2015 Week 52: The Last Playlist

And just like that, the year is over. I actually stuck to this weekly playlist thing the whole year, even though I honestly had a hard time coming up with anything resembling a theme most of the time. I will not be doing it next year, though. I want to try to listen to some audio books next year which is going to be an interesting experiment in time management. It's weird that I sometimes wish I had a longer commute. I might post playlists form time to time, when I think of a good theme, but it won't be steady. And I need to get back to the Tom Waits discog soon.

The year started out with me writing for FDRMX, but that quickly stopped for several reasons. They've since changed their name and my stuff is still there (they've actually republished a couple recently for some reason) but since I'm not actually paying bills with my writing, I'd rather find a better match or just try to somehow (impossibly) grow my own site. I don't know, I could use an editor, though. A good one. But it's not like I have all the time in the world for writing, either. The year is ending with this sort of becoming harder for me to find the mental energy for and I feel like it shows. So, while having some sort of consistency throughout the year was an accomplishment, I'm not sure I'm in a place where I can really force this.

Next year I'm anticipating several new albums. There's The Last Shadow Puppets and Lucius and possibly Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I'm hoping to see some good shows. Right now, my list of people I most want to see is, in no particular order:

Nina Diaz/Girl in a Coma: Nina's solo album is due out next year. I'd love to see her with Girl in a Coma or solo. Either way.

Rachel Fannan/Only You: One of my favorite songs this year was "The Pressure," but everything I hear from her and see on YouTube is right up my alley. A full album would be great too.

Ruby the Hatchet: My number 9 album this year was Valley of the Snakes. I want to see it live.

Royal Thunder: My number 1 album of the year was Crooked Doors. Been wanting this for some time. There's a slight chance.

The Fantastic Negrito: Also one on my top albums of the year. This guy is electric.

Nathaniel Rateliff and The Nightsweats: Number 2 album of the year was. . .

The Last Shadow Puppets: With a full orchestra, of course.

Anyway, for the last playlist I gathered some songs that I feel captured the year for me. It was a year with some struggles and some good stuff in there too. Which I guess is every year, really. It's kind of stupid to try to some up 365 days of the complexities of everyday life with one big generalization. Still, I think this comes pretty close. And it features some of of my favorite songs to come out this year. So, there it is.

2015 Week 50: Top 100 Tracks Streamed

Spotify's year in music is one of the great things about streaming. You can get a wrap up of at least some of your music habits in a way that would take way more obsessive nerdetry to do offline than I think even the most insane among us would never do. So, even though I do listen to vinyl and this year started using Google Play to stream my own collection, this number is pretty damn close to reality. 62 thousand minutes. Take that! But what was I listening to? Was it all the same band? Not quite. I don't think I can name 4, 526 artists, but that's what I listened to, at least once. I give everything a chance. How else would you find anything? Spotify also tells me I listened to 12,000 different tracks, mostly in the following genres.

But who gives a shit about genre? Not me, apparently. My top artists where:

1. Tom Waits - 247 Streams
2. Elvis Costello - 189 Streams
3. Arctic Monkeys - 156 Streams
4. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - 144 Streams
5. Ana Tijoux - 121 Streams

So I guess, technically, Elvis Costello should be number 1, but that's how Spotify breaks it down. I'm not sure what they consider a stream though since I get the sense the individual numbers might be too small.  Anyway, next measure was albums and no surprises there either:

1. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs - 117 Streams
2. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones - 77 Streams
3. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie, etc. - 58 Streams
4. Royal Thunder - Crooked Doors - 54 Streams
5. Thunderbitch - Thunderbitch - 52 Streams

Which brings me to my top tracks. I won't get into the top 5 tracks and instead just direct you to this week's playlist, which is just my Top 100 for 2015, according to Spotify. I've been listening to it the past couple of days and while there really aren't any complete surprises, there are a few songs I hadn't actually heard in a while, but I guess I played them a lot at the beginning of the year. There are a lot of newer songs but mixed in with some of my old standbys. Shuffle this playlist and it's pretty much what riding around with me is like.

2015 Week 43: Tombstone Waits & The Rockin' Ghouls

So I guess I started a tradition last year that I'll continue. I've warmed up to the idea of Halloween somewhat so I've really embraced the concept of the Halloween playlist. I'm repeating a few songs from last year because I never did that as an actual playlist, so it's acceptable. But still, I try to stay away from the more common stuff and go more to the slightly obscure while keeping it pretty light and fun.

So this year, it's about that time Tom Waits decided to hang out at a graveyard to get inspiration for his next song. Legend has it that as he composed his song, some ears that nobody thought were listening perked up and by the time he started humming the piece a band of zombies were accompanying him on bone instruments. Soon enough, coffins full of ice and beer were there and the band was jamming hard. I can't be sure of all the songs Tombstone Waits & The Rockin' Ghouls played that night, but I think it might have gone something like this.

 

2015 Week 5: Walking it Off in the Moonlight

It all comes together.

Earlier this week I posted my latest Tom Waits review over at FDRMX for Swordfishtrombones. Great album. A lot of it made me think of some old school animations in a lot of ways and it's not the first time. I have to just assume Waits was a huge influence on Tim Burton and Danny Elfman when they put A Nightmare Before Christmas together. His songs have been used in a few animated films, like Robots, which used "Underground." Sure, it wasn't a great movie, but still.

And speaking of soundtracks, I recently said on here that the Game of Thrones theme was probably my favorite theme of the moment. I found this cool cover the other day.



So there's this couple. They have a fight one night, maybe about imagined infidelities or about one not doing what the other expected. It ultimately boils down to trust, which is what all couples arguments are really ever about if you think about it. It gets heated and one of them storms out because they just can't, but they bring their music device of choice and some headphones and as they walk, alone under the moonlight, through the tree lined neighborhood where they live, they listen. And as they listen, the emotions churn. Anger builds to rage. Disappoint and betrayal pop up and sometimes it's self directed as blame shifts back and forth Still, they feel betrayed or guilty or both. Maybe there's self pity and pockets of hate. But the walk begins to bring clarity as the intensity of the potential loss reminds them of what sparked the love in the first place. And a new purpose to the walk emerges as the homestretch comes up and it's time to head back to that door and come in out of the cold, out of the dark, and into the open, waiting arms of home. Ain't it great when a bunch of random songs I started throwing into a playlist throughout the week can somehow tell me that story? Go listen and see if you don't get it, too.

Je Suis Murtaugh

Me, every day.

I recently contributed a piece to Cinesthesia about Interstellar. Go check it out and read the rest of the reviews. I might contribute over there again at some point. If I ever find the time and energy to write about movies. I was digging through some of my old blogs at the Not Just Otaku blog, and I was sort of impressed. I was getting pretty good at reviewing comics and movies before I stopped. I'll see what I can do.

I guess I've always been old in many ways. And yet somehow awkwardly teen aged. It hasn't been easy. Luckily, the older I get the less I give a fuck. For more on that philosophy please read this excellent piece. Seriously, it's life changing if you aren't there yet and life affirming if you are. It's a life goal that I think everyone should be told about from day 1. In any case, I put together this playlist because well, I was thinking about Roger Murtaugh, as I often do.

So here's a bunch of songs that are directly or indirectly about getting older. I'm thinking this list will be a work in progress, so I suggest subscribing to it. Don't worry if you don't have premium Spotify, by the way. I recently learned that the free version, even on your devices, lets you listen to playlits in shuffle mode. So, I invite you to let me be your Pandora or whatever, if you're too cheap to get the premium. Just do it. Or not. I don't give a fuck.

2015 Week 4: Existential Salad

Tom and Tom.

One month down. I've decided to skip the next album on the Tom Waits discography, which would have been the soundtrack to One From the Heart. I'm skipping it because honestly it bored me to tears and I couldn't get past like 4 songs.It would be one thing if I just didn't like it after listening and wrote about that. I didn't like Heartattack and Vine. But this, I couldn't even bring myself to continue to listen to. Plus, since it's a soundtrack and half the songs are actually sung by Crystal Gayle, there's reason not to include it in the overall project. So next up will be Swordfish Trombones, which I expect to have posted on FDRMX soon. Stay tuned.

Shout out to Ryan for bringing Rachel Fannan and Only You to my attention this week. Loving everything I've heard from her so far, be it solo work, with Only You or some of the other collaborations she's done, one of which closes off this week's playlist, so be sure to grab that. Anyway, Only You released a new single this week called "Pressure." Twangy reverb drenched guitar leads the way to fuzz and Siouxsie style drama. Awesome stuff. Listen and explore the rest of her music, it's worth it and you'll be amazed by the range. I hope there's a full album soon.



So this week's playlist is the sort of thing you want to crank up and ponder your place in the world. In a round about way, it's about time and mortality. It's about living in the moment, on the one, and how we are always like Schrodinger's cat. Oh and hey, a new Vaccines single! So ponder, but then move on and live.

My 2014 Spotify Breakdown

My time on Spotify 2014

It's been an interesting year in music for me. There were several great shows and tons of new music. I was invited and have been contributing to a site other than my own where people are actually reading my shit. I only wish I had more time to be able to contribute more. In the past 2 and a half months, I've had 19 articles published at FDRMX with about 160k views so far, which I'm sure is not really a big deal in internet numbers, but it seems like it to me. Shit, if even half of that is people actually reading my words, that's a huge boost.

Everyone knows how much I love Spotify. My year in music on there is interesting because apparently, Zoey hijacked some of my top 5 breakdowns, but none the less, the rest is pretty accurate.

I've been working through the Tom Waits discography much slower than I thought I would, but his position on the list is proof I'm taking this shit seriously. Right now, I'm on an Elvis Costello kick since I just got a ticket to see him in March on his Solo tour. I've always liked him more or less, but have never gone deep into his catalog. I've been meaning to for a a long time, though. This is the moment. It's no surprise seeing The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys or Zeppelin on my list either. But I gotta wonder what number 6 was. My guess might be Brownout, but who the hell knows. I wish this gave me the option to see a top 10. Then there's albums and it looks like Zoey wasn't the only to hijack the top 5 since Frozen is in the middle of it, as it was in the middle of everything this year. Nothing against it, but damn. Can't complain too much about a 5 year old who is into Hozier,though, can you?

Impromptu Halloween Playlist

I recently saw an article somewhere, can't remember where, asking why there aren't really any Halloween songs. I didn't even bother reading it because it was clear whoever wrote it had no clue what they were talking about. There’s probably no easier playlist to create than a Halloween playlist! It's not just “Monster Mash” or “Every Day is Halloween”! The possibilities are endless. You could go really dark, really campy, obscure, horror movie theme, whatever. You could easily do it without even using literal "monster" type songs. Just a few off the top of my head.

This is self explanatory, really. It sets the mood, and if you wanted to go with all songs about horror movies, there’s no better opener. And it's not "Monster Mash."

Something about punk and psychobilly leads to tons of songs about 50s horror movies. Within this genre, you could pretty much just go with all Cramps songs and have a good Halloween playlist, really, but I’m going with this one, because it makes for a good pairing with. . . .

Yet another band whose entire discography would make a for a perfect Halloween playlist. This track is great because Danzig just repeats the title of the song and movie along with listing the stars, Vincent Price and Alain Delon. It’s simple and it fucking rocks, stupid.

I don’t know how it happened, but twangy guitars are just synonymous with Halloween music for me. I fucking love this song. Get the dry ice flowing as this builds tension and chills enough to deserve a good follow up. . .

I fucking love this song, too! More twang and creep continuing the theme of the suicide goth girl that ruins your sleep patterns, so slow dance time! This one features a brief appearance of the theme from A Nightmare on Elm Street, so bonus.

There may be a pattern here, because there were several appropriate choices from Roky Erickson for this list. This is probably his most straightforward and even if you’ve never heard it, you can sing along immediately. Plus, it’s about zombies. Or it could also be about his complete mental breakdown, but whatever.

Ok, this is getting ridiculous, but once again, this batshit insane band’s choices are many. Even the non-halloween tracks are bizarre enough to fit. And, more twang. Seriously, these people are fucking nuts.

Sexy costumes are all the rage now, I guess, so let’s pair that with a sexy swinging French Mademoiselle singing about Dracula, the only vampire that matters (aside from Skinner Sweet of American Vampire, which everyone should read.). Plus, you know I love the french pop. It doesn’t always have to be scary to work, but. . . .

If you do want to go with creepy, Goblin is your starting point. There are many movie themes you could choose, but Italian horror is the model. This isn’t party music, but I know if I walked up to a house to trick or treat and this was playing, I’d likely shit myself.

Anyway, this is just a small sampling. Maybe next year I'll put a whole comprehensive Spotify list together. It's funny because I've always disliked this holiday, but the music is pretty awesome. Way better than cheesy ass X-mas music. There's one more track I should mention, that I just heard recently. It's off Tom Waits's Blue Valentine album, which I just posted about over at FDRMX. Enjoy the track(s) and go read my shit over at FDRMX.

Going Pro

So, I'm currently trying out writing for FDRMX.com.  I've now been published twice, and expect to have something up there daily. For now it's a trial run, but go check it out. Today's piece was my next one in the Tom Wait's Discog.  Even without me, there's good stuff over there. Do it!

http://fdrmx.com/tom-waits-foreign-affairs-album-review/

Discographies: Tom Waits Small Change

It turns out that while I had never heard Small Change all the way through, I had actually heard most of these songs before, which is interesting because in many ways, this is probably the Waits sound that people think of first. It's the deep raspy voice with the boozy delivery and jazzy rhythms. The progression continues from each of the previous albums, building and building, towards what, I'm not entirely sure. Though I know his more recent work, I'm not sure how it connects to his earlier stuff yet. I can only assume the gradual progression will make sense.

While many of the songs on Small Change drip with blues and sadness they are tempered by humor almost every time, either within the song itself or because the next song knocks you out of any impending depression. It all feels like a hazy, drunken stumble of a night through back alleys and pawn shops to burlesque joints and big crowded bars. So while the album kicks off with the sad, drunken ballad Tom Traubert's Blues which is probably one of his most well known songs, but it then kicks right up into what is probably my favorite Waits song, Step Right Up.



There's a tune called Salt Peanuts that has been credited to Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Count Basie, but the legend is that it's based on the rhythm and cadence of peanut vendors calling out "Salt Peanuts" on the street to attract customers. Related in origin as well as content is the Cuban El Manisero (The Peanut Vendor), written by  Moises Simons. Here, Waits takes on the music of  street vendors in a whole different way, mixing it with advertising, shady salesmanship and con men trying to get you to buy "it" because "it" is all you need. "It" will solve every ailment and heartache you ever had or will have. My favorite line "It finds you a job. . . It IS a job!" It's whatever you need it to be and this song pretty much convinces me to buy it with it's groove. Besides, it's only a dollar. Only a dollar.

Another standout track (fuck it, they're all stand out tracks on this album, really) is The Piano Has Been Drinking, which is just a brilliant marriage of form and content. The off key bits and rambling, drunken puns, putdowns and provocations paint a clear picture of a guy that has done some serious damage to his liver on this night and might end up in a fight, on his way to demand faster service, had it not been for the piano in the corner of the crowded bar that distracted him. He sat down and started tinkering with tipsy fingers, slightly off, but more or less, and eventually hit on a melody that started to get everyone's attention. Now he's just riffing and the crowd is actually loving it. Hell, even the staff he pokes at for bad service is amused.



And then we get an Invitation to the Blues, from the dame behind the counter at the local drugstore in a noir-ish, bluesy piece about your friendly neighborhood femme fatale. She won't poison you or shoot you, maybe, but she will break your heart. But you'll still accept the invitation.



Like I said, they're all standout tracks on this album. Overall, I think this is where there's no longer any denying that Waits is among the greatest song writers, performers and story tellers ever. I'm not really sure how much more I'll have to say about the next album, but then I have a feeling his style will begin to evolve. These albums have been very traditional, but they have a sense of experimentation sort of bubbling way underneath, probably due to his being heavily influenced by the beat poets. So here's a little clip I found to close out this album, but really, you should be listening to these albums yourself.

Discographies: Tom Waits Nighthawks at the Diner

Nighthawks at the Diner is one of two Tom Waits albums I had heard all the way through before starting this project. I'd heard it not too long ago and was completely blown away by it. Hearing again in the context of the two albums before it, what I find interesting is that while it makes perfect sense it is also quite surprising. Closing Time had a melancholy feel throughout and Saturday Night had a restless longing, but Nighthawks brings, above all, a sense of fun and humor to the mix. The album was recorded live in studio, with an audience, but it is all new material, so I didn't break my rules.

The material here is an expansion of the jazz heard in The Heart of Saturday Night, particularly Diamonds on My Windshield. Every song has a spoken intro that is often hard to separate from the song itself as it all plays like improvised jazz poetry, making the album seamless and best experienced as a whole. The stories are often "personal" and come with jokes, often resulting in a raspy chuckle from Waits himself. Overall the album makes me smile all the way through, which is a very unique experience for me to have with music.

We're Nighthawks, too! 

There's just something about diners that I love. It's the food, it's the simplicity, the general atmosphere, the history, the people. All of it. There's nothing like ending up at a diner in the wee hours of the night before heading home (which at 41, with kids, if you even find the time and energy to go out at all, means about 9 or 10pm). Jazz club conceit aside, this is what the album is about, really. Waits is often called a poet and it's clear from this album why that is. The pictures he paints don't feel like paintings, though. More like photographs. This is observational poetry from an eye (and ear) that misses nothing. As far as I'm concerned the diner in Eggs and Sausage is real and Waits sat in it writing down what he saw and heard over endless cups of coffee and maybe pie. The poetry of small, mundane moments, of orders taken and small talk and menus. The unintentional human contact when handing back a menu or taking a plate from a waitress. The sound of silverware, punctuating the unintelligible late night mumble of a crowd lost in their own conversations about life, what to order, what the future may hold, the movie they saw, how great this pie is, why it's time to break up, why it's time have kids, why it's time for more coffee. I want to go to this diner.



This album, perhaps because it's recorded live, also features a much raspier Tom Waits. Closer to the Tom Waits voice of today, thought not quite as much. Hearing the first two albums, it was remarkable how much softer his voice was. I expect it only gets raspier as we go along and at a certain point, he may lose the ability to go to the softer voice, based on the interview clips I've seen where he can't quite seem to smoke enough. After hearing this album, I searched the Youtubes for live footage of its recording and didn't find anything, but we do have something pretty close in this episode of PBS Soundstage from 1975 that features songs from Nighthawks as well as Saturday Night. Grab a cup of coffee or something harder, and enjoy.

Discographies: Tom Waits The Heart of Saturday Night

I have to say that after the intimacy of Closing Time, Tom Waits' second album, The Heart of Saturday Night, took me a bit to get into. Right off, it felt more produced and bigger, not that it doesn't have intimate moments, but still. And while the first album felt like the end of a night, this feels like the middle of it. The middle of a bustling, hustling, neon, cigarette smoke and rain filled night in lounges, motels, pool halls, strip joints, all night laundry mats, truck stops, taxi cab depots, docks and ports. The stories here reminded me of when I used to work nights and was headed to work on a Saturday night, just as everyone else was getting ready to party. This is back door jazz, muffled in the distance while you take a cigarette break by the service entrance.

If Closing Time was nostalgic, this is more present and searching. Watching. Observing. But always yearning. There's a lot of talk of traveling here, or going away. Leaving. Characters are truckers and cab drivers or would be merchant marines or lovers of traveling salesmen who pass through town like a glimmer of stability, but never settle down. Everyone here is on the periphery of something bigger, but that periphery is crawling with undeniable anxiety of its own. The gaze is on the horizon and what's next, even if that's just a dark road to another town with same questions. And musically, the album is more focused on jazz with lots of bouncing upright bass and horns throughout. A standout track is Diamonds on my Windshield which could easily have been a left over Jack Kerouac poem.



There was nothing terribly gut-wrenching on this album for me. Maybe that's because I'm in a stable place in my life and the idea of searching for the heart of Saturday night out there in the world, on my own, is not something I relate to much anymore. But no matter, because at some point in our lives, I think most of us do relate to that restlessness and Tom captures it perfectly here. This was the 70's, and he uses music and imagery that may have been retro at the time, but remains vibrant and alive to this day. He was living in Los Angeles at the time, I believe, but the album really makes me think of New York in the 70s as much as it brings to mind the beat poets of the 40s and early 50s. Timeless and yet of its time. Retro and yet futuristic. There's no telling where this discography is heading.

Discographies: Tom Waits Closing Time

A friend of mine has been working through Bob Dylan's entire discography and inspired to do the same thing, only I'm starting with Tom Waits, because I'm less familiar with his work. Sure, I've heard miscellaneous songs and one or two albums all the way through, and I do like everything I've heard, but I've never really dug in deep. So I'm starting at the beginning. The rules are simple:

1. I will listen in chronological order to each original album.
2. No compilations, bootlegs, or live albums.
3. I will listen to each album at least twice on two separate days before I write about it.

So we begin at the beginning that is the ending of a night at some small town bar in Anywhere, USA, with the most appropriately titled album I think I've ever heard, Closing Time. Every song on this debut is basically a take on what you'd imagine an old barkeep might play on a dusty piano or cue up on the jukebox after everyone's left and the stools are all up on the bar, as he relives all the past lives and loves and heartaches that brought him here. This is the bar all the lonely drifters with their own sorted stories come to, and all the 9-5 drones who once had big dreams and everyone who's ever loved and lost and this bartender is the reason why. He listens. He understands. He sympathizes, empathizes and romanticizes with every shared regret and longing the pickled patrons slur over a drink or two. Or ten. Sometimes, he just knows from the look in their eyes and they share a nod of understanding. I'm sure many a drink is on the house and many a times, when he plays his tune on that dusty piano at the end of the night, to an otherwise empty bar, one regular (they're all regulars) may be passed out at the bar, from sorrow more than drink. And I'm sure our barkeep will be taking him home, or just letting him sleep in the back room. 

I hate labels and I listen to all kinds of music, so I already have an aversion to strict genre sections, but this album must have been a nightmare for record stores to shelve. There's country, jazz, blues, maybe even musical theater in here, sometimes all at once and all of it seamless. The only real unifying factor is nostalgia, really, and not in a cheap way. This is not the nostalgia of rose colored glasses and imitation of sounds past. This is authentically raw emotion that is more timeless than retro. Its vintage is all in the emotions it evokes and the pictures it paints. And what a picture! The first stroke comes from Ol '55, which is basically a country ballad and one of his most famous songs. I know I've heard it before, though I wasn't so familiar with it, but I was singing along pretty quickly. Pretty much every song had me reflecting on the past in one way or another, but the stand out track for me was the beautifully melancholy Martha. Though the lyric is quite specific about many aspects of this long ago love affair between Tom Frost and Martha, whom he has called long distance just to say he still loves her after 40 years (and make me cry, apparently), the mystery of the last line ("And I remember quiet evenings trembling next to you.")  in relation to the theme of the album is a story all on its own.

It's important to note that Tom Waits was only 24 years old when this album came out. If you look up "old soul" in the dictionary and his picture isn't there, burn that dictionary. I'm looking forward to the next album, but I may be living in this bar for a bit before I move on to the next one. It's sad, but it's real in a way that few things are or ever have been in music. These little slices of average people's lives offer something that's very pure and literary and visceral at the same time. It's clear to see why he's so highly regarded. This journey was a long time coming and I'm glad I'm starting it now.