Quote:

Jim wrote:
Explain what?

well, just in general, what is his appeal? I often find people with very good taste like him yet his voice is contrary to the honest and unaffected voices that these people tend to gravitate towards. I enjoy many singers that have unique voices, yet his is comical to me. His music is excellent and I have read his lyrics and I like those as well, but I just can't get past the voice. It seems fake, is it? I understand the argument that there may not be such a thing as fake and his choice to sing the way he does is his craft, if that is the explanation, then I am back to not understanding the appeal.


I remember finding my fathers copy of "Small Change" when I was very young and liking the cover. I put the album on and that is the day I started not 'getting' Tom Waits.

I honestly want to like him, I feel like I am missing out on something special.

Thanks for the response Jim, I appreciate it. I am not trying to bait anyone or bash TW. I just know a lot of people with good taste like him and I wanted to hear their perspective.

 

I can't say that helped me much. They are good songs, believe me, I have listened to him a lot, even covering I Don't Want to Grow Up years ago in a band I was in. I will have to go back and listen to some albums I have with some of the thoughts you have shared about him. Does anyone have any interviews with him that ask him about his voice?

Do you feel his voice is any different than the metal singers that uses a similar sound? 

 

Good read

 

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/39683-interview-tom-waits

 

...Pitchfork: In your artist's statement for the new record, you say that your voice is really your instrument, which certainly seems true to anyone who has ever heard your records. Some of my favorite singers are the ones who sound a little out of control. Are you ever surprised or offended by what your voice can or cannot do?

Tom Waits: If you're still pushing the envelope and wanting to find out what this baby can do, or if you're still trying to imitate things-- most people start out by imitating. Slowly you develop your own voice. I like vocal word stuff. But I don't always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It's more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It's closest to the choreography of a bee. You're freer. You have no frets to constrict you, there are no frets on your voice, and that's a good feeling. So for composing melody, it's something you can do anywhere.

Pitchfork: Did you always know you wanted your voice to sound a certain way?

Tom Waits: I talked to Robert Siegel, the newscaster on NPR, and he said that most announcers and people in radio, they want their voices to sound older. Because a lot of the news you're delivering is very serious and very heavy, and you don't want to sound like a little kid talking about how thirty-three people were killed in a roadside bomb. You have to compose your voice and your whole demeanor so that it's situated to give weight, dignity, and gravity to all the things you're saying. You want the same thing for your voice when you're a singer. You want your voice and how you're approaching it to suit the material.

Pitchfork: There is a rich and wonderful American history of tough, scrappy songwriters-- everyone from Ramblin' Jack Elliott to Bob Dylan-- compulsively mythologizing themselves, inventing backstories, changing their names, developing personas to work alongside songs. Is there a Tom Waits mythology?

Tom Waits: I'm sure there is. The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you "know" about me is only what I allowed you to know about me. So it's like a ventriloquist act. And it's also a way of safely keeping your personal life out of your business. Which is healthy and essential. I'm not one of those people the tabloids chase around. You have to put off that smell-- it's like blood in the water for a shark. And they know it, and they know that you've also agreed. And I'm not one of those. I make stuff up. There's nothing that you can say that will mean the same thing once it's been repeated. We're all making leaner versions of stories. Before there was recording, everything was subject to the folk process. And we were all part of composing in the evolution and the migration of songs. We all reached out, and they all passed through our hands at some point. You dropped a verse or changed the gender or cleaned up a verse for your kids or added something more appropriate for your community. Anything that says "Traditional," it's "Hey, I wrote that, I'm part of that." Just like when a joke reaches you-- how did it reach you? If you could go back and retrace it, that would be fascinating.

 ...

When I listen to TW, I am not listieng to him the same way I would listen to other, more popular music performers. His music is more like experiencing a play or dramtic work. Some of his somgs remind me of sort of an extreme minimalistic operetta, if you will. I can't explain it it just takes me there (where ever there is). That is his artistry, I guess.

Waits overall performance presentation is not just about musicical elements, polished vocal acrobatics, fancy production tricks (processing), or mass appeal.

He is also a performance artist. TW has a unique sensativity and talent to blend his natural voice, the imagery of his exquisite lyric/poetry, and sense of raw emotion, which allows the honesty of his message, or simply the work, shine through. To me anyway. 

Yeah, I can kind of see both sides for liking/disliking Tom Waits. Honestly, sometimes I can't get past his voice. However, a couple of his albums - my favorites being The Heart of Saturday Night, and Closing Time - are incredible albums. Maybe too, I just like the piano playing and idea of sitting around drinking whiskey playing sad songs all night. I'm gonna go listen to him right now....

Here's a few paragraphs on the subject of both his voice and instrumentation from the Wikipedia entry on him. The point about your fingers going to familiar places is really fascinating, and I think applies then to his voice as well. The different ways he uses his voice, I would understand this as saying, are similar to his philosophy of using different instruments. In any case, you see in these paragraphs and the ones that Duncan posted a guy who has thought really deeply about music, and about the choices he is making:
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Waits had earlier played either piano or guitar, but he began tiring of these instruments, saying, "Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore, you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone."[15]

The instrumentation and orchestration in these and later albums were often quite eclectic.[15] Waits' self-described "Junkyard Orchestra" included wheezing pump organs, clattering percussion (sometimes reminiscent of the music of Harry Partch), bleary horn sections (often featuring Ralph Carney playing in the style of brass bands or soul music), nearly atonal guitar (perhaps best typified by Marc Ribot's contributions) and obsolete instruments (many of Waits' albums have featured a damaged, unpredictable Chamberlin, and more recent albums have included the little-used Stroh violin).

Along with a new instrumental approach, Waits gradually altered his singing style to sound less like the late-night crooner of the 70s, instead adopting a number of techniques: a gravelly sound reminiscent of Howlin' Wolf, a booming, feral bark, or a strained, nearly shrieking falsetto Waits jokingly describes as his Prince voice. Tom Moon describes Waits' voice as a "broad-spectrum assault weapon".[16]
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If you listen to the song "Hang Down Your Head," off Rain Dogs--download it, and if you don't like it, I'll send you a check for 99 cents--I think you hear there a perfect example of the voice matching itself to the content of the lyrics and the rhythm of the tune.

I'm not familiar with Tom Waits at all--in fact I always thought he was some kind of joke or a Captain Beefheart type that people namedropped to earn their "hipster" wings--but this thread has peaked my interest. Where should one start one's first dabbling of Mr. Waits?

 

 I wasn't aware that stipper is actually Elvira...

I like some TW. Closing time is a good album for the "casual fan"
On a separate note, Duncan I know what you mean about trying to uderstand or get "it" I feel the same way sometimes about "ok computer" I loved "the bends" but can not get into "ok computer" or "kid a" for that matter.

I listened a little last night and I think that I just appreciate the style. I can hear the interesting music but I just don't love the sound. I will keep trying, this thread has been great just to hear why people like what they like.

There was a sound in some of the stuff I listened to last night that reminded me of what I like about Los Lobos. Strange sounds, a feeling of the environment they are playing in or at least what they want you to believe they are playing in. There is a strong storytelling element to both also. Kiko and the Lavender Moon would be something I could hear coming from Tom Waits without as much of the Latin feel.

The big difference for me is that I love Los Lobos.

Tom Waits is one of those artists or bands (like Roxy Music) that the songs will be playing at a party in the background and you'll have like 6 beers in you, a pretty decent buzz, and maybe you'll have a couple hits offa spliff, and you'll be going like "oh man, this song is really fucking good", then you'll go up to all your friends and say, "hey man, this song is really fucking good, who is this?", then they'll say, "Tom Waits" and you'll say, "man I have to get me some of that Tom Waits stuff", then when you go to the record store you buy like all other shit that was more important.

I do love Kiko as well, and that comparison seems right on.

Back up a couple of posts, it would be in that state of having drank a six pack and taken a few hits that you would be most appreciative of the video of "I Don't Wanna Grow Up," which has to be one of the more weird and disturbing videos you'll ever see. This is also a great song to introduce you to Tom Waits if you don't know him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzKiqk2iynY