Boulevard of Broken Covers - April 08

I skipped the March edition of Boulevard of Broken Covers, but April makes up for that with a double dose.

And what better way to kill some time while we are waiting for some major news than an entire album with Waits covers? No, not that one, but a fine selection of tunes by WaitsWatcher.

The monthly round-up :

• Mae Robertson covers Little trip to heaven on Meet the sun halfway


• Kathryn Williams & Neill MacColl cover Innocent when you dream on Two


• Dorine Bijl covers Take me home on Oud En Wijs Genoeg
  


• Karen Vieno Paurus covers Jesus Gonna Be Here and That Feel on Passion, prayer, poison
  


• Steve Crawford and Spider Mackenzie cover The heart of Saturday night on 5 am
  


• Stefano Tessadri covers Tango till they´re sore on Passione e veleno
  


• Jesse Malin covers I hope that I don't fall in love with you on On your sleeve
  


• The Wantones cover I want you on I want you
  


• Moss covers Take it with me on Moss
  


• Hayes Carll covers I don't wanna grow up on Trouble in mind
  


• An mp3 of No one knows I'm gone by Jeremy Smoking Jacking with a cough as backing
  


• Mary Black covers If I have to go on Twenty Five Years - Twenty Five Songs
  

A nice find on Youtube: Tracy Bonham covering Earth died screaming. With Mike Viola on Wurlitzer and Dan Cho on cello





And I'll leave you with The One Man Band Band paying their special tribute to our man;

Scarlett Johansson video

You've heard it, now you can see it. Scarlett Johansson's cover of Falling down.

Black & White Night theatrical tour

American Country Countdown mentions the commemoration of Roy Orbison (who died 20 years ago) with the release of a box set and a theatrical tour of a video concert. The theatrical tour, scheduled for September, will consist of Black & White Night with never-before released rehearsal footage and new interviews. 

The 1987 A Black & White Night concert featured guest artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, T Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello and Tom Waits.

Dublin rumours

According to Hot Press, promoters have been "furiously bidding" to bring Tom Waits to Dublin this summer.

The article entitled 'Waits close to confirming Dublin dates' leaves open pretty much all the options: "A number of different options have been explored, including a brace of outdoor shows in a limited capacity city centre venue. However, Hot Press understands that the artist may well decide to do the shows in a marquee – a move that would sync neatly with the circus-cum-vaudeville aspect of his persona."

"Likely dates" mentioned are the end of July and the beginning of August

UPDATE (April 25): The Irish Times published a similar story earlier this month.

Email updates

I managed to install an automated email update service with news from The Eyeball Kid.

Enter your email address below and then activate your subscription in a confirmation mail. You should then receive an email on days the blog is updated. If the blog is not updated, you should not receive any messages.

I will not use your address for anything else, but as I have no experience with this feedburner.com, service, I can not vouch for their end of the matter. So, if you subscribe, you do so at your own risk. I hope you understand.

Enter your email address:

Feel free to let me know if you have any problems with this.

3.0

Scarlett site

ATCO Records has dedicated a site to Scarlett Johansson's new album, Anywhere I lay my head. Scarlettalbum.com includes snippets from all the songs on the album.

Twitter

A lot of my readers ask me if there is some sort of email alert with news from the Eyeball Kid. Well, there isn't. But to spread the good word, I've now tried to install a Twitter account with an automatic RSS-feed from the blog.

So, if everything works out fine, you should be able to follow the news at twitter.com/eyeballkidnews. And for all you news junkies out there, the good news is you can get Twitter updates on your mobile phone as well.

UPDATE (April 24): I've now installed an email alert service.

Crashing by design

Some Waits content over at Crashing By Design.

Peace and Prosperity documentary

According to the Tribeca Film Festival site, there is a documentary about the Dalai Lama's public talks at Radio City Music Hall (New York) in October 2007. Peace and Prosperity is said to include "fitting music videos" provided by Tom Waits and Phillip Glass. Whatever that might mean. IMDB lists Mark Bauman as the director, while Tribeca site mentions Sian Edwards and Richard Wirth.

This is not the first time Waits' name has been linked to that of the Dalai Lama: he performed at the 2003 Healing the divide benefit in New York, where the Dalai Lama also made an appearance.

Swordfistrombones 33 1/1 review

Blogcritics has a review of Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones by David Smay, another entry in the 33 1/3 series.

Win an autograph

Tompkins Square Records celebrates it's Record Store Day (April 19th) with a competition with an nice prize: a copy of the People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938 autographed by Tom Waits.

The competition started on April 19th, and I'm not too sure how long it runs. See the list of participating US record stores at Tompkinssq.com.

Streaming Scarlett

Imeem.com has three songs from the new Scarlett Johansson album Anywhere I lay my head streaming on its site. And if you create your own account you can put them up on your site. Which, of course, I have done for all you Scarlett fans.


UPDATE (April 16): Looks like the songs have been removed from Imeem...
UPDATE 2 (April 17): Somebody is streaming the tracks on Muxtape now.

Fact Site

'When he does shave he does so with a broken whiskey bottle.' This and other interesting Tom Waits trivia can be found at Tim Roth’s Tom Waits Facts Site.

Trust the facts at your own risk.

SSJ streaming Yesterday is here

Southside Johnny has a streaming version of Yesterday is here on his site.

Beatboxing with Atmosphere

In an interview with Twin Cities, the Minneapolis band Atmosphere talks about it's new album When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That S—- Gold. Apparently Tom Waits beatboxes on one of the songs:

Slug (vocals): ''I'm friends with his son. We've known each other for quite a while now, going on five or six years. And I finally asked him, I think literally, 'Have I known you long enough now to ask if I can get in touch with your dad? Or is that offensive?' So, I sent him the song and asked if he'd sing the chorus. He sent it back and totally avoided the chorus, but instead beatboxed on it. And it sounds good. It worked. We kept it subtle. I didn't want to be exploitive. I wanted to make sure it made sense musically, and I think ultimately it really did."

Vinyl Variation

Amazon UK announced a vinyl release of Mule Variations on the April 14.

Parnassus pictures

OhJohnny.net has two pictures of Tom Waits during the filming of The imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

Here and here.

Scarlett Johansson album cover

Just Jared has the album cover of Scarlett Johansson's upcoming cover album Anywhere I lay my head on line.

According to People.com, a label representative snapped the cover photo in Louisiana.

Uncut has a track-by-track review of the album.

Big Time screening

If you live in California, you might want to check out the screening of Big Time at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center on Thursday, April 17 (7:30 p.m.).

As a special added attraction, this program also includes a 15-minute compilation of rare videos and promos that director Chris Blum created with Tom Waits in support of Rain Dogs and Franks Wild Years.