Disc of the day
The Meters - The Meters
Kings of Nawlins "fonk" go it alone. Cue incurable itch in sacroiliac.
Features Disc of the day
Tom Waits
Rain Dogs
(Island, 1985)
Vagrant evocation of life's beautiful hellishness. Trebles all round.
"Play it like a midget's bar mitzvah," Tom Waits told guitarist Marc Ribot when recording this 1985 album. If only more groups would follow suit. Named for hounds that have lost the scent of home in a rain storm and are forced to roam the streets, Rain Dogs was inspired by Waits' tenure in pre-money New York. The bruised and lost populate its ragged city songs of brutality and tenderness; death is at Waits' elbow, and there's nothing for it but poetic melancholy and maybe a few laughs. There are no half-measures here; recorded using an eclectic array of instruments including accordions, pump organs, angle-ground guitars and, so the story goes, an old chest of drawers as a drum kit, what resulted was a complete inter-relation of lyric, voice and melody. When Waits croaks his sideways visions of mundane horror on 9th & Hennepin, for example, the clarinet, marimba, musical saw and piano shadow every word; the gulpingly sad Time, meanwhile, becomes even more luminous in its overgrown junkyard surroundings. And though it might look like him, the cover star isn't the artiste, but some nestling drunk from photographer Anders Petersen's 1978 book Café Lehmitz (a swinging dive bar on the Reeperbahn in sunny Hamburg).
Ian Harrison
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 17/06/2009
Further Listening
Tom Waits – Mule Variations (Epitaph, 1999)
Howlin’ Wolf – Moanin’ In The Moonlight (Chess, 1959)
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band – Safe As Milk (Buddah, 1967)
Previous Disc of the day
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The Meters - The Meters
Kings of Nawlins "fonk" go it alone. Cue incurable itch in sacroiliac.
6:00 AM GMT 06/11/2009
-
Blur - Blur
Sun sets on Damon Albarn's Little England. "Look inside America," he urges. "She's alright."
6:00 AM GMT 05/11/2009
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The Congos - Heart Of The Congos
Roots reggae's Lee Perry-produced Pet Sounds!
6:00 AM GMT 04/11/2009
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