Well, then, all you box spring hogs & raindogs.
Welcome to 3hrs of near genius.
Here be, then, you, is The WAITSing Room II, Cruel Variations - 3hrs of Tom Waits Covers. Yes, that’s bloody much correct. 3 damn hours of.
Essentially, & why not, this is a marketing dream come true. Following the giddy successes of the Drunk Covers series (here, here, here, here & here) & the ridiculously popular (as in downloads, etc.) The WAITSing Room Tom Waits Special (here) it seemed only natural (read: cynical, or manipulative) to combine the two & come up with what you is either stream-listening to or about to/in the middle of downloading as you read this sentence to its natural full stop end.
one half of + TWoTH have selected as many quirky versions/artists as possible within the tight timeframe imposed by not very much time available; they done ignored as many of the obvious choices as & when possible (although, the likes of Tim Buckley, Holly Cole, John Hammond & Neko Case have crept in - simply because they do extremely competent &, frankly, good interpretations). They done also restricted the ‘live’ versions to an absolute minimum. For sure, unless it’s recorded through a soundboard mixed professionally & released on a properly tarted album/CD it’s not really a genuine cover, is it? It’s a glorified pub band wanking loudly for a large audience.
There be some surprises, some well known ones, & some entirely new cover versions to point your earpipes at. ‘Course, this being Tom Waits there’s an overly healthy smattering of jazz renditions dunked into this coffee swamp of blues, balladry, balls to the wall brilliance. Don’t be afraid, though. Jazz can be good for you.
Unsurprisingly, there are many hundreds (possibly thousands) of Tom Waits covers out there in the musiverse - many unofficial or so far off the radar, in terms of specific artist/band widerife exposure, that it was nigh on impossible to get hold of them in time for this evening’s output. Perhaps we shall endeavour at a later date & slap together the potential for a #III in the series? We’ll see. We have this one to get through first.
For now, though, we hope you enjoy what you get.
We loved every minute of it.
x ½DC + TWoTH
Here’s the dang tracklist:
TWR 02.07.08 - Drunk Covers VII: The WAITSing Room II, Cruel Variations
1) Hell Blues Choir – God’s Away On Business (HBC: Greetings From Hell: The Tom Waits Song Book; TW: Blood Money)
2) Ash Grunwald – Jesus Gonna Be Here (AG: I Don’t Believe; TW: Bone Machine)
3) John Hammond – Cold Water (JH: Push Comes To Shove; TW: Mule Variations)
4) Grievous Angels – Cold Cold Ground (GA: Miles On The Rail; TW: Franks Wild Years)
5) Redbird – Hold On (Rb: Redbird; TW: Mule Variations)
6) Christine Collister – Broken Bicycles (CC: Blue Aconite; TW: One From The Heart)
7) Mike & Ruthy – Long Way Home (M&R: The Honeymoon Agenda; TW: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards)
8) Human Drama – Yesterday Is Here (HD: Pin-ups ; TW: Franks Wild Years)
9) Queens Of The Stone Age – Goin’ Out West (QSA: Sick Sick Sick EP; TW: Bone Machine)
10) Hack Mack Jackson – Rains On Me (HMJ: Pressure Island; TW: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards)
11) Pete Shelley – Better Off Without A Wife (PS: East of Sunset OST/Step Right Up – the songs of Tom Waits; TW: Nighthawks At The Diner)
12) Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard (SJH: Somethin’ Funny Goin’ On/New Coat of Paint – songs of Tom Waits; TW: Blue Valentine)
12) Heidi Talbot – Time (HT: In Love & Light; TW: Rain Dogs)
13) Frente! – Ruby’s Arms (F!: East of Sunset OST/Step Right Up – the songs of Tom Waits; TW: Heart Attack & Vine)
14) Madeline Peyroux – Looking For (The Heart Of Saturday Night) (MP: Half The Perfect World; TW: The Heart Of Saturday Night)
15) Sarah McLachlan – Ol’ 55 (SM: The Freedom Sessions EP/ Boys On The Side OST; TW: Closing Time)
16) The Silver Hearts – Walking Spanish (SH: The Silver Hearts Play Rain Dogs; TW: Rain Dogs)
17) Kim Taylor – Chocolate Jesus (KT: Live; TW: Mule Variations)
18) Great Lake Swimmers – Innocent When You Dream (GLS: Live; TW: Franks Wild Years)
19) Jeremy Smoking Jacket – No One Knows I’m Gone (JSJ: Live; TW: Alice)
20) The Blue Hawaiians – Jockey Full Of Bourbon (BH: Savage Night/Live At The Lava Lounge; TW: Rain Dogs)
21) Firewater – Diamonds & Gold (Fw: Sings We Should Have Written; TW: Rain Dogs)
22) Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy) – Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen) (PS: Live; TW: Small Change)
23) Neko Case – Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis (NC: New Coat of Paint – songs of Tom Waits; TW: Blue Valentine)
24) Frank Black – The Black Rider (FB: Black Letter Days; TW: The Black Rider)
25) John Campbell – Way Down In The Hole (JC: Howlin’ Mercy; TW: Franks Wild Years)
26) Carla Bozulich – On The Nickel (CB: New Coat of Paint – songs of Tom Waits; TW: Heart Attack & Vine)
27) Tim Buckley - Martha (TB: Sefronia; TW: Closing Time)
28) The Blacks – Poncho’s Lament (TB: New Coat of Paint – songs of Tom Waits; TW: The Early Years Vol. I)
29) Emiliana Torrini – I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You (ET: Merman; TW: Closing Time)
30) Curtis Stigers – In Between Love (CS: I Think It’s Going To Rain Today; TW: The Early Years, Vol. II)
31) Liane Caroll – Take It With Me (LC: Slow Down; TW: Mule Variations)
32) Diana Krall – Temptation (DK: The Girl In The Other Room; TW: Franks Wild Years)
33) Holly Cole – I Want You (HC: Temptation; TW: The Early Years Vol. I)
34) Ramones – I Don’t Wanna Grow Up (R: Adios Amigos; TW: Bone Machine)
35) Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes – Gin Soaked Boy (SJ&tAJ: Messin’ With The Blues; TW: Swordfishtrombones)
36) Hell Blues Choir – Swordfishtrombones (HBC: Greetings From Hell: The Tom Waits Song Book; TW: Swordfishtrombones)
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This is too good to beleive
Believe it, sunshine.
Interestingly, having contacted all the Tom Waits dedicated websites/blogs/etc. & all the Covers blogs out there to advertise this evening’s glut, most are ignoring the thing (except some really cool people who tune in anyway) or, especially in one case, just so happen to have posted a huge Tom Waits Cover Version post yesterday without any mention of tonight’s show. It’s a good job there’s enough Waits to go around, eh?
Cynical?
Us?
“ScarJo” sounds like an STD.
HweeahyoooschreeechmaaSKATEBOARDS!
Classic!
Thanks for the effort; fantastic show! I found out about it on the Eyeball Kid Blog and tuned in for the last two hours. Downloading the whole thing now so I can catch the beginning.
Coming off the high from seeing Tom live for the first (and then second) time in St. Louis and Knoxville last weekend, this was just the thing to combat withdrawal.
More, please!
OK DC! Everytime I say that it cant get any better … what happens? it Does! This show is your best effort to date- period. I need to listen a few more times to provide a worthy review but for the sake of Chocolate Jesus you done good. TWOTH just gets better with her sweet delivery and bright commentary. Penultimate was proper thanks
A stunning, emotional journey of strange voices set to familiar words and tintinabulation, simply stunning because like a table of fine food, presentation still counts and makes the experience so much more than the sum of its parts and my Welch friends that is what you add to the dinner party, stunning presentation and a warm home full of wonderful friends, thanks for asking me to dinner.
Wow.. Oh Boy, Hokey Smokes Bullwinckle, thanks for the work and dedication to the beautiful hh
Thais is great. Can you post the tracklist, so I can download some of the songs?
Cheers, All.
Pleasure to have been able to do my business in front of you.
HH - glad you’re still with us & enjoying this nonsense. TWoTH’s in the peak of fitness (for her age, body mass, hair colour, cynicism) & will perhaps be more regular with appearances as we dive into Summer. Fisk will be back shortly (I have a cracking theme tune for his return & he has more Celebrity Muggings to report + a whole 2 months of crazy logic to impart). Toad has disappeared up his own whole recently (blog, University radio show, record label, wife, etc.) so we’re not so sure when he will be back scraping profanities across his tongue & out its very own hole. the other half of is also being busy with a local theatre / arts company, putting on bi-monthly unsigned band gigs, pregnant wife about to spit the pip, so we aint holding an immigrant’s nose shut on him being back round the block any month soon… Say hi to the Graduate for us (&, in turn, tell her say howdy to any resident or ex SBC giggle kittens).
I’m going to be traveling the USof again for most of August - starting in Salt Lake City & headed a little SW before ploughing on & upwards through West Coast, hitting all the major cities (incl. Portland, so hopefully be around for some of the Pickathon fest - hear that Toad? Shamone!) - which means another round of blwdy pre-records done well in advance of take off. Here we bastard go again…
Matthew - HH thought that the Matt in The Wedding Room show a few weeks back, the Matt that got ‘married’ to a man who has a real life penis, was you &, therefore, by proxy, assumed you were as gay as a bumblebee’s button coat. I put him straight (no pun) of course. I made sure that he was 100% clear that, yes, you have dabbled but that was mostly out of bored necessity & a mind-numbed desire to distract from the monotony of 23hr lock down prison life. On another note, “ScarJo” is indeed an STD, afflicting only those engaging in vacuously transparent self promotion.
Matt - cheers for tuning in good man. If you scrabble about in the archives you’ll eventually find the original The Waitsing Room show what had 2 or 3 hrs (I forgets which, right now) of Tom Waits songs on it. Hope you got past our babble to enjoy the music proper, like.
Kara - check out the Playlists section. My guess is that’s where you’ll find the one for this show
*)
Thanks again, all, for tuning in & leaving stuff to respond to.
½DC
*actually, I just cut&paste it into the main blurb (& I’m sure as sure is that you have already discovered that)
Brilliant. I too found this via the Eyeball Kid. I think my highlight was Heidi Talbot. Never heard of her before.
You might like to read about my recent discovery of Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen singing Jersey Girl together in 1981:
http://carnivalsaloon.blogspot.com/2008/07/tom-waits-covers-2-bruce-springsteen.html
Hi Nigel.
Welcome to The Waiting Room.
Tuck yourself in.
½DC
DC: Sorry but I must agree with TWOTH, cut 19 by Jeremy and his smokling peace pipe was disturbing like fingernails on a chalkboard. I think JSJ was hell bent on using this effect without thinking it through.
The regular hacking which brought vile pictures to mind of misery, black lung, emphysema, cyctic fibrosis, choking , phlegm, metastasized cancer. and nicotine hangovers. I don’t need JSJ to unearth these images, I can get the same disgusting feeling speaking with my customers.
“No one knows I am gone” is sweetly mournful, a song about after the shouting is over, it is not so much the journey toward death (JSJ’s take) but the destination itself, lonely , isolated, its not so much a complaint as a pathetic lament that attempts to make the listener feel guilty. Perhaps a recurring suicidal thought of a hopeless good for nothing with a hangover earned with stolen money and a looming jail term. So the energetic hacking detracted from the point of the lyrics and focused me on the journey, the way to die not the state of being dead, which leads me to pose the question ” Do you know your dead?”
Thanks for the Hells Blues Choir just excellent their rendition made the beautiful chord changes that TW uses more apparent than usual. hh