HolyStitt

"Diamonds On My Windshield," was the first Waits song I had ever heard. It was on a Rhino Records The Beat Generation box set. I was thinking who and what is this!

This was a common problem when the CD came out. We ordered three, they all came back, so we decided to stop carrying it.

Have you heard anything by him yet? Waits has had at least 3 different distinctive periods in his career. The way I see it he has had the 1970's sound: influenced by Jazz and the Beat Generation, the 1980's until the until "Real Gone" sound: influenced by his previous influences, Captain Beefheart, Harry Partch, and the New York jazz sound involving the Lurie Brothers, and the "Real Gone" sound: influenced by all his previous influences, hip hop, and percussive vocal effects. Here are my recommendations: If you can only start with two CDs: Small Change- I think this is a pretty good representation of his 1970's sound, with nice variety between the different sounds of the period. Rain Dogs-My all time favorite 1980's era CD. If you decide to start with five: Real Gone-With this CD he went in a new direction, so there is not any of his CDs that sound similar to this style. Bone Machine-This was a pretty popular CD when it came out. Nice variety, with a lot of soul. Nighthawks at the Dinner-Moves between a jazz influenced sound and beat poetry.

Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival has Don Thompson on bass. It's very sad that he died at 28.

This set will have "Cool World," right? Even if it doesn't it sounds like a nice set.

connoisseur series500, is he playing this weekend or has the chance passed?

A few years back he was supposed to play a gig in town and he didn't show up the first night. The second night he didn't show up to the first set. I am sitting at the bar having a drink in between the second set and he walks up to the bar for the gig, the bartender knows him pretty well and asks what happened, he tells the baretender that he has learned a lesson, don't ever bring weed on an airplane.

Man, don't get me started on this one. I listened to the set for a few months one Fall/Winter and put it on the shelf for the following Spring/Summer/ Fall without touching it. I come back to spin the music again, pick it up off the shelf, and my hands are all brown from the rust, the shelf is all brown from the rust, and the CDs next to it were brown from the rust.

Thanks! I have the three Classics CD's, so I probably won't need the set. I was hoping that they were putting all of the 60's organ recordings together too.

Who is in the group? I have seen him twice at the Twin Cities club the Dakota. The first time with Art Farmer & a local rhythm section and the second time with Sonny Fortune. Give it a chance on the solo tip, he has a nice live sound. He recently moved back to the Twin Cities. From what I hear he is not living a real healthy lifestyle, so you might want to takes this opportunity to see him.

I haven't heard about this before. Is this supposed to be everything or just the 1950's recordings? How many discs was it planned to be?

Working at a record store for ten years I seen tons of weird CDs. Here are a few off the top of my head: I saw a Nirvana Nevermind CD that was misprinted "Neverming," of course the owner grabbed that one! I had a customer bring back a Dylan Highway 61 because it had Robert Goulet's music on it, instead of Dylan's. Their were many CDs in the first pressing of Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall Cd reissue that wouldn't play at all. In general, I have seen a ton of quality control issues with Sony stuff. I have had to send the CDs back on my Louis Armstrong Complete Hot Fives and Charlie Christian boxsets because the discs were messed up. The Armstrong had the CDs glued into the set and the CDs in the Christian had some substance I could not get off on them. In both cases, Sony sent me a mailer to send back the CDs and sent me brand new clean CDs.

I think it was just the first pressing. Maybe even a limited edition. If you went to the store and bought it the day it was released, you got this issue. It is an art booklet if I remember. I was working at a record store when it came out, it was only the first pressing. I used to love telling people about it after they had the disc awhile because they would come back so happy, like I haf given them a present! There was also a limited edition version, but it is made more like a book, than a standard CD.

He played in the 7th Street Entry at First Avenue on Christmas Day a couple of years back. I didn't go to the gig, but my friend went who is a fan of Chance and said that it was pretty bad.

I have been re-reading "Ball Four" while on break. Did MLB outlaw 'greenies' for the upcoming season?

I was at some 90's shows. I remember digging them, but ten years down the road I wonder to myself if they were great shows. I was at the Soldier Field shows on 06/18-19/93 and at the Seattle Memorial Stadium show on 06/13/94 Seattle Memorial Stadium.

Does anyone know what he died from and how old he was? I will have to dig out my Eremite CDs. R.I.P.

"Mississippi Lad" is fun, I just played it the other day. Have you heard the John Hammond CD Wicked Grin? Pretty fun to hear someone else sing his songs and hear Waits primarily playing guitar. I have the second volume of the Gatmo Sessions, but have still been unable to find the first. I also saw him on the "Mule Variations" tour. He played two nights at the State Theatre and it was great to see the variety between the two nights. The funny thing is the theatre is between the streets 8th & 9th and Hennepin Avenue. I love how he performed on an amplified wood box with dust on it. During certain songs he would stomp on it to add percussion to the song. Did he make any references to any local places? In town, he made references to a surplus army store, the The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, and some crop art that he had seen earlier in the day at the Minnesota State Fair.

In a Mojo interview April of 1999 he says: "I was always rather intimidated by Frank, 'cos he was like some type of a baron. There was so much mythology around him, and he had such confidence. Tremendous leadership and vision. When I toured with him, it was not well thought out. It was like your dad saying, "Why don't you go to the shooting range with your brother Earl?" And I was like, I don't really want to, I might get hurt. And I did get hurt. I went out and subjected myself to all this intimidating criticism from an audience that was not my own. Frank was funny. He'd just say: "How were they out there?" He was using me to take the temperature, sticking me up the butt of the cow and pulling me out. Kind of funny in retrospect. I fit in, in the sense that I was eccentric, Went out every night, got my 40 minutes. I still have nightmares about it. Frank shows up in my dreams, asking me how the crowd was. I have dreams where the piano is catching fire and the legs are falling off and the audience is coming at me with torches and dragging me away and beating me with sticks...so I think it was a good experience. " I couldn't find the Captain Beefheart reference in my magazine stash, but I know he has credited him for influencing his post Asylum/Elektra years. He has said that when he started dating Kathleen Brennen, while making "One From The Heart," she exposed him to a wider variety of music. Out of this music, he has mentioned the influence of Howlin' Wolf, Captain Beefheart, and Harry Partch. He has said that he was afraid he would alienate his audience with a new sound, but Kathleen gave him the strength to go record his new sound.

I have tons of Waits. I have all of the official recordings, quite a few unofficial, and a few of the compilations that have one or two exclusive songs. Has anyone seen him in concert? What are your favorite movie appearances?

This is actually the reason I love the label. When I want to hear Charlie Parker on CD, each set usually has 2 or 3 alternate takes, so it's nice to be able grab these discs, and have the choice to not sort through any of the alternate takes. It's wonderful to hear how he chronologically went from bebop dates to strings dates and back & forth. The Hawkins CD's are great because they have songs I have never seen on any other CD. Off the top of my head, I have the Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy, Sonny Stitt, Bud Powell, and Oscar Pettiford CD's.

That's the one, but mine had gum staining on the back! The last game he played in he was hit in the eye with a pitch. He left the game and eventually had surgery on the eye. He wasn't able to see very well out of the eye and than it was announced that he had glaucoma.

Everytime I see this picture, I think "and we will see you tomorrow night!"

Not the Leaf version? I was more a fan of the '85 Topps. It seems ESPN had his age wrong, the Minneapolis Star Tribune says 45.

Great price for a Jones/Lewis Mosaic. Bad price for a Ken Burns series set!