Tom Waits Rain Dogs

In 1985, two years after wowing the world (okay, the critics) and hitting the top of most “Best Albums of 1983” lists with his booming, clanking compendium of avant-guard compositions Swordfishtrombones, Tom Waits released a meatier, mightier album in the form of Rain Dogs. Filler-free nineteen-song CDs are rare beasts, and Rain Dogs, despite being superb value for money (currently 15 bucks at The Warehouse) is one of Waits’ finest albums (surpassed only recently by 2002’s magnificent Alice).

Musically rich and challenging, Rain Dogs’ greater emphasis on song structure makes Swordfishtrombones’ songs sound like mere sketches in comparison. Whilst much of the album is experimental in nature – relying on exotic percussion, esoteric keyboards and brass instruments – and there are also a handful of songs which employ more conventional instrumentation and are therefore quite accessible to a larger audience. Accessible, in fact, that one wonders why they weren’t hits (well, one was for another artist, but more on that later…).

As an album, Rain Dogs defies categorisation. Waits draws from a melange of sounds: crazy calypso (Singapore) rhumba (Jockey Full Of Bourbon), piano-based jazz (Tango Till They’re Sore) blues-rock (Big Black Mariah), guitar pop (Hang Down Your Head), Depression-era folk (Gun Street Girl), bourbon-soaked country-and-western (Blind Love, which features some guitar and caterwauling from the as of this moment fresh from hospital Keith Richards), and New Orleans funeral music (Anywhere I Lay My Head). Yet Waits proves that musical innovation doesn’t necessarily have to come at the expense of great songwriting; Rain Dogs may be all over the place stylistically, but it is extraordinary consistent in quality.

Waits is one of popular music’s foremost lyricists, and Rain Dogs is testament to his craft. Most of the lyrics here are more surrealist montages and expressionistic character sketches than the relatively coherent narratives of Waits’ bar-room ballads of the 1970s. Spiced with quirky word-play and Noirish city-speak, the songs are as delightful for the words as for the adventurous arrangements, even though Tom’s singularly coarse vocals take a while getting used to.

Thanks to Rod Stewart’s reading of the song, Downtown Train is the album’s – and undoubtedly Waits’ – best known song. Yet whereas Stewart’s version is a slick, radio-ready power ballad, the original - despite its breezy tune and immaculate surf-rock guitar licks – is a desperate, heartsick entreaty to the insensitive female residents of Brooklyn. It also contains some of Waits’ very best lyrics:

You wave your hand and they scatter like crows
They have nothing that will ever capture your heart
They're just thorns without the rose
Be careful of them in the dark
Oh, if I was the one you chose to be your only one
Oh baby can't you hear me now, can't you hear me now
Will I see you tonight on a downtown train?
Every night it's just the same, you leave me lonely now

Rain Dogs was this reviewer’s introduction to Tom Waits. You should make it yours. The cover art is quite neat, too…

This review was published, with minor alterations, in Craccum, Issue 11, 2006.

Kate Bush The Dreaming

It is a common misconception that the music scene of the 1980s was little more than a wasteland of synthesisers and mullets (Australian music videos of the period do little to dispel this notion). Yet amid the canned noise and hair crimes, there existed a coterie of unique artists that provided solace for the discerning music lover, a roll-call that included the Smiths, Paul Kelly, the Pogues, Billy Bragg, the Pixies and, of course, Kate Bush.

Bush may be remembered as the spindly 17-year old who debuted at the top of the UK singles chart sometime in the late 70s with the delicious Wuthering Heights, but not many in today’s public are familiar with her other accomplishments. At her best, Kate Bush creates experimental music that is actually a pleasure to listen to. Her only possible rival in this regard is Tom Waits, another 80s maverick – one I hope to cover shortly.

After three albums of precocious pop, Bush released The Dreaming in 1982, the album which marked the beginning of this experimental phase. Neither the public nor the critics knew what to make of the new album and it subsequently flopped. It was eclipsed three years later by the majestic Hounds of Love, arguably the greatest album ever committed to tape (in the humble opinion of this reviewer, at least). But the experimentation of The Dreaming set the benchmark for that later success.
The tone of the album is dark, stark and morbidly romantic, its sound characterised by skeletal guitar riffs and bass-lines, clanking percussion and the eerie coos and tinkles of Kate’s new toy, a Fairlight synthesiser/sampler. Even a bit of Irish folk manages to weave its way through the sonic tapestry. Among the musos lending a hand are big bro and multi-instrumentalist Paddy Bush, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, English folk legend Danny Thompson and Rolf Harris on didgeridoo (and, thankfully, nothing else).

Kate had before shown a flair for the theatrical, and The Dreaming takes it up a notch. Each of the ten tracks is a cross between pop song and performance sketch. Her roles include a Faust figure on the pounding opener In Your Lap, bumbling Cockney bank-robbers on the Brit-ska-flavoured There Goes a Tenner, a Vietcong guerrilla on the explosive Pull Out the Pin, an Aussie hick on the menacing title track and an excessively paranoid home-owner on Get Out of My House, to name but five. Kate’s haphazard vocal stylings, unorthodox key changes and general madwoman antics may be grating to some, but for those with a taste for the whimsical, she’s a gift from heaven.

Hounds of Love may a more coherent, more accessible and perhaps better album, but The Dreaming is a splendid piece of work in its own right and deserves to be rediscovered.

This review was published, with minor alterations, in Craccum, Issue 9, 2006.

The Pogues If I Should From Grace With G-d

Another Pogues album. Two years after the classic Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, unlikely pinup Shane MacGowan and the boys (bassist Cait O’ Riordon left to shack up with Elvis Costello) released what was undoubtedly their masterwork. With producer Steve Lilywhite (who previously worked with stadium-ready rockers U2 and Simple Minds) adding a bit of spit and polish to their unique brand of Irish folk-punk, the Pogues expand on, rather than compromise, the principles established on their first two albums.

If I Should From Grace With G-d finds the Pogues work with a broader palette than before: we have a sea shanty with a Middle Eastern twist (Turkish Song of the Damned), a profanity-laced rave-up (Bottle of Smoke), a Flamenco pastiche (Fiesta) and Guitarist Philip Chevron’s epic ode to the Irish diaspora in America (Thousands are Sailing) sharing space with the band’s trademark Celtic stomps.

Along with Lilywhite’s lush production, an important ingredient to the album’s sound is Irish folk veteran Terry Woods, who contributes various instruments throughout, as well as his own flavoursome brogue vocals to two songs: the traditional The Recruiting Sergeant and his own mournful Streets of Sorrow, each of which constitutes the first part of a respective medley. The first is paired with the galloping Galway Races and the second with MacGowan’s angry Birmingham Six: a protest at the incarceration of the six men falsely accused of the Birmingham pub bombings, and one which incidentally landed the Pogues in a bit of poo with the powers that be. Directly after this bitter indictment, the tender ballad Lullaby of London floats in, borne on lyrical accordion lines and ringing mandolins – testament to the versatility of Shane’s writing we got merely a taste of on Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

In the Pogues’ own fashion, tenderness and bitterness come together on the soaring mini-opera that is Fairytale of New York, a massive hit on its release as a single and probably the band’s most recognisable song. A duet between MacGowan and the late Kirsty McColl – singing as an Irish immigrant couple looking back over the years – the track takes the listener through a minefield of emotions in four and a half minutes. It is undoubtedly the highlight of the album, and the track responsible for its entry at third position on the UK albums chart in 1988.

If I Should Fall From Grace With G-d was one of several Pogues albums reissued with bonus tracks in 2004. The gem of the six on this disc is the MacGowan instrumental Shanne Bradley, a lovely tune that could probably be described as dancing music for fairies (of the female, winged variety). It is a welcome addition to an album that, along with Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, is one 1980s’ most unique and enjoyable music achievements.

This review was published, with minor alterations, in
Craccum, Issue 7, 2006.

Hehehe....

Sorry for the lengthy hiatus, guys - but I've been working hard in the interim, as evidenced by these three reviews I'm posting. Enjoy!