Musicale

What up? Comment, please. I am taking a hint from John and casually demanding people comment on my blog to keep contact with them, although John's blog is a lot better than mine. Lately, he's been logging some time (b)logging some of his favorite music, going in anti-alphabetical order by artist. You can check out his blog by clicking this, or by clicking on the JLink link over on the side there.

I mention his blog not just because it's amusing/inspiring/edutaining, but also because he linked back to my blog, referring people here for Tom Waits information. Sadly, my blog is lacking that, so you'd probably be better off with Wikipedia. I searched my old posts and found this one detailing Mule Variations, and this one which has a link to a Tom Waits video on it. Maybe there are others, I don't know, but I think most bloggers would make you do all the work yourself, so be thankful for that much, I guess.

To offer up a little insight before bed for those opposed to Wikipedia's maginficence or whatever, Tom Waits is a singer/songwriter who got his start in the 70's (?) and continues to record and perform. He's also an actor and is probably best characterized as a performance artist. He started his career basically as a lounge singer, playing mostly jazz and blues influenced pieces in which he detailed the beauty found in the gutter. He's gradually moved away from the piano and from his often sentimental music towards more experimental music and spoken word pieces, often with a lot of odd percussion. He's basically been playing the part of American eccentric for the last few decades, popping up every now and again with some play/album/whatever project, telling chuckle-worthy stories of a dubious nature in his completely destroyed voice. John mentions his collaboration with Primus on "Tommy the Cat," which is definitely worth a listen. If that link worked, which it doesn't seem to be doing for some reason, then you should know Tom is the one doing all the gruff talking parts, Les is the one doing the talk singing in a way I haven't figured out how to describe. For the record, I have no idea how much input Tom had into the writing of the song, if any. You should check out John's blog for more details when he gets to P. Right now he is on T, so all I am asking is give P-S a chance.