Welcome fellow racontours and roustabouts! Step right up for the Tom Waits Listening Club!
So I thought I’d let the people decide how this thing is going to be run. So there’s a few polls I’d like you to click on before we get going (all anonymous). If you’ve got any tips/requests/questions let me know. Then once we’ve got a start date and a schedule I’ll do a tl;dr intro post and then we’ll dive straight in with Closing Time.
How often would you like to have to dig into each album? Should we do albums:
Weekly
Fortnightly
Monthly
Longer (Explain Yourself!)
0voters
And what’s everyone’s preferred day to get started on each album?
I was planning to go chronologically. I think charting Wait’s evolution (and weird diversions) could be fun. And I quite like the idea of crooning through the winter and smashing oil drums with hammers in the spring. Happy to change direction though if folks would prefer to do it on shuffle.
Despite being a big fan, I’ve never listened to Small Change through to Heart Attack and Vine and Bone Machine and Black Rider. I might not take part in the full thing but I’ll definitely be there for those ones.
Think it’s because I though I’d be steadily picking up second hand vinyl as it came up whilst browsing - but that doesn’t seem to have happened so I may as well just listen on the streamers
Maybe we should do a Waitsian Xmas Playlist in the run up to the festive period? I do find myself listening to him a lot more in the winter. Probably because it’s when I drink a lot more red wine & whisky tbf.
@hesastopsiiiiign / @grievoustim I’ve got a few gaps in my Waits knowledge myself (though I’m planning on styling them out and acting like an expert on every last song), looking forward to digging deep into the records that have never quite grabbed me.
It looks like we’re definitely kicking off on Monday then, and unless Fortnightly has a late surge we’ll be doing an album a week. Which would make the schedule something like this:
Week Commencing
Album
21/11/2022
Closing Time
28/11/2022
The Heart of Saturday Night
05/12/2022
Nighthawks at the Diner
12/12/2022
Small Change
19/12/2022
Foreign Affairs
XMAS BREAK
02/01/2023
Blue Valentine
09/01/2023
Heart Attack & Vine
16/01/2023
One From the Heart (Original Soundtrack)
23/01/2023
Swordfishtrombones
30/01/2023
Rain Dogs
06/02/2023
Franks Wild Years
13/02/2023
Night on Earth (Original Soundtrack)
20/02/2023
Bone Machine
27/02/2023
The Black Rider
06/03/2023
Mule Variations
13/03/2023
Alice
20/03/2023
Blood Money
27/03/2023
Real Gone
03/04/2023
Bad As Me
10/04/2023
Orphans: Brawlers
17/04/2023
Orphans: Bawlers
24/04/2023
Orphans: Bastards
Good lord that’s a lot of music. I’ll probably end up missing a week here and there so it’ll likely be summertime before we’ve got this all wrapped up. Happy to do live albums and other comps if there’s a demand - everyone should definitely watch Big Time when we get to the Frank’s Wild Years era anyhow.