The Black Rider . . .

6.05.2006

You MySpaces beeyutches can't beat my 80's style.
So, everyone was impressed when I pulled out New Edition for the MySpace 1980's music war, so they tried to outdo, me. We I got them this time . . . . Al B Sure! Take that! Yeah, Asia, BORING! Billy Joel, I don't think so! Give up now!

You are Listening too. . . .
I am gonna invest the next few weeks in Tom Waits. Tom Waits is an amazing singer songwriter, on the level of such artists and Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, George Clinton, the Bee Gees, etc. I am going to play a liberal sampling from the past 30 years of Waits stuff, from his hits (by others) to his real avant garde stuff (like this tune). How to describe Waits. Well his voice has been describes as "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car" and "Waits has a raspy, gravelly singing voice, described by one fan as 'like how you'd sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades... Late at night. After not sleeping for three days." (This was a legal descriptions used by the courts in his lawsuit against Frito Lay, who used his song in a commercial).

He is best described as a man who loves pre-rock American music, experimentalism, lounge singing, vaudeville, blue, jazz, and punk, smashed together. He is manily know for his almost seedy songs, and has a huge following despite little to no MTV or Radio play. He is also known for the number of covers other artist have done to his songs and had hits. Artist like Tori Amos, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart. In fact two of the biggest songs of Stewart's and Springsteens careers, were Tom Waits covers (Jersey Girl and Downtown Train.)

So, I start with The Black Rider, one of his more unaccesible songs. Enjoy. By the way, the wife HATES Tom Waits. You can find this song on a 23 song compilation called Beautiful Maladies, which is a very good intro to Wait's work from the 1990's. You can also find it of the album of the same name.

The Mood of Red Sox Nation.
4 in the Bronx. Beckett inploded. Don't want to talk about it.

Malach's Quote of the Day.
I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things. - Tom Waits

I am Malach, and I am the Black Rider.