superflea

From the "Late to the Party" department:

Holy fuck, is Tom Waits ever good.

I'm sitting here listening to Big Time and having my mind blown on every single song.

Obviously, I'm well aware of the tremendous acclaim earned by Mr. Waits, but it's only recently, since I've had the luxury of being able to afford filling in the gaps in my CD player (since I'm glued to an ipod all day at the office), that I've made any efforts to get better acquainted with his music. That said, it's mainly been in a "I really should own some Tom Waits" sense.

The personal significance of this specific CD has to do with my father. I remember him being blown away by a performance of "Sixteen Shells" on the David Letterman show back when I was a wee lad, and so he was a huge fan of the Big Time record when it came out. (I don't know if he was a fan of the rest of the album, or if it was ultimately just the one song that rocked his world - I remember him being especially tranfixed by the percussion in "Shells".)

Anyways, I saw it for nine bucks the other day and figured it was worth owning just to tie back into that moment. I found out that I can actually do a passable Waits imitation, too, but I don't know that I could keep it up for a full song without spitting blood. But maybe that's the point. Regardless, I bought it mainly for the one song, but I'm up to "Clap Hands" and I'm finding the music and performance absolutely humbling.

Why wasn't I listening to this guy ten years ago? Maybe I wasn't ready. Hmm... I also have Rain Dogs around here somewhere...