tuesday, January 29, 19S0
JUUWS
Tom Waits music is best of neo-beats
daily nebraskan
By Michael Zangari
Jack Keroac's biggest legacy in the literature of popular
music may ultimately lie in a nightmare vision of motion-lcssness-strangling
in the dead air of slow transition and
growing older.
Terminal hipness has its costs, and for the beats who
survived the transitions of the last two decades somewhat
intact life must seem very strange indeed .
In many ways, Tom Waits represents the best and the
worst of what the neo-beats have become .
His music owes more to Tin Pan Alley and Jazz than
any sort of rock tradition, and yet his music has been
assimilated into the mainstream in a direct way. The
Eagles recorded his "Old 55" (although they made it into
an anthem for watching the sun come up. Waits' more
bluesy original has only one reason for watching the sun
come up-he hasn't been to bed). Also his sometimes
roommate Riki Lee Jones has taken a chunk of Waits'
music and gone Top Ten with it. Waits himself has
remained fairly obscure, probably because of his voice,
which has noticably deteriorated to a rough Satchemo
growl in the last few years.
Song mixtures
His songs are a mixture of free-form street raps, and
intensely melodic ballads. His lyrics are poetic rather than
lyrical, and use free flowing imagery and humor to drive
his songs home:
On stage he chain-smokes filterless cigarettes, and even
tually envelopes himself in a nicotine cloud. Periodically
he emerges and wraps himself around the microphone,'
using the smoke and the mike for props, often calling to
mind a street lamp on a foggy evening. He is the
melancholy drunk, a smart ass on one hand, prone to
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Photo by Mark Billingsley
Street raps and melodic ballads are the brands of smokey blues and jazz that make Tom Waits a popular
covered vocalist.
sentimental ramblings on the other. There is an element of
the jazz clubs of the late 40s in his act, and his concerts
tend to evoke a total environment sheerly on the power of
his verbal conjuring. "
His songs range from the miscellaneous ramblings of a
depressed drunk "Spending the facts of his life like small
change on strangers. . .") to stories about what he calls the
"asphalt dancefloor." He is at his best when he tries to
deal with the lost dreams and the efforts of people to
piece together the bits and pieces of their hves.
His first album , Closing Time contains the first version
of 401d 55"-gruff and evocative, and it is usually easier
to take for beginners. His voice was just beginning to
deteriorate, and has a nice smokey quality about it. The
songs here tend toward the sweet though. Still, even the
love songs are somehow charming-especially "1 Hope I
Don't Fall in Love With You, "-a catchy and quiet song
about an eye-contact romance in a bar.
StiO good voice
Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night, finds Wait's
still in good voice, but with a clearer vision. The title
track. "The Ghost of Saturday Nieht." and "San Dieco
-Serenade" all cut with an emotional urgency that
combines the best of his poetry with some of the most
emotionally honest vocal readings to date. A very melodic
album, it also contains rougher readings of a couple of
jazzscat street raps. One of his bests. " -
Nighthawks at the Diner is Waits' live album, and best
shows the continuity of his work. A wonderfully funny al
bum, Waits gets a little raunchy at times. But, it also spot
lights his very fine jazz band, especially the sax and
acoustic bass interplay of two long time Waits' sidemen.
Small Change contains the closest thing Tom Waits has
ever had to a hit single. "Step Right up" is a five minute
street summation of every advertising cliche you've ever
heard. His voice takes a noticeable step toward the gutter
here, but it contains some of his best work. "Tom
Trumviate's Blues,", "The Piano has been Drinking (not
me)" and numerous others. There isn't a bad song on the
album.
'Last albums good'
His last two albums. Blue Valentine and Foreign
Affairs, are both very good. Blue Valentine is especially
evocative, putting Waits closer to a blues base with tunes
such as UA.. Christmas Card from a Hooker in
Minneapolis .
Foreign Affairs contains a duet with Bette Midler, and
Waits best single song, "Burma Shave." "Burma Shave" is
a metaphor for lost dreams and people who are headed
nowhere and combines the best of all of Waits' features.
Waits is one of the few artists who doesn't have a bad
record in his entire catalog. Take your pick.
Articles
, cartoons satirize events becoming reality
By Scott Kleager
Peter Elbling created the idea of review
ing this decade in The '80s, A Look Back.
Not only is it funny, because it fore
casts the future rather than satirizing the
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prst, but it makes news stories unnecessary
end is therefore more fictional than satiri
cd. This means the writers can be extreme
nd conqusatly, even more satirical.
' The only problem with The Ws. A
Look Deck is categorization. Is it a hard
cover ratline or is it a news publication
that's been issued in paperback? In any
czzs it brings to liht every tendency that
news exhibits today arid emphasizes them
by going to extremes.
Worth a laugh
Sometimes worth a chuckle, most of
the time worth a good laugh, its amazing
attribute is its completeness. The magazine
is hilarious, sobering, fun to read and
socially conscious.
Its contributors and writers seem end
less, but a few stories and cartoons stand
out.
For example "Russia-The Iron Curtain
Call" has to be one of the funniest things
included. Written by Tony Geiss and Jeff
Greenfield, the events in this story are out
rageous. In 1980 Leonid Brezhnev disappears for
some time. He reappears on May Day and .
"it seemed clear to most Western observers
that the heavy-jowled First Secretary had
been none too expertly stuffed."
The story describes the rollicking
Russian radical populist movement called
"born-again communism" with religious
fanatics "singing the Internationale in 200
part and sometimes 300-part harmony."
Good writing
Interestingly enough, the articles' first
paragraph reminds the reader of the
element of truth that follows: 'The Union
. of Soviet Socialist Republics has been de
scribed as a nation of mystery at best.
What remains of it is no exception to the
rule."
This is an excellent way to make the
bizarre report that follows almost believe
abl. This type of good writing is con
sistent throughout.
rampant terrorism; a cartoon called "Rats"
by B. Kliban, and Bruce McCall's "United
Magic Kingdom" which reports on the buy
ing of London by Walt Disney.
The magazine is so well-written that it is
ironic. Like many successful works, The
'80s A Look Back's original conception is
based partially on making the reader laugh
at stories that arc in the process of becom
ing realities.
Disco's boogie
For example, disco begins its long
boogie to pre-eminence in the '80s, hypo
chondriac tendencies result in a Blue Cross'
"cradle-to-grave health program," and polls
come out before the 1982 off-year
elections that "suggest a voter turnout of
less than 13 percent.
Other memorable contributions are Carl
Gottlieb's "La Soluzione Finale." a storv in ,- . , .
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