Log #161 - Tom's Industrial Years

Tom Waits is quite a difficult artist. In retrospect my tastes may have changed as I didn't enjoy this album as much as I remembered (house members overhearing the record likened Waits' strangled vocals to the sound of someone dying!).  Franks Wild Years (officially no apostrophe although it only makes grammatical sense to have one) followed Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs in ...

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Log #140 - Glass Goes Pop

In the early 80s Philip Glass attempted to go pop with his Glassworks album - an album deliberately designed for the Sony Walkman (invented in 1979). Two decades later German electronic composer Wolfgang Voight recorded an album of atmospheric drones under the name Gas and called it Pop.  Philip Glass Glassworks Tom Waits Foreign Affairs Thievery Corporation The Mirror Conspiracy Tangerine ...

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Log #139 - Gentle Nighthawks

This week I take in an early and oft overlooked album from Tom Waits - his 1975 outing Nighthawks At The Diner - an atmospheric whole greater than the sum of its insignificant parts. Eccentric English prog rockers Gentle Giant are given short shrift with their most famous album Octopus.  ~~~ The Alan Parsons Project Tales Of Mystery And Imagination Tom Waits Nighthawks ...

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Log #138 - The Other Sides Of Jazz

A couple of new jazz albums in the player this week. Quite different. Firstly Kamasi Washington who seems to be a bit of a poster boy for the "new jazz revival". His latest album Heaven and Earth is of epic proportions, as was his previous release, the appropriately entitled The Epic. In fact it topped many "best of" lists for 2018. For me, I've tried to get into it, but so far I've been left ...

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Log #25 - Van's Window on Astral Weeks

1. Lynyrd Skynryd - Gold and Platinum 2. John Martyn - Solid Air 3. Tom Waits - Blue Valentine 4. John Martyn - Grace and Danger 5. Van Morrison - The 1967 New York Sessions 6. John Martyn - Glorious Fool The Van Morrison New York Sessions are outtakes from around the Astral Weeks time. Releases of studio outtakes like this are often filler for some artists. ...

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Log #24 - Johnny (Martyn) Be Good

1. Lynyrd Skynryd - Gold and Platinum 2. John Martyn - Solid Air 3. Tom Waits - Blue Valentine 4. John Martyn - Grace and Danger 5. Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey 6. John Martyn - Glorious Fool So there I was on this barge on the river wearing nothing but denims and a smile, and this blue man says to me, 'You know I used to be like you, but I saw sense and I changed myself.' So I looked at his ...

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Log #23 - The Tragic Life of Allen Collins

Some people have such tragic lives don't they? Sometimes it seems people of fame and fortune have their unfair share of infamy and misfortune too (is this a way the universe balances things out, or is this just a perception as we only hear about the famous ones subjected to tragedy?). A couple of posts ago I talked about the unfortunate Barclay James Harvest band. But their trials and tribulations ...

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Log #22 - Grumpy Old Men - Tom Waits and Van Morrison

There is really nothing better than a Van Morrison album on a lazy Saturday morning. Smoothie done, coffee on, Brighton Festival brochure open across a sunny kitchen table, blooming orchids left by a dear friend. Almost any album that is, but the vibe is particularly enhanced by these easy going bluesy mid Van period outtakes compiled on the brilliant The Philosopher's Stone double album. ...

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