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This Review and 204 More Like It Are Available In My
Amazon e-Book
CAPT. FANTASTIC - 1975
Your All-Genres Guide To
Exceptional CD Reissues & Remasters
All Reviews From The Discs Themselves
(No Cut And Paste Crap)
"...Precipitation Is
Expected..."
Tom Waits had opened his
musical account on America’s Asylum Records with two fabulous singer songwriter
albums in the shape of 1973's "Closing Time" followed fast by another
equally understated masterpiece - "The Heart Of Saturday Night" from
1974. Dripping with Americana – his louche barstool growl conjured up Bukowski
stumbling out of some seedy 43rd Street watering hole into the harsh inner city
morning glare – an emotionally-battered bum with a bottle of bourbon in one
hand, a packet of Lucky Strikes in the other and some hookers initials carved
into his arm with the rusty lid of an Campbell's Tomato Soup tin.
TW's next move was a clever
one – an entire double-album of new material recorded live across two days in
late July 1975 at NYC's Record Plant in front of an invited audience. Waits
sets the scene during the Intro pretending its Raphael's Silver Cloud Lounge as
the crowd is treated to the scoop Betty Boop and a Los Angelinos 'emotional
weather forecast'. This live setting allowed the music a fabulous looseness – a
jazzy sleaze hovering over great new songs – all crammed with his pawnshop suit
persona and Gatling Gun wit shining ("...I'm so horny the crack of dawn
better be careful round me..."). Although the lounge lizard slumped over a
piano amidst plumbs of smoke from a well-filled ashtray routine wasn't exactly
new - you can literally feel the enrapt audience both loving and discovering
someone special in front of them – perhaps even hearing something and someone
unique.
The album has had a limited
compact disc history. To my knowledge "Nighthawks At The Diner" was
reissued onto CD as far back as 1989 in the USA, Europe and the UK (WEA 960 612-2)
along with the rest of his Asylum Records catalogue. Mostly non-remasters – it
has remained there ever since. The 1998 version on Asylum 7559-60620-2 is
essentially another reissue of that original lacklustre version. Only one track
- "Eggs And Sausage (In A Cadillac With Susan Michelson)" - has ever
been remastered from the 2LP set – featuring on the November 2001 CD
compilation "Used Songs" (see review). This is the first time the
whole enchilada has received a digital dust-off – and what a revelation it is.
March 2018 now sees Anti
Records of the USA reissue his entire Asylum Records seven-album catalogue from
1973 to 1980 on Remastered CDs, DLs and 180-Gram LPs – Anti being his musical
home since his "Mule Variations" set won awards galore in 1999. But
even though these Remastered CDs are priced at just under a tenner in the UK
(and the corresponding dollar rate in the USA) – knowing what Anti could have
been given us and outside of the sound – they’re disappointingly bare bones.
Each CD is housed in a faded
card digipak, has a picture disc of sorts, a booklet and new Tom Waits/Kathleen
Brennan/Karl Derfler supervised tape transfers – mastered in turn by Peter
Lyman at his Infrasonic Mastering Studios in California (a renowned studio with
Grammy award-winners on their resume). Although the disc is a picture CD (at
the microphone with his hat on for Nighthawks)
– when you open the digipak you're confronted with nothing - no photo on
the left and nothing beneath the tray on the right. As with the booklet for
"The Heart Of Saturday Night" – there are no new liner notes, no
history (not even a catalogue number for the original release) and worse not a
single extra track when these reissues have been screaming out for deluxe
editions for years. At least the 20-page booklet allows you to slaver over page
after page of lyrics that even 40-years after the event seem amazing. The 2LP
set will also to be released on 180-GRAM VINYL in May 2018 with a download code
built in (see list below).
So what do you get from your
CD...what have the Naugahyde booths been whispering to the Stolly brunettes and
Vermouth blondes...
UK and EUROPE released
Friday, 23 March 2018 - "Nighthawks At The Diner" by TOM WAITS on
Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722) is a straightforward CD Reissue and
Remaster of the 18-Track 1975 double-album originally on Asylum Records and
plays out as follows (73:40 minutes):
1. (Opening Intro) [Side 1]
2. Emotional Weather Report
3. (Intro)
4. On A Foggy Night
5. (Intro)
6. Eggs And Sausage (In A Cadillac
With Susan Michelson)
7. (Intro) [Side 2]
8. Better Off Without A Wife
9. Nighthawk Postcards (From
Easy Street)
10. (Intro) [Side 3]
11. Warm Beer And Cold Women
12. (Intro)
13. Putnam County
14. Spares Parts 1 (A
Nocturnal Emission)
15. Nobody [Side 4]
16. (Intro)
17. Big Joe And Phantom 309
18. Spare Parts II And
Closing
Tracks 1 to 18 are his third
album "Nighthawks At The Diner" (a 2LP set) - released October 1975
in the USA on Asylum Records 7E-2008 and December 1975 in the UK on Asylum SYSP
903 (reissued June 1976 on Asylum K 63002). Produced by BONES HOWE with all
songs written by Tom Waits except "Big Joe And Phantom 309" by Tommy
Faile and "Spare Parts 1 (A Nocturnal Emission)" by Chuck E. Weiss -
it peaked at No. 164 on the US LP charts (didn't chart in the UK).
TOM WAITS - Vocals on all
Tracks, Piano on Tracks 6, 8, 11, 13 and 15, Guitar on Tracks 4 and 17
MIKE MELVOIN - Piano on
Tracks 2, 4, 9, 14 and 18, Electric Piano on Tracks 6, 8, 11 and 13
PETE CHRISTLIEB - Tenor
Saxophone
JIM HUGHART - Upright Bass
BILL GOODWIN – Drums
The digipaks each come with
a generic 'Newly Remastered with Waits/Brennan' sticker (Kathleen Brennan is
his wife). But when you open this one only to be confronted by blank spaces on
both sides and naught new - it all feels staggeringly lazy. Worse - instead of
being a celebration of this American songwriter's magnificent catalogue – it
comes across the same way the Neil Young reissues did – what could be gotten
away with instead of giving fans something to get their teeth into. The
inevitable 'unreleased stuff' Box Set will follow on Anti no doubt - thereby
costing fans more dosh and yet another purchase. But let's concentrate on what
is awesome - the amazing Audio...
Like all the others in the
2018 series - this CD is incredible sounding – Mastering Engineer PETER LYMAN
having brought out every nuance of the original quality Production job done by
Bones Howe back in July 1975 when the double-album was recorded in front of an
invited audience. Every song feels new and up for grabs – the atmosphere
tingling as he schmoozes from littered streets to boozy bars.
Waits shuffles into his
seat, huffs, then the witty rapport begins and immediately the crowd are in his
grasp. In "Emotional Weather Report" we're told of tornado watches
issued early Saturday morning in case his heart explodes, precarious fronts
coming at the northern portion of his mental health and a pressure ridge
extending from his baby's cheeks down to the vice grips on his loins. The crowd
whoops and hollers as "On A Foggy Night" leaves our hero stranded in
nowheresville with no sign of a gas station for miles. The fantastic "Eggs
And Sausage (In A Cadillac With Susan Michelson)" paints those nighthawks
at the diner – Formica table, slice of toast, hash browns and refilled coffee
as the singer tells us "...I'm a refugee from a disconcerted affair as the
lead pipe morning falls and the waitress calls..."
The Hopper Painting
personalities that fill his stories continue with "Better Off Without A
Wife" where bachelors and bowery bums howl at the moon and curse trumpet
players who have a way with the ladies. There are so many lyrics to the eleven
and half minutes of "Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)" - they
take up nearly four and half pages in the booklet - more tales of hustlers over
at Chubb's Pool & Snooker Hall - Tom quickly eyeballing the scene with his
lips around a bottle neck and his foot on the throttle. The band has taken a
break - so something by Tammy Wynette is on the joint’s jukebox in "Warm
Beer And Cold Women" where the moon rises and men with tattoos drink deep
as they eye the girls giggling over by the fluorescent tubing. Two-lane asphalt
roads bristle with Stratocaster Guitars slung over the shoulders of small town
Machiavelli types in the brilliant "Putnam County" while his cover of
the countryish "Big Joe And Phantom 309" shows his love of
storytelling and America's underdogs. I love it to bits...
So – storming great audio
and musically the album is a stone five-star singer-songwriter winner - but
naught a lot else. Fans will have to own them for sure given the sonic upgrade
– but it’s just such a shame that Anti Records haven’t risen to his now
legendary status and provided us with something actually worth getting giddy
about - especially when it comes to an artist that so many of us have adored
for so long.
Tom Waits' third
"Nighthawks At The Diner" has always been the runt of his mighty
litter somehow - a forgotten artefact – the kind of Seventies artistic splurge
they really don't make anymore. But like so much of his fantastic output this
twofer-onto-1CD is something that needs to be celebrated. Much like the great
man himself. Yet another to buy and enjoy...
TOM WAITS - 2018 Reissue
Series of CDs, LPs and Downloads on Anti Records
All CDs are in Card
Digipaks, come with Booklets and Pic CDs but No Extras
"Closing Time" and
"The Heart Of Saturday Night" released Friday, 9 March 2018 - the
others released Friday, 23 March 2018
1. "Closing Time"
(1973) – CD on Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524)
LP released 9 March 2018 on
Anti 7565-1 (Barcode 8714092756517)
2. "The Heart Of
Saturday Night" (1974) – CD is on Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756623)
LP due 18 May 2018 on Anti
7566-1
3. "Nighthawks At The
Diner" (1975 Live Double Album onto 1CD) - Anti 7567-2 (Barcode
8714092756722)
2LP Set due 18 May 2018 on
Anti 7567-1
4. "Small Change"
(1976) - Anti 7568-2 (Barcode 8714092756821)
LP due 8 June 2018 on Anti
7568-1
5. "Foreign
Affairs" (1977) - Anti 7569-2 (Barcode 8714092756920)
6. "Blue Valentine"
(1978) - Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026)
7. "Heartattack And
Vine" (1980) - Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125)
