Favourite Albums: Tom Waits

Tom Waits
Bone Machine
(1993)

Rating: 9.6

I'm going to start of a series of reviews of favourite albums in the laziest way possible by stealing from Mark Prindle :

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but each time you read one of my album reviews, your credit card is automatically charged $4.99. A few cheapskates who want everything done for them and delivered for free (I call them the "thieving MP3 generation") have asked for leniency, so I'm going to do you a favor and let me wife review Boner Machine. She only charges $1.75, so read all you want! She's heard the CD more times than I have anyway. I made her sell it years ago when I thought Tom Waits was a boring old bluesman like Eric Clapton. I just hope that she mentions (a) a lot of the lyrics have to do with death, (b) it has "I Don't Wanna Grow Up," the ONLY Tom Waits song that could have conceivably been covered by the Ramones (and it WAS! On their 1976 debut album Acid Eaters), (c) it's a very loose album with percussion that sounds like people beating slaves with chains and/or a guy taped a microphone to a horse's underbelly to record its cute little shoes walking around, yet (d) it does a terrific job of combining really great melodic songwriting and stylistic variation with the "banging on crap I found in the garage" feel of his last few albums (especially in the Johnny Cash-style C/W "Black Wings," the tremolo-driven Cramps-soundalike "Goin' Out West," the lovely piano bbbbballad "Whistle Down The Wind" and the NORMAL pop ballad filled with a hundred thousand guitars and basses playing with and over each other "Who Are You," which was neither written by Pete Townshend nor inclusive of the ass-stupid lyric "I stepped back and I hiccuped!") I should also rave about Tom's diversity re: the prisoner negro chant "All Stripped Down," jazzy "Earth Died Screaming," desolate out-of-tune gospel "Jesus Gonna Be Here" and disturbing as ALL HELL "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me" (and it is VERY sinister, if you're into sinister). Do not, however, ask me to remark about "Such A Scream," because the bass line is stolen from Jimi Hendrix's "Fire." And although that song IS in fact a scream, the whole idea of some white guy born on December 7, 1949 in Pomona, CA who wrote a song that was covered by The EAGLES ("Ol' 55," not "Teenage Jail" -- I wrote "Teenage Jail"! But when I wrote it, it didn't have shitty lyrics and boring music, and it wasn't called "Teenage Jail") stealing a bass line from the flamingest-guitar guy with an afro ever "Born In Seattle" -- AND I DON'T MEAN THE CAMPAIGN FOR JAPANESE AMERICAN REDRESS!!! I think the slanty-eyed Pearl Harbor murderer bastards look perfectly nice in their little suits, picking my cotton. In short, my opinion of Bone Machine is that it is one hell of a Pixies song. But I'm not going to review it. I'm going to leave that to my wife. These next words will be by my wife. But be kind in your assessment of her, because she can't read or write. Also, please note that, because I wrote such a long introduction, you're still going to be charged $4.99 for this review.

I like mallards -- Brenda.

That was it, readers! Now you all have to give me a blow job!!!
What? Don't you remember our "deal"?

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Chronicles of Narnia


Went to see Narnia on Friday. Absolutely pants. It just doesn't translate to film. The idea that children can lead an army is enchanting on paper but looks rediculous when filmed. The claustrophobia of the woods in the book is almost completely ignored.Tilda Swinton is sexless. Edmund is made out to be spoilt and petulant rather than unsettled and conflicted. The battle scene is pretty good though, nice and violent. But having watched Lord of the Rings, the whole thing feels hilariously inconsequential. There doesn't seem to be anything really at stake. In fact it borders on camp. Santa turns up to give the kids their weapons but ends up playing the part of a Boozy Q (Now lishen carefully, thish ish a shword). And there is one hilarious bit where Edmund hops on a horse and goes "Woh Horsey" only for said horse to plant his shoes on the ground, turn slowly and in the gayest voice imaginable, spit: "My name...is Philip". If you read the books, you're going to see this anyway; to satisfy your curiousity more than anything else. But if you are in two minds go to see the hilarious Kiss Kiss Bang Bang instead, it's hugely enjoyable. And there's King Kong out today as well! I can't wait to see that.

Morvern Callar

Morvern Callar


Here's a great film to watch if you're looking for something interesting on a quiet night in. It has a superb performance by Samantha Morton, an engaging plot, it looks great and has a truly amazing soundtrack (Lee Hazlewood, Aphex Twin, Velvet Underground). There are plenty of those Wes Anderson-like moments of great songs played over slowed film. It's mostly about Samantha Morton though. She usually plays sweet and endearing characters because she plays the startled innocent very well, but this film uses that to its own end. I watched a couple of scenes back straight afterwards and bought the soundtrack today. A lovely film.