Happy birthday Kim FBP!!!!!

[Doctor Rock]

It's cute. Waits is no sacred cow. Or he shouldn't be. Tom Waits was one of those artists I got into when I was just beginning to explore music, so he's been in my record collection as long I have had one. Along with PJ Harvey and Sonic Youth, he is one of those artists I am determined to see in my lifetime no matter whether or not I still continue to listen to their music. As much time as I spent with the man's work, I never felt like Waits was this genius he had been made out to be. He is a very clever lyricist and a brilliant humourist who has written a few handfuls of really interesting and/or beautiful music, but the sad truth is that a good 80% of his oeuvre is padding/filler.

"It's all one song", Neil Young's famous response to a heckler who cried out, "They all sound the same!", applies to Waits even more than it does Young.

The 70s stuff is mostly dreadful beatnik piano ballads that would rightfully be torpedoed for their tiresome posturing and pretentiousness if they were released today. In the midst of this he released Small Change, which showed glimmers of brilliance that he would later develop in the 80s.

1983-1987   Swordfishtrombones/Rain Dogs/Frank's Wild Years/Big Time - these songs could be packed on a 2xLP with a bonus live album/DVD and you would have almost every essential track from Mr. Waits.

1992-1993 ...and you would if not for the great stuff on Bone Machine and The Black Rider.

Beyond this you can find some great tunes, but I wouldn't kill myself digging through his later work any more than I would his earlier stuff.

I pretty much agree. 

[matthew]

I don't even care how it sounds, I just love that there is yet another cover to bother my co-worker with!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/DMUnHMbdbyA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/DMUnHMbdbyA</a>

(I feel like this is the tenth time I've posted this here)

[bebopbalogna]

Pat (and Alan and Jim and other DBT fans... Evan?) did you see Shonna Tucker left the band?

ehn.. doesn't hurt my feelings much.  like i've said before,  DBT will always be patterson and cooley's band IMO.  eazy B would probably be the toughest loss otherwise.  i say find rob malone and see if he's interested in rejoining.  i still wish they would qiut taking themselves so damn serious and make another record like pizza deliverance or gangstabilly.

Pat, do you follow Jason Isbell on Twitter/Facebook? He's my favorite social media person. He's funny as shit at least twice a week. He also obsesses over random shit like Snuggies and college football. His FB posts are maybe more interesting than his records...

i don't have a twitter account so i don't really follow anyone.  i may try and friend him on facebook.  i liked the first record ok, found the second one a bit boring...in a shitty southern white blues kinda way. the fantastic songwriting that saved otherwise underachieving DBT records such as dirty south and blessing and a curse just wasn't there.  i always liked him personally though, so maybe keeping up with him via facebook is a way to salvage my previous stellar opinion of him.

[bebopbalogna]

DBT are more like Tom T Hall for people who like it turned up to 11,

that's probably the best description you could give them.  at least up until decoration day.  after that, they are like DBT on autopilot. they are still fantastic live though.  always bring the rock.

[Bizarro]

I really love Dirty South and I think Brighter Than Creation's Dark is maybe their best collection of story songs. But thelast few have felt like seasoned pros working out some ideas more than Patterson or Cooley having any burning desire to communicate something.

[bebopbalogna]

cooley still throws a pretty mean punch at least once an album, but patterson has totally given up trying to build on anything that already exists, as far as songwriting goes.  i'm hoping this re-re-defining of them with the loss of shonna will light a fire. i think my main objection to the dirty south is the fact that there are TWO songs about buford pusser. and neither are excellent songs by any standard. patterson's best songs on that one are "tornados" and "lookout mountain", both of which were written during the adam's house cat days in the early 90's and had been live staples for years, so they felt like filler at the time.  and "sands of iwo jima" is pretty much crap.  cooley and isbell were in top form on that album though.

[Bizarro]

Patterson's best recent songs were on Creation's Dark, imo.

[bebopbalogna]

agree.