Some American

a considered opinion: tom waits - glitter and doom live

In the summer of 2008, Tom Waits embarked on a U.S tour. Given his sporadic touring schedule, I was understandably intrigued. However, given that the aim of the tour was apparently to avoid anything resembling a coast (with the exception of a brief foray into California), the closest date to me was in Cleveland, a solid 7-8 hour drive away. A friend of mine ardently insisted that we gather a group together for a road trip and buy tickets, long distances and hellacious drives through flat middle America be damned. For reasons that escape me now, I insisted that I couldn’t afford such a trip. Looking back, I can’t remember exactly what it was that I used that money for instead. It was doubtless wasted, at least in comparison to the good use that could have been made of it had I actually gotten my act together and made it to the show. As Glitter and Doom Live, his latest release compiled of performances taken from this tour, makes abundantly clear, when Tom Waits decides to go on the road, you get yourself to Cleveland.

Adulation of Tom Waits has been well-documented on this site on more than one occasion, so I won’t go on at length about his undeniably singular oeuvre. Let’s just say that I, like most if not all of the Some American writers, dig his work. I dig it considerably.

One of the more compelling reasons to go to a Waits show (of which there are many) is to see how he chooses to reinterpret, mangle and twist his songs; he has a knack for bending songs over backwards while still retaining their original thrust. On “Goin’ Out West”, one of many cuts culled from his near-20 year output for current home Anti- Records, he sounds less like a wild man burning through the desert at top speed (as on Bone Machine’s original version) and more like a suave drifter rolling through town in a monstrous Cadillac convertible. As well as swapping the original’s ragged howl for a low, raspy croon, Waits hams it up by adding an extra repetition of the lyric “I look good without a shirt” that sounds squeezed through the cheesiest of grins. “Such A Scream”, another tune pulled from Bone Machine, shows touring guitarist Omar Torres playing like he’s in the middle of a mid-70s James Brown funk workout. The rest of the band sticks to the original version’s ramshackle clatter-and-holler aesthetic, and for reasons beyond me the combination doesn’t suck.

“Such A Scream” also shows one of Waits’ greatest strengths as a touring musician: his ability to pick a backing band. His son Casey Waits’ off-kilter drumming on “Scream” doesn’t have a hint of a straightforward backbeat. Instead, Waits the younger leans on rolls, fills, and seemingly random hits dropped wherever in the bar he damn well pleases. I’m not sure what would be more impressive: having these parts meticulously laid-out in advance, or coming up with them on the spot without losing the plot entirely. Clearly there’s a gene marker for this sort of thing.

Another strength of Waits’ touring operation is his sound engineers. Since I missed out on the Glitter & Doom tour, I can’t attest to the quality of the sound at the shows, but what’s presented here is immaculately recorded; the most subtle hisses from the corner of Waits’ mouth are as prominent as the sound of his son’s cymbal hits clattering off the back wall of the venue. Even the crowds at these shows were well-mic’d: when they join in during the bridge of “Trampled Rose”, it sounds less like handclaps than boughs cracking, and nearly overwhelms Casey Waits’ snare hits. What’s particularly remarkable about the sound of the record is its cohesion; despite the fact that the album pulls from over a dozen performances on the U.S. and European legs of the tour, the songs sound like they could all be part of one set. That is, they could be were it not for the glaring lack of crowd banter. As those who have heard Waits’ previous live offerings or have been to any of his shows can attest, his non sequiturs and interactions with the audience are an essential part of the show. It’s puzzling, then, that on Glitter & Doom, none of this is included in the main set. Instead, we get “Tom Tales”, a 30-plus minute collage of snippets taken from various shows. Its rambling stories of uncharitable shellfish and ill-conceived ebay excursions are indeed classic Waits fare, but when presented in this format they begin to feel tiresome well before the halfway mark. As entertaining as his seemingly random comments may be, they fare better when used as interstitials in between songs.

I’ve read some other reviews of this album describing it as a crowd-pleaser for Waits fans, but ultimately unlikely to bring in any newcomers; if you didn’t like Waits before, you probably won’t like him now. I disagree completely - this may be my inner Waits fanboy talking, but if Glitter & Doom doesn’t convince you in the slightest of Waits’ staggering prowess, then perhaps, friendo, something is wrong with you.

Some American RECOMMENDS Tom Wait’s Glitter & Doom Live

a considered opinion: hurricane bells - tonight is the ghost

That this band came into my consciousness because of the New Moon soundtrack and I bothered to take the time to listen to them is pretty remarkable. I was dead set against all things relating to that particular property, after all. Spent a lot of time on the podcast saying as much. In spite of my vitriol, the quality of the collection eventually got through to me. I even wound up paying for it. As a result, any band I had never heard who was a part of it managed to slip past my hastily erected, hateful barriers as well, which led me to my interest in Hurricane Bells, a side project of guitarist/gun for hire Steve Schiltz.

“Monsters”, the song recorded exclusively for the New Moon compilation that grabbed my attention, is an old school rock romp heard through a badass, bitcrusher filter. The hugely compressed nature of the recording makes what would be a pretty stock song dynamic and interesting, and catchy as all hell. It also perfectly encapsulates Schiltz’ ability to be both upbeat and depressing at the same time.

This dichotomy is on full display throughout his earlier full length effort, a half hour of dreamy, melancholy music that actually manages to soothe the soul just a little by the time it’s done because the sadness on display is never so overwrought as to be offensive. Much of the lyrical focus is on vaguely personal recent history, with feelings of loss and a lack of direction taking a center stage, but in a way that implies a sense of acceptance. Life can be difficult and a little confusing, but that seems to be just fine with Steve and he wants you to feel that way too.

Sonically Tonight Is The Ghost artfully borrows elements of My Morning Jacket, Death Cab For Cutie, and M. Ward into something not entirely new but not wholly derivative either. It is very divergent sounding from “Monster”, with most tracks taking a longer, more meandering course to their conclusion, and possessing a downbeat feel. Densely layered drums (which may in fact be sampled in some cases), slide guitars, and reverb drenched synth parts, all played by Schiltz himself, also contribute to how relaxing the whole experience is. Ghost is an almost ideal soundtrack to a late summer’s evening spent on a porch, alone of course.

If you’re the type to get nostalgic, or dare I say wistful, over the long gone end of summer, then Hurricane Bells first effort could be the exact record to fix you up and leave you feeling a ok. After all, there are always warmer days ahead. Hopefully there will be another Bells album as well.

Some American RECOMMENDS Hurricane Bells - Tonight Is The Ghost

a considered opinion: washed out - life of leisure

Oh, if only this EP had come out at the beginning of the summer, rather than during its dying gasps.  It certainly would have been a welcome addition to a season that witnessed the never-ending onslaught of The Black Eyed Peas.  I hear they reinvented the album, or something.  Under the Washed Out moniker, South Carolina’s Ernest Greene crafts dense, hazy electropop that evokes muggy summer nights in the same way that Kyuss evokes the arid climes of the southwest.  Greene avoids sounding like cliché summer beach music, however, by drenching his analogue synths with layers of reverb and fuzzed-out bass lines.  This is not music you listen to while lounging on a deck chair, but rather while driving home after the sun has gone down.

While most of the songs on Life of Leisure coast along on a similar laid back groove, “Hold Out” is the one exception that could pass for club-ready dance music, and also features what is possibly Greene’s strongest vocal performance, stacking tight vocal harmonies underneath the pounding bass and cascading keyboards.  Greene’s vocals throughout manage to sound hazy and distant, but without the sense of detachment that plagues many of his peers.  Although his vocal performances do sound rather similar from one song to the next, it comes across not so much as a lack of imagination than as a conscious decision to not fix what isn’t broken.

The overall tone and mood of the songs remain consistent throughout the EP, and would have made for a thoroughly coherent and well-sequenced piece, if not for one glaring fault.  A few of the tracks here end far too abruptly, sounding as through Greene simply chopped off the last few seconds of each song.  A jarring enough sensation in and of itself, it sticks out like a sore thumb in a collection of songs that would have benefited hugely from sequencing that melted one track into the next.  To be fair, Greene did record the entirety of Life of Leisure in a bedroom in his parents’ house, so the odd blemish is to be expected, and doesn’t prevent it from being the blissed-out gem that it is.

Some American RECOMMENDS Washed Out’s Life of Leisure EP

Life of Leisure is available as a digital download now and on 12” vinyl (only 1000 pressed) from early October at Mexican Summer