Day 34, Tom Waits - Bone Machine

Stars: 3.5
Song: A Little Rain, Jesus Gonna Be Here.
Show: 25$

First off, I need to apologize for a few things. For one—and this may be more of an apology to myself—I am sorry I have been slacking off getting these things out on time lately. Yes, this is partly due to following my own theology which states, “Don’t work if it don’t pay,” but I don’t really consider this work. The main reasons I have been so slow is because I don’t have any of these albums and it is getting difficult to acquire them. I don’t have the money to buy them (or do much of anything in New York City, for that matter), and I have one of those nasty parasites people call a “conscious” which keeps me from pirating them all. I have been mostly relying on friends to send me their suggestions via a private, closed, completely legal, network. The last reason, and perhaps the most prohibiting, is that my Ipod and my computer are in a fight and are refusing to synch with each other. I thought I fixed this last night, but this brings me to my next apology.

I am sorry, Nicholas Mastors. This morning, as I do every morning, I connected my pod to my computer, went through my morning routine (you know, concocting protein shakes, lifting weights, running four miles, lathering myself in body oils, and trimming chest hairs), unplugged my “synched” Ipod, and headed for the train. By the time I got to the turnstiles, I had my cursor set Tom Waits Rain Dogs, and right when I walked through, past the point of no return, I hit play and nothing happened. Again, technology failed me, and each track, although listed, were duds. I was then left with an ugly dilemma: do I go back home, fuss with my computer for a half an hour and be late for work, or do I fudge it and do a different Waits album? I made the difficult judgment call to just go ahead and tackle Bone Machine instead, which at the time, I thought was from the same time period and in a similar style. As it turns out, Bone Machine came out almost 7 years after Rain Dogs, and I forgot one golden rule about Tom Waits, and mostly all good artists, “always give them something fresh.”

Now that we are sufficiently up-to-date with my goings-on, and you have entertained my self-justifying apologies, let’s talk about Bone Machine.

Like Bob Dylan, Waits is consistently genre bending and redefining himself throughout his incredibly prolific long, 36+ year career. It seems that everybody has at least heard of him, and although I have met only a few people who consider themselves Tom Waits fans, the ones who do are die-hard. And it is easy to understand why.

Mr. Waits is, put bluntly in terms everyone will understand, pretty f-in’ weird. Especially on Bone Machine. His vocals sound like what a haggard, three packs a day, New Orleans blues guy would sound like if he mutated with a bulldog. He voice has got more rasps then a cheese grater. It is booming and sounds like what the monsters from Where the Wild Things are should have sounded like. I apologize (there I go again) for this stack of similes, but his voice is so animated and unique, it forces the listener to put an image to it. But just when you think you have a clear picture, Waits manipulates his voice so intricately that he becomes a different monster on the next track. He can howl at the moon like in “A Little Rain,” or he can be swampy and evil like in “In The Coliseum,” and he even throws on a lisp for “Jesus Gunna be Here.”

I knew his album The Heart of Saturday Night quite well before hearing Bone Machine today. It is basically piano lounge music, like Randy Newman but on a good day. The melodies and chord changes are very romantic, but in the Jack Kerouac sort of way, not the love making kind. They strut along, pulling your heartstrings while making you swing. Bone Machine brings that piano man style back for “Whistle in the Wind,” “A little Rain” and aspects of a few others, but most of the album is off in the other direction Waits has been headed toward every since his 1983 release, Swordfishtrombones. This direction is hard to explain, unless “freakish circus-from-hell singer-songwriter music” does it any justice.

“Earth Died Screaming” exemplifies this. It opens with clinks and clops, like people drumming in the sewer, followed by some sparse guitar and then Waits’ talk/growl. You feel like you are marching with a band of goblins on their way to dinner. Then, there is a huge explosion when the chorus hits. This bomb is not fuled by much, just from Waits escalating to a deeper, scarier, louder chant and bass drum hits on the 1 and 3 beat. It doesn’t take a lot to get start this fire. Lyrics from this song can seem just plain devilish, but the last line of the chorus gives it a twist which instills wit and a taste of humanity: “And the great day of wrath has come, and here's mud in your big red eye. The poker is in the fire and the locusts take the sky. And the earth died screaming while I lay dreaming of you.”

At one point, Waits is almost normal. He scales back his demonic voice during “I Don’t Want to Grow Up,” a song from the prospective of a child, looking out to the world and seeing the ugliness and struggle, and wishing to stay in his room and avoid it. Not only are the lyrics accessible, it is even structured like a basic folk rock song. I still wouldn’t put it on for your grandmother, though.

I am so glad I took the time to settle into an album of his from this era. Although it sometimes scared me half to death, I feel in love with the album's ability to evoke so many images. And I loved that through all the madness, you can still find that beautiful songwriting talent lingering from his Heart of Satruday Night days. No question, I am going to try and get his entire catalogue and devourer it. Especially Rain Dogs.