Tag: fandom

ONLY NOISE: Waiting on Waits

This is the closest I will ever get to Tom Waits. I’m sitting at the bar of my dad’s bistro, listening to a live performance by The Bleeding Romeos… a Tom Waits cover band. Much to Mr. Waits’ presumed chagrin, I do not sip from a flask of cheap whiskey, but a glass of red wine. And no – it is not Carlo Rossi.

My father has been planning this night for months. Having me home in Washington, fixed on a barstool, drinking in the songs of my favorite artist. I on the other hand, have been apprehensive about the evening; tribute bands aren’t really my bag. Additionally, there is an issue of ambience. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents’ restaurant, but it’s a bistro – a classy dining establishment filled with respectable patrons and wonderful food. It’s no place for an ode to the king of scoundrels. Meanwhile, there is a perfectly wretched dive bar across the parking lot whose smoke-infused walls and carpeted floors beg for a Tom Waits cover band. It almost seems like two bookings got confused, and while muffled trombone and busted lungs rattle my dad’s joint, there is a fabulous jazz band dodging beer cans at the North City Tavern.

But I’m not here to book The Bleeding Romeos at more “Waitsy” venues. They’re working musicians, not method actors. Instead, I am here to answer one question: am I enjoying myself? Despite my reluctance, it turns out I might be. Of course, it could be the wine. It could be the simple pleasure of hearing two and a half hours of your favorite songs, fortunately played pretty true to form. Or, it could be simpler. Yes, impersonators get a bad rap, and the above scene might not sound romantic to you – but to understand its appeal, you must first know the complete desperation of being a Tom Waits fan.

I keep a long list of musicians I need to see in concert before they die. These are my favorite performers, aged between 50 and Bob Dylan, who are statistically more likely to die than those aged between Lil Yachty and 50. The litany of must-see artists goes on and on: Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen, Iggy Pop, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave; but at the top of this list, in all caps, is the name TOM WAITS. Unfortunately, he is the least likely to go on tour of this bunch (save perhaps, Mr. Bowie and Mr. Cohen, who are respectfully resting in peace). The fact of the matter is, Tom Waits just doesn’t widely tour these days. Even when he does, he covers strange territory.

Take for instance Waits’ 2008 Glitter and Doom tour, during which he played 28 dates over a month and a half. Where were these concerts held, you ask? Oh, bastions of culture like: Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Mobile, Alabama. No New York. No Seattle. No Los Angeles or Nashville. Waits toured a portion of the American South, slapping on Columbus, Ohio and Phoenix, Arizona presumably just for kicks, and then jetted to Europe and the U.K. for sets in Prague, Edinburgh and the like. I was devastated.

Part of the reason I live in New York is the guarantee that every living musician I love will play there. NYC is like a pop culture security blanket, smothering you with endless opportunities to see great music, film, or even vintage condom collections, if that’s what you’re into. Tom Waits however, does not need New York like it needs him. He once sang, “I’ll Take New York,” but in 2008, it seemed he was leaving New York behind for more exotic locales… like Birmingham, Alabama. More recent years have found Waits scaling back his already limited tour map. In 2009 and 2010 he played two dates total, both in Cork, Ireland. In 2011, three dates in The Netherlands. In 2013, three concerts in France, and one in Mountain View, California. The pattern is not looking good.

Maybe you’ve given up on seeing Tom Waits in concert. Maybe you were alive and hip in the 1980s, and caught Waits live in his Swordfish Trombones and Rain Dogs days. For that, I would likely trade lives with you. I would take on your wife, your mortgage, and your closet of ill-fitting pinstriped shirts. I would swap my young-ish, able body for your arthritic limbs and thinning hair, just to have the memory of Tom Waits flailing on stage like a crazed train conductor.

But, until life-swapping is legitimate reality, my Tom Waits meet-cute will be reduced to secondhand smoke. For instance: I once met a girl in college from Sebastopol, California who used to babysit Tom Waits’ kids. Once released from my stupor, I implored, “What was he like?!” I had hoped to hear of his dried bat collection, his secret wooden leg, or of his nocturnal cake-baking habits. “He was nice,” she said. A couple of years later I met someone who once worked in a used bookstore in San Francisco, where “Tom Waits would come in and buy huge stacks of old, dusty encyclopedias.” Old, dusty encyclopedias! How strange. How quirky! How utterly Tom Waits. “Well,” I asked. “What was he like?!” “He was pretty shy and quiet.”

Ugh! I was again disappointed. Had these eyewitnesses no better descriptions for one of the oddest men in rock n’ roll? What was he wearing? Surely not khaki shorts and a Heineken t-shirt. What did he smell like? Perhaps a sweet mingling of cheap cologne and cremation ash? Was there a moth fluttering around his person at all times, or a bone ring on his pinky? I will never know.

It appears that my last salvation is in the hands of The Bleeding Romeos, tonight, at my dad’s restaurant. Despite my burning urge to cut the lead singer’s hair, I stand impressed at their approximation of Waits’ sound. They throw down a hefty chunk of his catalogue – everything from “Old 55” to “Swordfish Trombones” – and they don’t fuck it up. True to their namesake, the band’s most accurate rendering of Tom Waits is their version of “Romeo Is Bleeding” from 1978’s Blue Valentine.

I begin to feel like a recovering alcoholic who finds bliss in a virgin cocktail – the effect is working. When I close my eyes, I can almost convince myself I’m in some dingy club on Santa Monica Boulevard 40 ago. But when I open them I see racks of fine wine lining the walls, and those well-dressed diners, smiling. I may never get to see the real Tom Waits live – but I can at least crawl to the dive bar next door, and drink a cheap beer in his honor.

ONLY NOISE: Kill Your Idols

Bob Dylan is finally going to accept his Nobel Prize…with a taped lecture. Ed Sheeran is losing his “nice guy” status and getting called out as a blatant misogynist. Even in death, Chuck Berry can’t escape his reputation as a scat-loving pederast.

We listen to them. We love them. We live for what they do. Hell, I make my wages writing about them. But let’s face it: musicians can be massive assholes.

Entering adulthood, we all experience the humanizing of our parents. The great gods of early childhood, those people who said that yes, you could watch Beavis and Butthead, but, no, you could not watch Pulp Fiction; those adults who taught you “right” from “wrong” and “cooking sherry” from “sipping sherry” – they are just people. As we age, their humanity – with all its foibles – comes into better focus, and we forgive them as they relinquish their post on the pedestal.

So if we’re able to endure the humbling of our own parents, why are we so devastated by the mortal trappings of the famous? Furthermore: why do we put rock stars on a pedestal to begin with?

Because: Fandom. That temporary (or life-long) insanity that made teenagers convulse for four mop-topped Brits, and grown women sexualize teen Bieber.

I was thinking about the word “fan,” which I suspect is connected to the word “fanatic” etymologically. And sure enough, my Googles confirm that “fan” is in fact, “a late 19th century abbreviation of fanatic.”

And what about “fanatic”?

“…The adjective originally described behavior or speech that might result from possession by a god or demon…”

We’re not Beliebers. We’re possessed by demons. In truth, a lot of fan-related content surrounding Bieber does resemble Pentecostal seizures.

But there is a difference between being a fan and a demon-possessed Belieber – right? Perhaps that gap is smaller than we assume.

I’d like to think of myself as someone who is rationally distanced from celebrity gossip, and for the most part I steer clear of tabloid rags – but what do you do when it’s your favorite artist under fire, and for good reason? You feel the pain of betrayal. Like when Mariah lip synched her way through New Year’s Eve.

A couple of months ago the erudite and envelope-pushing Brian Eno released his ambient record Reflections. It was but another stroke of brilliance from a man who’s had a seismic impact on most of the music I love – as both a producer and an innovator. My adoration for Brian Eno (or, as I referred to him in my head alone, Bri-Bri Eno) reached its zenith in 2015, when he delivered the distinguished BBC Music John Peel Lecture. His voice: so soothing. His scalp: so shiny. He even (kind of) made jokes!  I had what you could call a serious brain crush on Bri-Bri Eno. There was a calm wisdom emanating from him at all times; a breed of serenity mirrored in his ambient soundscapes.

And then. Reporter Simon Hattenstone ran an interview with Eno in The Guardian that changed my perception of the artist forever. What began as a genial convo about art turned into sizzling vitriol spouting from the mouth of an unmannered diva. After merely asking a question about the history of Eno’s bizarre, long-winded full name (Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno), Hattenstone was met with outrage from the artist: “God, are we going to do any interesting questions? This is all bollocks. I’m not fucking interested at all in me. I want to talk about ideas. Can we do any of that?”

Rude. From then on the interview oscillated between forced diplomacy and whacky, insolent outbursts from Eno. Hattenstone kept his composure throughout, and rather eloquently defended himself against Brian Meano.

I was in shock. On the one hand, I felt a sense of solidarity with a music journalist just trying to do his job in the presence of a genius. On the other hand I was an enormous fan of Eno’s; a crushed fan who couldn’t believe that one of my favorite artists was, well, a belittling asshole. Of course that appraisal isn’t entirely merited by one messy interview, but my reaction was. The one-sided contract between the fan and the famous had been breached; he’d shown his toothy, human side – and I didn’t want to see it.

This must be a common phenomenon. The fall of icons. That crazy sense of betrayal we feel when someone we have never met does something we can’t stand. But is the Judas effect any more bonkers than the fact that we allowed ourselves to fall in love with a famous stranger to begin with? Probably not.

Any fan of Morrissey knows treachery well. A charming man indeed: his sex appeal, sensitivity, and bookishness (those glasses) made people crazy for decades. I mean, when I was 20, I waltzed into a salon and told them, “I want Morrissey hair.”

But what a dick?! This is the man who screwed his hardworking Smith-mates out of large sums of money, called the Chinese people a “subspecies,” and more recently issued a t-shirt with James Baldwin on the front reading: “I wear black on the outside ‘cause black is how I feel on the inside…” And then there is “Morrissey” written on the bottom left – smack on Baldwin’s shoulder.

No. Just no.

I wondered if I was the only sad bastard who actually felt hurt by rock star fuck-ups. It’s an absurd dilemma – but a real one nonetheless.

A favorite example came from fellow music journalist Allison Hussey, who covered a Sun Kil Moon gig for Indy Week in 2014. Like a good, I don’t know, journalist, Hussey reported the truth, which was sadly that SKM frontman Mark Kozelek was an insufferable prick the entire set. Hussey, of course, used far kinder words in her recap, stating that, “because the show was at the Lincoln Theatre, people were chatty, as all Lincoln Theatre crowds will be. Kozelek was displeased with this, and let the crowd know it by demanding that the ‘fucking hillbillies’ shut the fuck up before he’d strum a single note.”

Instead of ignoring an unflattering review like most artists do, Kozelek then “wrote a song about me where he called me a bitch,” Hussey recounts. “It was…an interesting roller coaster.”

Even my dad had a tale of rock star boorishness, though his was not of a beloved musician, per se. My dad has spent most of his life working in the music industry, whether as a record store owner, a musician, or a pro audio salesman. During the latter vocation, he crossed paths with a certain Guns N’ Roses guitarist.

“Slash was a total egotistic d-bag,” he relayed. “Spent an entire afternoon around him at a music show in Ventura, California around ’88 or ’89. He pranced around and acted like he was King, and everyone else were serfs.”

Ok, so Slash being a douchebag isn’t exactly breaking news, but you always hope that in the face of all odds, he might deflect his own stereotype.

In all of my crowdsourcing for quotes about artist meet-and-greets gone wrong, there were tales of Joe Jackson being “cheap and pompous” to a server, a comment about Puddle of Mudd’s Wesley Scantlin being a “jerk,” (shocker) and damnations of Madonna. But amongst the slew of dirt, one friend piped up to say that, “all the [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][musicians] I’ve met were very nice, especially Ric Ocasek.”

So I guess there’s hope, after all.

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