers 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.039 love this album and nerds love this album. But researching it, 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:06.920 I was like, oh, yeah, this has got the Grammy, 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:12.040 and then nothing else, like no significant sales to speak of. 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.480 The single went nowhere. I mean, but you know, I 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.119 am one of the biggest Tom Wait's nerds you will 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.200 ever meet in this or any other life, and I 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:24.120 love that about you. I was thinking about this a 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.800 lot prayer to tabing this episode. I am fairly certain 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.959 that I was introduced to him by MTV two. Do 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:31.920 you remember when MTV two first launched. 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.760 I don't, but I love how that was really your 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.520 entry point for so many bands because it was also 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:39.840 the box, right. 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.600 Well, so that's exactly what it was on the cable 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.520 slot in that the box used to have in Central Pennsylvania. 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.120 MTV I guess. I don't know if they took over 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.880 the box, which was request only, but they took over 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.880 the slot as MTV two, which, for a while, bless 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.640 its pointed Little Heart or Head or whatever that Jefferson 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.480 Airplane album is just showed music videos and there was 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:05.280 no like time restrictions on those music videos. So one 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.360 second you would see like the nineteen ninety three video 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.120 for Rage Against Machines Freedom, then you would see the 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.640 old Penny Lane promotional clip, then you would see Last 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.320 Night by the Strokes, and then you would see and 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:21.240 in my case, God's Away on Business by Tom Waits. 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.120 But the point was is that you had no idea 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.720 what era of stuff it was gonna throw at you. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:27.600 And it was like at Christmas or something, and I 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.520 was channel surfing. One of my cousins came in and 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.720 was like, oh, Tom Waits, And I was like, is 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.440 that what this is? And they were like yeah, the 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.040 cookie Monster and God's Away in Business is like the 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.520 funniest possible song for that, because that's really one of 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.840 his ones where he like devolves into self parody and 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:42.600 is literally just. 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.480 Like oom boh oom bah God's oh wait, God's oh 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.640 way on business business uh. 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.120 And so I was like, Okay, that's hilarious. So I 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.200 do a range of weights. There's the uh you know, 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.280 Tom Waits giving interview, his voice just a little bit 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:08.480 more laid back and then devolves into Gordeworst. Have you 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.880 ever interviewed him? No, I'd be terrified. He hates giving interviews. 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.000 He does not want to be Tom Waits at this 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:15.760 point in his life at all. He wants to be 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.600 like Dad Waits Chile Mountain, Sonoma County. I actually heard 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:24.680 that he came to like this tiny DIY Experimental music 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:29.560 festival or space in Oakland, like just by himself, like 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.440 drove down from Sonoma because it was a night. It 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:37.160 was a tribute night to some obscure experimental instrument maker 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:42.000 and like random guy and I did door there, volunteered 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:43.920 tog door there occasionally, and like showed up like the 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:45.760 following week to run door and someone was like, oh, 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:47.320 Tom Waits was here last week, and I was like, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:53.000 ah no, So that crushed me. Also, I'll never get 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.400 to see him live. He hates playing live. He probably 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.040 never will again, which is great it fits his whole personality, 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.160 but it does kill me at all times. Anyway, So 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.880 I saw I saw that video and my two like 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.040 cool music cousins were like, oh yeah, Tom Wade's like 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.280 blah blah blah blah. And so I went to I 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.520 want to say LimeWire or Kazah, one of the green ones, 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.960 and I downloaded Going Out West from this very album. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.200 And I didn't know any of them about bit rates, 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.760 but I knew that certain things sounded like dogshit when 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.280 you would get them from like a pirate site in 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.680 the early days. So I downloaded it and I was like, ooh, 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.880 it's kind of cool, like noir surf guitar intro. Yeah, 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:35.839 like makes me feel like I'm a detective, but I 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.040 have a stun gun and I don't know if it's 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.200 the thirties or blade Runner. And then it just that 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.200 guitar riff kicks in is just like and then like 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.280 him singing like through a megaphone or something. I was like, Wow, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:54.080 this sounds terrible. So I went to the CD warehouse 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.840 locally and bought a copy of Boone Machine and then 0:04:57.920 --> 0:04:59.560 like brought it back home. I was like, Oh, this 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.200 is this is how it's supposed to sound. This is incredible. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.360 And then I just right down the proverbial rabbit hole. 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.440 I just went back there like every week and was 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.640 just like, Hey, what's the next of these albums I 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:13.320 should get? And I was like, well, you gotta do 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.479 rain Dogs, you gotta do Swordfish Trombones, and then and 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:18.040 then filling in the gaps with some of the more 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.120 obscure stiff like but not obscure but like less canonized 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.080 stuff like you got to go back and you got 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.120 to go to like Billy Joel tom Waits, which like 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.200 I don't I think maybe not maybe, I don't know. 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.840 I think that's like an insult to both people but like, 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.760 you know, the log line on Tom Waits's this early 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:36.640 stuff is like I always just say he's like a 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:41.400 drunker billy Joel, Like it's all very uh because you know, 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.479 he was pounding around it with the Melo Mafia. He 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.279 was like buds with you know when the ron stat 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.719 that's yea nuts So and Ricky Lee Jones and like 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.880 the Eagles and all those guys they dated for a while, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.719 him and Ricky Lee. Yeah. Weirdly enough, in the Classic 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.960 League Annals of how rockstar Relationships dissolve, it was her 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:06.000 heroin habit that actually caused them to break up. Anyway, Yeah, man, 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.520 And I you know, I think about it. I thought 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.760 about it a lot in contextualizing it in like my life, 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.080 and I thought it was just I think it was 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.760 what drew him to me, What drew me to him 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.440 was that, like, you know, about two years prior, I 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.839 had gotten into like punk rock, right And and when 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.440 you're in getting into punk rock in anywhere in like 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.479 a small town, that means you like go to it 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.800 intimidating club and there's five people there wearing a black 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.440 flag shirt, five people there wearing the Dead Kennedy shirt, 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:38.720 five people wearing the misfit shirt and five people wearing 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:42.280 the ramone shirt, and you're like, okay, I have homework. 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.080 And also everyone is dressed the same way, and all 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.599 of these people are very intimidating, and then I get 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.240 screamed at it. So for someone like me who was 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.400 a little bit insecure about entering that world and also 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.839 a big nerd, when I got to Tom Waits, I 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:00.720 was like, oh, like, you guys think like Rancid is transgressive, 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.400 or you think like the Dead Kennedy's are transgressive, Like 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.600 this man sounds like a broken radiator, you know, like 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.560 and then sadly manifested in a brief period where I 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.760 was wearing like tweed jackets and fingerless gloves and fedoras 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.800 around to like punk shows. But it was really like 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.160 such a shot in the arm of like self confidence 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.960 of being like, oh cool, Like you guys are like 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.960 Ramon's weird and like Ramon's punk, but like I'm into 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.400 Tom Waits and he's the weirdest man alive. And also 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.440 he sings like an actual monster and not in like 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:40.120 an adenoidal so col wine the way that like you know, 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.040 blinquin a two or green Day did or any of 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.000 that stuff. And I was like, so this man is 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.640 real as hell and like more punk rock than any 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.320 of you will ever be. And uh, yeah, I've just 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.680 been obsessed with him for my entire life. And he's like, oh, so, 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.920 you know, there's a lot to be obsessed with. I 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.720 think I get into this topic later, but he is 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.120 such a I mean, the guy is like, if you 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.080 spend as much time with his body of work as 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.600 I do, and the truly obsessed among us do, like, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.000 he's such a repository of the detritus of like America's 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.640 twenty of the twentieth century, you know, and you just 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:22.200 find out all these weird little old turns of phrase 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.440 and lyrical like references and tropes, and it's just an 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.080 endlessly interesting series of rabbit holes to just fall down into. 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:32.200 And that way, I always got the sense that it 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.760 was almost like the American Elvis Costello in terms of 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.120 just being, like you said, this repository of not only 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.520 a continuum of music, but just phrases culture. 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.840 I mean, the linguistics is probably the big part of it. Yeah. Yeah, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:51.160 it's funny. I mean, he's it's really interesting being as 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.680 obsessed with him as I am, because you do start 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:55.560 to notice some of his ticks, and you start to 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.480 notice some of his like that the box set Orphans 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.600 that came out at one point is so fascinating because 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.959 it is because of these songs were never officially released. 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.719 You really hear how his like studio approach of just 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.200 kind of being like, well, I have this song that 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.280 is me and piano singing, and then we're just gonna 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.600 try it seventeen different ways and see what happens. Like 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.040 there's an outtake on that one of this song called 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.120 never Let Go where I think they fully like miss 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.240 there's like an extra bar, like, so you hear the 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.120 drummer do this big like role and then it like, 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.319 I don't know, there's just all these little mistakes and 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.760 stuff that you listen to, and he repeats lyrics and 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.160 has different repeat themes and so it's like, I think 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.880 I'm just more deeper into him than any other artist, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.320 with the exception of maybe Miles Davis, and so like, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.640 I just have such an inside, like a disturbingly deep 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.640 view of his like processes and little quirks and sessions. 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:51.120 So it's like, yeah, it's like me and the Beatle 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.160 it's like my Beatles. He's my Beatles. Oh and the 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:55.320 Beatles are your Beatles? 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.240 Yes, yes, I mean you know, it may not surprise 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.000 you to know that Tom Waits is not one of 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.320 my go tos, because you know, considering how much Brian 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.440 Wilson and Paul McCartney I listened to, I have to 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.920 admit that I do find his voice a little hard 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:10.880 to take at times. 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.000 Well which voice? Which voice? Okay, though, because you've got, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.480 like I said, you've got early raspy voice, and then 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.800 you've got like the Prince falsetto, and then you've got 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.920 like there's a period I think from like Blue Valentine 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.160 to small change where he just is kind of doing 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:29.480 like Louis Armstrong or like like Blues shouting, and then 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.480 right around brain Dogs and Swordfish from Bones and that 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.960 trifecta into Bone Machine is where he just really goes 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.800 off the deep end. And that's anyway, what are his 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.080 vocal influences. I'm so curious. We'll get to that, Okay, 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:44.400 all right, Well get to that. 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.760 I mean I do love him almost more from a 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.319 literary standpoint. I sort of always thought of him as 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.679 like the musical Covid of like Bukowski or something. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:11:00.199 Well, that's an interesting relationship. One of my earliest defeats 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.040 as a writer came when I was freelancing for no 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.960 money for Pop Matters and I pitched them like a 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.679 listicle of Tom Waite's songs. And this is one of 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.040 the things that's made me such a fact checking nerd. 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:17.920 There's this like oft repeated logline that Christmas Card from 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.280 a Hooker in Minneapolis, which by the way, is like 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:22.920 one of the best has There's a performance of this 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.720 song that he does on solo piano on some Australian 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.360 TV show or English TV show where he starts with 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.440 Silent Night, goes into Christmas Card from a Hooker Minneapolis, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:38.160 interpolates little anthemyy Imperials, and then finishes it again at 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.280 silent Night. That is like one of the most incredible 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.920 things I've ever seen stagecraft and like theatrically musically wise, 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.080 that song, like on the Internet was a commonly repeated 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.920 fact that it was based on a short story from 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.760 a Charles Pokowski collection, and one of the first comments 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.040 I ever got as an Internet writer was that that 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.319 is incorrect. There is no such Charles bukowskis short story 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.920 and this is a commonly repeated lie on the internet, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.080 and I do not know where it started. There's like 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:13.160 something to that effect. I think this short story collection 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.040 is like Rooming House Madrigals. And the big problem with 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.400 Bukowski is that he wrote seventeen hundred poems a night 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.800 when he was hammered between the hours of like four 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.880 thirty pm until he passed out. And so particularly when 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.520 you get into the Dolphin Press or Echo or whatever 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:31.920 the like the people who handled his latter day stuff, 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.199 there's dreams of new poems, but then there's also all 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:40.280 the like archival stuff, and I think Rooming House Magic 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.439 Goals is one of the earlier collections, and that is 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.240 where this poem that Tom Waites based the song on 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.280 supposedly appears, and it doesn't. And it was so it 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:53.120 spurred me forever to be a researcher and a nerd. 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.320 And that's my origin story for this podcast. And so 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:57.760 in a way I could take it all back to 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.880 Tom Waits and Bukowski. Yeah, I mean, Beukosko is a 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.720 big influence on him, but I think he also comes 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.600 from a very pre Bukowski sentiment, which is just like 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.320 the beats. I mean, it's important to know that he 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.439 grew up in San Diego and so pretty much everything 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.160 he does is filtered through like native Californian lens, you know, 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.880 So like the beats in San Francisco were like a 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.840 huge thing for him, he idolized. You know, there's a 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.559 song on one of his I think it might be 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.640 a foreign affair that it's just called I'm going to 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.360 California to meet up with Jack and Neil, which is 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.040 like the most nakedly beat fetishizing garbage I could ever 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:37.640 think of. Do you want to tell the folks that 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.280 Jack and Nail are? Do I have to his education 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.800 really fallen that far in this country? I guess I do. 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.120 Why I ask that question? Jack Carrorac and Neil Cassidy 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:52.160 the protagonists and writers of On the Road. So yeah, that, 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.480 like I, he was also really into this guy named 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.520 Ken Nordaan whose whole thing was a word jazz. Oh yeah, 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.560 I think we've covered him before. Ken Nordan was if 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:04.839 Jack Carrek's whole thing was trying to write like he 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.680 conceived of jazz musicians playing, Ken Nordon was kind of 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:14.080 trying to reverse engineer it. And do like spoken word poetry, 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:18.800 like improvising live to jazz music. And so there's all 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.600 these Ken Nordin albums and he does. There's an appearance 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.320 of him on the on the Steve Allen Tonight's show 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.520 where Steve Allen's playing piano, and I talk about this later, 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.040 Like Tom Waits and Bob Dylan are only like seven 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.800 or eight years apart. And so if you look at 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.320 the two of them and their sort of lyrical preoccupations 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.280 and a lot of the places that they overlap, the 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.359 biggest difference is that Tom Waits is like is from California. 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.520 That's really how how I've pinned it down. So he 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.320 starts from this era of like beat worship and like 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.800 Hogy Carmichael, and he supposed he has this joke about 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.200 only learning the black keys on the piano because they 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.120 were the only ones that worked on like a piano 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:57.640 that he had at home, which is such a bit 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.760 of like Tom Waits myth making. So yeah, a lot 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.280 of his early stuff is coming from this whole you know, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:09.600 ten Panelley forties fifties beat nick preoccupation. I don't know 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:11.160 where to stop. You're going to have to give me 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.240 some pauses because I will just continue going. 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.600 Okay, Okay, I know that this man is very steeped 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:18.480 in lore, and what little of it I know, I 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.120 know through you, So I fully expect that I'm going 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.200 to learn a lot of this episode I'm really looking 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.360 forward to because I know how much you love him well. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.640 From the storage room and or shed on a chicken 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.640 ranch that Bone Machine is recorded in because some of 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.880 the best off kilter musical instructions Weights provided to his 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.240 studio musicians, to the invented instruments he played on it, 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.640 to the abysmal chart performance of this album which did 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.680 win him a Grammy. Here's everything you didn't know about 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:55.200 Tom Waits's Bone Machine. Tom Waitson had a hell of 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:57.920 a nineteen eighties. At the top of the decade, he 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.960 was broke and I believe he had just been kicked 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:06.760 off of asylum. Why for poor sales or drugs or well, 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:08.880 it's quite funny, yeah, I mean he had one of 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.160 these artist trajectories that will never happen again, just full 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:17.600 on will never happen again. He made a career initially 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:19.680 as like I said, part of in the Circle of 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.800 This like Mellow Mafia in La you know, he was 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.840 i think working he was living in the Tropicana Hotel 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.960 and working at like at the Troubadour, and that's how 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:34.200 he met Linda Ronstat Ricky Lee Jones the Eagles, who 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.080 later covered one of his songs. And so he cuts 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:41.160 his early albums Closing Time, Heart of Saturday Night, and 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.360 there's a bunch of demos out from this time period 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:48.080 that are all pretty like it's basically singer songwriter stuff. 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.760 And he's got a producer who's a jazz guy named 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.440 bones How. He's doing all of these like string laden 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.320 kind of jazzy arrangements, and that's kind of what they're 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.400 they're pairing him with. I mean, you get also get 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.400 Nighthawks the Diner, which is a great faux live album 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.479 where they just like trucked a bunch of people and 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.520 a stripper into a like a big studio live room 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:10.160 and just had him do his like live set. 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.199 You mentioned bones How. I mean Bones How was a 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.199 big deal in like sixties pop. He did stuff with 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.680 like The Association and the Turtles and like the Fifth Dimension. 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:20.520 Like that's a. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.640 Really I mean, he's like like one of the architects 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.560 of what's called Sunshine Pop, which is like, yeah, sixties, 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.080 that's that's a weird pairing with Tom Waits. 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.000 Well exactly, And I think that's what's so interesting. I mean, 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.639 there's this there's a one of the early compilations I 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.840 got was the Early Years, and it's a lot of 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.119 him demoing on just piano and guitar. And you know, 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.160 his early songs like Old fifty five was covered by 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.399 the Eagles, Martha is a really beautiful song covered by 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.840 Tim Buckley. So like, if you think about like Cookie 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.479 Monster Tom Waits writing songs that were covered by like 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.320 Tim Buckley and the Eagles, that's very weird. But it 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:58.760 was just because of this part of la that he inhabited, 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.040 and he had a managined named her Cohen, who basically 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.919 mismanaged him into the toilet. I mean, he put Tom Waits, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.760 like doing this piano ballad stuff on a tour with 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.040 Frank Zappa, and it was hell because he was Zappa's manager, 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.639 so he paired his two clients together. Didn't make any sense. 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.600 But he sort of starts leaning towards like Blue Valentine 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.119 and Heart Attack and Vine and Small Change of these 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.040 albums where he starts toying with his voice a little 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:29.040 bit more and getting into a little bit more CD 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.679 noir rather than like California kind of balladerie. And so 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:36.400 basically at the top of the eighties though he's been 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:41.800 kicked off of Asylum and doesn't have any money because 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:46.800 of herb Cohen. So Electra and Asylum had been absorbed 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:51.160 by Warners and Asylum was originally founded by David Geffham 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.280 with the idea of being the only like artist friendly 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.280 major right, That's why he called it asylum, And so 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.560 I always thought it was short for lunatic asylum. Maybe 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:03.840 it was like the idea of like the inmates riding asylum, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.040 but like you know, so so Warner Brothers and Warner 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.840 Electra Asylum now had like Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Eagles, 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:17.359 Queen Carly Simon, pre Merger, Electra and Asylum had like 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.159 Judy Collins and Jackson Brown. And so Tom Waits is 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.040 in there too, and and his A and R guide 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:30.000 Joe Smith actually told Barney Hoskins at one point, right, biographer, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:32.439 Yeah for the Low side of the Road, which is 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.480 a great Tom Waits bio. I was trying to keep 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.840 Freddie Mercury from falling apart. I was trying to get 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.359 Don Henley and Glenn Fry into a studio together, or 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.320 I was trying to sign new acts like the Cars. 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.200 My promotion and marketing staff would roll their eyes when 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.120 I announced we had a new Tom Waits record. I'm 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.280 playing Queen and Jackson Brown and we have a meeting 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.000 and I play weights, and that's when everyone goes to 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:57.439 the bathroom. Yeah. And it was interesting because like Tom 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.760 was like a COGNISEETI kind of pick, but he didn't 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.000 have any real mainstream audience at that point. And Smith says, like, 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.560 you know, Joni Mitchell can say I want to go 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.480 record a jazz album with Charles Mingus, and that's because 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.200 it was Joni Mitchell ten years into being Joni Mitchell. 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.000 Tom Ways didn't have any of that. So at the eighties, 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:18.760 at top of the eighties, he is poor and at 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.439 the proverbial transitional phrase, and you could say that he 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:27.879 is at crossroads. I indeed later on, I know, well, 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:29.760 you've been jumping around so much. I don't know where 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.639 it's oh yeah, but this is fifties word jazz baby, 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:37.480 you know, bebop, rich, fireworks, bang boom, whimper, not a bang. 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:39.600 I don't know. I don't really like beat poetry. I 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:45.240 think it's dumb. They need an editor. Uh, okay, enough 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:50.760 grammar punctuation, there's no m dashes. The biggest change in 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.879 Tom Waye's life at this point comes via his slow 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:59.080 sort of entrance into Hollywood. He'd been asked by Francis 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.720 Ford Coppola to write the music for One from the Heart, 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:04.760 which is not a film that I bet you can 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.560 tell me anything about. Yeah, it's up there in sort 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.840 of a Coppola's like semi fallow period of the eighties 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.639 when he did this. He did Rumblefish, he did like 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:18.560 Outsiders and stuff like. 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:23.159 That, all building up to Jack starring Robin Williams. 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.640 Yeah, this is all building up to bram Stoker's Dracula 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:32.040 in two and which I will then get into. There's 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.919 a long sidebar on Bramstoker's Dracula, all right. Anyway, So 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.720 on One for the Heart actually waits picks up a 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:43.440 nomination for Original Music Score, which he did with Crystal Gail. 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:49.680 And so it's on that at American Zoatro Pictures, which 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:54.680 is Copola's production company, that he meets Kathleen Brennan. Kathleen 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.960 is a script editor for Zoatrope, and Waits had been 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.240 given the old time composer treatment of getting an office 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.000 on the lot, like on the at the offices where 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.720 he was writing these songs. And he meets Kathleen Brennan there, 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.280 and he is the other thing. This is the other 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.719 thing about Tom Waite's. Nearly anything Waits as quoted as 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:18.440 saying is either charitably a yarn, good old fashioned American 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:23.919 West male buucherie, or a straight up lie. So you 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.320 do have to take certain things of what he's saying 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.960 with certain incredible amounts of salt. But he basically meets 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:36.840 Kathleen Brennan, and not only does she open his eyes 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.160 to all of this other music. At what he told 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:42.520 the Guardian once, I didn't just marry a beautiful woman. 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:45.600 I married a record collection that's amazing. But she she 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.639 also sets him on his path like out of the gutter. 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.640 I think I did find a excited source. I think 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.640 it's in the Hoskins book that he went into AA 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.280 in nineteen ninety two. But she was really like, you 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:00.160 got to quit this drink and if you want to 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.800 be with me two ninety two but she like put 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:06.399 the clamps on it, because there's a hilarious story at 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:08.800 one point in the nineties about him hanging out with 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:11.600 the Replacements. I think this might have been for police 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:16.879 to meet me or maybe Tim where he was like 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:19.000 in the building with them, and he had admitted to 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:20.600 liking them, like I think he had seen them live 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:22.160 at some point and was like, yeah, I like those kids, 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:24.040 the Replacements. And so he just shows up at the 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:26.439 studio with Kathleen and it's very like, kind of buttoned 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:28.280 down and respectful, like, hey, you know, I like what 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:30.160 you kids are doing, Like it's real good rock and roll, 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.280 you know, back to basics. And then he's like, okay, 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:35.159 honeywell I think I'm gonna you know, I think I'm 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:37.080 gonna hang out with the Replacements for a little while 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:38.920 and see what they can get up to in the studio. 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:41.640 And and so Kathleen's like, all right, take a cab home, 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:43.920 I'll see you. I'll see you boys later. And I 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:48.040 think it's Paul Westerberg, or it's either Paul Westerberg or 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:51.840 the bassist Tom Tommy Stinson, who says like and it 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.280 was like a he turned into a were wolf, like 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.440 he he like grabbed one of their bottles of Jack 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.600 Daniels and started slugging it. There's all this hilarire, drunken 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:04.560 outtakes of like them just doing like basic backing while 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:07.240 Tom Waits plays like a B three organ and is 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.600 like doing all these like preacher like tent revival riffs. 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:17.000 Like you have to let him use you just anyway. 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:19.359 But so she's like she puts a curba his drinking. 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:22.480 She exposes him to all this kind of stuff, everything 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:29.080 from you know, Puccini to Captain Beefheart, Alan Lomack's field 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:32.720 recordings and Harry Parch And what this does is kind 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:35.160 of give him all of these context clues to fill 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:37.399 in the gaps into everything that he says he's like 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:40.959 been into before, from like you know, Hogy Carmichael and 0:24:41.040 --> 0:24:45.560 Tin Panale stuff backwards into like real gut bucket blues 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:50.320 and like real strange stuff. All of this is to 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:55.359 say that way, it's essentially reverse engineered his soft jazz metal, 0:24:55.440 --> 0:24:58.960 mafia cool boho beat nick sound into something that more 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.560 resembled and as madic Werewolf driving a slowly dying model 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:05.600 t forward through a junkyard filled with skeletons improvising a 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.360 score out of antique instruments and it rules. And so 0:25:09.560 --> 0:25:12.960 the first one that sets this path out is Swordfish Trombones, 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:17.000 and that that's followed by rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years, 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:19.719 and that's kind of a loose trilogy that cements like 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:22.480 the new Tom Waits sound. And also, you know, he 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:26.040 keeps acting, which is really quite interesting. He has like 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:29.320 roles in three Copola films in nineteen eighty three alone, 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:31.400 and he like really hit it off with Coppola, which 0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:34.760 is actually funny. And there's he's like talked about like 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:39.040 going over to spaghetti dinners like at the at the 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:41.400 Coppola's while he was doing all these movies with them 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:44.040 and like listening to Puccini and all of this stuff. 0:25:44.840 --> 0:25:47.439 So they get married Waits and Kathleen, and they have 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:50.480 their first child, a daughter, and they moved to New York. 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:53.400 Waits had made a stab at living in New York before. 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:55.199 He didn't exactly like it. Like I mentioned, he's a 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:57.880 California boy through and through, but he makes a number 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:01.080 of important connections and collaborations in New York. He meets 0:26:01.160 --> 0:26:05.120 Jim Jarmish, who later casts Waits in down By Law. 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:08.200 He meets Robert Wilson, who is a theater guy who 0:26:08.200 --> 0:26:11.400 had just done Einstein on the Beach with Philip Glass. 0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:15.359 And he meets John Lourie, who at the time was 0:26:15.440 --> 0:26:18.400 an also Jarmish pal who was leading the Lounge Lizards, 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:21.960 And that is where he meets Mark Ribo. I still 0:26:22.000 --> 0:26:25.520 don't know how to pronounce that guy's name, Ribot Rebot. 0:26:25.640 --> 0:26:27.080 I don't think I've ever heard it. I've seen him 0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:30.480 live twice, I don't think I've ever heard it pronounced anyway. 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:35.200 He's this downtown kind of New York eighties jazz loft 0:26:35.240 --> 0:26:39.080 seen guitarist who is all over rain dogs and a 0:26:39.119 --> 0:26:42.080 lot of wait stuff, and it's awesome. He plays guitar 0:26:42.359 --> 0:26:46.720 like it's a slowly dying stun gun that he doesn't 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:51.119 have an instruction manual for. Your analogies for this are incredible. 0:26:51.359 --> 0:26:53.520 You've hadtice, I practice a lot of them. You've had 0:26:53.520 --> 0:26:55.359 twenty five years. Yeah, I've had my whole life to 0:26:55.359 --> 0:26:55.879 prepare for this. 0:26:55.960 --> 0:26:58.480 Yes, yes, yes, yes, Well, during his time in New York, 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:00.840 Tom Waits met up with somebody that I've actually heard of, 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:06.080 little British guitarist songwriter, an occasional singer named Keith Richards. 0:27:06.480 --> 0:27:08.560 This is I love this story so much. I'm so 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:12.640 glad you included this. Waits recall The Island Records asked. 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:14.200 Them for a list of who we'd like to work 0:27:14.240 --> 0:27:16.520 with on the album rain Dogs, and he was a 0:27:16.600 --> 0:27:19.560 huge fan of the Stones, as you put it, dirt 0:27:19.560 --> 0:27:22.720 Bag Magnum Opus Exile on Main Street, which is probably 0:27:22.760 --> 0:27:26.600 the most Keith centric Stones album ever, And so Waits 0:27:26.680 --> 0:27:30.320 throughout Keith's name, and the label said, great, we'll call him, 0:27:30.440 --> 0:27:35.200 to which an absolutely aghast Waits responded, Jesus, please don't 0:27:35.200 --> 0:27:39.439 do that. I was just kidding around, and supposedly a 0:27:39.440 --> 0:27:41.719 few weeks later, this is something the only bit of 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:45.000 Tom Waits Laura I've heard of. Tom gets a letter 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:47.840 from Keith in the mail that reads, the weight is over, 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:49.040 Let's dance. 0:27:49.960 --> 0:27:53.440 I love that. I love that so much. He has 0:27:53.480 --> 0:27:56.800 so many great lines about about Keith Ridchards. He's like 0:27:56.840 --> 0:27:59.359 he comes into the studio with his head at ten 0:27:59.440 --> 0:28:01.680 and his next it too. I don't know, I don't 0:28:01.680 --> 0:28:03.960 know how he does it. He's like he just comes 0:28:04.000 --> 0:28:06.160 in and hits the guitar and everything falls into place 0:28:06.200 --> 0:28:10.240 around that he says like he's someone who music likes 0:28:10.280 --> 0:28:12.920 to be around, which is like one of the most 0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:17.280 poetic phrases I've ever heard about someone talking about a collaborator. Wow, 0:28:17.320 --> 0:28:18.199 that's great. 0:28:18.680 --> 0:28:23.840 Waits also apparently contributed to The Stones nineteen eighties, not 0:28:24.040 --> 0:28:26.920 a high point for the band Dirty Work. 0:28:27.240 --> 0:28:29.520 I did not know that before researching this, Oh, rote 0:28:29.680 --> 0:28:32.760 Tom Waits fanas, I did not know he's supposedly somewhere 0:28:32.760 --> 0:28:35.000 on Dirty Work of all places. 0:28:35.160 --> 0:28:38.280 Yeah, not the best Stones album, But Waits and Richards 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:40.760 hit it off so well that Richard's actually thanked wait 0:28:40.960 --> 0:28:44.960 for quote spiritual encouragement on his own solo debut, Talk 0:28:45.120 --> 0:28:48.360 is Cheap. Years later, at NPR's Fresh Air, Waits talked 0:28:48.360 --> 0:28:51.160 about co writing with Richard's own rain Dogs. We wrote 0:28:51.200 --> 0:28:53.680 songs together for a while and that was fun. But 0:28:53.760 --> 0:28:56.959 Keith doesn't really remember anything or write anything down. So 0:28:57.000 --> 0:28:58.800 you play for an hour and he would yell across 0:28:58.840 --> 0:29:03.480 the room scribe, and I looked around scribe, who's the scribe, 0:29:03.760 --> 0:29:06.320 and he'd say it again, now pointing at me. I 0:29:06.360 --> 0:29:08.320 was supposed to have written everything down that we said 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:11.040 and dreamt of and played. And I realized we needed 0:29:11.080 --> 0:29:14.800 an adult in the room, which is dangerously close to 0:29:14.840 --> 0:29:19.160 the John Mulaney Mick Jagger guesting on SNL and just 0:29:19.160 --> 0:29:21.880 saying diet coke and then a diet. 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:24.320 Coke appearing in his hands from one of the many assistants. 0:29:24.600 --> 0:29:27.360 You're dealing with people who have had their entire life. 0:29:27.360 --> 0:29:29.520 There have been millionaires since they were like nineteen. What 0:29:29.560 --> 0:29:34.440 do you want? Yeah? Yeah? Is he nice? No? In 0:29:34.480 --> 0:29:37.360 my world, you say, may I please have a diet coke? Please? 0:29:37.480 --> 0:29:41.959 And maybe you will get one? Yeah. Waited also at 0:29:42.000 --> 0:29:44.080 this point become enamored of the work of the adult 0:29:44.240 --> 0:29:48.560 blacked Les. That makes sense, Yeah, all of which goes 0:29:48.600 --> 0:29:51.320 into rain Dogs. And rain Dogs is a bit of 0:29:51.320 --> 0:29:54.320 a bigger hit than Swordfish. Crombones got Record of the 0:29:54.400 --> 0:29:57.479 Year from NME and Songwriter of the Year from Rolling Stone, 0:29:57.880 --> 0:30:00.280 and then so from rain Dogs. He just sort of 0:30:00.520 --> 0:30:03.160 explodes in all directions. And I think it's really interesting 0:30:03.200 --> 0:30:06.320 considering how much his output has slowed in latter years, 0:30:06.360 --> 0:30:09.000 because he's really working at a very fevered pace at 0:30:09.000 --> 0:30:12.120 this point in the eighties, and much of it, I mean, 0:30:12.160 --> 0:30:14.320 I don't know. He doesn't really talk about his personal 0:30:14.360 --> 0:30:16.600 life or his marriage that much beyond its impact on 0:30:16.600 --> 0:30:20.680 his artistic thing, but I feel like she was probably 0:30:20.680 --> 0:30:23.720 making more money than he was when they met, and 0:30:23.960 --> 0:30:26.360 he was like, Okay, I've got to leverage these different connections, 0:30:26.400 --> 0:30:28.120 and I've got to leverage all this stuff and do 0:30:28.240 --> 0:30:31.600 a bunch right away. All right, Well, I have two questions. 0:30:31.720 --> 0:30:34.200 One, I think in your piece that you sent me earlier, 0:30:34.440 --> 0:30:36.600 there was a great description of where the title rain 0:30:36.680 --> 0:30:39.600 Dogs came from. And I also I don't believe you 0:30:39.600 --> 0:30:41.240 included this in that, But I also want to know 0:30:41.240 --> 0:30:43.120 where does Swordfish Trombones come from? 0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:46.840 Right? So, rain dogs is refers to the phenomenon of 0:30:46.880 --> 0:30:48.800 dogs going out to pee after it rains and all 0:30:48.880 --> 0:30:51.040 their scent marks have been washed away, so that they're 0:30:51.080 --> 0:30:52.120 all confused, and they. 0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:54.480 Go up and look to you as if asking you 0:30:54.520 --> 0:30:55.800 can you please take me home? 0:30:55.880 --> 0:30:59.560 I thought that was very sweet. Swordfish Trombones, I want 0:30:59.600 --> 0:31:01.840 to say, just off the top of my dome, I 0:31:01.840 --> 0:31:03.959 think it might be a Captain beef Heart thing, because 0:31:04.120 --> 0:31:06.200 that was one of the biggest people that Kathleen had 0:31:06.200 --> 0:31:10.280 introduced him to it. And one of Beefheart's stupid trademarks 0:31:10.320 --> 0:31:13.880 is like putting animal things with like non animal things 0:31:13.920 --> 0:31:17.960 like trout mask replica, trout Mask replica. What's the fun. 0:31:18.280 --> 0:31:21.840 There's like a bit of fasta the Masquatta snake faster 0:31:21.880 --> 0:31:25.040 than bulbous. Uh. Just yeah, anyway, that's like some of 0:31:25.040 --> 0:31:28.040 his lyrical concerns. But let me check that out actually 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:30.680 real quick. How do you feel about Captain bee Fart. 0:31:30.680 --> 0:31:32.960 I get a sense that it's it's similar to Frank's 0:31:33.000 --> 0:31:34.760 app but nothing wrong with a little beef art. 0:31:34.920 --> 0:31:39.880 But a long a lot of beef far. I like 0:31:40.040 --> 0:31:44.680 beef Heart. I will admit that I had to do 0:31:44.840 --> 0:31:48.280 the classic like listen to this like five times and 0:31:48.360 --> 0:31:53.760 then finally like get it. But that record is really wild. 0:31:54.040 --> 0:31:56.680 I don't see a concrete thing at least on wiki 0:31:56.720 --> 0:31:59.320 about the Swordfish Turnbones name. But I mean, have you 0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:02.600 heard about how they made that record? Pieces He like 0:32:02.920 --> 0:32:06.320 tortured that band. He put them all in a remote mansion. 0:32:06.400 --> 0:32:09.720 They only had his car, and he stole all their 0:32:09.760 --> 0:32:14.560 mail and their money and like rationed food out to 0:32:14.680 --> 0:32:17.760 them and was just generally like a horrible tyrant. And 0:32:17.800 --> 0:32:21.560 they rehearsed at all hours, and he put them through 0:32:21.600 --> 0:32:24.600 all of his whimsical beef Heart bullshit. Like there's great 0:32:24.640 --> 0:32:27.520 bits of like studio outtake chatter where he's like forcing 0:32:27.560 --> 0:32:30.400 them to do these like dialogues like fast and bulbous, 0:32:31.120 --> 0:32:33.800 the mascout of Snake, and you see the guy who's 0:32:33.800 --> 0:32:36.320 supposed to be reading this dialogue just go oh Jesus Christ. 0:32:37.680 --> 0:32:41.320 But you know that records bonkers and you do hear 0:32:41.600 --> 0:32:43.880 like it's like looking at a you know, it is 0:32:43.960 --> 0:32:46.280 like looking at a Kandinsky or a Pollock or something 0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:48.920 where like the longer you look at it and you 0:32:49.160 --> 0:32:52.640 start to see like different micro structures in it. And 0:32:52.680 --> 0:32:55.680 because it was so tightly rehearsed, they did the backing 0:32:55.720 --> 0:32:58.680 tracks for that whole album, which sounds for the uninitiated 0:32:59.120 --> 0:33:01.920 like random. It sounds like you just threw a bunch 0:33:01.920 --> 0:33:05.440 of random backing tapes into a big machine that threads 0:33:05.480 --> 0:33:07.360 them all onto a tape machine and spits out a 0:33:07.400 --> 0:33:10.240 master mix, and then Captain Beefheart is singing over it. 0:33:10.360 --> 0:33:13.360 But they were so locked in and so well rehearsed 0:33:13.800 --> 0:33:17.479 making that that when Zeppa was producing and trying to 0:33:17.520 --> 0:33:19.960 sort through different takes to find stuff for beef Heart 0:33:19.960 --> 0:33:22.400 to sing the vocal lines over, he couldn't tell the 0:33:22.440 --> 0:33:27.560 takes apart. So it's just like absolute emotionally abused, lockstep 0:33:27.720 --> 0:33:33.360 rehearsed like watch tight version of chaos that just sounds 0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:36.560 like nothing else. But then there's stuff like too much time, 0:33:36.680 --> 0:33:38.800 like this beef Heart's song, too much Time, it sounds 0:33:38.800 --> 0:33:41.520 like a motown song. And anyway, so that's my take 0:33:41.560 --> 0:33:43.120 on beef Art. Where was I going with this? 0:33:43.400 --> 0:33:44.880 I just want to know the origins of the name 0:33:44.960 --> 0:33:47.040 Raine Dogs and sort of fish dn Bones. 0:33:47.680 --> 0:33:52.520 Yeah, well, and now I have them. I rule, I rule. 0:33:53.320 --> 0:33:55.560 I don't think we can mention that. I know. I 0:33:55.680 --> 0:33:59.440 love that you picked what that was from. Yeah. So 0:33:59.720 --> 0:34:01.600 the next thing that he does is kind of create 0:34:02.320 --> 0:34:05.680 a musical, a narrative arc out of the songs on Swordfish, 0:34:05.720 --> 0:34:08.800 Trombones and Rain Dogs, and he presents it as a 0:34:08.920 --> 0:34:13.440 musical with Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater, home of Gary Sonise 0:34:13.520 --> 0:34:16.920 and John Malkovich. And then he releases that as an 0:34:16.960 --> 0:34:20.400 album in nineteen eighty seven, still acting in eighty six 0:34:20.480 --> 0:34:22.759 and eighty seven, and then he moves back to la 0:34:23.040 --> 0:34:25.880 with Brennan and their kids. And it's really important to 0:34:25.920 --> 0:34:28.640 note at this point that like ninety percent of what 0:34:28.680 --> 0:34:32.239 he does is then credited to Brennan Waits she's like 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:35.200 his producer. She writes lyrics with him. They like source 0:34:35.280 --> 0:34:39.640 material together. And then in nineteen eighty nine, Waits begins 0:34:39.640 --> 0:34:43.120 his collaboration with the aforementioned Robert Wilson, who had done 0:34:43.120 --> 0:34:46.560 Einstein on the Beach with Philip Glass, as I mentioned, 0:34:47.000 --> 0:34:49.759 which the stage direction for that is already like ridiculous. 0:34:50.520 --> 0:34:53.239 Look that up if you haven't. But the other thing 0:34:53.280 --> 0:34:55.239 you need to know about Robin Wilson Robert Wilson is 0:34:55.280 --> 0:34:58.520 that he once directed a ballet for iron lung patients, 0:34:59.000 --> 0:35:01.600 which was the enormous this manual breathing machine that they 0:35:01.680 --> 0:35:05.920 used to insert polio victims into when they couldn't manually 0:35:05.920 --> 0:35:09.040 breathe on their own. And so his way of staging 0:35:09.040 --> 0:35:11.600 a ballet for them was to have them he put 0:35:11.640 --> 0:35:15.040 streamers in their mouths that they would blow and it 0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:19.680 would move, while the janitor in their hospital ward danced 0:35:19.719 --> 0:35:21.920 around dress like Miss America anyway. 0:35:21.960 --> 0:35:26.200 The streamers like the party, like those things that yeah. 0:35:26.000 --> 0:35:31.319 Yeah anyway. So Robert, So these two, this charming pair, 0:35:32.160 --> 0:35:33.600 joined up with William S. 0:35:33.680 --> 0:35:38.239 Burrows of all people before or after he killed someone after. 0:35:38.400 --> 0:35:41.480 In Hamburg or The Black Writer, which is a musical 0:35:41.480 --> 0:35:47.040 in stage production that premieres in nineteen ninety. Meanwhile, Waits 0:35:47.160 --> 0:35:51.480 is in The Two Jakes, the late era Chinatown sequel 0:35:51.560 --> 0:35:56.480 starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, Terry Gilliams, The Fisher King, 0:35:56.880 --> 0:36:01.080 Steve Rash's Queen's Logic, and Hector Ankles at Play in 0:36:01.080 --> 0:36:03.040 the Fields of the Lord. Those last three were all 0:36:03.040 --> 0:36:05.920 in nineteen ninety. And then he wraps up this Hollywood 0:36:06.000 --> 0:36:09.759 run with his role as Renfield in Francis Ford Coppola's 0:36:10.280 --> 0:36:15.760 bram Stoker's Dracula in nineteen ninety two, which is probably 0:36:15.760 --> 0:36:18.000 where he got the most like that sold him as 0:36:18.000 --> 0:36:20.399 like a character actor. He's so great in it. He's 0:36:20.440 --> 0:36:24.319 wearing like steampunk goggles and like long Union jack like 0:36:24.360 --> 0:36:27.360 a union suit like underwear, and eating bugs and he 0:36:27.400 --> 0:36:30.800 has all these like weird steampunk contraptions on his hands. 0:36:30.800 --> 0:36:34.560 It's awesome. And then he also does an instrumental soundtrack 0:36:34.680 --> 0:36:37.799 for a Jim Jarmish fund called Night on Earth. And 0:36:37.840 --> 0:36:39.759 so all of this is to say that when Tom 0:36:39.800 --> 0:36:44.120 Waites began work on Bone Machine, he was you do 0:36:44.200 --> 0:36:51.600 the honors, no you at He was at a crossroads. 0:36:51.920 --> 0:36:55.480 So when he sets out on Bone Machine, one of 0:36:55.480 --> 0:36:59.880 his inspirations is industrial music. Weirdly enough, and here's not 0:37:00.080 --> 0:37:02.560 one though that I think is very funny. He's never 0:37:03.000 --> 0:37:06.640 I don't think, acknowledged the fact that Pixies coined the 0:37:06.640 --> 0:37:10.040 phrase bone machine five years earlier on Surfa Rosa, which 0:37:10.160 --> 0:37:13.600 the opening track of that record is your Bones Got 0:37:13.640 --> 0:37:21.600 a little MESSH got a bone machine? Ah, I got 0:37:21.600 --> 0:37:24.480 a boom she. I mean, I don't know how much 0:37:24.480 --> 0:37:27.040 he would actually heard them. That is the record that 0:37:27.040 --> 0:37:30.359 they blew up on, but the song is I thought 0:37:30.360 --> 0:37:31.080 it was too little. 0:37:31.600 --> 0:37:31.680 No. 0:37:32.320 --> 0:37:35.480 Gigantic was their first big hit, and that's what that's 0:37:35.520 --> 0:37:38.239 what ironically set the stage of that like destroyed the 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:42.239 band because Frank Black was a very unstable uh weenie 0:37:42.680 --> 0:37:46.200 and he was like so horrifically threatened by the fact 0:37:46.239 --> 0:37:49.160 that their big single had been written by Kim Deal 0:37:50.160 --> 0:37:52.560 that it like essentially doomed the band from the start. 0:37:53.320 --> 0:37:55.640 There's there's a point, and I don't remember where I 0:37:55.640 --> 0:37:58.560 saw this, but like they were like backstage at some event. 0:37:58.600 --> 0:38:00.640 They were getting a festival, and they were getting ready 0:38:00.680 --> 0:38:04.839 to go on and perform Gigantic and Iggy Pop comes 0:38:04.880 --> 0:38:06.759 up and he's like, oh, Frank Black you're like you're 0:38:06.800 --> 0:38:09.160 in the Pixies, you know. Oh I love that song. Gigantic, 0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:13.080 great song man and like mag Fike dies just a 0:38:13.120 --> 0:38:16.080 little inside. So anyway, I don't know how much he 0:38:16.120 --> 0:38:17.280 actually knew about them. 0:38:18.120 --> 0:38:21.440 But so it was Sinatra saying that something is a 0:38:21.480 --> 0:38:22.799 spavent line of no Cartney song. 0:38:22.880 --> 0:38:25.680 It's like, yes, yeah, but they got to the phrase 0:38:25.719 --> 0:38:29.919 before him. But anyway, I feel like Tom Waits would 0:38:29.920 --> 0:38:33.200 have arrived at that on the own anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:38:33.239 --> 0:38:35.280 And this is what goes. The title of the record 0:38:35.320 --> 0:38:38.200 is its best evocation of what you would put on 0:38:38.280 --> 0:38:42.759 douchebag hat, referred to as a sort of fin de sicle, melancholy, 0:38:43.320 --> 0:38:48.120 and possibly Waits his own mortality as evidenced by his 0:38:48.120 --> 0:38:52.640 his his burgeoning careers, head of a household, bread winner, 0:38:52.719 --> 0:38:57.720 et cetera, late American male masculinity crisis, and so forth 0:38:57.760 --> 0:39:03.719 epidemic of male loneliness in cell. Al Right, proud boys, 0:39:04.920 --> 0:39:07.879 I'm doing more word jazz here. We're free associating. I'm 0:39:07.960 --> 0:39:10.759 like Jack Herrak in this way. I'm a modern day 0:39:10.800 --> 0:39:13.239 beat poet. If I didn't have this podcast, I don't 0:39:13.280 --> 0:39:15.239 know what I'd be. One of those things I'd just 0:39:15.280 --> 0:39:17.239 be wondering around talking to myself in the streets, which 0:39:17.239 --> 0:39:20.320 I still do actually, So it's why my voice doesn't 0:39:20.320 --> 0:39:25.480 get that sore until we're into three hours of the Titanic. Anyway, 0:39:26.040 --> 0:39:28.600 there's a really hilarious press kit that he put together 0:39:28.600 --> 0:39:31.160 for this album that has like a lot of factual 0:39:31.160 --> 0:39:33.640 information with a lot of like Tom Waite's bullshit, but 0:39:33.719 --> 0:39:36.960 it's like many pages long, and so in the press kit, 0:39:37.000 --> 0:39:40.360 he says most of the principles for most machines developed 0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:42.480 in the machine age, where principles that were found in 0:39:42.520 --> 0:39:45.760 the human body. We're all like bode machines. I guess 0:39:46.160 --> 0:39:49.240 we break down eventually and were replaced by other models, 0:39:49.480 --> 0:39:53.000 newer models, younger models. See all of those things that 0:39:53.040 --> 0:39:56.560 I said before, Is that true? I mean, yeah, yeah, 0:39:56.560 --> 0:39:58.680 I guess you're thinking about. I think about like Vitruvian 0:39:58.719 --> 0:40:01.760 man and all those learn and she like like gears 0:40:01.800 --> 0:40:04.440 and like shoulders and the you know, your a cl 0:40:04.600 --> 0:40:10.239 and your shoulder harness and maybe your hamstrings. I want 0:40:10.239 --> 0:40:14.000 to say, all right, I don't know much about the 0:40:14.080 --> 0:40:17.840 human body. I know where to point to things and 0:40:17.880 --> 0:40:22.200 say that they hurt, points to heart, points to head, 0:40:23.520 --> 0:40:30.759 points to tummy and back anyway. Actually, my back's okay, 0:40:29.960 --> 0:40:36.000 it's okay, you know that's everybody. Everybody listening right now. 0:40:36.080 --> 0:40:39.200 Take a stretch break, everybody right now, everybody right now. 0:40:39.800 --> 0:40:42.279 Yeah, shoulders back and up. You know, I go back 0:40:42.280 --> 0:40:46.120 to Alexander techniques interestingly every now and again, which I 0:40:46.160 --> 0:40:51.560 did not invent, but really good stuff about like like 0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:55.200 you know, like you know, we fetishized like Ramrod straight posture, 0:40:55.239 --> 0:40:57.160 but the actual like your spine is kind of actually 0:40:57.480 --> 0:41:00.719 curved because you know, we're not that are descended from 0:41:00.719 --> 0:41:04.399 apes evolutionarily speaking, and like so when you sit and 0:41:04.560 --> 0:41:07.560 force your back like rigidly straight, it actually pushes you 0:41:07.640 --> 0:41:11.120 off your sit bones because they're curved. So like the 0:41:11.239 --> 0:41:15.120 ideal posture is actually like not Ramrod straight, like shoulders back, 0:41:15.160 --> 0:41:16.879 because that's going to like put all this tension into 0:41:16.880 --> 0:41:19.880 your intercostal muscles between your ribs, but it's actually like 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:23.719 slightly shoulders forward, like a little bit back round it. 0:41:23.840 --> 0:41:26.000 If you look at like the natural curvature of the spine, 0:41:26.000 --> 0:41:28.319 it's it's a little bit rounded. My spine spent from 0:41:28.320 --> 0:41:34.240 carrying your ass up and down the court forty five 0:41:34.400 --> 0:41:35.239 minutes a night. 0:41:35.800 --> 0:41:38.360 I do something called the Alexander Heigel technique, where I 0:41:38.400 --> 0:41:40.840 scream into my pillow for about twenty minutes every morning 0:41:40.880 --> 0:41:42.480 and twenty minutes in the evening. 0:41:43.360 --> 0:41:49.840 Mostly through editing. I find it centers me as you 0:41:49.920 --> 0:41:52.399 meditate on that. We'll be right back with more too 0:41:52.440 --> 0:42:08.080 much information after these messages. Wow, okay, so discounting the 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:11.560 soundtrack to Night on Earth, which is instrumental, and Black Rider, 0:42:11.760 --> 0:42:15.360 which has written before but released after Bone Machine. Bone 0:42:15.360 --> 0:42:18.320 Machine was Wade's first album of original music since nineteen 0:42:18.360 --> 0:42:21.560 eighty seven, five years. At the time, it may have 0:42:21.600 --> 0:42:24.600 also seemed like his last half of the lyrics directly 0:42:24.640 --> 0:42:27.160 referenced the end of the world, and it is also 0:42:27.239 --> 0:42:30.560 concerned with many smaller acts of death and dying, such 0:42:30.600 --> 0:42:36.360 as infidelity, moral compromise, maiming. He told the French magazine 0:42:36.400 --> 0:42:39.320 Telerama in nineteen ninety two. My mom heard the title 0:42:39.400 --> 0:42:42.200 and hated the title. She said it sounds so degrading, 0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:46.160 sounds like something hellish or devilish. She also said there's 0:42:46.160 --> 0:42:50.719 nothing the devil hates more than a singing Christian, which 0:42:50.719 --> 0:42:54.839 is quite funny and maybe true Christian music sucks though 0:42:55.360 --> 0:43:00.680 discuss anyway, Although Funnily enough, the Blind Boys of Alabama 0:43:00.840 --> 0:43:04.759 I covered Jesus going to be Here, which is like, oh, 0:43:04.760 --> 0:43:08.239 that makes sense, and like took it completely straightforwardly, as 0:43:08.280 --> 0:43:13.480 opposed to the sort of hilarious like weights in postmodern 0:43:13.480 --> 0:43:15.240 twists on it. I don't know. I think that's funny. 0:43:16.040 --> 0:43:18.680 It's like when Rod Stewart covered Downtown Train and made 0:43:18.719 --> 0:43:24.400 it super because he doesn't understand. He knows good songs 0:43:24.440 --> 0:43:26.960 but occasionally has trouble understanding that he doesn't have to 0:43:26.960 --> 0:43:30.800 sing them. Ah, I love us. What a clown, God's 0:43:30.840 --> 0:43:36.360 perfect buffoon. Also in that interview, he made this point 0:43:36.719 --> 0:43:39.080 we're all going to the same place. Some of us 0:43:39.120 --> 0:43:40.879 are taking different routes, and some of us are leaving 0:43:40.880 --> 0:43:43.080 earlier and arriving later, but we're all going to the 0:43:43.080 --> 0:43:46.080 same place. Seems like a legitimate topic to uncover once 0:43:46.120 --> 0:43:48.040 you get to a certain point. That don't mean it 0:43:48.080 --> 0:43:50.600 to be morbid. I'm not morbid. I think if you 0:43:50.640 --> 0:43:52.560 talk about it then it disarms, It makes it seem 0:43:52.600 --> 0:43:55.080 a little more easier to handle. Someday we're all going 0:43:55.120 --> 0:43:56.799 to be in a little box. It's going to be 0:43:56.800 --> 0:43:59.040 real dark, and they put the lid on, put you 0:43:59.080 --> 0:44:01.600 six feet down and that's where we'll spend the rest 0:44:01.600 --> 0:44:02.760 of what there is of time. 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:07.400 Is that in the press kit or an interview for 0:44:07.440 --> 0:44:11.440 French magazine? Oh that's for Oh okay, either way, I 0:44:11.440 --> 0:44:13.120 guess that feels appropriately French. 0:44:13.160 --> 0:44:16.560 Though that feels very very soft. So we touched on 0:44:16.560 --> 0:44:17.080 this earlier. 0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:19.800 But as you mentioned, Captain Beefhart is a common comparison 0:44:19.840 --> 0:44:22.840 for Tom Waits's voice, but the relative approaches to making 0:44:22.880 --> 0:44:25.960 records are fascinating to compare as well, because they're very different. 0:44:26.880 --> 0:44:30.680 Captain Beefeart's landmark tout Mask Replica album is a bonker's 0:44:30.800 --> 0:44:37.400 sounding chaotic record that was so so rigorously rehearsed within 0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:40.400 an inch of its life to sound that way, and 0:44:40.480 --> 0:44:43.640 apparently they rehearsed it so so completely and thoroughly that 0:44:43.680 --> 0:44:46.640 it was recorded in just six hours, with all of 0:44:46.640 --> 0:44:50.239 the backing tracks virtually indistinguishable from one another because they 0:44:50.360 --> 0:44:54.120 just had it down. Tom Waits, meanwhile, was still pursuing 0:44:54.120 --> 0:44:57.239 a studio approach like you mentioned Miles Davis or Bryant Eno. 0:44:57.320 --> 0:44:59.200 You had sketches for songs, but. 0:44:59.200 --> 0:45:01.760 Assembled player in the studio and put them into odd 0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:07.320 configurations with deliberately obtuse confusing directions, like any favorites. 0:45:07.520 --> 0:45:10.279 Well, there's play it like a midgets bar mitzvah was 0:45:10.320 --> 0:45:13.000 one that I've seen pretty famously. Play it like your 0:45:13.040 --> 0:45:15.600 hair's on fire is another. Okay, that one. 0:45:15.640 --> 0:45:18.960 I sort of understand that intensity. Play it like a 0:45:19.080 --> 0:45:21.799 midget's bar mitzvah. I'd like you to unpack that, or 0:45:21.840 --> 0:45:25.080 help me unpack that well, like klezmer a little bit, or. 0:45:25.200 --> 0:45:27.239 Like you know, I know. I think it's like I 0:45:27.280 --> 0:45:29.760 would have had if he had said a Jewish midget's wedding. 0:45:30.040 --> 0:45:34.239 I would have leapt handily to the image, would have 0:45:34.239 --> 0:45:37.600 sprung fully formed from my mind, like like Athena from 0:45:37.640 --> 0:45:41.960 a Jewish Zeus's forehead. I would have had that explanation ready. 0:45:42.120 --> 0:45:44.200 But he said bar mitzvah. So I don't know. Maybe 0:45:44.320 --> 0:45:48.319 I don't know. Yeah, maybe Jewish klezmer, but small but 0:45:48.480 --> 0:45:53.279 small men, small klesmer, small diet diet klezmer. Now we're 0:45:53.280 --> 0:45:54.000 getting somewhere. 0:45:54.800 --> 0:45:58.279 Half a boat machine's grim end of day sound is 0:45:58.320 --> 0:46:01.480 effect due to the studio. But when we say studio, 0:46:02.120 --> 0:46:05.120 it's not quite a studio. Tom Waits, by this point 0:46:05.160 --> 0:46:08.360 had moved his family out to Sonoma, County, well outside 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:11.239 of San Francisco, and he'd recorded the soundtrack to Night 0:46:11.320 --> 0:46:15.000 on Earth at Prairie Sun's studios in the small town 0:46:15.040 --> 0:46:17.120 of Ronert Park in. 0:46:19.160 --> 0:46:23.320 Tati Kotati, California. Do you know Katati? I know Ronert 0:46:23.360 --> 0:46:27.080 Park because the that's where AFI is from before they 0:46:28.120 --> 0:46:32.560 I think and punk band of Note. I don't even 0:46:32.560 --> 0:46:34.640 know they're still together order if they're still considered punk, 0:46:34.680 --> 0:46:37.839 but Ceremony the band that blamed themselves after a Joy 0:46:37.840 --> 0:46:41.920 Division song there from Ronert Park. It might be Ronert 0:46:42.360 --> 0:46:48.800 I don't know. People out here talked them spiders. Spiders. 0:46:50.160 --> 0:46:54.360 Prairie Sun Studio co owner Mark Muka Rednick founded the 0:46:54.400 --> 0:46:57.640 studio near Sonoma State University in the late seventies before 0:46:57.640 --> 0:47:01.480 relocating it to a twelve acre chicken ranch in nineteen 0:47:01.520 --> 0:47:01.960 eighty one. 0:47:02.560 --> 0:47:03.080 As you do. 0:47:03.440 --> 0:47:06.640 It's a quote turnkey style studio, which means that no 0:47:06.680 --> 0:47:08.919 one lives on the property, and for a long time 0:47:08.960 --> 0:47:13.040 the only permanent resident was a cat named Bubba. Prairie 0:47:13.080 --> 0:47:16.319 Sun Studios has among its facilities a large live room 0:47:16.360 --> 0:47:19.399 where Weights recorded Night on Earth, but once Waits got 0:47:19.400 --> 0:47:22.040 set up there for Bone Machine, he relocated and said 0:47:22.080 --> 0:47:24.520 that what's been variously referred to as a shed or 0:47:24.600 --> 0:47:28.839 closet adjacent to the studio, now called the weights Room. 0:47:28.920 --> 0:47:31.200 Higel tell us about the weights Room, I believe it 0:47:31.280 --> 0:47:34.040 is technically a storage room. It's been called a shed. 0:47:34.400 --> 0:47:37.399 But without having been there myself and maybe I'll go, 0:47:37.760 --> 0:47:39.919 who's to say, something like an hour and a half drive. 0:47:40.480 --> 0:47:43.680 I was so disturbed the studio we got was totally wrong. 0:47:43.880 --> 0:47:46.840 Waits til journalist Mark Rowland. Fortunately we stumbled upon a 0:47:46.880 --> 0:47:49.680 storage room that sounded so good, plus had already had 0:47:49.719 --> 0:47:52.880 maps on the wall. So I said, that's it. We're sold. 0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:56.239 What of the idea, make of that what you will. 0:47:57.160 --> 0:48:01.280 That's the that's just Tom for you. The weights room, 0:48:01.520 --> 0:48:04.160 which is just it had its wood panel walls and 0:48:04.200 --> 0:48:07.800 a concrete floor, which accounts for its sort of weird 0:48:07.840 --> 0:48:11.520 acoustic properties. But it's become the bone machine like sound 0:48:11.600 --> 0:48:14.759 has become so famous as a shorthand that there is 0:48:14.800 --> 0:48:19.080 a preset after it, modeled after the sound of that 0:48:19.200 --> 0:48:23.439 room on a five thousand dollars digital rack reverb called 0:48:23.480 --> 0:48:27.959 s ERCASTI M seven. So he found a storage room 0:48:28.800 --> 0:48:32.839 in a studio on a chicken ranch, and decades later 0:48:32.920 --> 0:48:36.279 people programmed it into a rack reverb that cousted more 0:48:36.360 --> 0:48:42.480 than any car I've owned. And then he added it 0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:44.920 rained a lot when we were recording, and we worked 0:48:44.920 --> 0:48:48.000 in a shed, just a cement floor and water heater. 0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:50.719 We ran wires down the hill in the rain. It 0:48:50.840 --> 0:48:54.680 wasn't soundproofed. And he adds, I've got great singers Chad 0:48:54.719 --> 0:48:57.480 Blake and Biff DAWs and Joe Marquez, and they can 0:48:57.480 --> 0:48:59.880 get a great sound out of anything. They don't flinch. 0:49:00.320 --> 0:49:01.680 If you say you want to put a mic up 0:49:01.719 --> 0:49:03.560 that bull's ass over there and you want to slap 0:49:03.640 --> 0:49:05.919 him on the stomach, they'd say, well, uh, I guess 0:49:05.920 --> 0:49:09.719 we could use an SM fifty seven, which is actually true. 0:49:09.760 --> 0:49:11.880 You can put those things on anything. Guarantee you for 0:49:11.920 --> 0:49:13.560 all your you know, if anyone out there wants to 0:49:13.560 --> 0:49:15.920 get into a home recording, ninety percent of your favorite 0:49:15.960 --> 0:49:18.319 record was recorded with an s M fifty seven. I 0:49:18.440 --> 0:49:20.480 was working with Tom Waites on his album Bone Machine. 0:49:20.480 --> 0:49:23.840 Producer and engineer Chad Blake told Sound on Sound he 0:49:23.880 --> 0:49:25.560 wanted to go to a flea market one day when 0:49:25.560 --> 0:49:27.879 we were working, and we got there, we said we're 0:49:27.880 --> 0:49:30.040 gonna split up and just go look for something. We 0:49:30.200 --> 0:49:32.160 like to do that. We would go to places and 0:49:32.200 --> 0:49:34.240 find one little thing that you could use on a session. 0:49:34.800 --> 0:49:37.080 I went looking around and ended up with a microphone 0:49:37.080 --> 0:49:41.440 from a submarine and the Sure level lock to a 0:49:41.560 --> 0:49:45.399 volume limitar compressor unit. I paid five dollars for each 0:49:45.440 --> 0:49:47.839 of those things. I just got the level lock because 0:49:47.840 --> 0:49:50.319 I liked the name. I had no idea what it was, 0:49:51.160 --> 0:49:53.760 Blake continued. When I took it back to the studio, 0:49:53.920 --> 0:49:55.840 I plugged it in on the desk and ran something 0:49:55.840 --> 0:49:57.759 through it from an OX and it made one little 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:00.520 cap sound and then nothing, And I said, I think 0:50:00.600 --> 0:50:03.640 I just blew it up. Tom just said I know 0:50:03.680 --> 0:50:06.560 a TV repairman up in Santa Rosa, just up the road. 0:50:07.160 --> 0:50:08.960 I don't remember what he said. I blew, but the 0:50:08.960 --> 0:50:11.200 guy had to replace something and he didn't have the 0:50:11.239 --> 0:50:15.760 right things and he had to improvise. So five dollars 0:50:15.920 --> 0:50:20.759 used Sure compressor limitter fixed by a TV repair guy 0:50:20.800 --> 0:50:23.279 with whatever he had laying around the shop. That's the 0:50:23.320 --> 0:50:26.560 Tom White sound. Baby, take that to the bank. 0:50:27.440 --> 0:50:30.319 Another great Blake Boone machine moment from my dear friend 0:50:30.360 --> 0:50:34.120 Morgan Enos's roundup of Tom Waite's session musician interviews at. 0:50:33.960 --> 0:50:36.640 Title Great piece. That is a great piece. He did 0:50:36.640 --> 0:50:39.279 a lot of really, he talked to most people who 0:50:39.320 --> 0:50:41.680 are living and trackable from the piece. 0:50:41.760 --> 0:50:44.760 Blake was also inspired by a tripy tick into India 0:50:45.120 --> 0:50:47.720 where he fell in love with another very specific sound, 0:50:48.120 --> 0:50:51.560 an entire silver band than a car blaring their music 0:50:51.600 --> 0:50:52.680 through a twelve olt. 0:50:52.480 --> 0:50:54.000 Pa mounted on top. 0:50:54.640 --> 0:50:56.880 He ended up buying one of those systems, bringing it 0:50:56.960 --> 0:50:59.400 home and applying at the bone machine. We have that 0:50:59.480 --> 0:51:02.360 set up out the horn about one hundred feet away, 0:51:02.560 --> 0:51:05.560 then the microphone recording the horn, and then Tom off 0:51:05.560 --> 0:51:08.279 the side of the building with a microphone yelling into 0:51:08.320 --> 0:51:09.080 the outdoors. 0:51:09.640 --> 0:51:11.640 This is a stupid question. What is a silver band? 0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:14.480 I don't know. Actually I looked that up and I 0:51:14.640 --> 0:51:18.279 and I couldn't find any like pinned down references. I 0:51:18.320 --> 0:51:21.359 assume it's a horn band of some kind. But yeah, 0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:24.080 a lot of this album was recorded outdoors, like just 0:51:24.120 --> 0:51:26.400 in and around the ranch. He was using a lot 0:51:26.440 --> 0:51:28.960 of feud recordings that he made of like cars going 0:51:29.000 --> 0:51:32.280 by and stuff. But they would just like the guitarist 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:35.560 on it, smoky horn. All all of these guys have 0:51:35.719 --> 0:51:40.080 names like Raymond Chandlers. It's kind of hilarious. I'm trying 0:51:40.080 --> 0:51:41.640 to figure out who said this. One of the guitarists 0:51:41.680 --> 0:51:43.560 on there was talking about like they weren't getting the 0:51:43.600 --> 0:51:45.799 sound that they wanted in the shed, so they just 0:51:45.840 --> 0:51:47.880 opened the doors. And he was like, yeah, and I 0:51:47.880 --> 0:51:50.760 would just be playing guitar into like a ten thousand 0:51:50.840 --> 0:51:53.399 dollars noyman mike and there would just be a dog 0:51:53.480 --> 0:51:56.200 walking by then. 0:51:56.320 --> 0:51:58.279 Is that Bob Dylan recorded some of Blood on the 0:51:58.360 --> 0:52:01.320 tracks like Tangle Up Blue and was in the outside. 0:52:01.360 --> 0:52:04.400 I don't know. I'm not sure about that, matter of fact. 0:52:05.040 --> 0:52:07.440 I know, like I mean, basement tapes is obviously like 0:52:08.160 --> 0:52:11.160 much of it was done in a basement, even though 0:52:11.680 --> 0:52:14.200 a lot of it was over dubbed in a big, 0:52:14.239 --> 0:52:21.040 fancy Columbia studio. Anyway, what scronk Heigel assertive dissonance As 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:25.319 one of my favorite YouTube guitarists, Eric Hougan put it, 0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:27.680 skronk is when you sound like you don't know what 0:52:27.719 --> 0:52:32.799 you're playing, but you mean it. That's beautiful. Wow. I 0:52:32.960 --> 0:52:36.359 like that. Anyway. Waite and Brennan assembled Bone Machine from 0:52:36.360 --> 0:52:40.799 about sixty sketches for songs, a process he likened to cannibalism. 0:52:41.600 --> 0:52:45.799 That's part of the's that's part of the process. Frankenstein 0:52:45.840 --> 0:52:48.160 that number over there, take the head off him and 0:52:48.200 --> 0:52:50.839 sew it on to this guy, immediately keep him alive 0:52:50.920 --> 0:52:54.799 until the head has been severed. Kathleen is great to 0:52:54.800 --> 0:52:58.000 work with, he said. She's elapsed Catholic from Illinois. She's 0:52:58.040 --> 0:53:00.680 loaded with mythology and has a great sense of melody. 0:53:01.000 --> 0:53:04.279 I spin the chamber and she fires it. It's Russian roulette. 0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:07.560 Sometimes you get great things. Much of the album's roulette 0:53:07.600 --> 0:53:09.200 like nature came down to the fact that Waits was 0:53:09.239 --> 0:53:13.000 occupied more on this record than anyone previous with percussion sounds. 0:53:13.040 --> 0:53:16.239 He plays percussion of different kinds on nearly every track, 0:53:16.280 --> 0:53:18.600 which I think is an outgrowth of his sort of 0:53:18.600 --> 0:53:21.360 interest in of all things hip hop. He's actually mentioned 0:53:21.360 --> 0:53:23.759 how like, in interviews around this time he was like 0:53:23.960 --> 0:53:25.719 much of what he was listening to was hip hop 0:53:25.880 --> 0:53:32.239 because his son, Casey I think, was born around rain 0:53:32.360 --> 0:53:34.840 dogs and I think was like growing up listening to 0:53:34.920 --> 0:53:37.560 hip hop. So he talks a lot about getting like 0:53:38.239 --> 0:53:41.080 the sounds of that percussion and stuff. He's like in 0:53:41.120 --> 0:53:43.239 many interviews have been like, oh no, I like hip hop, Like, 0:53:43.280 --> 0:53:45.680 I think it's like the most interesting form of pop music. 0:53:45.719 --> 0:53:50.239 Happening right now anyway. For the cheery opener, the Earth 0:53:50.280 --> 0:53:53.720 Died Screaming, Waits grabbed the title from a nineteen sixty 0:53:53.719 --> 0:53:56.320 four British sci fi movie that he'd never actually seen, 0:53:57.000 --> 0:53:59.560 and then set about recreating a field recording that Jim 0:53:59.640 --> 0:54:02.360 Jarvion had sent him of a tribe of pigmies playing 0:54:02.480 --> 0:54:06.440 stick percussion. Now here's the depths I go through for 0:54:06.480 --> 0:54:11.520 you people. The pigmy thing is a noted Weights quote, 0:54:11.680 --> 0:54:14.080 right Like, He's talked about this with Jarmish. He's talked 0:54:14.080 --> 0:54:17.600 about saying like playing pygmy percussion like a tribe of pygmies, 0:54:17.600 --> 0:54:20.400 blah blah blah. He says he got it from Jarmish 0:54:20.440 --> 0:54:23.520 because there's an interview I think in Q magazine or 0:54:23.560 --> 0:54:28.800 something where they're interviewing each other and he says to Jarmish, 0:54:28.880 --> 0:54:31.319 like that recording of pigmies that you sent me like 0:54:31.400 --> 0:54:34.000 really flipped me out. I wanted to get that sound 0:54:34.800 --> 0:54:39.239 on bone machine. So in researching this episode, I said 0:54:39.280 --> 0:54:43.920 about finding what recording that may have actually been the 0:54:43.960 --> 0:54:46.000 closest I was able to get to it was a 0:54:46.080 --> 0:54:50.080 Jim Jarmish interview at the Creative Independent where he recommended 0:54:50.280 --> 0:54:53.560 the nineteen ninety three book Song from the Forest, My 0:54:53.640 --> 0:54:57.400 Life among the bob Benjelly Pigmies by Louis Sarno, And 0:54:57.440 --> 0:55:00.520 this book is about how Sarno went to Central Africa 0:55:00.600 --> 0:55:03.920 to research the music of these pigmy tribes and he 0:55:04.120 --> 0:55:07.239 wound up marrying one of them and like staying there 0:55:07.280 --> 0:55:10.040 the rest of his life. But because that came out 0:55:10.080 --> 0:55:12.960 in nineteen ninety three, I don't know that that if 0:55:12.960 --> 0:55:15.600 there was a CD that accompanied that recording, or Jarmish 0:55:15.640 --> 0:55:18.279 had an advanced pressing, because the other thing that you 0:55:18.360 --> 0:55:21.759 get when you look for, you know, Pigmy stick recordings, 0:55:21.800 --> 0:55:26.000 is this nineteen ninety two recording that is linked which 0:55:26.040 --> 0:55:28.319 you should punch in, that came out ninety two from 0:55:28.360 --> 0:55:44.520 Smithsonian Folk Ways. So well, I can't say for certain 0:55:44.840 --> 0:55:48.800 what the actual recording that Jim Jarmus sent Tom Waits 0:55:48.840 --> 0:55:52.160 that inspired the percussion sounds on Earth Died Screaming. I 0:55:52.239 --> 0:55:54.400 can say for certain that there was at least a 0:55:54.640 --> 0:55:57.439 year or two long period in the nineties during which 0:55:57.480 --> 0:55:59.600 Jim Jarmish was really into Pigby music. 0:56:00.200 --> 0:56:01.800 When you think about it, wasn't there a time in 0:56:01.840 --> 0:56:03.799 the nineties when all of us were really into big 0:56:03.840 --> 0:56:04.320 thing music. 0:56:04.440 --> 0:56:07.160 I remember being a big influence on in Utero. So anyway, 0:56:07.200 --> 0:56:07.960 Wade's told so. 0:56:08.840 --> 0:56:11.439 Quick, sir, can you tell us a little more about 0:56:11.440 --> 0:56:12.560 how they're making that sound? 0:56:13.600 --> 0:56:17.439 It sounds either yeah, well, so like marimba's are are 0:56:18.719 --> 0:56:22.600 xylophones made of wood, right, and they're they're also basically 0:56:23.080 --> 0:56:25.279 because they came first, they're one of the more like 0:56:25.800 --> 0:56:29.879 ancient forms of musical instruments that we have. And there's 0:56:29.920 --> 0:56:33.960 a great documentary called Throw Down Your Heart with Baila 0:56:34.040 --> 0:56:36.920 Fleck of All People, which is like because he's a 0:56:36.920 --> 0:56:40.640 banjo verrsuo, so he goes on this like musicological tour 0:56:40.719 --> 0:56:43.960 of Africa because that's where the banjo comes from. That's 0:56:43.960 --> 0:56:45.600 his whole thing. He's like, I'm just gonna go to 0:56:45.640 --> 0:56:48.719 all these different countries in Africa that has like musical 0:56:48.760 --> 0:56:50.880 traditions related to the banjo, and I'm gonna just go 0:56:51.040 --> 0:56:54.200 jam there with them. And it's really incredible. And there's 0:56:54.400 --> 0:56:56.600 one where he goes to a village where they build 0:56:56.680 --> 0:57:00.560 a marimba that is like thirty feet long by just 0:57:00.719 --> 0:57:03.840 digging a giant trench and shoving a bunch of logs 0:57:03.880 --> 0:57:07.239 into it that create pitches based on how long and 0:57:07.280 --> 0:57:10.240 wide the logs are relative to the depth of the hole. 0:57:10.480 --> 0:57:13.279 And then like ten or fifteen kids all just get 0:57:13.320 --> 0:57:15.560 together and start hitting the different pieces with wood or 0:57:15.640 --> 0:57:17.520 rocks or whatever. And so that's how you get this 0:57:17.800 --> 0:57:22.320 kind of tonal, polyrhythmic thing out of this massive sound. 0:57:22.360 --> 0:57:25.280 Because it's like ten people playing a thirty foot long 0:57:25.280 --> 0:57:27.680 instrument dug into the ground. So I have to assume 0:57:27.720 --> 0:57:32.000 it's like wood on wood of some kind. Wow. And 0:57:32.080 --> 0:57:34.640 so when Wade's and Jarmish you're talking to each other 0:57:35.040 --> 0:57:38.520 in this interview for a straight no chaser, he tells 0:57:38.640 --> 0:57:40.480 Jarmish we struggled for a couple of days with getting 0:57:40.480 --> 0:57:42.640 the sound of a stick orchestra inside the studio for 0:57:42.720 --> 0:57:45.880 Earth Dyed Screaming. We tried every configuration and position of 0:57:45.880 --> 0:57:48.000 the microphone, and finally I said, well, why don't we 0:57:48.040 --> 0:57:50.439 go outside? Isn't that where all these recordings are made? 0:57:51.120 --> 0:57:53.120 And five minutes later we had a mic set up, 0:57:53.120 --> 0:57:55.640 we were hitting it. It was there, just two by fours, 0:57:55.760 --> 0:57:59.000 anything we could find, logged from the firewood, about nine people, 0:57:59.240 --> 0:58:01.800 just different people fucking by. We'd say, come on, play 0:58:01.800 --> 0:58:05.640 some sticks, and then hilariously you b four D has 0:58:05.680 --> 0:58:09.200 a song called Earth Dives Screaming, based after the same movie, 0:58:09.240 --> 0:58:13.480 and it sucks. It really sucks. Ah, So I hate 0:58:13.640 --> 0:58:16.320 on a scale I won the Red Red one. How's 0:58:16.320 --> 0:58:19.840 it right, Probably worse because it's it's like this incredbling 0:58:19.960 --> 0:58:46.720 metal title and it's like dreams. This is the worst 0:58:46.760 --> 0:58:48.600 I've ever heard in my life, Like this whole like 0:58:48.720 --> 0:58:51.440 British when they like, I know the British are really 0:58:51.440 --> 0:58:54.080 into reggae, right, but like once it got out of 0:58:54.080 --> 0:58:58.160 the clashes hands and into the hands of the softest hands, imaginable, 0:58:59.240 --> 0:59:02.600 My god, I don't want to all the Specials. What 0:59:02.600 --> 0:59:05.240 about the Specials? Specials were biracial. I mean they were, 0:59:05.280 --> 0:59:06.760 and it was and it was like more on the 0:59:06.800 --> 0:59:09.120 ground floor of SKA. They were closer. They were like 0:59:09.160 --> 0:59:12.760 ten years from actual sky, whereas like UB forty is 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:16.160 like eighties. So it's like it's like synth ska. You know, 0:59:16.200 --> 0:59:19.680 there's synth tones on there, and I hate that the 0:59:19.720 --> 0:59:22.600 guitar sounds that bad on that though. You shut up, 0:59:22.640 --> 0:59:26.320 you shut your mouth, ah, what do you know? Suddenly 0:59:26.440 --> 0:59:33.560 enraged much of the percussion that time. One of my 0:59:33.600 --> 0:59:36.560 all time favorite Steve Bailey moments of stage bands or 0:59:36.640 --> 0:59:38.400 was there were there and he was like, this next 0:59:38.440 --> 0:59:40.320 one's a slow song, and I went, oh, I know 0:59:40.400 --> 0:59:43.480 this one, and and suddenly he goes. 0:59:43.400 --> 0:59:43.720 Do you. 0:59:47.240 --> 0:59:49.960 Oh? I love that guy. Much of the percussion that 0:59:49.960 --> 0:59:51.880 Waits used. Much of the percussion that Waits used on 0:59:51.920 --> 0:59:55.600 this album's inspired by Harry Partch was tremendously fascinating figure 0:59:55.640 --> 0:59:58.840 in twentieth century music. He's one of these classic outsider artists. 0:59:59.320 --> 1:00:01.360 There is a actually you know now that I mentioned 1:00:01.440 --> 1:00:03.360 I'm not sure if he's in songs in the kiev Z, 1:00:03.520 --> 1:00:06.480 which is sort of the like outsider music tome that 1:00:06.600 --> 1:00:10.040 like Wesley Willis and Dennis Johnson are into. Like pre Internet, 1:00:10.080 --> 1:00:12.360 that was like where you'd find out about the bulk 1:00:12.360 --> 1:00:15.000 of these guys. Didn't We talk about Harry Partch on 1:00:15.080 --> 1:00:18.200 the Planet of the eight Side, So probably we've talked 1:00:18.200 --> 1:00:20.240 about it somewhere and I'm gonna do it again. Harry 1:00:20.240 --> 1:00:23.080 Partch was born in Oakland in nineteen oh one. His 1:00:23.200 --> 1:00:26.120 parents were Christian missionaries in China who fled during the 1:00:26.120 --> 1:00:28.560 Box of Rebellion, and then once they came over to 1:00:28.560 --> 1:00:31.400 the state, they moved around quite a bit from Arizona 1:00:31.560 --> 1:00:35.040 to Albertquerque to La and so Harry Partch grew up 1:00:35.080 --> 1:00:38.440 hearing everything from Chinese lullabies that his mother would sing 1:00:38.480 --> 1:00:41.800 to him and Mandarin to the Yaqui Indian tribes in 1:00:41.840 --> 1:00:45.080 the Southwest, and he began studying piano and playing a 1:00:45.120 --> 1:00:48.000 bunch of different instruments when he was a teenager, but 1:00:48.200 --> 1:00:49.960 he was an orphan by the time he was nineteen. 1:00:50.080 --> 1:00:53.080 His father died of I want to say, tuberculosis, and 1:00:53.120 --> 1:00:56.000 then his mom died in a car accident. And he 1:00:56.160 --> 1:00:58.280 spent like two years in college in LA and then 1:00:58.320 --> 1:01:01.360 moved to San Francisco. And San Francisco at this time 1:01:01.400 --> 1:01:06.880 had this interesting influx of white guys being enamored of 1:01:07.240 --> 1:01:11.640 non Western music, which was because of San Francisco's Chinatown, 1:01:11.640 --> 1:01:14.800 which had been rebuilt after the Great Fire, and in 1:01:15.120 --> 1:01:17.440 the wake of that is when you get sort of 1:01:17.480 --> 1:01:20.760 the I hate to say this, but like disneyfied version 1:01:20.800 --> 1:01:25.560 of Chinatown. Like pre the Fire, San Francisco's Chinatown was 1:01:25.680 --> 1:01:29.160 terrifying because the Triads owned it and it was like 1:01:29.200 --> 1:01:32.120 where they did all their opium trafficking and sex trafficking 1:01:32.200 --> 1:01:37.040 and other trafficking, food trafficking. The least love member of 1:01:37.120 --> 1:01:41.880 the Trafficking Apocalypse. Anyway, listen to Steve Winwood's band Traffic, 1:01:44.040 --> 1:01:51.240 the most loved of the four traffics of the Apocalypse, sex, drug, food, 1:01:51.520 --> 1:01:56.120 and traffic trafficking. Mister fantasy, Yeah, that's if you're a 1:01:56.120 --> 1:01:59.200 real I'm a traffic trafficker. I got a real extensive 1:01:59.200 --> 1:02:06.200 collection of board feeds from the nineteen sixties. That's a 1:02:06.400 --> 1:02:12.840 really absurd like mister show said, the traffic Traffickers. They 1:02:12.960 --> 1:02:15.200 pan over and there's Steve Winwood playing a B three 1:02:15.240 --> 1:02:19.120 and like a dog crate. Mao? Did he mao? Anyway? 1:02:19.360 --> 1:02:23.240 So yeah they So the rebuilt San Francisco Chinatown had 1:02:23.280 --> 1:02:26.160 all of these nightclubs where people would play, and tea 1:02:26.200 --> 1:02:30.480 houses where people would play traditional Chinese music, and including 1:02:30.520 --> 1:02:33.040 the guy who was heading my employer, the San Francisco 1:02:33.040 --> 1:02:36.480 Conservatory Music. Oh, he would go see Chinese music there 1:02:36.520 --> 1:02:39.760 like five nights a week, and so would these guys 1:02:39.840 --> 1:02:44.240 named Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, both of whom are 1:02:45.560 --> 1:02:50.120 considered foundational figures and avant garde sort of experimental twentieth 1:02:50.160 --> 1:02:53.000 century new music as opposed to like your romantic and 1:02:53.280 --> 1:02:56.560 maller and all that stuff, and what they were really 1:02:56.600 --> 1:02:59.920 interested was getting away from Western tonalities, and Lou Harrison 1:03:00.040 --> 1:03:03.760 particular was really inspired by Gamalan music from Indonesia in 1:03:03.800 --> 1:03:07.960 the way that that's like has all of these non 1:03:08.200 --> 1:03:10.560 it's anything that isn't in like the twelve tone Western 1:03:10.600 --> 1:03:12.560 scale and has all of these quarter tones and the 1:03:12.760 --> 1:03:16.440 little different half tones. And you get that in Chinese 1:03:16.440 --> 1:03:18.720 melodies because they have a lot of non fixed pitch 1:03:18.760 --> 1:03:22.000 instruments like the auru and I think it's called the 1:03:22.080 --> 1:03:24.600 just the chin, the big slide. I think that looks 1:03:24.640 --> 1:03:26.560 like a big lap steel guitar, but it's like twelve 1:03:26.560 --> 1:03:28.520 feet long and made out of wood. So they use 1:03:28.560 --> 1:03:31.320 a lot of microtones. And so there's this weird confluence 1:03:31.360 --> 1:03:33.680 in the in San Francisco in particular of these three 1:03:33.720 --> 1:03:36.640 guys and many others Lou Harrison, like I said, Lou 1:03:36.720 --> 1:03:39.720 Harrison and Harry Cowell Ernest Block from the Conservatory at 1:03:39.720 --> 1:03:42.640 Harry Parch and they are all like totally transfixed by 1:03:42.640 --> 1:03:47.360 these sounds. And Parch becomes obsessed with the idea of 1:03:47.520 --> 1:03:50.440 just intonation, which I've talked about previously on this podcast 1:03:50.480 --> 1:03:54.720 and I will do again. Just intonation is a method 1:03:54.800 --> 1:03:59.160 of tuning that goes back to the early pre Pythagorean 1:04:00.240 --> 1:04:06.440 forms of musical tuning. The Pythagorean tuning is when it's 1:04:06.480 --> 1:04:11.400 based on the ratios of intervals to one another, right, 1:04:11.840 --> 1:04:14.680 and so in the Western temperate scale you get uneven 1:04:15.240 --> 1:04:20.760 ratios because you're cramming twelve semi tones into an octave, 1:04:21.840 --> 1:04:23.840 so the ratios are like three to two. They'll be 1:04:23.920 --> 1:04:26.160 uneven in different places. But if you actually drill down 1:04:26.240 --> 1:04:30.600 into the way that the overtones of any fundamental pitch work, 1:04:31.240 --> 1:04:35.000 they stack up in fits and they create more perfect 1:04:35.800 --> 1:04:39.720 sensical ratios to each other one to one. That's the 1:04:39.720 --> 1:04:44.440 shorthand version of just intonation. And so for Parch he 1:04:45.120 --> 1:04:48.920 basically decided to burn everything that he'd written in Western 1:04:48.960 --> 1:04:52.440 intonation in an actual stove in New Orleans in nineteen 1:04:52.480 --> 1:04:55.160 thirty and was like, I'm only doing my stuff now. 1:04:55.760 --> 1:04:57.480 And the first thing that he did was he went 1:04:57.520 --> 1:05:01.440 to a New Orleans luthier and he brought him a 1:05:01.560 --> 1:05:03.880 cello neck and a viola body, and he was like, 1:05:03.920 --> 1:05:07.520 put these together for me, and the guy did, and 1:05:08.040 --> 1:05:10.800 that turned it into an instrument that had twenty nine 1:05:10.920 --> 1:05:15.400 tones per octave. Wo and Western music is all twelve tones. Proactive, 1:05:15.480 --> 1:05:20.240 but like Indian music, Chinese music, Gamalo music, all the 1:05:20.280 --> 1:05:23.640 other musics of the non West have microtones in them 1:05:23.680 --> 1:05:25.200 where it'll be like a quarter of a tone, or 1:05:25.200 --> 1:05:27.120 a third of a tone, or three quarters of a tone. 1:05:28.200 --> 1:05:30.920 That stuff sounds really really alien to people. I've talked 1:05:30.960 --> 1:05:34.160 with a lot of composers of Iranian or Persian or 1:05:34.200 --> 1:05:36.640 otherwise Middle Eastern descent who talk about how difficult it 1:05:36.640 --> 1:05:39.720 can be to notate those pitches. For Western musicians who 1:05:39.760 --> 1:05:42.160 haven't grown up with them, it must be impossible. I mean, 1:05:42.200 --> 1:05:44.560 it must be like they have to sit down and 1:05:44.600 --> 1:05:48.360 sing them, and they can really and and the best 1:05:48.600 --> 1:05:51.720 people doing it are people and non obviously non fixed 1:05:51.760 --> 1:05:54.480 pix instruments. So like this, when composer came back and 1:05:54.520 --> 1:05:57.040 had premiere at the Conservatory and it was it was 1:05:57.040 --> 1:05:59.040 like a string quartet, but he was making them all 1:05:59.080 --> 1:06:02.480 sit and play like quarter tones and stuff that came 1:06:02.520 --> 1:06:08.880 out of his background and what was before it became 1:06:08.920 --> 1:06:12.000 iron Persia. And he was like, yeah, I'd have to 1:06:12.000 --> 1:06:13.800 sit down and sing this stuff to them because I 1:06:13.800 --> 1:06:17.240 would put like three quarters of a pitch, and in 1:06:17.280 --> 1:06:20.280 some places they have to invent new notation for it. Anyway, 1:06:21.040 --> 1:06:23.720 Parch got some money to go study in England, but 1:06:23.760 --> 1:06:26.080 then he returned to the States in nineteen thirty five 1:06:26.080 --> 1:06:27.640 at the height of the Great Depression, and for the 1:06:27.680 --> 1:06:31.200 next nine years he was basically a hobo. He would 1:06:31.240 --> 1:06:34.200 like travel around with his collection of scores and like 1:06:34.360 --> 1:06:36.920 plans for these different instruments and all the music that 1:06:36.920 --> 1:06:39.240 could be made on them that he was writing. But 1:06:39.520 --> 1:06:42.120 he would basically just stop anywhere that he could have 1:06:42.200 --> 1:06:44.600 space to set up and create new instruments and compose 1:06:45.480 --> 1:06:48.640 and then move on. For example, his instrument called the 1:06:48.720 --> 1:06:54.240 Chromelodeon was a forty three tone read organ that sounds, 1:06:54.320 --> 1:06:57.040 if you'll click on this link, exactly like a Tom 1:06:57.080 --> 1:07:01.960 Waits record. Ah. But he would set up in places 1:07:02.000 --> 1:07:06.280 as various as like a forge on a ranch in Wisconsin, 1:07:06.880 --> 1:07:11.680 a chicken farm, and Petaluma, an abandoned shipyard in Sasolito, 1:07:11.840 --> 1:07:14.160 and he would just keep building these instruments when he 1:07:14.160 --> 1:07:16.960 had the resources to it, and writing this music, and 1:07:17.720 --> 1:07:20.919 finally some of it got released in like I think 1:07:20.920 --> 1:07:23.000 The World of Harry Parks was the first record that 1:07:23.040 --> 1:07:26.640 this stuff was recorded on and thus inspired the creation 1:07:26.680 --> 1:07:29.520 of this Harry Parks Ensemble, which is still out there 1:07:29.600 --> 1:07:32.400 performing his music and maintaining these instruments, of which there 1:07:32.400 --> 1:07:36.360 are only like one version of many of them. And 1:07:36.960 --> 1:07:39.840 I think Waits heard the sound of Harry parts from 1:07:39.880 --> 1:07:44.000 Kathleen Brennan and was obsessed with all of these different 1:07:44.080 --> 1:07:46.600 percussion instruments and just the idea of like making your 1:07:46.640 --> 1:07:50.200 own crap. And so he had met a guy named 1:07:50.200 --> 1:07:55.320 Francis Thom who owns the Chrome melodeon. Did you play 1:07:55.360 --> 1:08:04.920 that thing? You got to punch in a clip of it. 1:08:04.920 --> 1:08:06.920 It's funny because there's a little kid I had. I 1:08:06.920 --> 1:08:09.360 think it was called a melodica. Oh yeah, And it 1:08:09.440 --> 1:08:10.080 sounds just. 1:08:11.720 --> 1:08:14.160 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And it's sort of like 1:08:14.240 --> 1:08:16.559 you can get microtnes out of read instruments, like you 1:08:16.600 --> 1:08:19.000 get blues heart players who bend notes and stuff. But 1:08:19.080 --> 1:08:23.080 like this is actually split into forty three tones. 1:08:25.320 --> 1:08:27.320 Actually it doesn't sound as alien as I would have 1:08:27.320 --> 1:08:28.600 expected given. 1:08:29.080 --> 1:08:32.559 How many tones. What's interesting about it is that like 1:08:33.320 --> 1:08:36.719 you hear out of tune stuff or out of Western 1:08:36.720 --> 1:08:39.240 tune stuff, Like if you play an old piano, there 1:08:39.280 --> 1:08:41.679 are gonna be parts of it that are intonated, closer 1:08:41.680 --> 1:08:45.240 to just intonation than Western temperament. Right, So it just 1:08:45.280 --> 1:08:48.360 sounds like a saggy old or like or like bad 1:08:48.479 --> 1:08:51.120 reads in a reed instrument, Like it just sounds like 1:08:51.160 --> 1:08:53.920 a baggy old, saggy organ because it sounds like it's 1:08:53.920 --> 1:08:57.400 falling out of pitch. But it was actually elaborately designed 1:08:57.400 --> 1:09:02.280 from the jump to not play in the pitches anyway. 1:09:02.479 --> 1:09:05.799 Good luck Editing that waits. His contribution to the spiritual 1:09:05.800 --> 1:09:09.040 canon of parch instrumentation is something he calls the Conundrum. 1:09:10.040 --> 1:09:12.519 Get it. This is like the word conundrum, but it's 1:09:12.520 --> 1:09:16.080 also a percussion instrument. That's good. That's good. You get it, 1:09:17.120 --> 1:09:20.960 You get it. I googled this earlier. 1:09:21.040 --> 1:09:21.559 This is cool. 1:09:21.680 --> 1:09:26.280 Oh okay, yeah, various quotes about it follow. It looks 1:09:26.280 --> 1:09:28.200 like a big iron crucifix, and there are a lot 1:09:28.240 --> 1:09:30.960 of different things that we hang off of it, crowbars, 1:09:31.160 --> 1:09:34.519 tijuana sabers, and found metal objects. I like the sound 1:09:34.560 --> 1:09:39.280 of I like to play drums when I'm angry at home. 1:09:39.320 --> 1:09:41.240 I have a metal instrument called a conundrum, A lot 1:09:41.280 --> 1:09:44.080 of things hanging off of it, metal objects. I like 1:09:44.120 --> 1:09:46.680 playing it with a hammer. It's just a metal configuration, 1:09:46.920 --> 1:09:49.080 like a metal cross. It looks a little bit like 1:09:49.120 --> 1:09:52.800 a Chinese torture device. It gives you access to these 1:09:52.840 --> 1:09:55.960 alternative sound sources. Hit him with a hammer sounds like 1:09:56.000 --> 1:10:00.120 a jail door closing behind you. I like it it 1:10:00.960 --> 1:10:02.800 you end up with bloody knuckles when you play it. 1:10:03.840 --> 1:10:06.800 So many thoughts in that. Yeah. Oh, he's such a 1:10:06.880 --> 1:10:10.479 champion interviewer, man, I wish you would do more. Bone 1:10:10.520 --> 1:10:14.599 Machine is packed with the usual rotating cast of uh 1:10:14.880 --> 1:10:18.080 Waits collaborators, but with a couple of far Field picks. 1:10:18.640 --> 1:10:22.559 Yes, there's Primus drummer Brian and Tia credited as Brain 1:10:23.400 --> 1:10:26.559 because Primus sucks, which is their official logo and my 1:10:26.640 --> 1:10:30.640 statement on them, as well as the band's singer and 1:10:30.640 --> 1:10:33.120 bassist Les Claypole. They show up as a favor for 1:10:33.160 --> 1:10:36.840 Waits guest vocal on Tommy the Cat in nineteen ninety one. 1:10:37.120 --> 1:10:39.080 I've never heard that song, So maybe do you want 1:10:39.120 --> 1:10:40.720 to let down with me? So maybe do you want 1:10:40.720 --> 1:10:41.720 to let down? By my side? 1:10:41.800 --> 1:10:42.160 A baby? 1:10:42.200 --> 1:10:44.719 Do you want to let down with me? It's great 1:10:45.080 --> 1:10:47.160 he talks about like sending them well, I mean he 1:10:48.240 --> 1:10:49.000 read this next. 1:10:48.800 --> 1:10:51.000 Part much like Tom Waits and Keith Richards. 1:10:51.040 --> 1:10:52.759 It was kind of a record label hookup. 1:10:52.920 --> 1:10:56.240 Les Claypole mentioned Tom as a possible voice for the song, 1:10:56.320 --> 1:10:59.800 and his label was like, well call him. Primus came 1:10:59.880 --> 1:11:02.280 up from the studio and found a voicemail from Weights 1:11:02.360 --> 1:11:05.439 on his answering machine saying he do the part and 1:11:05.479 --> 1:11:09.160 this is cute. Let's Claypool still has the answering machine tape. 1:11:09.240 --> 1:11:11.160 He's like, he like does a little imitation. You can 1:11:11.160 --> 1:11:13.080 punch it, and he's like, and I get this, you know, 1:11:13.240 --> 1:11:15.640 and I get this. Uh try to how to go 1:11:15.680 --> 1:11:20.160 from a less Claypool voice. So I punched play on 1:11:20.200 --> 1:11:23.000 my voicemail machine. I hear Tom going, well, it's great 1:11:23.040 --> 1:11:24.720 to have got your demo tape from the boys to 1:11:24.720 --> 1:11:26.680 the label, and I think it's really great when your 1:11:26.760 --> 1:11:28.639 kids are up to him glad you're you know, hip 1:11:28.720 --> 1:11:29.639 to the scene and this. 1:11:31.240 --> 1:11:33.280 It's kind of like a it's kind of like a 1:11:33.280 --> 1:11:36.000 California Bruce Springsteen when I hear you do. 1:11:35.960 --> 1:11:38.320 It at least yeah, I mean it's a little of that, 1:11:38.479 --> 1:11:40.920 like you know that David Cross skit where he's like 1:11:41.080 --> 1:11:45.439 uh uh heo, man, I'm from Butte, Montana. Yeah, man, 1:11:45.439 --> 1:11:50.120 I'm from Pomona, Pomona, California. Oh man, I'm from Texar, Canada, Texas. 1:11:50.200 --> 1:11:53.080 It's just like the American hick voice. Yeah, that spans 1:11:53.439 --> 1:11:56.439 the entirety of the country. Yeah, there's a good bit 1:11:56.479 --> 1:11:58.000 of that. Also on the Machine. 1:11:58.000 --> 1:12:01.000 There's Los Lobos founding member David Hill Dago, who plays 1:12:01.040 --> 1:12:04.559 accordion and violin. He also shows up on grace Land. 1:12:04.560 --> 1:12:06.160 We talked about in a Graceland. 1:12:05.720 --> 1:12:09.200 Episode yep, possibly having songs stolen. Yep. There's Sacks and 1:12:09.240 --> 1:12:14.360 Reid specialist Ralph Carney, who's best known to me as 1:12:14.400 --> 1:12:17.400 being the uncle of the drummer for The Black Keys, 1:12:17.400 --> 1:12:20.599 Patrick Karney, who sucks. He's like if all the jokes 1:12:20.600 --> 1:12:25.519 about Ringo were true, he's like the worst drummer to 1:12:25.600 --> 1:12:28.479 ever achieve. Oh my god, he's awful. Listen to those 1:12:28.520 --> 1:12:31.800 early Black Keys records. He's barely playing in time. I 1:12:31.840 --> 1:12:35.280 saw them at some music festival and like they do 1:12:35.360 --> 1:12:38.120 have kind of a weird lock up, Like what's his name, 1:12:38.200 --> 1:12:40.840 the lead singer, Dan Auerbach, like he had one. They 1:12:40.880 --> 1:12:43.559 had like a full band, like a big band, like 1:12:43.840 --> 1:12:46.400 keys and bass and everything. At one point he sent 1:12:46.439 --> 1:12:48.400 all of them away and he's like, all right, me 1:12:48.400 --> 1:12:50.040 and Patrick are gonna do some of the old ones. 1:12:50.080 --> 1:12:52.280 And they like they do have a weirdly tell an 1:12:52.479 --> 1:12:55.200 lock up from just playing only together for so long, 1:12:55.240 --> 1:13:00.080 but he is a dog drummer. It's just really astounding. 1:13:00.120 --> 1:13:01.960 Only like seeing them when it's just the two of them, 1:13:02.160 --> 1:13:03.519 when they have the full band, they just. 1:13:03.439 --> 1:13:08.080 Sound like any other band like that. Dan Aurbuck is awesome. 1:13:08.160 --> 1:13:09.760 I mean, like I know, he's kind of a bro 1:13:10.080 --> 1:13:12.000 or whatever, and people will like give the Black Keys 1:13:12.000 --> 1:13:13.920 a lot of shit, but those early records are like 1:13:14.720 --> 1:13:18.200 legitimately for being from Akron, Like that dude would just 1:13:18.320 --> 1:13:20.720 drive down into the South and find like all of 1:13:20.760 --> 1:13:24.280 these old hill country blues guys and be like, please 1:13:24.280 --> 1:13:26.519 teach me this stuff, and and like, you know, there's 1:13:26.560 --> 1:13:30.080 on Chullahoma, there's that like he has he like gets 1:13:30.080 --> 1:13:33.880 a voicemail from like some clearly old black woman who's like, 1:13:34.000 --> 1:13:35.720 that's the you put out the only record I ever 1:13:35.760 --> 1:13:38.200 heard that sound like a you know something something record, 1:13:38.200 --> 1:13:41.160 And it's like he is very very good at copying 1:13:41.200 --> 1:13:43.680 that stuff and especially the at singing along with it. 1:13:43.720 --> 1:13:46.719 And it's just so funny to me that like Patrick 1:13:46.800 --> 1:13:50.599 Carney like briefly married to Michelle Branch and just got 1:13:50.640 --> 1:13:53.400 like dragged along on the on what was clearly dan 1:13:53.479 --> 1:13:57.040 Auerbach's a cent into being the musician he was meant 1:13:57.080 --> 1:14:00.479 to be, and Patrick Karney's just along for the ride, 1:14:00.520 --> 1:14:05.320 like solemnly tweeting and sucking at the drums. I hate 1:14:05.360 --> 1:14:09.000 that guy anyway, sidebar over he was like, bro, He's 1:14:09.000 --> 1:14:11.160 one of the sweetest guys I've ever interviewed, actually, isn't. 1:14:11.160 --> 1:14:14.679 I think I remember? No, No, I mean like someone 1:14:14.760 --> 1:14:17.800 was giving him this is like a this is just 1:14:17.840 --> 1:14:23.280 going so far down, idiot ats blues revival like rock 1:14:23.360 --> 1:14:26.960 revival stuff. But I feel like there was like some 1:14:27.080 --> 1:14:29.599 kind of at tension between him and Jack White because like. 1:14:29.800 --> 1:14:32.160 Oh, there was a huge amount of tension between him 1:14:32.160 --> 1:14:34.559 and Jack White. I mean when Jack White was getting divorced, 1:14:34.600 --> 1:14:37.400 all those emails came out because he just felt that 1:14:37.520 --> 1:14:39.640 like Dan Araback was following him around. 1:14:39.439 --> 1:14:43.360 Yes, which is hilarious considering that Jack White plays guitar 1:14:43.439 --> 1:14:45.880 like a toddler compared to Dan Auerback, and like Dan 1:14:45.920 --> 1:14:50.719 Aurback honestly for his part, produced an amazing Doctor John 1:14:50.800 --> 1:14:53.760 record and like has done a lot of cool collaborations, 1:14:53.800 --> 1:14:57.040 whereas Jack White has only like been surly and pale 1:14:57.280 --> 1:15:00.120 and wrote one of the worst James Bond songs. I 1:15:00.280 --> 1:15:02.120 like that. I like another Way to Die. It's no 1:15:02.200 --> 1:15:03.639 Skyfall sounds different. 1:15:03.680 --> 1:15:06.960 I like that it sounded different, although apparently they get 1:15:06.960 --> 1:15:09.120 it in at the last minute because Amy Winehouse was 1:15:09.160 --> 1:15:11.320 supposed to do the Bond theme for Quantum of Solace 1:15:11.560 --> 1:15:13.040 and then she just never got it together. 1:15:13.120 --> 1:15:15.280 So they went to Jack White, and he basically was like. 1:15:15.280 --> 1:15:17.640 Well, I know they're gonna use whatever I turn in 1:15:17.720 --> 1:15:20.479 because they're under a gun here, so I'm gonna do 1:15:20.560 --> 1:15:21.080 something weird. 1:15:21.200 --> 1:15:22.800 There's nothing they can do about it. Yeah, I mean, 1:15:22.840 --> 1:15:25.400 I like Jack White, I don't I like the White Stripes, 1:15:25.439 --> 1:15:28.719 but they're they're doing something much different. And like it's 1:15:28.760 --> 1:15:31.840 insane to me that he would even they don't sound like. 1:15:32.000 --> 1:15:35.120 They sound like different bands like the White Stripes don't swing. 1:15:35.360 --> 1:15:37.200 And one thing at least you can say for those 1:15:37.240 --> 1:15:39.400 early Black Keys records is that they have a really 1:15:39.400 --> 1:15:42.599 good rhythmic feel to them, primarily because of Dan Auerbach 1:15:43.200 --> 1:15:45.200 and people would like give him shit. There's like a 1:15:45.280 --> 1:15:48.200 rolling Stone thing where like somebody gave him for liking 1:15:48.280 --> 1:15:51.000 g love and special sauce, oh yeah, and being like 1:15:51.040 --> 1:15:53.040 and being like, yeah, he was just like a varsity 1:15:53.160 --> 1:15:55.920 soccer player and in high school and like he liked 1:15:56.040 --> 1:15:59.040 G Love and he was his total like blues poser, 1:15:59.080 --> 1:16:02.280 and he got sadly defensive about it, where he was like, 1:16:02.400 --> 1:16:04.840 G Love is a very accomplished fingerpicker, and yes, I 1:16:04.920 --> 1:16:07.680 played soccer like I told you Love last year. It 1:16:07.680 --> 1:16:10.000 was incredible. But I feel for Dan auerback man, like 1:16:10.040 --> 1:16:12.880 he just likes the blues, and he admitted he admittedly 1:16:12.960 --> 1:16:15.320 did a lot more studying of it than like Jack 1:16:15.360 --> 1:16:18.240 White did, who was like, I'll just talk, I'll sing 1:16:18.320 --> 1:16:21.400 real stupid and play guitar like I have four thumbs, 1:16:21.560 --> 1:16:24.559 you know, And he's so thin skinned. I mean that's 1:16:24.560 --> 1:16:29.519 the other thing. Jack White is so muleing and he's 1:16:29.560 --> 1:16:34.439 the biggest sore winner ever. You know, he got all 1:16:34.479 --> 1:16:37.240 the money in the world to buy mustache wax and 1:16:37.960 --> 1:16:43.880 bolero jackets, and he's so perpetually aggrieved by it, just 1:16:43.920 --> 1:16:46.519 because everyone wants him to get back with Meg and 1:16:46.560 --> 1:16:49.400 make a record that doesn't suck. Sidebar over. 1:16:50.040 --> 1:16:52.720 I just I love how mad Jack White was that 1:16:52.840 --> 1:16:56.240 Dan Arabach's kid goes at the same school that Jack 1:16:56.240 --> 1:16:57.439 White's kid goes to. 1:16:57.760 --> 1:17:00.519 Again, like again, just you're in the city the same 1:17:00.720 --> 1:17:03.240 You're just two roads diverged in a wood and you're 1:17:03.280 --> 1:17:05.639 just mad that one of them that he's a better 1:17:05.680 --> 1:17:08.360 guitar player than you. That's it. And I bet I'm 1:17:08.360 --> 1:17:10.080 gonna go out on a limb and say that like 1:17:10.280 --> 1:17:14.200 having an old black woman's like voicemail on your record 1:17:14.280 --> 1:17:16.760 as like a seal of approval saying it sounded like 1:17:16.800 --> 1:17:21.320 a what does she say, Junior Kimbro. Yeah, because Chulahoma 1:17:21.439 --> 1:17:25.479 is where he's from, and they were performing or his 1:17:25.640 --> 1:17:28.800 juke joint, and they were performing there. They're an EP. 1:17:29.360 --> 1:17:32.400 Oh yeah, okay, let me take all of this back. Actually, 1:17:32.520 --> 1:17:35.599 let me take everything I just said about about this back. 1:17:35.920 --> 1:17:39.280 Chullahoma is a Black Keys EP where they are recording 1:17:39.560 --> 1:17:44.280 Junior Kimbro songs. He's a hill country blues guitarist. And 1:17:44.439 --> 1:17:49.200 on that record is a voicemail from Junior Kimbro's widow 1:17:50.000 --> 1:17:53.120 thanking the Black Keys and that she was She said 1:17:53.120 --> 1:17:55.920 they're the only band that she heard who really plays 1:17:55.960 --> 1:17:59.439 like Junior. And I think that chap Jack White's ass 1:17:59.479 --> 1:18:02.080 so bad that he never had a black person say 1:18:02.120 --> 1:18:05.439 he plays guitar like one of them phrasing, but you 1:18:05.520 --> 1:18:08.280 get my drift. I think that's the entire source of 1:18:08.320 --> 1:18:11.280 his His beef is that he never got an imprimatur 1:18:12.080 --> 1:18:17.160 from a bluesman or a bluesman's widow and thus a 1:18:17.280 --> 1:18:24.439 mustached to That's why he dresses like a flash snipe. Yeah, 1:18:24.520 --> 1:18:27.080 tying women to tracks that he's That was his villain 1:18:27.160 --> 1:18:31.120 origin story. No black person ever said nice things about 1:18:31.120 --> 1:18:32.280 his guitar playing. 1:18:33.720 --> 1:18:36.599 So Patrick Karney of the Black Kids talking about Patrick 1:18:36.640 --> 1:18:39.759 Karney's uncle, Ralph Carney, plays on Tom Waits. 1:18:39.800 --> 1:18:44.000 This Tom Waits record for talking about in this episode. Yeah. 1:18:44.160 --> 1:18:47.479 Also included on Bone Machine is La session guitarist legend 1:18:47.680 --> 1:18:51.280 and as you put no contest pleading, child porn aficionado, 1:18:51.760 --> 1:18:53.080 Body Wachtel. 1:18:52.920 --> 1:18:57.080 Great hair, great sixteenth note guitar line on edge of seventeen. 1:18:57.400 --> 1:19:00.240 Oh yeah, no contest pleading. They found a bunch of 1:19:00.280 --> 1:19:02.240 kitty porn on his hard drive, but he sent it 1:19:02.280 --> 1:19:05.160 in for repair like a moron. When did that happen? 1:19:05.240 --> 1:19:07.880 I don't remember hearing that. He's also in the poside 1:19:07.880 --> 1:19:13.519 The Adventure Waddie Walkdel Yeah, tremendous. I know, three years 1:19:13.520 --> 1:19:19.479 probation in nineteen ninety eight compleating no contest. He was 1:19:19.680 --> 1:19:22.080 or for this. He was ordered to make a twenty 1:19:22.080 --> 1:19:25.080 five hundred dollars Nation to Children of the Night, an 1:19:25.160 --> 1:19:29.479 agency that helps runaways that probably should have had their name. 1:19:29.520 --> 1:19:32.200 Go back for another round, and yeah, walkedal took his 1:19:32.280 --> 1:19:35.000 computer to a shop, a La computer repair shop, and 1:19:35.000 --> 1:19:36.519 they opened it up and found kitty porn on his 1:19:36.560 --> 1:19:41.280 hard drive. Really gives Edge of seventeen a new meeting. Oh, 1:19:41.560 --> 1:19:43.439 I think I made that joke. We're now officially an 1:19:43.560 --> 1:19:46.800 orra TI because I think I made that joke before. 1:19:46.920 --> 1:19:49.439 No, I don't remember ever hearing that. Okay, so I 1:19:49.439 --> 1:19:51.600 think he's got to start playing with us start. But 1:19:51.640 --> 1:19:55.040 I think he played with the Buckingham Knicks duo before 1:19:55.080 --> 1:19:56.479 they joined the fleet with mac. 1:19:56.400 --> 1:19:59.000 Oh, he's yeah, he's everywhere in that era. I mean 1:19:59.000 --> 1:20:02.479 he was Buddies with Warren too. That's him playing slide 1:20:02.479 --> 1:20:06.439 guitar and where anyway? What are we talking about? 1:20:07.560 --> 1:20:10.800 And yet another returning Tom Waite's pal is Larry the 1:20:10.840 --> 1:20:15.080 Mole Taylor, an incredible nickname who is a longtime basis 1:20:15.120 --> 1:20:22.000 for all sixties weird pseudo country icons and woodstock vets. 1:20:22.160 --> 1:20:25.360 Can't eat? Can you do the voice? We can't do 1:20:25.400 --> 1:20:35.639 the voice? Yeah, going on to the country. Done the voice? 1:20:35.760 --> 1:20:41.040 Do the voice? Do do do Do Do Do Do? 1:20:41.040 --> 1:20:43.360 Do you know what was the craziest thing about Killers 1:20:43.360 --> 1:20:46.000 of the Flower Moon? No, I was hearing the original 1:20:46.080 --> 1:20:48.559 version of that song. Did you know there's an original 1:20:48.600 --> 1:20:51.519 going up the country that sounds the exact same way. 1:20:51.720 --> 1:20:56.559 They really just flat out stole that song. No, Henry 1:20:56.640 --> 1:21:10.439 Thomas nineteen twenty eight. I'm going up way long, I'm 1:21:10.520 --> 1:21:11.560 going away. 1:21:13.200 --> 1:21:13.439 Long. 1:21:16.720 --> 1:21:20.600 Wow, white people have no original ideas. Nope, sure don't. 1:21:21.240 --> 1:21:27.200 I'm oh yeah, sorry, uh, Larry the mol Taylor. One 1:21:27.240 --> 1:21:30.360 of my favorite bits of Wait's studio Apocryphi, is from 1:21:30.520 --> 1:21:33.479 Jaquiri King, who worked on Mule variations, and he said 1:21:33.479 --> 1:21:35.960 that most of the basic tracks on Tom RAITs records 1:21:35.960 --> 1:21:40.719 are just Tom either playing guitar or piano and usually 1:21:40.800 --> 1:21:44.439 Larry Taylor on bass accompanying him, because I guess that's 1:21:44.520 --> 1:21:46.040 just the lock up that they have, and then they 1:21:46.040 --> 1:21:49.400 build the rest of the song around it. Or for example, 1:21:49.439 --> 1:21:51.320 they do something like they do and Jesus is gonna 1:21:51.360 --> 1:21:54.360 be here where Waits is playing upright bass and Taylor 1:21:54.439 --> 1:21:57.200 is playing slide guitar and all he gets out of 1:21:57.200 --> 1:22:02.400 it is that wow wow, he literally gets like two notes. 1:22:02.479 --> 1:22:06.920 I guess that maybe counts as well, Tom plays. Tom 1:22:06.960 --> 1:22:09.760 plays upright bass, and he dryly remarked in the press 1:22:09.840 --> 1:22:12.000 kit probably would have been better if we'd gotten a 1:22:12.000 --> 1:22:14.519 Baptist choir, but I kind of like it by itself. 1:22:16.240 --> 1:22:19.160 And then Tom Waites had this to say about Larry Taylor. 1:22:19.560 --> 1:22:21.960 Larry's great. He used to play in VFW halls with 1:22:22.040 --> 1:22:24.160 Jered Lee Lewis where he would take a violin pickup 1:22:24.200 --> 1:22:26.400 and wrap it in a hanky and drop that into 1:22:26.439 --> 1:22:29.320 the piano hole that would be the mic. Larry would 1:22:29.320 --> 1:22:31.360 play over by that hole, and whatever came out of 1:22:31.360 --> 1:22:34.160 the speaker was the bass. He's a very intuitive musician. 1:22:34.560 --> 1:22:37.000 And right after we finished the record, his bass broke, 1:22:37.280 --> 1:22:40.160 which I thought was great. It just couldn't take it anymore, 1:22:40.479 --> 1:22:44.559 kind of a John Henry thing. And then I and 1:22:44.600 --> 1:22:47.719 I have to mention, of course, last Warren Zevon record, 1:22:47.720 --> 1:22:53.320 the famous Near pasthamous record The Wind. The Wind has 1:22:53.880 --> 1:22:57.600 a kind of rock and roll song on it that 1:22:57.960 --> 1:23:01.800 Bruce Springsteen's in sings on was that the one is 1:23:02.000 --> 1:23:03.439 I was in the house when the house burn No, 1:23:04.240 --> 1:23:05.639 yeah it was I was the house when the house 1:23:05.680 --> 1:23:09.640 burned down. Yeah, it's really funny, Bruce is there's some 1:23:09.680 --> 1:23:12.120 really there's a great documentary about it. And Bruce is 1:23:12.240 --> 1:23:14.320 having a high old time coming in there to sing. 1:23:14.360 --> 1:23:16.240 And there's one point where he's he's like supposed to 1:23:16.320 --> 1:23:18.120 be like he's supposed to be doing like a harmony 1:23:18.160 --> 1:23:21.679 or something, and instead he like can't understand what Worren's saying. 1:23:21.760 --> 1:23:24.200 So you just hear him on the track they kept it. 1:23:24.400 --> 1:23:26.040 Hear him going, I'm not even gonna try and follow 1:23:26.160 --> 1:23:30.439 Arren on that one. Ah, so like dense, densely intricate rhyme. 1:23:31.400 --> 1:23:33.720 But then he plays a guitar solo and and you know, 1:23:33.920 --> 1:23:35.519 I don't know if you know this about Bruce, but 1:23:36.240 --> 1:23:38.800 Bruce plays a mean guitar and they put him through 1:23:38.800 --> 1:23:42.000 one of those tiny little old tube of fenders like 1:23:42.040 --> 1:23:45.880 a ten inch speaker, and he blew it up like 1:23:46.240 --> 1:23:48.360 they did like a two takes of him playing a 1:23:48.400 --> 1:23:50.439 guitar solo on that, and then the second one it 1:23:50.600 --> 1:23:53.439 just like sparked out and died where they were like 1:23:53.960 --> 1:23:56.559 they're like it had fulfilled its purpose and it could 1:23:56.560 --> 1:24:01.679 go no longer. It went to Valhalla. Yeah, great guitar 1:24:01.760 --> 1:24:05.680 solo though, man, great great song. I was in the house. 1:24:07.560 --> 1:24:11.240 I had the doupe too Little Got Smoked. That song's okay. 1:24:11.800 --> 1:24:13.880 It's just one of those kind of like dumb boogie 1:24:13.960 --> 1:24:16.160 rock songs that all those guys were born in the 1:24:16.160 --> 1:24:18.800 baby bold baby boomers thought they could do. Did wait 1:24:18.880 --> 1:24:23.120 till Springsteen ever doing anything together? He covered Jersey Girl. Yeah, 1:24:23.880 --> 1:24:26.519 and then and then I think they do it. There's 1:24:26.520 --> 1:24:28.519 putting of them do it on stage, where of course 1:24:29.120 --> 1:24:34.679 Tom is like sholo lo, Bruce is doing Black Preacher 1:24:34.760 --> 1:24:36.920 voice over, and it's all it's all a bit much. 1:24:39.160 --> 1:24:41.400 We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right 1:24:41.439 --> 1:24:44.040 back with more too much information in just a moment. 1:24:58.360 --> 1:24:59.160 Well as you right. 1:24:59.280 --> 1:25:02.599 Tom Waite to a really interesting rolodex of not quite 1:25:02.720 --> 1:25:06.559 famous LA session musicians on his most recent album, twenty 1:25:06.600 --> 1:25:09.880 eleven's As Bad as Me. Emmy winning LA composer Patrick 1:25:09.960 --> 1:25:12.439 Warren shows up solely because he's one of the few 1:25:12.439 --> 1:25:15.439 people in the world who's an expert on the archaic 1:25:15.600 --> 1:25:21.160 keyboard instrument called the Chamberlain, which is like a pre melotron, 1:25:21.320 --> 1:25:24.800 which is in itself a pre sampler synthesizer. 1:25:25.520 --> 1:25:27.720 Yeah, the Chamberlain is like the worst version of a 1:25:27.800 --> 1:25:31.720 melotron before they'd ironed out the kink whoa yeah, And 1:25:31.760 --> 1:25:34.240 so I guess this guy Patrick has like he's like 1:25:34.240 --> 1:25:35.880 one of the only people who knows how to play 1:25:36.040 --> 1:25:39.320 the actual instrument, so he gets every Chamberlain call from 1:25:39.400 --> 1:25:43.040 Tom Waits. But he also did the true detective like 1:25:43.160 --> 1:25:46.160 original score and want an Emmy for it. This is funny, 1:25:46.200 --> 1:25:48.599 these guys he picks out of the cracks, like, for example, 1:25:48.760 --> 1:25:51.839 you this guy you know, August Augie Meyers. 1:25:52.520 --> 1:25:55.360 Yeah, yes, he's best known to me as a founding 1:25:55.400 --> 1:26:00.719 member of the You say obscure, I think underappreciated sixties 1:26:00.760 --> 1:26:04.520 garage rock groups Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornadoes. 1:26:05.000 --> 1:26:10.240 I think they're on nuggets, right, I believe. So. They 1:26:10.280 --> 1:26:13.679 do a really great version of Freddie Fender's Wasted Days 1:26:13.680 --> 1:26:16.719 and Wasted Nights. Great song. Play that on my college 1:26:16.800 --> 1:26:19.160 radio show. I bet they do, Buddy, Yes they do. 1:26:19.600 --> 1:26:22.559 And one of your favorites of these kind of left 1:26:22.560 --> 1:26:25.760 of center LA Session musicians is a guy named Charlie 1:26:26.120 --> 1:26:26.800 muscle White. 1:26:26.800 --> 1:26:30.000 Tell us about Charlie mussel White. Oh, I love him. 1:26:30.080 --> 1:26:31.719 I mean it is again just one of these guys 1:26:31.720 --> 1:26:34.280 that I just tracked down because of Tom Waits. There's 1:26:34.320 --> 1:26:36.840 this One of my favorite Tom Waite songs is come 1:26:36.880 --> 1:26:39.479 On Up to the House off New Variations, and you 1:26:39.479 --> 1:26:42.519 should really punch in the thirty seconds of that harmonica solo. 1:26:42.560 --> 1:26:45.280 Do you know what I'm talking about? No, it sounds 1:26:45.280 --> 1:26:48.280 like I radiate like a car radiator dying, but in 1:26:48.320 --> 1:26:52.599 like the most beautiful way possible. Has so many great lines. 1:26:53.160 --> 1:26:55.320 The only things that you can see are all that 1:26:55.360 --> 1:26:58.719 you lack. Come on up to the house, come down 1:26:58.720 --> 1:27:03.320 off the cross. We can all use wood. That's great. 1:27:03.960 --> 1:27:06.200 So yeah, there's this harmonica solo that kicks in. 1:27:29.240 --> 1:27:30.880 I almost have a hard time believing in such as 1:27:30.920 --> 1:27:33.200 like a squeaky door, and I mean that it's a compliment. 1:27:33.600 --> 1:27:36.919 Ah, it's a shame. Harmonica is kind of a cringe instrument. 1:27:39.880 --> 1:27:42.960 I mean, you know there's like Stevie, you could play 1:27:43.000 --> 1:27:46.919 anything on it, and there's like Junior Walker. Oh yeah, 1:27:46.960 --> 1:27:49.880 but like how many other like harmonica's like the John 1:27:49.920 --> 1:27:53.160 Popper instruments. Right, it's like a fat white guy in 1:27:53.200 --> 1:27:56.719 a fishing vest, right, Like, but you hear like genuine, 1:27:57.080 --> 1:28:01.800 genuine Chicago harp, like through a sure green bullet into 1:28:01.880 --> 1:28:06.840 like a tiny eight inch speaker dimed out tu bam 1:28:06.960 --> 1:28:10.360 and it's just like hairw the next just pop right out. 1:28:10.400 --> 1:28:14.639 It's just ah overdriven harmonica, beautiful sound. Anyway, that guy 1:28:14.760 --> 1:28:16.880 was like a He was like a He grew up 1:28:16.880 --> 1:28:20.519 in Memphis and like literally saw Elvis like busking on 1:28:20.560 --> 1:28:22.880 the corners, and he was a whiskey bootlegger. And he 1:28:22.920 --> 1:28:28.000 moved to Chicago and became like the fourth best harmonica 1:28:28.000 --> 1:28:29.880 player of the sixties. He's like one of those guys 1:28:29.920 --> 1:28:32.680 who pursues like just perpetually on the other page of 1:28:32.720 --> 1:28:36.240 the history books. You know, it's like little Walter Paul Butterfield, 1:28:36.360 --> 1:28:39.080 you know, like all the sixties guys that you hear 1:28:39.240 --> 1:28:43.759 Toots Teelman, Yeah, Belgian born harmonica and whistle virtuoso, Toots 1:28:43.760 --> 1:28:48.160 Teelman and and then on like the third line of 1:28:48.200 --> 1:28:51.320 the fifth line of the Coachella poster, font Charlie mussel 1:28:51.320 --> 1:28:53.600 White and I interviewed him. Yeah, he was he was 1:28:53.680 --> 1:28:58.240 super cool. This great bit about baby Jessica fell in 1:28:58.240 --> 1:29:01.040 the well and that inspired him to quit drink because 1:29:01.080 --> 1:29:02.920 he said if she could go for three days without 1:29:03.200 --> 1:29:06.640 without a drink, so could he. That was like, that 1:29:06.760 --> 1:29:08.639 was like I later found out later he tells everyone 1:29:08.680 --> 1:29:10.759 that story, but it was I was like, that's cute. 1:29:10.840 --> 1:29:13.759 Good for you, Charlie. Then he didn't win a Grammy 1:29:13.800 --> 1:29:16.120 for that for the album that I profiled him for, 1:29:16.280 --> 1:29:16.920 which is sad. 1:29:17.040 --> 1:29:20.320 But anyway, one of my first People stories was Toots 1:29:20.479 --> 1:29:25.040 z Obit Oh really yes, Sesame Street harmonica player to Teelman. 1:29:25.880 --> 1:29:30.240 Jocko Pastorius collaborator, Yeah you grew it was for people 1:29:30.280 --> 1:29:32.920 dot com though you didn't get you didn't get the 1:29:33.240 --> 1:29:38.559 important god awful records with Jocko in there. It's like 1:29:38.640 --> 1:29:43.519 him and him and Belgian gypsy jazz virtuoso Birelli leren 1:29:44.040 --> 1:29:48.320 Really some dog records, just super eighties reverbed out. Jocko 1:29:48.439 --> 1:29:52.120 is all addicted to coke and Brelli Lagrenz. Everything's chorused 1:29:52.200 --> 1:29:54.599 within an inch of its life. There's like gated reverb 1:29:54.680 --> 1:29:57.439 on the harp. It's awful. We should do a podcast 1:29:57.479 --> 1:30:01.760 about jazz fusion, sure, I mean for Tom Waits as well. Hey, 1:30:01.800 --> 1:30:04.280 I know what's the less popular thing we can talk about? 1:30:05.760 --> 1:30:08.519 One of my favorite veins rich veins of Tom lore 1:30:08.800 --> 1:30:11.880 or the non musical directions that he's supposedly gives to 1:30:11.920 --> 1:30:15.240 people in the studio. People said he's color blind, like 1:30:15.280 --> 1:30:17.880 the guy who did the the guy who did the 1:30:18.200 --> 1:30:20.920 concert film Big Time that is like footage from the 1:30:20.920 --> 1:30:24.000 Franks Waders tour has said like Tom only sees in 1:30:24.040 --> 1:30:26.439 red and yellow like a dog. He's like, that's why 1:30:26.479 --> 1:30:28.760 all the stage lighting is red and yellow. And other 1:30:28.760 --> 1:30:31.200 people have talked about him maybe having like cynysthesia, like 1:30:31.240 --> 1:30:35.160 he says he gets sounds colors. But some of these 1:30:36.080 --> 1:30:38.479 things that he supposedly tells people in the studios sound 1:30:38.560 --> 1:30:41.920 like the oblique Strategies cards if they'd been written by 1:30:41.960 --> 1:30:46.160 like a nineteen twenties Carnival Barker, like the aforementioned play 1:30:46.200 --> 1:30:49.600 like Your Hair's on Fire. But there's this there's a 1:30:49.640 --> 1:30:53.040 song sixteen Shells from a thirty six off Swordfish Trombones, 1:30:53.280 --> 1:30:56.559 great song, and he was explaining it in the studio 1:30:56.840 --> 1:30:58.439 and he said, this is about a guy who's got 1:30:58.439 --> 1:31:01.479 a crow. He's right on a mule. He's got a 1:31:01.560 --> 1:31:04.640 Washburn guitar. It's this crow inside the guitar and it 1:31:04.680 --> 1:31:06.960 can't get out because it's got strings across it, so 1:31:07.040 --> 1:31:09.719 it's called the Washburn jail. And he hits the guitar 1:31:09.960 --> 1:31:12.720 just to rattle his cage. And it's important to note 1:31:12.800 --> 1:31:15.840 that those are the lyrics of the song. He was 1:31:16.000 --> 1:31:19.400 just like, very seriously, well, there's this guy and he's 1:31:19.400 --> 1:31:23.640 got a washburn with a crow in it. Did you 1:31:23.680 --> 1:31:30.080 get that? Larry Waits from the rain Dogs era. There's 1:31:30.120 --> 1:31:33.320 a bass player named Greg Cohen, tremendous bass player who 1:31:33.840 --> 1:31:36.400 was on the record with Tom and he instead of 1:31:36.439 --> 1:31:38.800 letting him play bass guitar, he made him play the 1:31:38.840 --> 1:31:41.720 bass pedals of a Hammond B three, but he could 1:31:41.720 --> 1:31:44.360 only play them with his fists, like I was punching 1:31:44.400 --> 1:31:50.559 somebody out mixing feedback from the Bone Machine mixing sessions. 1:31:51.280 --> 1:31:54.439 This is about the electric guitar sounds like it's not 1:31:54.479 --> 1:31:57.080 really part of the same trip. It sounds like it's 1:31:57.080 --> 1:31:58.960 splattered on the windshield when it ought to be in 1:31:58.960 --> 1:32:01.479 the back seat with a little bit and Brenda. What 1:32:01.560 --> 1:32:03.439 I want to hear is everyone back inside the car, 1:32:03.520 --> 1:32:06.799 screaming and laughing, all sitting together, one big happy family 1:32:06.840 --> 1:32:09.320 out for a drive. You get that, and we're done 1:32:09.360 --> 1:32:12.559 with this song that I actually kind of understand. It's 1:32:12.640 --> 1:32:15.280 kind of like David Lynch, Like David Lynch's the guitar 1:32:15.400 --> 1:32:17.799 sounds like it's not really part of the same trip. 1:32:18.640 --> 1:32:21.960 I see that that actually I understand, okay, all right. 1:32:23.080 --> 1:32:25.120 This is a variation on the ie load the chamber 1:32:25.160 --> 1:32:26.680 and she pulls the trigger. This is talking about it, 1:32:26.760 --> 1:32:29.920 Kathleen Brennan. A lot of the times, it's like lighting firecrackers. 1:32:30.080 --> 1:32:33.439 Who gets to light, who throws? We take turns. Sometimes 1:32:33.439 --> 1:32:36.120 it's I'll get the cherry bomb you hold, I'll light. 1:32:36.600 --> 1:32:39.040 And this is presumably about David Hidalgo because he says 1:32:39.280 --> 1:32:42.400 one accordionist I work with just eats the music. He 1:32:42.439 --> 1:32:44.559 eats the music, and you find him, it's all over 1:32:44.560 --> 1:32:48.080 his shirt, down his chin. It's just been murdered. Accordionist 1:32:48.160 --> 1:32:50.080 will sometimes take apart and they'll just play the hell 1:32:50.120 --> 1:32:53.799 out of it until it's dead. That's great. True. Actually, 1:32:53.800 --> 1:32:56.639 have you ever heard zydeco music? Oh? Hell yeah, hell yah. 1:32:56.800 --> 1:33:00.639 Bow Machine's second shortest song, the Ocean, also be its 1:33:00.640 --> 1:33:03.479 most disturbing. I took this from your outline because it 1:33:03.920 --> 1:33:05.879 really stuck with me. If you'd prefer to take. 1:33:05.720 --> 1:33:08.320 It, oh no, please go ahead, Waite explained. In the 1:33:08.320 --> 1:33:09.160 album's press kit. 1:33:09.240 --> 1:33:12.080 One of the local papers up here printed two photographs. 1:33:12.680 --> 1:33:14.400 One was a picture of a woman on the. 1:33:14.360 --> 1:33:17.160 Beach holding a bottle of beer and a cigarette, looking 1:33:17.160 --> 1:33:19.800 out at the ocean, and the next picture was the 1:33:19.840 --> 1:33:23.120 same day, a couple hours later, of her floating face 1:33:23.240 --> 1:33:25.960 down on the brine, the beer still in her hand, 1:33:26.479 --> 1:33:28.840 and the photographer walked past her and heard her say 1:33:28.880 --> 1:33:31.599 under her breath, the ocean doesn't want me today. 1:33:33.439 --> 1:33:36.840 Wow. Yeah, there's a couple. I forgot to modulate my 1:33:36.920 --> 1:33:42.000 tone from music Guide to True Crime prodcaster because some 1:33:42.040 --> 1:33:44.960 of these are fucking depressing. Did I know the identity 1:33:44.960 --> 1:33:47.920 of that person? I mean, dude, who even knows this 1:33:48.000 --> 1:33:51.320 is the real thing? Oh no, he said it, and 1:33:51.360 --> 1:33:54.920 it's creepy and you never heard the song the same 1:33:54.960 --> 1:33:59.960 way again, the ocean doesn't want me? What a Meanwhile, 1:34:00.160 --> 1:34:05.360 Tom Waits's daughter Ca Lissen and knee Kellis Simonis. I 1:34:05.400 --> 1:34:09.560 don't know, Kelly coin the term strangels. 1:34:09.720 --> 1:34:13.519 I love this for that tone the ocean, Waits later explained, 1:34:13.560 --> 1:34:18.200 it's basically a compound word strange angels. And if you 1:34:18.280 --> 1:34:25.439 have strangels, then you could have brangels. That's incredible. Those 1:34:25.479 --> 1:34:29.720 are the angels that live in your head. Higel, do 1:34:29.760 --> 1:34:30.519 you have brangels? 1:34:31.200 --> 1:34:32.040 I have Breeman's. 1:34:34.040 --> 1:34:35.840 I feel like that's what like Son of Sam has 1:34:35.960 --> 1:34:38.080 Some of Sam had brangels, he had the labrador. 1:34:38.240 --> 1:34:42.000 That's true. Every tell you my creepiest son of Sam theory. No, 1:34:43.120 --> 1:34:45.040 So I was reading this book. I think I may 1:34:45.080 --> 1:34:47.600 have done it in the Exorcism the exercise, but I 1:34:48.080 --> 1:34:51.760 there's this book called I'm Jumped the Devil Hostage to 1:34:51.840 --> 1:34:57.160 the Devil. Oh, yeah, and it's about It's by Malachie Martin, 1:34:57.680 --> 1:35:03.840 who is, you know, a allegedly one of these sanctified exorcists, 1:35:04.720 --> 1:35:07.760 and he talks about it when when David Berkowitz was 1:35:07.800 --> 1:35:12.519 was hospitalized, he became born again, and he like constantly 1:35:12.600 --> 1:35:16.439 wanted to be lectured on Christianity and stuff. And I 1:35:16.600 --> 1:35:19.160 was just struck by this horrible sensation reading it that 1:35:19.360 --> 1:35:23.280 like Berkowitz didn't actually believe any of it, he just 1:35:23.400 --> 1:35:28.200 like desperately wanted to. Because I think that's like some 1:35:28.320 --> 1:35:30.800 of the impression that Malachi Martin gives about these visits 1:35:30.840 --> 1:35:32.320 where he was like, well, he just really wanted to 1:35:32.479 --> 1:35:35.560 like talk about about God and stuff, but like and 1:35:35.680 --> 1:35:37.680 forgiveness and all this like stuff and talk about how 1:35:37.760 --> 1:35:39.800 you know, because he maintained that he'd been possessed, and 1:35:40.040 --> 1:35:42.360 but he was like I never really I just I 1:35:42.520 --> 1:35:44.000 was like struck by the idea that he would be 1:35:44.080 --> 1:35:46.120 like faking it to try and be like, no, I 1:35:46.160 --> 1:35:49.439 don't actually get this, but like I desperately want to 1:35:49.560 --> 1:35:52.559 be forgiven. I have a whole riff on Tom Waits 1:35:52.640 --> 1:35:55.880 and forgiveness later. Oh, just save my voice. 1:35:58.040 --> 1:36:01.439 Another ripped from the headlines bit on bow Machine comes 1:36:01.520 --> 1:36:04.360 during the song A Little Rain. The lyric she was 1:36:04.400 --> 1:36:07.519 fifteen years old and she'd never seen the ocean. She 1:36:07.640 --> 1:36:10.679 climbed into a van with a vagabond, and the last 1:36:10.760 --> 1:36:13.720 thing she said was I love you Mom. It was 1:36:13.800 --> 1:36:17.280 something that was inspired by a deeply depressing newspaper article 1:36:17.320 --> 1:36:19.840 on the Brennan Waits Archives about a van full of 1:36:20.000 --> 1:36:23.920 hitchhiking kids that had careened over a cliff in California. 1:36:26.000 --> 1:36:28.479 Doesn't really get much Sonnier on the next track, Murder 1:36:28.560 --> 1:36:32.080 in the Red Barn, which may have been similarly developed 1:36:32.120 --> 1:36:36.160 through a completely different source, an actual eighteen twenty seven 1:36:36.280 --> 1:36:40.240 murder in Polstead, Suffolk, England, in which a young woman 1:36:40.400 --> 1:36:43.559 Maria Martin was shot dead by her lover William Cord 1:36:44.280 --> 1:36:47.240 at the Red Barn, a local landmark, after meeting him 1:36:47.280 --> 1:36:51.200 for a promised elopement. This became a popular topic for 1:36:51.320 --> 1:36:54.759 murder ballads in the intervening years. The Waits version appears 1:36:54.800 --> 1:36:57.360 to have lidland common with the source except for its name. 1:36:57.720 --> 1:36:59.760 Yeah, it's so funny because murdered the red Barn is 1:36:59.760 --> 1:37:04.160 such a distinctly like there's nothing British about it. Yeah, 1:37:04.200 --> 1:37:06.400 that surprised me. He does have the line that he 1:37:06.479 --> 1:37:10.719 said that a bloodstained axe is not a surprise something 1:37:10.760 --> 1:37:12.840 because it's never out of sight, because there's always some 1:37:13.000 --> 1:37:16.439 killing that has to be done around the farm. And 1:37:16.479 --> 1:37:18.519 then he talks about he's like, well, you know the 1:37:18.960 --> 1:37:21.760 barns were painted red because it was animal blood was 1:37:21.800 --> 1:37:24.360 all they had. It was cheaper than pain. I never 1:37:24.479 --> 1:37:27.160 heard that. Yeah, that was that was the Tom Waite's 1:37:27.240 --> 1:37:30.000 version of it. But then I gooled, like just murder 1:37:30.479 --> 1:37:32.640 a red barn and this this thing comes up like 1:37:32.720 --> 1:37:36.120 the Red Barn murder, which was like you know how 1:37:36.160 --> 1:37:40.879 many roads of the of the of seventeenth century British murders, 1:37:41.000 --> 1:37:45.000 like it's been It's been remixed and resung and rewritten 1:37:45.120 --> 1:37:47.960 so many thousands of different times. It just was one 1:37:48.040 --> 1:37:50.519 of them that he hasn't done. Although he does a 1:37:50.600 --> 1:37:54.599 really there's a version of he does an old murder 1:37:54.640 --> 1:37:57.639 ballad called two Sisters that pops up on orphans. That's 1:37:57.680 --> 1:37:59.760 a really so he has some familiarity with, like the 1:37:59.800 --> 1:38:04.840 whole British Irish murder ballad tradition. Anyway, I digress dirt 1:38:04.880 --> 1:38:09.160 in the Ground, sung in his prince voice. I loved it. 1:38:09.240 --> 1:38:10.800 He says he can only do it for like one 1:38:10.920 --> 1:38:12.640 or two songs. That's why you never hear him do 1:38:12.720 --> 1:38:14.880 it live live is all the cookie monster stuff because 1:38:14.880 --> 1:38:16.880 he can only do the falsetto for like one song 1:38:16.920 --> 1:38:19.080 at a time. And he said this is based on 1:38:19.160 --> 1:38:22.760 a pickup line that he heard from acclaimed though not 1:38:23.160 --> 1:38:26.160 famed tenor saxophone as Teddy Edwards, who used to get 1:38:26.200 --> 1:38:28.519 girls to go up to his try and bring girls 1:38:28.560 --> 1:38:30.720 back to his hotel room by saying, listen, darling, we're 1:38:30.720 --> 1:38:33.760 all going to be dirt in the ground. I love 1:38:33.800 --> 1:38:37.160 it interesting enough. Another major theme on Bone Machine is 1:38:37.280 --> 1:38:40.360 the Bible. He talked about in the press kid how 1:38:40.560 --> 1:38:43.080 the Bible was like new to me, and I guess 1:38:43.120 --> 1:38:46.040 he'd been going through it, particularly revelations. But all these 1:38:46.080 --> 1:38:50.040 different apocalyptic images that come upcross like earth Dyed Screaming 1:38:50.080 --> 1:38:53.639 has a line about the locusts taking the sky Cane 1:38:53.680 --> 1:38:55.479 and Abel are in Dirt in the ground, Murder in 1:38:55.560 --> 1:38:59.240 the Red Barn. Literally quotes don't covet your neighbor's house, 1:38:59.240 --> 1:39:02.519 don't covert your nature, wife, Jesus gonna be here is 1:39:03.560 --> 1:39:06.840 just very obviously intent revival like Preacher mode. I love 1:39:06.960 --> 1:39:09.240 the line, and that song is like, because I've been 1:39:09.360 --> 1:39:12.960 so faithful except for drinking, but he knew that I would. 1:39:13.880 --> 1:39:16.800 It's like such an eerily specific like ah, I get 1:39:16.960 --> 1:39:19.920 goosebumps thinking about it, and then all stripped down, which 1:39:20.000 --> 1:39:22.759 is amazing because he says he got it from Jimmy Swaggered, 1:39:23.360 --> 1:39:26.840 Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin. Yeah, the idea, He's like, I 1:39:26.880 --> 1:39:29.439 wanted to make a song that sounded horny, like baby, 1:39:29.520 --> 1:39:32.400 I need you all stripped down, But also like this 1:39:32.680 --> 1:39:36.679 this Pentecostal idea of like you have to be stripped 1:39:36.760 --> 1:39:39.920 completely clean before the Lord, like of all your sins 1:39:40.000 --> 1:39:43.640 and all your memories and all your worldly issues like 1:39:43.800 --> 1:39:47.840 when when when he comes again? You know? And then 1:39:48.000 --> 1:39:50.439 there's another great there's a there's a Shakespeare line in 1:39:50.520 --> 1:39:55.200 this on this album Black Wings, which I think of 1:39:55.320 --> 1:39:58.200 is his version of is the checker Checkerboard, kind of 1:39:58.240 --> 1:40:01.360 part to Red Right Hand by Nick Cave, which is 1:40:01.400 --> 1:40:04.360 just about like what sort of the genre of rambling 1:40:04.479 --> 1:40:07.840 badass like like Red right Hand is like just about 1:40:07.840 --> 1:40:09.839 a guy who rolls through and he's like he's scary 1:40:09.920 --> 1:40:12.360 and he kills people, but there's no further specifics than that. 1:40:12.479 --> 1:40:15.280 And same with black Wings, where he's like, I'll see 1:40:15.280 --> 1:40:18.240 if I can do this. This homewaid sign, well, he 1:40:18.320 --> 1:40:20.559 once killed him. They say he once killed a man 1:40:20.680 --> 1:40:24.400 with a guitar string. There are those who say that 1:40:24.560 --> 1:40:30.320 beneath his coat there are wings. It's so good. But 1:40:30.439 --> 1:40:34.799 he says, I'm gonna get myself unfurled from this mortal 1:40:35.080 --> 1:40:39.439 coiled up world, which is a really great internal rhyme 1:40:39.520 --> 1:40:42.040 that flips the line from a Hamlet from the Sleep 1:40:42.080 --> 1:40:44.960 of death. What dreams may come when we have shuffled 1:40:45.000 --> 1:40:48.080 off this mortal coil? Love it? Sorry? 1:40:49.640 --> 1:40:50.080 Okay, So. 1:40:51.680 --> 1:40:53.080 I was by I had little hair in my mouth 1:40:53.080 --> 1:40:55.759 from getting real close on the microphone. A little asmr 1:40:55.920 --> 1:41:02.760 there for you. Tom Waite's like a boom. 1:41:04.080 --> 1:41:04.120 M. 1:41:08.840 --> 1:41:11.080 So I brought up bout Dylan earlier, and I think 1:41:11.080 --> 1:41:14.280 it's interesting because you and I both know about Grail 1:41:14.360 --> 1:41:17.960 Marcus and the Old Weird America. Some of you's eyes 1:41:17.960 --> 1:41:21.880 will roll and some of you will think it's legitimate. 1:41:21.920 --> 1:41:23.439 I don't know where I'm going with this. So Grail 1:41:23.520 --> 1:41:27.360 Marcus talks specifically about the Basement tapes and the band 1:41:27.520 --> 1:41:30.040 and Bob Dylan's like sort of lyrical focus in the 1:41:30.160 --> 1:41:32.880 in the late sixties as memorializing and being concerned with 1:41:32.960 --> 1:41:35.479 what he called the old Weird America, And that's his 1:41:35.560 --> 1:41:40.280 shorthand for like pre industrial American culture basically like the 1:41:40.560 --> 1:41:44.960 from the ante bellum South up to the interstate system, 1:41:46.200 --> 1:41:48.120 you know, sort of like I mentioned earlier, like the 1:41:48.240 --> 1:41:53.519 itinerant carnivals, you know, touring tent revival preaching, like minstrel shows, 1:41:54.280 --> 1:41:58.280 you know, like Flannery O'Connor kind of shit. But it's 1:41:58.320 --> 1:42:01.240 just very interesting thinking that, you know, like I said, 1:42:01.240 --> 1:42:03.519 Bob Dylan is like seven years older than Tom Waits, 1:42:03.800 --> 1:42:06.679 but Tom Waits didn't have a career until Bob Dylan 1:42:06.760 --> 1:42:09.599 had already had like seven personalities tucked away in his pocket. 1:42:10.240 --> 1:42:12.479 Because if you're charitably thinking of Tom Waits's early career 1:42:12.560 --> 1:42:15.240 is like seventy four seventy five, that's like already in 1:42:15.240 --> 1:42:18.640 a blood on the tracks. Yeah, you know, so it's 1:42:18.680 --> 1:42:22.200 like Dylan's already in his divorce era. But yeah, both 1:42:22.240 --> 1:42:25.320 of their lyrics are very preoccupied with this interesting idea 1:42:25.360 --> 1:42:29.360 of like what we lost when America became unified, like 1:42:29.479 --> 1:42:35.320 mass culture, you know, like roving gamblers and criminals, tinerant 1:42:35.360 --> 1:42:39.719 laborers and all this folk like who do folklore, oral tradition, 1:42:40.240 --> 1:42:44.400 a lot of it being I think like Pan African 1:42:45.439 --> 1:42:47.320 superstition and stuff. It was all kind of coming from 1:42:47.360 --> 1:42:50.600 the Deep South. But the biggest difference between them is 1:42:50.680 --> 1:42:54.840 that Tom Waits California, so he fucking loves la and 1:42:54.920 --> 1:42:58.880 he loves cars. So it's so kindamn funny to me 1:42:58.960 --> 1:43:02.080 to think that, like, you know, Bob Dylan's like here 1:43:02.160 --> 1:43:04.920 writing all these songs like about like free and free will, 1:43:04.960 --> 1:43:09.000 and Tom Waits is like, you know, fourteen in like 1:43:09.120 --> 1:43:11.680 San Diego, and like, oh, yeah, this is great, but 1:43:12.600 --> 1:43:18.320 needs more cars. I just love this idea that you're 1:43:18.360 --> 1:43:22.000 getting at with the you know, the big Bill BRUNSI 1:43:22.200 --> 1:43:25.360 kind of covers and you know this, you're talking a 1:43:25.400 --> 1:43:27.960 lot about canaan Abel and Jesus and then By and 1:43:28.200 --> 1:43:31.479 so forth. But have you thought about a big car 1:43:32.720 --> 1:43:35.080 just driving right down through all that because I have 1:43:35.880 --> 1:43:37.519 and this is I'm going down a limb here because 1:43:37.560 --> 1:43:38.960 this is song is very personal to me, but I 1:43:39.000 --> 1:43:41.679 think it's very interesting. Tom Waits has this through line 1:43:41.680 --> 1:43:43.400 where he talks about he doesn't he doesn't talk very 1:43:43.479 --> 1:43:46.280 much about about religion, but he talks very much about 1:43:46.360 --> 1:43:49.240 like the state of forgiveness or like the state of grace. 1:43:49.920 --> 1:43:53.200 And there are multiple songs that he kind of talks 1:43:53.280 --> 1:43:58.000 to talks about forgiveness or grace as being like a 1:43:58.160 --> 1:44:01.439 place that you can get to. There's parts about that 1:44:01.640 --> 1:44:06.680 on Bone Machine. But specifically, what I'm thinking of is 1:44:06.720 --> 1:44:08.640 this song called down There by the Train that he 1:44:08.720 --> 1:44:11.800 actually wrote for Johnny Cash, and Johnny Cash covered it 1:44:11.880 --> 1:44:14.760 on one of the American records, and I don't like 1:44:14.880 --> 1:44:19.160 his version because it's like jaunty and Tom Waits's version 1:44:19.200 --> 1:44:23.040 is on piano and it's like heartbreaking, and it's this 1:44:23.320 --> 1:44:26.840 really interesting He is this really interesting image of like 1:44:28.040 --> 1:44:31.640 this idea of not an afterlife per se, because he 1:44:31.760 --> 1:44:34.680 talks about there's this great couplet, there's no eye for 1:44:34.760 --> 1:44:36.880 an eye, there's no tooth for a tooth. I saw 1:44:37.040 --> 1:44:41.040 Judas is Scariot carrying John Wilkes Booth. They were down 1:44:41.080 --> 1:44:43.280 there by the train. There's no other way, he says. 1:44:43.320 --> 1:44:47.759 I saw Charlie Whitman hanging on to Lucifer's wings, Charlie 1:44:47.760 --> 1:44:51.920 Whitman being the Tyra sniper, Yeah, the Texas Tower sniper. 1:44:51.960 --> 1:44:55.839 And so he has this beautiful image of like grace 1:44:56.160 --> 1:44:58.439 and forgiveness as a place that you can like go 1:44:58.680 --> 1:45:03.000 to and arrive at. Whereas Dylan, in like his writings 1:45:03.000 --> 1:45:05.599 about forgiveness and God, like I'm thinking of like God 1:45:05.640 --> 1:45:08.120 to serve somebody, but then you're also thinking about something 1:45:08.160 --> 1:45:11.000 that's completely stupid, like God gave name to all the animals, 1:45:11.040 --> 1:45:12.800 which is one of the dumbest songs I've ever heard 1:45:12.800 --> 1:45:14.920 in my life. Go google that one and see if 1:45:14.960 --> 1:45:17.599 you still have respect for Bob Dylan. Ah. But God 1:45:17.640 --> 1:45:21.320 to Serve somebody has this like sort of Protestant you 1:45:21.400 --> 1:45:25.240 will toil and then you will die and your reward 1:45:25.280 --> 1:45:27.320 will be in the suite hereafter. I don't know. I 1:45:27.360 --> 1:45:29.479 think there's something very interesting about the ways that they 1:45:29.560 --> 1:45:34.200 both kind of conceive of these just Cis white guys 1:45:34.320 --> 1:45:37.439 from the Midwest in California. I both kind of come 1:45:37.520 --> 1:45:40.200 around to this idea of forgiveness in God, but from 1:45:40.280 --> 1:45:42.800 very different angles, one of which has to do with transportation. 1:45:43.680 --> 1:45:45.120 I don't know. You can cut that if that doesn't know. 1:45:45.280 --> 1:45:45.720 I love that. 1:45:45.760 --> 1:45:48.000 But it's an interesting it's an interesting fixation I have 1:45:48.720 --> 1:45:50.360 because he talks about eye for an eye, tooth for 1:45:50.400 --> 1:45:53.759 a tooth in he literally says it, like in the Bible, 1:45:53.800 --> 1:45:55.439 there's eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It's 1:45:55.479 --> 1:46:00.400 in something on bone machine maybe such a scream anyway, 1:46:02.040 --> 1:46:04.160 so I can talk about going out west coming up 1:46:04.360 --> 1:46:08.880 at the top. But aside from that song ruling and 1:46:08.960 --> 1:46:11.280 there's a great video of him doing it on Arsenio 1:46:11.439 --> 1:46:15.160 where he's like singing through a bullhorn through a microphone 1:46:15.240 --> 1:46:17.680 stand that is like half his height, so he's all 1:46:17.760 --> 1:46:20.280 hunched over and stomping weirdly. It must have been the 1:46:20.439 --> 1:46:25.120 most insane thing that the Dog Pound had ever seenoo who, 1:46:25.840 --> 1:46:29.960 et cetera. But there's a really funny bit of like 1:46:30.080 --> 1:46:33.599 Tom Waite's lyrical connection here he says I'm going out 1:46:33.600 --> 1:46:37.439 west because Tony Franciosa used to date my Ma. Tony 1:46:37.479 --> 1:46:39.920 Franciosa is a is an actor who was at one 1:46:39.960 --> 1:46:42.639 point nominated for a Tony for being in the play 1:46:42.720 --> 1:46:46.839 A hat full of Rain and for a weights complete 1:46:46.880 --> 1:46:50.200 this like me. There's a line on one of the 1:46:50.320 --> 1:46:52.920 B sides called long Way Home that he says, I 1:46:52.960 --> 1:46:55.080 got a hat full of lighting and a hatful of rain. 1:46:56.120 --> 1:47:01.280 So clearly Tom has a thing for the play Hatful 1:47:01.320 --> 1:47:05.599 of Rain and or Tony Franciosa. Anyway, the Olds eighty 1:47:05.640 --> 1:47:08.160 eight in Going Out West, also Going Out West is 1:47:08.200 --> 1:47:10.799 so funny, man, I mean he has that. There's that lineup. 1:47:11.320 --> 1:47:13.400 First of all, I think gonna change my name to 1:47:13.520 --> 1:47:17.839 Hannibal maybe just Rex is one of the greatest couplets 1:47:17.840 --> 1:47:22.160 that you can have lyrically. But then secondarily, you know, 1:47:22.280 --> 1:47:24.680 he says I got an Olds eighty eight and the 1:47:24.760 --> 1:47:27.800 Devil on a leash. I have to assume that is 1:47:27.840 --> 1:47:30.479 a reference to the Oldsmobile eighty eight, which is, of 1:47:30.560 --> 1:47:33.160 course the car model car popular stock racers that the 1:47:33.280 --> 1:47:35.600 very first rock and roll song, Rocket eighty eight, is 1:47:35.720 --> 1:47:38.960 named for, and Waite it suppears to reinforce this in 1:47:39.040 --> 1:47:41.439 an interview with Reflects magazine in nineteen ninety two by saying, 1:47:41.560 --> 1:47:44.519 I figured let's do a rocker. So you see there 1:47:44.560 --> 1:47:48.400 the connections are made between rocking and this old mobile 1:47:50.200 --> 1:47:53.320 and then he continued, we'll just slam it and scream, 1:47:53.920 --> 1:47:56.400 and my wife said, no, this is about those guys 1:47:56.400 --> 1:48:00.400 who come to California from the Midwest with very specific ideas. Mind. 1:48:01.320 --> 1:48:03.920 That's how the line about Tony Francierosa fits. There are 1:48:03.920 --> 1:48:05.960 some people come to California with less than that to 1:48:06.080 --> 1:48:08.479 go on a phone number somebody gave them, you know, 1:48:08.640 --> 1:48:10.679 for a psychic who used to work with Ann Margaret, 1:48:11.120 --> 1:48:13.160 And if I meet him, maybe I can get somewhere. 1:48:13.200 --> 1:48:16.080 Maybe if I play my cards right. That's very funny 1:48:16.080 --> 1:48:18.679 because she's from Illinois. She's from there's the Tom Waits 1:48:18.720 --> 1:48:21.960 song Johnsburg, Illinois is named for her hometown, so she 1:48:22.560 --> 1:48:25.200 a Midwesterner from LA. Was like, no, you have to 1:48:25.240 --> 1:48:27.400 write this song from the perspective of someone from the 1:48:27.439 --> 1:48:30.599 Midwest coming to LA to Tom Waits who's from San 1:48:30.640 --> 1:48:34.880 Diego and idolized La growing up his entire life. And 1:48:34.960 --> 1:48:37.000 then that leads into Whistled Down the Wind. Yeah, I 1:48:37.080 --> 1:48:40.400 think is a fucking devastating song. As you write. 1:48:40.439 --> 1:48:42.519 It's another song that seems to have death in one 1:48:42.640 --> 1:48:46.719 hand and then idealize seemingly California based life in another. 1:48:47.520 --> 1:48:50.200 Lyrics include lines like I grew up here all my life. 1:48:50.800 --> 1:48:53.559 I dream someday I'd go. Or the Blue Eyed Girls 1:48:53.800 --> 1:48:58.880 and the Red Guitars and the Naked Rivers. Flow Weights 1:48:58.880 --> 1:49:03.000 included the dedication for Tom Jans or Yahn's I Don't 1:49:03.040 --> 1:49:05.680 Know a songwriter friend of he, and Brennan's noting in 1:49:05.760 --> 1:49:09.520 the press kit. Jans was from the Central coast of California, 1:49:09.720 --> 1:49:12.000 kind of a Steinbeck up bringing in a small town. 1:49:12.600 --> 1:49:15.360 He wrote Love in Arms, Dobie Gray recorded it, and 1:49:15.439 --> 1:49:18.839 also Elvis did it. He used to play with Mimi Farina, 1:49:18.960 --> 1:49:24.880 who was jum Bias's sister. Sure check me on that, No, s. 1:49:27.200 --> 1:49:30.599 I choose to believe you're correct. Yes, JOm Bias his sister. Yeah, 1:49:32.080 --> 1:49:34.320 she got married in Big Sir. Good for Moon Farina. 1:49:34.800 --> 1:49:37.840 But as you write for a gigantic nerd like you, 1:49:38.760 --> 1:49:41.519 the most interesting lyrical concern in Whistle Down the Wind 1:49:41.680 --> 1:49:44.959 is I will take the marlbin coach and go whistling 1:49:45.040 --> 1:49:48.640 down the wind. Marlbin coach is, according to some linguists, 1:49:48.960 --> 1:49:52.800 a corruption of the phrase marrowbone coach that dates back 1:49:52.800 --> 1:49:55.880 to Victorian England. Marlbones were the shin bones of a 1:49:56.000 --> 1:49:59.800 horse or other hoofed mammal so taking the marrabone marleb 1:49:59.800 --> 1:50:04.320 bone coach, meant to hoof it somewhere, or walk like 1:50:04.400 --> 1:50:08.679 a bone machine, like cock me round like a bone machine. 1:50:08.960 --> 1:50:11.960 Get it? Yes, yes, it's in the name of the album. 1:50:12.160 --> 1:50:14.840 God whistle down the wind just crush kills me. Man. 1:50:15.600 --> 1:50:21.559 I grew up here all of my life. I dream 1:50:21.880 --> 1:50:28.040 someday I'd go with the blue eye purse and the 1:50:28.320 --> 1:50:29.880 Raid guitars. 1:50:31.280 --> 1:50:33.719 That's so good in my head. It kind of turns 1:50:33.720 --> 1:50:37.080 in the waltzing Matilda. They all turned into waltson Untila. Okay, 1:50:37.080 --> 1:50:38.679 I feel better now. I thought that was just making 1:50:38.800 --> 1:50:44.240 or Tom Trowbear's blues and properly titled Yes, yes, yes 1:50:45.080 --> 1:50:47.280 have you ever heard him doud somewhere from the West 1:50:47.320 --> 1:50:52.240 Side Story? Excuse no? That's great. 1:50:52.880 --> 1:50:55.320 Well, despite all of these naked allusions to murder and 1:50:55.439 --> 1:50:58.680 death and dying and killing, maybe the saddest song on 1:50:58.720 --> 1:51:02.120 this record is, on its face, the most jubulant, I 1:51:02.200 --> 1:51:05.200 Don't want to grow Up. When asked if the song 1:51:05.320 --> 1:51:08.559 was inspired by his kids, Waits answered, hey, they don't 1:51:08.560 --> 1:51:12.200 want to grow up, but hey, I don't either, You know, Jesus, 1:51:12.520 --> 1:51:15.280 how the hell did it get here so soon. That's 1:51:15.320 --> 1:51:17.880 a cold shot. I was going to throw the song out. 1:51:18.320 --> 1:51:20.760 I wasn't going to record it, but Kathleen said, oh no, 1:51:20.960 --> 1:51:21.920 you've got to finish that. 1:51:23.600 --> 1:51:24.840 On a record where people are. 1:51:24.720 --> 1:51:28.920 Struggling against arriving at or helping others to death. The 1:51:29.120 --> 1:51:32.679 brady directness as you write is what makes it so poignant. 1:51:33.360 --> 1:51:36.000 Nothing clever or biblical to say about finding out what 1:51:36.280 --> 1:51:41.320 growing up means, just sheer, childlike indignation. That's what made 1:51:41.360 --> 1:51:43.479 it such a natural fit for being covered by the 1:51:43.640 --> 1:51:47.920 Ramones on their last record. Oh that was from audioska 1:51:49.520 --> 1:51:52.760 y Yes, Tom Waits repaid the favor by covering their 1:51:52.920 --> 1:51:56.880 Danny Says and Return of Jackie and Judy, which appear 1:51:57.000 --> 1:51:59.960 on the Orphans box set. In fact, when you google 1:52:00.080 --> 1:52:02.400 I Don't Want to Grow Up plus Ramones, the first 1:52:02.479 --> 1:52:06.040 question in Google's people ask section is what is the 1:52:06.240 --> 1:52:07.719 saddest Romotes song. 1:52:09.200 --> 1:52:11.080 It's worth noting that one of the answers for that 1:52:11.280 --> 1:52:15.280 is pet Cemetery, which is my favorite remote song. I 1:52:15.600 --> 1:52:21.760 don't want to be bad, you know, pet Sem I 1:52:21.920 --> 1:52:27.759 don't won't live my life again. He sounds like Dracula? 1:52:30.760 --> 1:52:33.080 Is it got that? Like he's got that croon to him. 1:52:34.200 --> 1:52:36.920 He's like, as his voice deepened in later years, Oh 1:52:37.160 --> 1:52:40.360 so good. What else can I say about Bone Machine? 1:52:41.080 --> 1:52:43.600 Great record, great record. God, I don't want to grow up? 1:52:43.720 --> 1:52:46.080 Just shatters me. Man, I don't want my hair to 1:52:46.160 --> 1:52:48.240 fall out. I don't want to have the biggest amount. 1:52:48.760 --> 1:52:51.599 I don't want to grow up. Why the hell? Oh God, 1:52:51.680 --> 1:52:53.760 there's that. Man, these I just this is just going 1:52:53.840 --> 1:52:57.040 to turn into me reading all of these lyrics and 1:52:57.120 --> 1:53:00.519 then singing them. Yeah, it's so great. That's such a genius. 1:53:01.600 --> 1:53:04.960 It's so sad because I'm trying to find these lyrics. 1:53:05.120 --> 1:53:09.679 It is so direct and so childish, Like he even says, 1:53:09.760 --> 1:53:11.479 I don't wanna like there were bones, Like I don't 1:53:11.479 --> 1:53:12.800 want to go sniff some glue. I don't want to 1:53:12.880 --> 1:53:15.880 blah blah blah. But then he just sneaks these little, 1:53:16.640 --> 1:53:20.360 these little gut wrench lines in there, Like seems like 1:53:20.520 --> 1:53:24.560 folks turn into things that they'd never want. When I 1:53:24.640 --> 1:53:27.000 see my parents fight, I don't want to grow up. 1:53:27.280 --> 1:53:29.160 They all go out drink it all night. I don't 1:53:29.160 --> 1:53:31.519 want to grow up. I'd rather stay here in my room. 1:53:32.240 --> 1:53:39.400 Oh that feel co written by Keith Richards, takes one 1:53:39.400 --> 1:53:43.080 of the most most literal demonstrations of I forget who 1:53:43.160 --> 1:53:46.080 said this about him, Jordan who said that Keith Richards 1:53:46.160 --> 1:53:48.040 is the only singer who can sing in two keys 1:53:48.080 --> 1:53:52.120 at once. Oh, man, Oh, that's gonna bother me. I 1:53:52.200 --> 1:53:56.880 can't remember. Because his vocals on that feel, there's a 1:53:56.960 --> 1:54:00.200 great So there's a great line in mual variation and 1:54:00.280 --> 1:54:03.479 coming up to the house where he says, uh, you're 1:54:03.520 --> 1:54:08.040 singing lead soprano in a junk man's choir. And I 1:54:08.160 --> 1:54:11.680 believe that line is explicitly about Keith Richards, because you're 1:54:11.720 --> 1:54:15.679 here Keith Richards on this song last feel or that feel, 1:54:15.800 --> 1:54:19.160 and everyone sounds drunker than they've ever been in their life. 1:54:19.920 --> 1:54:27.080 And his reedy voice like sticks out so far. Oh, 1:54:27.160 --> 1:54:30.160 this is what's so stupid about God. This pisses me 1:54:30.280 --> 1:54:33.360 off so much. This is what's so dumb about Google AI. 1:54:34.320 --> 1:54:37.240 There is this quote that says he's the only sing 1:54:37.400 --> 1:54:39.600 I forget what journalists said, but Keith Ridgs is the 1:54:39.680 --> 1:54:42.600 only singer who can sing in two keys at once 1:54:42.760 --> 1:54:45.440 in a reference to his harmony vocals, and Google AI 1:54:45.640 --> 1:54:48.760 says Keith Richards doesn't sing in two keys at once, 1:54:48.920 --> 1:54:51.480 but he does play guitar and open g tunings you 1:54:51.560 --> 1:54:56.280 can create which can create a fuller sound. Oh God, 1:54:56.440 --> 1:55:01.640 roll stupid country. Anyway, Bone Machine didn't much light the 1:55:01.680 --> 1:55:04.120 sales world on fire. It peaked at one seventy one 1:55:04.160 --> 1:55:07.040 of the Billboard two hundred and the highest it crept 1:55:07.080 --> 1:55:10.440 internationally was number fifteen in Norway. Has got to be 1:55:10.480 --> 1:55:13.360 pretty good until you realize that Norway has like two 1:55:13.440 --> 1:55:19.080 hundred people living in it. Only one single, Going Out West, 1:55:19.280 --> 1:55:23.080 was released, and that peaked at one sixty seven in Australia, 1:55:25.880 --> 1:55:27.880 but the album has aged very well. It's since been 1:55:27.960 --> 1:55:30.280 named number forty nine on Pitchfork's Best Albums in the 1:55:30.360 --> 1:55:33.600 nineteen nineties. They placed it a slightly higher than Rolling Stone, 1:55:33.640 --> 1:55:36.040 who placed it at fifty three on their corresponding list 1:55:36.080 --> 1:55:38.760 of the same name. It has also be included on 1:55:38.840 --> 1:55:41.160 the one thousand and one albums You Must Hear Before 1:55:41.200 --> 1:55:44.840 You Die. Tom and Tom Waits's buddy and Jordan's also 1:55:45.000 --> 1:55:48.040 close friend Elvis Costello included it on his list of 1:55:48.200 --> 1:55:51.600 essential albums, highlighting A Little Rain and I Don't Want 1:55:51.600 --> 1:55:54.120 to Grow Up as his favorite. It also, as I 1:55:54.200 --> 1:55:56.280 mentioned at the top of this two hours one weighs 1:55:56.320 --> 1:56:00.760 his first Grammy for Best Alternative Album. So after releasing 1:56:00.800 --> 1:56:03.200 the material from Black Rider in nineteen ninety three, which 1:56:03.200 --> 1:56:06.040 as I mentioned, had been written prior to Bone Machine, 1:56:06.080 --> 1:56:09.480 or at least concurrently, Waits took another long ass break 1:56:09.600 --> 1:56:13.040 from recording. He was in Mystery Men in the year 1:56:13.080 --> 1:56:16.720 two thousand. Also not what oh he is in Mystery Men. 1:56:16.760 --> 1:56:19.200 He's amazing in Mystery Man. He's their wacky inventor guy. 1:56:19.240 --> 1:56:21.640 But I thought that happened before Mule Variations. Mystery Event. 1:56:22.160 --> 1:56:24.680 Did that come out ninteen ninety nine or two thousand? Ooh, 1:56:26.800 --> 1:56:30.560 nineteen ninety nine, So yeah, he returned. He returned to 1:56:30.680 --> 1:56:33.160 the charts in nineteen ninety nine with Mule Variations. The 1:56:33.240 --> 1:56:35.600 same year he returned actually I think he'd been acting 1:56:35.640 --> 1:56:37.000 on and off, but the same year that he graced 1:56:37.000 --> 1:56:41.720 the silver screen in Mystery Men. Great movie. But this 1:56:41.880 --> 1:56:44.440 is what's so funny. Mule Variations also won a Grammy, 1:56:45.040 --> 1:56:49.320 but he won it in the Best Contemporary Folk Catalog 1:56:49.400 --> 1:56:54.120 of recording. So from Best Alternative to Best Contemporary Folk 1:56:54.440 --> 1:56:58.400 in six years. Is that's the Tom Waits promise, Life 1:56:58.480 --> 1:57:03.440 comes at you fast does another crushing record by the way, 1:57:03.760 --> 1:57:10.600 just a great, great record, great lackled that's a deep cut. 1:57:10.720 --> 1:57:13.720 That's uh, Paul Rudd is John Lennon. Yeah, in Walkhart 1:57:15.000 --> 1:57:20.640 for all of you who have sex out there and 1:57:20.800 --> 1:57:23.560 didn't see that movie seventeen times while you're in college. 1:57:23.800 --> 1:57:25.480 Umm. Yeah. 1:57:25.720 --> 1:57:28.040 So Tom Waits's mellow since Bow Machine. I think he's 1:57:28.080 --> 1:57:32.320 been I mean, maybe not lyrically like Blood Money and 1:57:32.600 --> 1:57:36.640 Alice or some incredibly dark albums. And then he was 1:57:36.680 --> 1:57:40.080 in a Robert I think he made a void check 1:57:40.400 --> 1:57:47.200 the the that's Werner Hertzog movie, but it was a play. 1:57:47.520 --> 1:57:50.600 Hang on, give me one second. Shut up, Jordan, Shut up. God, 1:57:50.640 --> 1:57:53.560 I can't hear myself think Jordan hasn't said anything in 1:57:53.640 --> 1:57:57.200 like ten minutes. I could have just done this myself. 1:57:57.240 --> 1:58:00.840 I'm just basking in it. I no, I'm I'm asking Ques. 1:58:00.920 --> 1:58:03.200 I'm the voice of the audience in this episode. 1:58:04.680 --> 1:58:07.800 Just me a lot of this. You had Tom Waits 1:58:07.880 --> 1:58:12.880 dated Bette Midler for a brief time. That actually sort 1:58:12.920 --> 1:58:15.720 of sounds familiar. There are a great song called I 1:58:15.800 --> 1:58:19.080 Never talked to I never talked to don't talk to strangers, Yeah, 1:58:19.120 --> 1:58:22.680 I never talked to strangers. Off foreign affairs, one of 1:58:22.760 --> 1:58:29.120 his most jazzy albums that I don't like, So New 1:58:29.240 --> 1:58:32.840 Variations comes out in nineteen ninety nine, and then Tom 1:58:32.960 --> 1:58:35.080 kind of gets into his current era of being the 1:58:35.200 --> 1:58:39.520 dad who doesn't really like touring or making records. He's 1:58:39.720 --> 1:58:44.360 made Alice, Blood Money, Real Gone, and Bad at Me, 1:58:44.600 --> 1:58:46.960 Bad Is Me. Alice and Blood Money were written around 1:58:47.000 --> 1:58:48.880 the same time. It's split up into two records, and 1:58:49.040 --> 1:58:51.080 Real Gone was two thousand and six and Bad as 1:58:51.160 --> 1:58:53.200 Me it was twenty eleven, So he was at like 1:58:53.320 --> 1:58:57.760 five or six years in between records and we might 1:58:57.880 --> 1:59:01.080 not get another one because he was more interested in 1:59:01.560 --> 1:59:05.960 shooting for five minutes in Licorice Pizza. Then he apparently 1:59:06.040 --> 1:59:08.120 wasn't making a new record because he has an amazing 1:59:08.200 --> 1:59:12.200 cameo in that movie. But I have sadly given up 1:59:12.200 --> 1:59:13.920 hope that I'll ever get to see him live, and 1:59:14.160 --> 1:59:16.480 probably also giving up hope that we'll ever hear another 1:59:16.520 --> 1:59:19.680 full length album. He's seventy five, but he also seems 1:59:19.720 --> 1:59:24.320 two hundred and fifty. It's just great. I mean, I 1:59:24.840 --> 1:59:26.840 you know, his son Casey. Glitter and Doom is a 1:59:26.920 --> 1:59:29.200 great live record that he made from his Europe tour. 1:59:29.560 --> 1:59:33.560 But his son Casey played turntables and drums on real 1:59:33.680 --> 1:59:36.720 gone before like five years before that. He's just like 1:59:36.800 --> 1:59:38.800 a family man. I don't know. I mean, I love him. 1:59:39.000 --> 1:59:43.520 He's my guy. That's sadly, you know, we didn't really 1:59:43.560 --> 1:59:47.200 age into like amber wheat fields of grain, Tom, like 1:59:47.400 --> 1:59:49.480 pastoral Central Valley, California. 1:59:49.560 --> 1:59:49.720 Tom. 1:59:49.760 --> 1:59:53.400 We define the world definitely aged into like the craggy 1:59:53.600 --> 1:59:58.280 vistas and oil soaked valleys of bone Machine, you know, 1:59:58.800 --> 2:00:02.240 with a blood red horizon. That's the world we are 2:00:02.280 --> 2:00:05.879 actually living in. So in many ways he was quite prescient, 2:00:06.800 --> 2:00:13.520 I might say, uh, But in summary, I'd like to 2:00:13.560 --> 2:00:17.400 wrap up with a quote from nineteen ninety two, when 2:00:17.520 --> 2:00:20.760 Tom was interviewed by Vox magazine in October of that 2:00:20.920 --> 2:00:23.920 year of Our Lord. The prompt was what does the 2:00:24.000 --> 2:00:27.400 future hold? And Tom answered bustly, I think about the 2:00:27.480 --> 2:00:31.320 worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play 2:00:31.440 --> 2:00:35.280 peanutckle on your snout. A snake just crawled in your eye. 2:00:35.400 --> 2:00:38.400 I can't wait till the worms are eating me. That's 2:00:38.440 --> 2:00:46.840 a big dream, Well said Tom. Well said, no wonder, 2:00:46.880 --> 2:00:49.400 he's your guy. Thank you, folks. This has been This 2:00:49.480 --> 2:00:55.560 has been a this has been a solo performance. One 2:00:55.640 --> 2:00:59.040 Man's show. TMI on Tom Waite's Bow Machie of One 2:00:59.120 --> 2:01:03.640 Man Show. I'd like to thank my producer Jordan a 2:01:03.760 --> 2:01:12.440 stellar performance my script. Girl. No, I'm just kidding. Thank 2:01:12.440 --> 2:01:15.000 you as always for this is my even though it's 2:01:15.000 --> 2:01:16.879 only ten pages. This is my revolver. 2:01:17.200 --> 2:01:17.400 Yeah. 2:01:17.640 --> 2:01:20.680 Well, the asserted works of Tom Waite's or my Titanic, 2:01:20.800 --> 2:01:23.360 which I think we still broke two hours. I know 2:01:23.720 --> 2:01:26.760 you did most of that off the dome. Yeah. Well yeah, 2:01:26.800 --> 2:01:29.320 I mean that's where it's really troubling. I don't know 2:01:29.360 --> 2:01:35.280 I could talk about the variation sex. Uh down, Yeah, 2:01:35.280 --> 2:01:38.200 I just you know. He actually used strove violins to 2:01:38.320 --> 2:01:42.080 record most of the strings on Alice's actually an early 2:01:42.160 --> 2:01:47.880 wave amplifying acoustic instruments where they literally attached little tin 2:01:48.200 --> 2:01:51.960 they look like the gramophone horns onto the bridges of 2:01:52.120 --> 2:01:55.200 violins to like amplify them in old time and music halls. 2:01:55.320 --> 2:01:57.400 He actually went and found those and recorded with them. 2:01:58.280 --> 2:01:58.480 Yeah. 2:01:58.520 --> 2:02:04.160 I owe a lot out of not sex to liking Tommy. 2:02:07.920 --> 2:02:09.800 It's like the Doomer meme, the meme of the girl 2:02:09.880 --> 2:02:12.080 with like bloodshot circles under eyes and a gun. Like 2:02:12.200 --> 2:02:15.520 I lied, we're not going to hook up. I'm gonna 2:02:15.520 --> 2:02:18.720 make you listen to Heart of Saturday Night, followed by 2:02:18.800 --> 2:02:22.400 rain Dogs, followed by Bone Machine while I expound on 2:02:22.480 --> 2:02:26.400 the relative lyrical progressions and production differences of each. I 2:02:26.480 --> 2:02:32.720 don't have Netflix door clicks, door clicks behind some like 2:02:33.960 --> 2:02:37.480 Terrified Brooklyn twenty something girl, and yet you're the one 2:02:37.480 --> 2:02:39.800 of the two of us is married. I know, I know. 2:02:39.920 --> 2:02:42.760 It really is a cruel shock. I don't think I 2:02:42.920 --> 2:02:51.360 I low Is. I don't know where she sits on Low? Well, yeah, 2:02:52.440 --> 2:02:54.120 did I even make Did I ever play you Tom 2:02:54.200 --> 2:03:00.600 Waits when we were dating? She answered, which of the 2:03:00.680 --> 2:03:06.520 four hundred times are you referring to? So something took? 2:03:06.680 --> 2:03:07.600 We really should have. 2:03:07.680 --> 2:03:09.560 I feel like our listeners would be able to get 2:03:09.560 --> 2:03:10.840 to know you a lot better if we had low 2:03:10.880 --> 2:03:12.200 as a cameo every now and then. 2:03:12.800 --> 2:03:18.320 Don't give her a hot mic. Please don't take the 2:03:18.440 --> 2:03:24.280 last lingering shred of my dignity anyway, This has been 2:03:24.320 --> 2:03:25.120 too much information. 2:03:26.120 --> 2:03:33.280 Higel at night, I'm holding the microphone like Freddie Mercury, Right. 2:03:33.280 --> 2:03:33.840 You actually are? 2:03:33.920 --> 2:03:35.520 I love it? I love it, I love it. Join 2:03:35.640 --> 2:03:38.240 me next week when God? What else can I talk about? 2:03:38.280 --> 2:03:40.400 Off the dome? Like Tom Waits jazz? 2:03:41.240 --> 2:03:41.440 Yeah? 2:03:41.560 --> 2:03:47.160 The studio recordings of Tom Dowd. Oh wow, engineer extraordinary 2:03:47.480 --> 2:03:52.240 at at Atlantic, come on out of places. Well we 2:03:52.360 --> 2:03:54.680 move technique. We might do like a rolling stone in 2:03:54.840 --> 2:03:58.240 honor of that movie. I didn't think was that great. No, no, 2:03:58.320 --> 2:04:00.200 shut up for a second. One are a fascinate Any 2:04:00.280 --> 2:04:03.280 things I think about Tom doubt is how he would 2:04:03.280 --> 2:04:06.120 go to these extraordinary lengths to get an accurate Charles 2:04:06.240 --> 2:04:09.720 minguz bas sound. And then Mingus would just pick up 2:04:09.720 --> 2:04:12.320 his bass while he's playing and walk around the room 2:04:13.120 --> 2:04:15.400 or just like move it around and yell you hear 2:04:15.400 --> 2:04:18.200 all these like blown out bait. It's like these Rudy 2:04:18.280 --> 2:04:21.480 van Gelder's over there like filating himself in Englewood Cliffs, 2:04:21.840 --> 2:04:25.160 trying to get like an acoustically pure environment, and Charles 2:04:25.280 --> 2:04:28.520 Mingus is like banging his upright bass against a mic 2:04:28.600 --> 2:04:31.480 that Tom Dowd recorded. And you know what, those Tomdowd 2:04:31.520 --> 2:04:34.040 records sound fantastic. This is where you board feed me 2:04:34.160 --> 2:04:37.760 down now. Earlier we mentioned how to get a great 2:04:37.880 --> 2:04:40.720 Chicago harp sound, and the way you want to do 2:04:40.800 --> 2:04:43.240 that is you get a sure green bullet mic. You've 2:04:43.240 --> 2:04:46.720 talked about that rich earlier in this episode yes, no, 2:04:47.360 --> 2:04:49.880 I say, okay, Well, what I'd like to get into 2:04:50.000 --> 2:04:53.560 now is Peter Ivers, who wrote the song in Heaven 2:04:53.640 --> 2:04:55.920 from a racer Head. Now, Ivers, I don't know if 2:04:55.920 --> 2:04:58.400 you knew this. There's not a lot of people that 2:04:58.520 --> 2:05:04.360 know this. I first was a harmonica virtuoso. In like 2:05:04.560 --> 2:05:09.840 two years, that guy discovered and mastered Blues Heart to 2:05:09.920 --> 2:05:20.880 the Point Too Much Information was a production of iHeart Radio. 2:05:21.160 --> 2:05:24.320 The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog. 2:05:24.560 --> 2:05:28.000 The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show 2:05:28.160 --> 2:05:31.600 was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtog and Alex Heigel, 2:05:31.760 --> 2:05:34.960 with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. 2:05:35.320 --> 2:05:37.360 If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave 2:05:37.440 --> 2:05:37.920 us a review. 2:05:38.200 --> 2:05:42.480 For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio Apple Apple Podcasts, 2:05:42.760 --> 2:05:44.440 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.