Saturday Matinee – Alt Math, Rag’n’Bone Man & Tom Waits

This is scary. The Correct Answer Is 22.

Rag’n’Bone Man‘s cover of the Stones “Gimme Shelter” is killer.

More about that talented Brit via Wiki:

Rag’n’Bone Man’s first hit single, “Human“, was released on Columbia Records in July 2016. It peaked at number one in the Official Singles Charts in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. It was certified Gold in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.

That’s is an entirely different version and a precursor to the one I’m familiar with:

Tom Waits is amazing.

Have a great weekend, folks, and for Fathers’ Day, buy your Dad a big bacon cheeseburger with fries and a pint of stout. He’ll love it, despite what your Mom says about it causing tumors in rats.

Saturday Matinee – Paul Simon and Chevy Chase, Tito Larriva & Tom Waits

By the end of the week I usually have a couple of videos already in the queue, but I found I had none ready to post, so I defaulted to retro vids.

A 2011 Paul Simon performance of “Kodachrome caught my ear. The missus walked in and asked why I was listening to that sappy song. I said I needed to post something for Saturday.

“If you’re going to post a Paul Simon video, it should be You Can Call Me Al with Chevy Chase,” and she’s right. It’s a classic, and it’s also the best Paul Simon video ever.

He ducked back down the alley
With some roly-poly little bat-faced girl

IIRC, that was recorded about the same time that David Byrne was doing his own version of international music, like featuring Tito Larriva:

Then there’s this.
Tom Waits took Psychobilly to a new dimension in 2006.

Have a great weekend, folks, and don’t worry. Everything is gonna be all right despite what the doom mongers tell you.

Saturday Matinee – Vi Hart’s Eggs, Steel Forge, Tom Waits & The Magic Piano

What a fun Singalong [via].

https://youtu.be/tEF2erBBVZ4

This fascinates me. No idea what they’re making, but it needs a Tom Waits soundtrack, like this:

Wow. Christmas is only week away, so we need a nice happy video. So many to choose from, and so many sappy ones that I don’t want to post, so here’s one that always makes me smile:

Such a simple brilliant fun idea. I wish there were more clips or an uncut version, but I haven’t found them… yet.

Have a great weekend, folks, and enjoy the holidays.

 

Saturday Matinee – I Dig Safety, I Feel Like Saying a Beatnik Poem & Tom Waits

https://youtu.be/JMWTEyYV7CA

This is the way it is, baby. I Dig Safety, and it’s about time you paid attention to it. Don’t let the title fool you; this could save your life, and it’s got a cool hip soundtrack with bongos, courtesy of Xerox [1969].

The Utoobage description sums it up: “A great clip from the 1958 teen B movie High School Confidential. This clip features Phillipa Fallon as a beat poetess. That’s Uncle Fester, AKA Jackie Coogan on piano behind her. Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum.” Here’s the whole awesome [via]:

High School Drag

My old man was a bread stasher all his life.
He never got fat. He wound up with a used car,
a 17 inch screen and arthritis.

Tomorrow is a drag, man.
Tomorrow is a king sized bust.

They cried ‘put down pot,’ ‘don’t think a lot,’ for what?
Time, how much? And what to do with it.

Sleep, man, and you might wake up digging the whole
human race giving itself three days to get out.

Tomorrow is a drag, pops, the future is a flake.

I had a canary who couldn’t sing.
I had a cat who let me share my pad with her.
I bought a dog that killed the cat who ate the canary.
What is truth?

I had an uncle with an ivy league card.
He had a life with a belt in the back.
He had a button-down brain.
Wind up a belt in the mouth with a button-down lip.

We cough blood on this earth.
Now there’s a race for space.
We can cough blood on the moon soon.

Tomorrow’s dragsville, cats.
Tomorrow is a king size drag.

Tool a fast shore, swing with a gassy chick.
Turn on to a thousand joys.
Smile on what happened, or check what’s going to happen,
You’ll miss what’s happening.
Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum.

Swing For A Crime is a great compilation of hep cat music interspersed with audio snippets from B-movie suspense thrillers (including the distinctive voice of Lee Marvin hollering “Oh you pig! You lyin’ pig!” from the 1953 movie The Big Heat). I have it on vinyl.

The only performer I know of that was able to recreate the hep cat beatnik persona successfully is Tom Waits.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend, folks.


[Yeah, I fixed it, and I know it’s not Memorial Day Weekend. That’s what happens when you realize it’s almost midnight and you’ve been messing around too much on Twitter to post anything coherently. –Bunk]

Saturday Matinee – Tom Waits, Howlin’ Wolf & Ron Holloway

https://youtu.be/XqZ5E_JeUVo

16 Shells From A Thirty Ought Six” is one of my Tom Waits favorites. Pure industrial grade Howlin’ Wolf. This clip was from his 1988 film dérangeant Big Time.

https://youtu.be/byGOCdMUqSw

Howlin’ Wolf and other classic bluesmen were promoted by The Rolling Stones.

Great live version of “Jimi Thing” by The Dave Matthews Band in 2011. Jump to 07:00 for some awesome funk sax by Ron Holloway.

Saturday Matinee – Glenn Frey & The Eagles, and Tom Waits

One of my favorite Eagles songs. I played that record so much you could see daylight through the grooves. R.I.P Glenn Frey.

The Eagles made me a bluegrass fan with “Midnight Flyer.”

Another favorite from that same album was “Ol’ 55.” It was years later that I found out it was written by Tom Waits.

Head down, chin up, and have a great weekend, folks.

Saturday Matinee – Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve & Halloween: Bobby Pickett, Ted Cassidy & Tom Waits

The history of Samhain (aka All Hallow’s Eve, aka Halloween) is interesting, and despite what some claim (that it’s “The Devil’s Holiday”) it’s actually the opposite. Check this out.

But that’s not what we’re here for, and we’re not here to post Bobby Pickett‘s “Monster Mash” either even though Leon Russell played on that recording according to Wiki.

Nice try, Bobby, but that sucked donkeys. Ted Cassidy did it right.

So how do we wrap up this Halloween vid post? How ’bout some Tom Waits?

Yeah, when the kids were tads, we’d do up the front stoop right, with spiderwebs, pumpkins that made little kids cry and dogs bark, and blast Tom Waits and Mickey Hart’s Planet Drum cassettes on a boom box that could be heard for blocks. Fun times.

Have a safe Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve, and Halloween, folks. Be back tomorrow for El Día de los Muertos.

 

Saturday Matinee – The Yoshida Brothers, Mean Mary James & Sarah jaroz

The Yoshida Brothers rock. Here’s their Wiki entry if you’re curious. [via]

Mean Mary James rips traditional song “Cripple Creek” on banjo live at WPRK. You want a faster version? You won’t find it.

Sarah Jarosz on mandolin, with Alex Hargreaves on fiddle and Nathaniel Smith on cello, recorded April 2010, is a nice version of Tom Wait‘s song from “Mule Variations” (1999). Personally, I like Waits’ version better because gravel and petunias work for me on happy songs.

There are some great tunes hidden in the back of Tom Waits’ attic under the Swanson TV Dinner trays, matchbox covers, PEZ dispensers and Bazooka Joe coupons for free 6-inch long telescopes.

Have a great weekend, folks. We’re gonna post something else that’s completely inane tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee: Ray White, Priscilla Ahn & Tom Waits

Talking Feet: 6-1/2 minutes of awesome. Watch the whole thing [via].

Priscilla Ahn‘s got a cool version of Tom Waits‘ “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up.”

Tom Waits was indicted [sic] into The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2011, and Neil Young introduced him. Great intro, great clips, great quotes. Someone said that Waits doesn’t sing the same song the same way twice.

“I think what I try to do is write adventure songs and Halloween Music.” –Tom Waits

That last quote cracks me up, because back when we still had trick-or-treaters coming around, we’d do up the front entry and blast Mickey Hart’s “Planet Drum” and Wait’s “Bone Machine” to the neighborhood. Great Halloween music.

Have  a great weekend, see you back here tomorrow.

Tom & Tommy

Tom Waits and Tommy Ramone.

[Found here.]