Tom Waits - Frank's Wild Years
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Free Music Notes for Frank's Wild Years
Free Music Review: Yes, You Are Innocent When You Dream
Hit: 5 Stars
The comments posted here are also being used to comment on other Tom Waits albums.
The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, "Nighthawks" (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late "Gonzo" journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the "Blood On The Tracks" period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in "Walk On The Wild Side". And that same reach later by the man of the "mean" Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?
Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in "Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night", I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy's "Ironweed" (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring "Sea Of Love". That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950's, early 1960's classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits' husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are `alone' in the universe. Enough said.
But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the "Waits effect". Every once in a while I `need' to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking "Spanish in the halls', people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.
Frank's Wild Years, Tom Waits
This one is filled with some very experimental works like "Straight To The Top"and Frank's Theme" More os than some of his other works this is a concept album, and it works. The high here are the two versions of "Innocent When You Dream". Know this the song is one of the great modern love songs, and his raspy-voiced renditions showcase that notion. Forget Cole Porter, Forget Irving Berlin. Hell, Forget Frank Sinatra. This is what the love story is all about down at the base of society without the fluff. Kudos, Tom.
Free Music Review: Tripping over your shoelaces and falling into heaven, drunk
Hit: 5 Stars
One of the few five-stars in my book. This was the second Waits album I bought and it has remained with me lo these many years later.Waits' songwriting has already been rightfully praised by other reviewers. What I want to talk about is the music and arrangements that create the atmosphere that sustains this album. The accordion on "Blow Wind Blow" that sounds like it was lifted straight from a 1930's era Popeye cartoon. The clanking, squawking, grinding guitars and the eerie wobble of the Optigan, a toy organ that Waits uses in ways its makers never intended. (The rooster on "I'll Be Gone" is actually from the Optigan.)
There's more I could mention. The Albert Ayleresque intro to "Temptation." The dark, spare resonance of "Yesterday is Here" which sounds like it's being played by a bum with a broken guitar at a deserted railroad crossing. "Please Wake Me Up," (a plea not to be awakened during a dream) drowned in waves of wobbling pump organ with Waits' vocal sounding as if it was recorded over the phone. The frightful apotheosis of "Straight To The Top (Vegas)" and "I'll Take New York," which sounds like the soundtrack to the crucifixion of a bad lounge singer.
Nothing is normal here, which fits in with the theme of dreams. And underlying everything is the same kind of sorrow that motivates the best American music; the blues, in short. It's about wandering, whether in your mind or in reality or both.
If you have to be lost, it might as well be with Tom Waits, who can tell a shaggy dog story better than anyone.
Tom Waits is an oddity, complete unto himself, and probably one of the greatest artists America has ever produced, although most Americans don't realize it. This is one of his best and most completely realized pieces of art.
Free Music Review: THE ICEMAN COMETH
Hit: 5 Stars
I first heard this back in college. At the time, it blew away antything else I was hearing & I think it single handedly changed my tastes in music. 15 years later I never tire of it. Which is probably why I'm writing this review.
Critics would have you believe this is the third installment of a trilogy that started with SWORDFISHTROMBONES. If anything, it stands as a precursor to the work he later did with Robert Wilson. This album is the music from a performance piece Waits wrote with his wife & collaborator, Kathleen Brennan. It played to sold out performances at the Steppenwolf Theatre in the mid 80's & if I had known who the hell Tom Waits was then, I'd certainly be in the 1st row.
"Hang On St. Christopher" comes off as a reckless itinerary for a fugitive of justice. The sparse use of horns coupled with Mark Ribot's signature guitar aid & abet for a long day's journey into night.
"Temptation" has to be one of my favorite Waits'tunes featuring a demented falsetto & chorus as seductive as the subject matter. If Stephen Foster wrote a song based off William Kennedy's IRONWEED, it might have sounded like "Innocent When You Dream". An undeiable classic, right up there with the likes of "Time " & "Tom Traubert's Blues".
Without a doubt, there's a pervading sense of gloom overiding this album but every song is a gem if you take the time to dust it off. From the drunken "RAWHIDE" trappings of "Yesterday Is Here" to the delerious Film Noir of "Telephone Call From Instanbul" , this album is a virtual mugshot of Waits at his height of his powers. If anyone could write a musical of Eugene O'Neill's ICEMAN COMETH, it's Tom Waits. And I have to say, FRANK'S WILD YEARS is the sonic equivalent. Its certainly one of the most ambitious records of his career. A roadtrip movie for the damned.
Free Music Review: A Waits Opus in 2 acts
Hit: 5 Stars
Tom Waits' "Franks Wild Years" puts to record some of the music he composed for the play "Franks Wild Years" that he and his wife wrote and produced with the legendary Robert Wilson. While no official version of the play has been released, the record takes on a different narative than the play. It exists both as songs from the play, and it's own work. Tom's character Frank (whom we first heard of in "Swordfishtrombones"). Frank sets off from his work a day life in search of the dream of making it big. Frank writes one memorable song and ends up back where he started, one can only imagine in the gutter looking at the stars.This album is by far the best of the post "Swordfish" Waits. Here his style and penchant for twisting a good story and clever word play together are fully realized next to his flair for some of the most organic tin cans and car tires approach to music witnessed in popular music. This record shows Waits depth as a performer and brillance as a musician.
In respect to the lesser known 20th century composers (such as Partch, Varese, Ives, and Cowell) Waits has abstracted his Jazz /Blues/Cabaret roots into a very American, very poinent sound. Utilizing instruments that were set to pasture by musicians long ago, he creates a music that never fails to haunt or intrigue. Simple rythyms are banged out on empty boxes while a $19 bullhorn serves to strip his voice of any fidelety, yet infuse it with so much emotion that your arm hairs stand on end. Truly a magnificent work not merely a "Pop" album or simple "Rock n' Roll." This music is both complicated and eerily simple. A break down of musical convention resusitated with the breath of new life.
Free Music Review: It's such a sad old feeling.....
Hit: 5 Stars
..but with Tom Waits, that's exactly how it should be. Frank's Wild Years was my first disc of his, and boy it had taken a while to reach the point where I got the courage to get it.
That has all changed.
The man is, as someone else said here: "...a genius, complete unto himself.." and even if you don't like his music, or try (and fail) to get it, I would still have to say the summation is right.
Tom Waits has created a musical universe all his own, and I personally still feel "Frank's Wild Years" is one of his greatest discs.
What underpin even his most way-out recordings are honesty, compassion, and, yes, innocence that bore right through the characters he embodies, and in turn, tear you apart when you play the disc. His beautifully broken voice, combined with the "don't mow the lawn' approach to recording give the songs a grubby yet epic quality hard to overstate or describe.
I feel "Tom's Wild Years", with its more "mainstream" (relatively speaking) approach, is a good entry point for newcomers. It also happens to be one of his masterpieces.
CC