How he avoided the crap/not crap game is beyond me. I think he is one of the few fellers from the 70's that is still doing interesting music and is not afraid of change or taking chances.

His 70s stuff is almost too sad to listen to unless it's 2AM. His newer stuff is kinda nuts. NOT CRAP

Not Crap, even though singing about one-eyed midgets riding broke-backed mules to clanging haunted house sounds is getting tiresome.


No waffle. Er, maybe an Eggo.

King of Kings.
As good as it gets.
Just sample these lyric excerps:

If there's one thing you can say
About Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!


Definitely NOT CRAP. Basically as NOT CRAP as they come.

Tom Waits albums getting me through the night by articulating my drunken sadness as one of my good friends had sex with the love of my life in the NEXT BEDROOM: Not Crap

Tom Waits coming to the UK for the first time in ages and the tickets a) selling out in 4 seconds and b) costing £70 anyway and c) now being on ebay for about £400: CRAP

not crap.
the new record is really good.
just got the promo copy and its got a hidden track, kind of.
probably my favorite musician, next to charlie parker and sinatra.
i like the newer waits, from rain dogs forward, but there are so many old songs i couldnt live without......rubys arms, enough to make me weep.
he has been putting classified ads in papers around the country with the lyrics to some of the new songs, brilliant.
waits is the last of the beats.

http://www.keeslau.com/TomWaitsSupplement/
waits blog, lots of current info, like the outrages $ some bastards are getting for tix.....i hope he tours NA, more extensively then previous tours.......i may be coming to chicago to see him if he plays there......
again NOT CRAP. KING OF NOT CRAP.

starving in the belly of a whale. poor edward.

i just realized my signature is lyrics from a waits song.

His name is a sentence.






Not Crap.

His early records are full of embarrassing, almost minstrel-show level, imitations of true geniuses like Louis Armstrong (see his painful cover of "Somewhere" on Blue Valentine).

His later records got marginally more interesting due to the good taste of his wife, who made him listen to Beefheart and wrote some good lyrics for him.

I get the impression that Tom Waits is probably a good guy with a sense of humor, but as a musician/artist he is the definitive charlatan.

CRAP.

Tom Waits is Americas greatest living ARTIST . He is not a parody a perversion or a nostalgic throwback. Tom Waits Concieved, Created, and fully.. mind ,body, and soul... became, lives as and IS this person we know as Tom Waits in order to make Tom Waits music.
Tom Waits is King Shit of Fuck Mountain
Tom Waits is King of all Music.
He is the master.
He is the only all original and the keeper of great trditions.