Friday, March 17, 2006

Orphans rumour

Australian Shock Records mentions the release of a three cd box called Orphans on July 24th. No idea how reliable this might be.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

As long as Take Care of all my Children is on there, I'm happy. Oh, and maybe Annie's Back in Town and Mr. Henry. Man, he's got so many wonderful rare songs!

Anonymous said...

"Lost at the bottom of the world" has got to be a must.

Anonymous said...

I could come up with more than three CDs worth just out of my own collection...

Most hoping for: I Never Let Go of Your Hand, Down There By the Train, Diamond In Your Mind, Lost at the Bottom of the World, Take Care of All of My Children, 2:19, No One Can Forgive Me But My Baby, and hopefully lots of equally good stuff we haven't heard before :-)

--
Sarah V.

Anonymous said...

Well I have heard that it is 1 cd of newly recorded stuff, simple acoustic style ( though I don't know if this is new recordings of old songs or just new songs ) and 2 cds worth of unreleased tracks from previous albums and tracks that have appeared on soundtracks.

But as we all well know, we just have to wait and see.

Jarlath

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately for most of us really fanatic fans, I bet we'll basically be getting what the Notes From the Underground (is that what it's called) 5 disc box set bootleg contained.

What I'd really like is a full box set of all those alternate versions of his released songs. Tom again and again discusses completely revamping tunes in radically different sonic textures. If you've ever heard the original "Filipino Box Spring Hog", recorded at first for Bone Machine, you can fathom where it would go.

He apparently had recorded "Get Behind the Mule" at least 6 or so times, which was the inspiration for the album title. 'Mule Variations'.

I dunno if he ever specifically demoed "Down there by the train", thought it was preformed live on piano in an inferior version a few times.

And I'm very sure "Nobody Can Forgive Me But my Baby" and "2:19" were never preformed by him in a studio setting, written only for other folkses. I've heard a live "Fish in the Jailhouse", and apparently that was a studio outtake, as was two collaborations with Keith Richards, "Good Dogwood", about the wood Christ was hung up on, and then another biblical fable called something like "Bob Christ" r' something.

I lost most foreward to "Lost at the Bottom of the World", "The World Keeps Turning", the pretty well known "Buzz Fledderjon", and the co-written 30 second collaboration with his son Casey, "Big Face Money". Apparently there are quite a few dozen outtakes from Bone Machine and Mule Variations.

But if you can't wait hunt down that Notes From the Underground Bootleg, which contains his meanest blues tune ever (originally written by Jack Kerouac, with the musical help of Primus, "On the Road". If you hunt carefully, you can find a live version, radically different and profoundly touching and heartmelting. You can also find a number if live 70s material, "Whose Sportcoat is That?", and "Trash Day".

ALSO, the original demos from Alice aren't impossible to find, with the song itself, "Alice, being the only really similar to the final product. His take on Table Top Joe is preformed by planking pieces of glass and singing in a distantly ghostly voice.

Then there are the stage recordings of Blood Money, which aren't demanded, but I find fun in Japanese men trying to bark out "God's Away on Business".

I've heard most of this material, and it's all top-notch. Hilarious especially are "On the Road", where his phlem is singing more than his voice. And the song keeps going off and on kilter, and while it's all broken guitar and collapsing drums, the choruses have some king of baritone sax. Greatness. And the original "Filipino Box Spring Hog" nothing as great as the remade version, but as slip slidingly shambling as he ever recorded a song, and I mean it puts "Tango Till They're Sore" into the most melodic catagories humanly possible.

PLUS, Tom claims to continually with a tape recorder sing absolute nonsensical dissonant blues themed rhythm chomp stompers, like "Let Me Get Up On It". I WANT A RECORD OF NOTHING BUT THIS NOISE. Maybe he can cram in one & two.

He did some "baba-chii-choo-wee-gah" tune, something about spoons or whatever. I can't recall it's title. Fun.

ALSO, he did two songs with Chuck E Weiss was it, with his vocals way up front. "It Rains on Me", and "Do You Know What Ida Imin", which I'm misspelling, but it's REALLY long and rhythmic and footstomping.

Uh, I'll stop for now.

Anonymous said...

Heh, you should have just posted a link to the Tom Waits Supplement 'orphans' page ;-)

He did do a studio version of Down There by The Train... it's fantastic but hasn't been released (and the copy I have is missing the last verse, I think).

Buzz Fledderjon and Big Face Money have already been officially released, so I dunno if they'd be put on an 'Orphans' set - depends on whether he thinks B-sides and extras count...

The one you can't spell is "Babbachichuija," and if you want lots more of that noise stuff, check out the Gatmo Sessions discs.

Jarlath, I would be pretty pleased if there was a full disc of newly recorded stuff, that would be great... whether new songs or new versions, either way is good stuff.

--
Sarah V.

bigshoulders said...

Anon. the 2 songs with Chuck E. Weiss are found on Weiss' "Extremely Cool" which is a great disc in its own right. Available for years.

I'm excited about the 'chatter' regarding "Orphans." sure, i probably have a good deal of it on the TFTU series, but I'll be lining up on the day it's released just like the rest of you. and i'm fairly confident that TW will bury some great nuggets on said discs that will put a smile on my face and a stomp in my foot.

and we will absolutely love it.

Anonymous said...

Well fine then, point out all my mistaken names and places of songs, but Ha HA, you forgot the song Books of Moses, which I have no idea where the hell it comes from. I don't really think they'd put a 3 disc set out of 100% unheard of or unreleased material.

Could be wrong, I could. I imagine, as the title Orphans does sort of imply stray materal, that was created and then given away to another family (record).

Though I must ask where the hell you found the original "Down There By the Train", for I'd imagine its nearly as perfect as Johnny Cash's version. Is it a demo, like the one of "Strange Weather" that exists and that you can find if you look extra extra hard?

Since I own so many of these titles bootleggedly, I so much more wish we'd get alternate versions of songs released officially, as he says he does MANY versions of one song before getting it "right". I remember reading the spoken word piece "Circus" apparently having a faster, more polka sound to it. I MUST HEAR! And I imagine, like that opening of 'Big in Japan', or all the vocal percussion in Real Gone, he has LOADS of nothing but rhythmic nonsense with some distorted falsetto & barking, like the first 30 or so seconds of "All Stripped Down"... Yes I raved about this already, but for some reason "Let Me Get Up On It" is always the stuff I stomp my foot to most.

Since I'm rambling, I want to say "Metropolitan Glide" is the funkiest song he ever recorded, and in my top ten of all time Tom Waits songs, next to of course "God's Away on Business" which I always consider his #1 greatest song ever made. It is everything the man ever was born for. God created Tom Waits to make that song. I'll shut up now.

Anonymous said...

OH YES!!!! We are all forgetting the small snatch of biblical solo singing he does as they drive off in the scene of Domino where his cameo ends. It's like 15 seconds long and beautifully ugly.

If you have been to YouTube.com, I'm sure you've heard "Ain't Goin Down to the Well No More" (i think it's called), and my personal favorite of the two videos, "Jesus Gonna Write My Name" (again, I don't know exactly what either song's titles actually are.) But it's just him alone with a banjo in the first, imitating a train, and in the second a guitar. kicking a tamborine on the floor with a floor as percussion. Both brilliant preformances. Just cause they're live and from a video from another country doesn't mean they shouldn't be available on cd!