Tom Waits - Franks Wild Years

All the voices in Tom Waits' head come out on this CD: the growler (of course), the crooner, the preacher, the screecher, and the Vegas cheese ball. The instrumentation is equally eclectic. (Yep, that's Waits himself playing the "rooster" on the album's best song, "I'll Be Gone.") More memorable moments: "Innocent When You Dream" (both times), the vocal howling at the end of "Blow Wind Blow," and the lovely coughing fit after "I'll Take New York." Frank's Wild Years is the musical remains of a theatrical collaboration between Waits and Kathleen Brennan, originally staged in 1986. It contains nuggets of important practical advice, sure--"never drive a car when you're dead" (from "Telephone Call from Istanbul")--but mostly these songs are fantasy freaks. Frank's is big-time dreamer. It's a dreamy album. Sweet dreams. --Dan Leone Amazon.com essential recording

An Ode to Frank's Wild Years

Before Blockbuster wiped them out, there were all kinds of small video stores you could rent from in Simi Valley. At its height and glory along a one block stretch you could find three shops equidistant from each other. My favorite was a mom and pop video store in a strip mall right next to the Albertsons called "the video shop", and their catch was that a person could rent five movies for five dollars for five nights. Due to the luxurious demands of community college, I blazed through all my choices in two or three nights. I don't even remember most of the movies I rented, they just blew by. Sometimes a movie like Night Flyer or TapeHeads will start playing on cable and I'd say, "oh yeah, I saw that! I rented that from the shop!"

One of the reasons for so many return visits was the lady behind the counter. Her hair was dark red and arched up in what could be described as a poodle's pony tail. In hindsight she was probably in her early thirties, but I didn't have that kind of eye to judge yet. Greedy little assumptions assured me she was in her mid twenties with only a trace of husky, which is as skinny as you are going to get if you are a woman working in my hometown. Petit and slender are for trophy wives.

We would talk about show business. I read books on becoming an actor as a kind of fantastical wish fulfillment, and she wanted to work as an administrative assistant in a movie studio. Past that it was the usual video store shop talk. Talking about the guy who wants a refund on porn he rented, or praising clerks while mallrats plays on a tv screen behind the counter.

Deep down, all there were was wishes in a slow, rolling illusion for her to look at me like she wanted me, and then touch my hand in understanding. To go in that little bathroom in the corridor that lead into the alley and kiss, grab, knee, rub, hold, elbow, sweep, cheek, slide in that tiny little room like it meant something more.

As Blockbuster slid closer and closer to perfecting its hold on the video rental market, mom and pop video stores started to close all around Simi. First Video Super Store, which was below a now defunct Fuddruckers. Then the Shop went next, followed by Music Plus and finally just this last year, The Wherehouse. I remember I didn't buy anything, or pillage, I just let it go. My only act of surrender was a Variety magazine to give to the lady behind the counter, "and help her on her way". It just stayed in the back of my trunk, because she wasn't there anymore. I ran into her about a year later in a local coffee shop called "Dr Conkey's". She was there with a fierce looking construction worker who drove a supe'd up high and tall pickup truck. We didn't speak.

The strangest of mementos came from that shop. The movie that stuck with me the most was Smoke staring Harvey Keitel and William Hurt. An ensemble piece about the relationships revolving around a cigar shop in Brooklyn, it is a very eccentric, erratic work and one of the first screenplays by Paul Auster. I finally found a DVD in a Virgin superstore in San Francisco, lost it, and bought another copy online.

A copy is kept for sentimental reasons. Over the credits the film reenacts a short story of Paul Auster, "Augie's Christmas Story". The movement is a montage in black and white, with Tom Waits' "You're innocent when you dream" playing underneath. That was the very first time I heard a Tom Waits song. I thought "Who is this? I have never heard anything like this in my entire life!" When Christmas came around I got beautiful maladies, best of Tom Waits :Island years, which became one of the top three in my rotation for that year along with Enema of the State by blink-182 and 1965 by the Afghan Whigs.

A little while rolled along and I realized I must dig deeper. The Black Rider was too dark and disjointed. Rain Dogs seemed inevitable and didn't give me the thrill of the chase. But Frank's Wild Years, had my song, that settled it. The sampling of beautiful maladies was no preparation for the awesome power of the album, which I received (along with Rain Dogs). That Album blew me away. It is one of the few I can listen to all the way through without skipping or complaint. More jazzy, upbeat and concentrated than his other works, each song pops on its own and adds to the overall experience with an album crescendo in the last three songs of "cold, cold, ground", "train song", and another reprise of "you're innocent when you dream". This album is a Bebop Americana wet dream.

My favorite song is "train song", which could be described as ebullient tragedy, or a sad celebration. A melancholic Frank sings of the train that is coming to take him back to where he came from, back home. After he finishes singing the tune picks up to Dixieland swing sending him off. It made such an impression on me that I choose the song to perform a modern dance piece for an Intro to Modern Dance class. Mercifully, these performances are very rare, and if it weren't for my joy of the song holding me up saying "yeah, this is sane! I look great, and not at all undignified!" it would have been a train wreck.

Time marched on to other CDs and artists grabbing for my attention. My CD collection grew and expanded as I rolled along, but from time to time Frank was pulled out to anchor myself. The piles of CDs finally surpassed the 600 CD blue cabinet in my room and out onto the floor. Then one day I moved and it took about 7 boxes of various shapes to crate all the CDs from my parent's home in Moorpark to my room for rent in Westlake Village.

Typing on a cheap plastic cabinet with rollers and desk exempt, I started humming "Hang on St. Christopher". Forgetting the lyrics, the only words mumbled out are about "Forth and Hennepin" forcibly splintered into the rhythm of the song. My body starts kneeling to the floor and crawling on all fours with eyes hunting for the case in one of the post-moving mangled stacks surrounding the light socket closest to the closet. Pulling out Madman across the Water from the boom box and switching, I type and I listen. Jeez, I forgot how good "yesterday is here" is. Somewhere in the beginning of "cold, cold ground", Tom is howling out a "yeahoowww!" and the CD skips then repeats over and over again. It's a pretty scary, fearsome noise that I let repeat for a little while because moments like these are pretty rare.

The CD had this weird splotch on the bottom. The milky cloud wouldn't rinse and just stayed ingrained. The Boom Box wouldn't read past track 15. The disc was done. Placed on a shelf away from the music area and then out to the trash in the morning. I had worn out my first CD, and the happy compliment goes to Tom Waits. What kind of salute do you give this? A nod of the head in recognition and a smile in thanks for the work that went into making a piece of music that meant so much to me. December 15, 2008

Should have Wait(ed)

As I have surpassed 700 cds in my library, I thought it was time to add some Tom Waits. I started with Closing Time and absolutely love it, but Frank's Wild Years is one of the WORST cds I have ever purchased. No soul, hokey tunes, not something I like at all. Perhaps Waits fans would like this but, as a Waits novice, I had to give this a second chance and I dislike it even more than when I first listened. This cd will go into my recycle pile. No camparison to Closing Time, absolutely none. June 20, 2008

Dark and Humorous, Classic Waits

A Tom Waits album is the aural equivalent of walking down a dark twisty path with a cantankerous old uncle who mixes Old Testament wisdom with dirty jokes. Franks Wild Years is another entry in this fine tradition.
As you may already know, this album is taken from an opera that Tom and Kathleen wrote. If you are interested in further explorations of this project, check out Big Time - both the album and the movie (available only on VHS). The studio version of Down in the Hole is great, but the live version is truly amazing and even hilarious. Check it out! May 11, 2008

Franks Wild Junk

Tom Waits definitely inspires extreme opinions. Many of my friends think he is one of the all-time greats. For me, the emperor has no clothes. One star is being kind.

However, it's not enough to just say this album is one of the worst I've ever heard. It's not enough to say Tom Waits is a pretentious fop. It's not enough to say that he sings just like Cookie Monster.

Those are all cheap shots and name-calling, which you can easily find on the message boards of TMZ.com and ESPN.com. No, my challenge here is to explain why I hate Franks Wild Years, in clear and precise language that will change your mind. A thesis on the musical stinkery of Waits that will make you realize you've been living a lie.

Of course, I can type and type and type, and it will all be in vain. You'll all laugh and snicker, and shake your heads sadly at me and tell me I don't get it. And you know what? I don't. I boldly assert my own ignorance of the supposed genius of Tom Waits, the two-bit troubadour.

So let's examine the themes of Franks Wild Years, which Waits desperately, almost pathologically wants you to explore.

Of course, this is more than just an album. It's "Un Operachi Romantico In Two Acts", and completes a trilogy of albums. Really, Tom? I'm already not feeling very smart now that I've entered your whimsical world. Sorry I missed the play that accompanied this very important piece of art. Maybe then I would truly understand it. Right now I am just hearing some accordions, some off-key horns, that gravelly, straight-from-Skid-Row voice of yours, and I'm already getting upset.

Franks Wild Years tells the story of Frank, a doomed loser dyin' to get out of his one-horse town and go "straight to the top" (NOTE TO TOM: Springsteen already covered this lyrical ground about 12-15 years prior). Actually, Waits' lyrics by themselves are kinda like a more arty Springsteen (Mary's on the black top/There's a husband in the dog house), but WAY more pretentious.

I mean, what is Waits actually trying to say? I mean, I get that he's an avant-garde poet extraordinaire. Jeez, that's beaten over my head with each song. "Look! Here's a cheesy waltz! Now look! I'm familiar with Django Reinhardt and you're not! Wait, there's more! I'm like Sinatra, only I'm off-key and drunk! I literally can create an entire cast of characters with clever wordplay in one album -- sorry, I meant in UN OPERACHI ROMANTICO IN TWO ACTS."

But even that musical chameleon quality of Waits doesn't accurately explain my hatred. Waits definitely creates music on his own terms. He doesn't come to you, but instead makes you come to him. I'm sorry, but I hate that about artists. Music has to be a two-way street. Unusual does not equal good. The only mood that Waits creates for me, anyway, is "What kind of garbage am I listening to?"

The album is WAY too long. How pretentious of Waits to play us two versions of two different songs! It's like he is saying, "Did you enjoy my genius on the first rhumba version on Side One -- sorry, I meant in Act I? Now sit back and MARVEL at how effortlessly I can switch to a Vegas version! What a poignant commentary I am making on the broken promises of the Sin City!"

No, Tom, it's just long! I already heard this song! Just get to the end of the record and let me get back to my Kinks albums!

I'm not going to go song by song here, cause I rate them all 0 out of 10. All of them. However, special dishonorable mention must go to "I'll Take New York", which I give negative 1,000 out of 10. The U.S. Army should set up giant speakers throughout the mountains of Afghanistan, and just play that song at ear-splitting volume on a continuous loop. The Taliban would be completely flushed out in about a day.

I expect I will be skewered by the Waits-lovers on here, but bring it on. The truth deserves to be heard. September 20, 2007

go on the journey

go on the journey with frank as he rises to success and falls back down. i like to think fo this as ziggy stardusts cooler, older brother. a neccesity for any waits fan September 11, 2007

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