TOM WAITS on the Simpsons this SUNDAY

Tom Waits guest stars on The Simpsons Sunday, January 6 on Fox. Check your local listings. ow.ly/i/1k4JS

Glitter and Doom, Coming Soon...

Get yours HERE.

Tom Waits Road

"I do believe in the mysteries of things, about myself and the things I see. I enjoy being puzzled and arriving at my own incorrect conclusions."
-- Tom Waits
book excerpts HERE
available HERE

Down the 'Potato Hole' with Booker T

With backing from the Drive-By Truckers and guitar contributions from Neil Young on nine of the album’s ten tracks, Potato Hole is the rawest, funkiest music Booker T Jones has recorded since his archetypal hit “Green Onions.” Booker T plays organ, acoustic and electric guitar on Potato Hole and wrote seven of the albums songs, with one original by Truckers guitarist Mike Cooley, and covers of Tom Waits’ “Get Behind The Mule” and Outkast’s “Hey Ya” completing the set.
more HERE
sample music HERE and HERE

Related:
Booker T & the MG's w/Neil Young 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay'

Backstage with Bob Dylan

see it HERE

Marianne Remains Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull came to prominence in the 60s in pop and rock and relationships with Mick Jagger and other rock figures. She dropped out for awhile due to a struggle with drug abuse, but has now had a distinguished long career in many different areas, working as a singer, songwriter, actress and diarist. She has collaborated with such people as David Bowie, Beck, Keith Richards, Tom Waits, Roger Waters and The Chieftains. She ranked No. 25 in VH1’s “100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll.”
The new album, EASY COME, EASY GO finds a serene, 62-year-old Faithfull decades removed from her tortured depths, singing with an almost regal calm. Faithfull's guests include Nick Cave, Cat Power, Antony Hegarty, Rufus Wainwright, and Kate & Anna McGarrigle.
sample music HERE and HERE

10 Erotic Christmas Songs

7. "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis,"
- Tom Waits

Is there anything hotter than a down-on-her-luck junkie prostitute? In case you didn't recognize it, the lyric is a Charles Bukowski poem.
the rest are HERE

Chianski!

Happy Birthday Tom Waits

Southside Johnny's Big Band Sound of Tom Waits

We told you it was comin'...now it has arrived...
Southside Johnny Lyon has been fronting one of America's most consistently hard-rocking R&B show bands, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, for well over 30 years, so this album should come as something of a surprise to longtime fans -- here Southside sings a dozen tunes from the songbook of Tom Waits alongside a jazzy, full-bodied big band led by Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg, a longtime fixture in the Asbury Jukes horn section.
sample songs and purchase CD HERE

Tom Waits In Concert

Tom Waits has dubbed his summer 2008 tour "Glitter and Doom" with stops in Phoenix, El Paso, Houston, Dallas, Tulsa, St. Louis, Columbus, Knoxville, Jacksonville, Mobile, Birmingham and Atlanta.
For his Atlanta stop, recorded at the city's historic Fox Theater on July 5, Waits delivered a stunning and epic two-and-a-half-hour performance, including songs he says he's never attempted outside of the studio before.
Listen to the NPR podcast of the show HERE

Tom Waits: True Confessions

click the pic

Sample question: "Do you have words to live by?"

Waits: "Jim Jarmusch once told me, 'Fast, Cheap, and Good ... pick two. If it’s fast and cheap, it wont be good. If it’s cheap and good, it won’t be fast. If it’s fast and good, it wont be cheap.' Fast, cheap and good ... pick (2) words to live by."

...Not Half Bad

As you know, Scarlett Johansson's musical debut Anywhere I Lay My Head, which consists of Tom Waits covers for the most part, will be officially released soon.
...and, although her voice takes some gettin' used to, she's not half bad.
You can listen to much of the album HERE and HERE

Scarlett Fever

The cover art for actress Scarlett Johansson’s debut album Anywhere I Lay My Head has been revealed...more HERE

...this thing better be worth the hype

hummmmm...

The world might have many people unhappy enough to commit suicide. But the quirky and imaginative Wristcutters: A Love Story suggests there’s a special place beyond this one for those who take their own lives, and it isn’t very pretty.

The movie presents an afterlife for those who kill themselves that looks pretty dreary, full of broken-down cars rotting on roadsides, roommates obsessed with cottage cheese, cops who don’t inspire a lot of confidence, and messianic losers promising paradise if only the dead will commit suicide all over again.

Into the mucky mediocrity comes Zia (Patrick Fugit), a young man who opens his veins and ends up in this limbo for losers. There, he takes a menial job, finds an unlikely friend and meets apathetic girls in a lousy bar. The monotony of it all is broken up when Zia gets word that his girlfriend back on the mortal plane also killed herself, prompting him to take to the road in search of her.

Naturally, the trip becomes a journey in unexpected new directions including a diversion at a camp for miracles run by an eccentric (Tom Waits). Wristcutters is available on DVD beginning today.

...just release the damn album already!

A promotional shot from Scarlett Johansson's first album (dominated by Tom Waits covers), Anywhere I Lay My Head scheduled for a May 2008 release. more pics HERE

Bowie joins Johansson on Waits cover album

David Bowie has sung on two tracks on actress Scarlett Johansson's debut album, a tribute to singer Tom Waits. Bowie appears on two covers - Falling Down and Fannin' Street - on Anywhere I Lay My Head, released on 20 May.
BBC story HERE

Southside Johnny Meets Tom Waits

Southside Johnny will finally release a sonic tribute to his pal Tom Waits. "Grapefruit Moon," a long-awaited collection of Waits covers delivered as big band numbers, will see the light of day in 2008.
the story HERE

Moment of Zen

Excerpt from recent Tom Waits interview

So what do you think of Scarlett Johansson doing an entire album consisting of covers of your songs?
TW: Well, some songs are meant to be recorded by other people. Those are the seeds in the tomato, you know? You expect that someone will hear it and might want to interpret it themselves. So we’ll see.

Yeah, hey, you might have a whole new audience of 14-year olds!
TW: Oh yeah, the teeny-boppers; it’ll be like The Beatles concerts...girls crying; holding pictures of me and coming apart emotionally behind police barricades.

Bridge School Benefit EXCLUSIVES

The Bridge School is an educational program dedicated to ensuring that children with severe speech and physical impairments achieve full participation in their communities through the use of augmentative & alternative means of communication (AAC) and assistive technology (AT) applications. Bridge School has established an outreach program to share what is developed at the school with parents, professionals and users of AAC/AT across the world.
Neil Young's wife Pegi is executive director of the school and this show to support the school is now in it's 21st year. For more on the school go HERE.

NEIL YOUNG

Metallica

Jerry Lee Lewis

Tom Waits

Vegoose/Bridge School Benefit Music WEEKEND

Robert Randolph, Iggy Pop, Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy are just a few of the acts on the bill.
Check HERE for the all weekend WEB-CAST.

...and if you really wanna be where the eccentricity is, Neil Young's Annual Bridge School Benefit is going on at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California all weekend.
The all acoustic event includes performances by:
Neil Young
Jerry Lee Lewis
John Mayer
Metallica
Tom Waits with Kronos Quartet

Eddie Vedder/Jack Irons/Flea - cancelled appearances due to a family illness