Wax On Wax #13: Late Career Gems
This week, let's listen to some old guys! They've been through it all, and are still working to come through the other side. We've got the most depressing soundtrack to a play of all time, a Beatle that just wants to "party every night," a Swamp Dogg masterpiece, with a side of Ice Cream For Crow. I dont know about you but this little blurb of a paragraph has me hooked so lets start reading!
Alice - a fantastic album surrounded by even more fantastic albums, which makes it all the more special and unique in my book. Dark, dreary, vaudevillian, melancholy, infinite sadness, the whole lot. It's not an uplifting listen by any means, as almost nothing was from this period of Tom Waits career. But Alice manages to capture an incredible amount of delicate beauty in its 48-minute runtime. I remember first listening to this album in the winter of 2009, right as I had first moved to Boston. I didn't know a soul, I had no friends yet, I'd broken up with my girlfriend to chase down my dreams, and it was cold. Shit - even my dog had just died. I was ripe for something sad, something to affirm all of these crazy feelings I was having. I was only 19 years old, still a kid, and sometimes when you reach out for something in the dark, all you'll get is more darkness - especially at that age.
Alice was one of three collaborations Waits had with playwright Robert Wilson. The Black Rider, their first collaboration, was the rare Waits album not received warmly from this period and one that I'll admit I've never thrown on. The other being Woyzeck resulting in the 2002 album Blood Money which released simultaneously with Alice. Both were received much better than The Black Rider no doubt due to his recent masterpiece Mule Variations still kicking around everyone's head at the time. Alice and Blood Money make interesting bedfellows, with Alice being the album that pairs best with a cup of cyanide between the two. This era of Tom Waits' music was a time when Waits became an exposed nerve through his songwriting. All of his music was so raw, so naked, and so completely unlike anything being released at the time.
I remember throwing Alice on my iPod and just walking around Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and all the old Revolutionary landmarks of Boston and just being completely intoxicated by it all. Yes, I was depressed, no Alice was not helping, but I was a history buff with a dramatic streak, and listening to that record while being out and about in an old city got me out of my apartment at the very least. Something about this music sounds so out of time. It sounds like something you'd hear in a janky, rundown barroom before there was even a possibility of recording sound. It's transitory - magical even. Alice is not Rain Dogs or Closing Time. You're not going to leave feeling happy after you listen to it. It's its own trip, but one you'll like taking if you're deep into the Waits catalog.
As you may or may not know, this blog is based on a weekly record club I have with a few of my old college buddies. One of them posited an interesting question when it came time to discuss McCartney III. "If this was the first album McCartney had ever released," he asked, "Would you want to hear more?" We all had to struggle to remove our Beetle Goggles with which we see just about everything music-related through. "No" was the consensus, with about half a dozen "ands," "ifs," and "buts." McCartney III is a tough record to analyze, because as admirable as it is that Paul is still putting out half-decent music, I can't help but think that he completely missed the mark here. It's meandering, the lyrics are lacking ("Deep Down" oof), and the songs are much too long. At the same time - it's excellently recorded, Paul sounds good on every instrument, and you can tell he is having a ton of fun. Just like what I pointed out in my review of McCartney II, what else does this guy have to prove to anyone? Paul McCartney recorded an album of songs all by himself. Who am I to say it sucks? He's Paul McCartney.
I'm sure this criticism of McCartney has dogged him his entire post-Beatles career, but it's true. Paul, without any meaningful collaborators, is lacking. Wings was essentially a springboard for whatever he wanted to do during the 70s, but no one in that band (save for Linda) could hold a candle to Pauls's voice and presence. There was no Lennon to keep him in check, to keep him interesting. Hell, he didn't even have a Ringo (I love Ringo, but you know what I'm getting at). At this point, at 78 years old, he has done it all. His last album Egypt Station was a major letdown in terms of songwriting, production, attitude, everything. McCartney plus Katy Perry's production team does not equal anything remotely close to what I'd want to listen to. Paul was trying to keep the popstar flame alive as best he could. I think McCartney may have recognized what a misstep that attempt was, and McCartney III is his overcorrection. "Hey, look! I'm releasing this through Third Man! Street cred, right kids?" Uh. I dunno. Sorry, Paul.
Look, if you're a big McCartney fan, there is plenty here you'll like. The guy has still got it musically, and he can play and sing his heart out like it's 1965. The very final song "When Winter Comes" is just about worth the entire price of admission on its own. It's competently produced music made by an icon having fun, which I could not say about a few of his albums before this one. As another Record Club buddy pointed out, "Paul McCartney IS pop-music." He will be setting the pace and template that all others after him have followed and will continue to follow long after he is gone. Unlike Dylan, who is constantly evolving; electing to blow up David and rebuild it in different ways, over and over again, Paul is still chiseling away at the granite that will be his ultimate legacy and sound. There is a throughline here that you can trace all the way back to the Beatles. Paul is no shapeshifter. In a way, how lucky are we that we all still get to have a piece of Beatle-Mania through Paul? But if Paul wants to stick the landing on this whole thing he's been working on the past 60 years, I think more ambition and scrutiny will be required. McCartney III is a slightly disappointing end to this trilogy. Despite its failings, there is still plenty of Paul to love here.
If you had to boil everything I loved about music, you'd probably arrive at Sorry You Couldn't Make It - the 2020 release by the tenacious and one-of-a-kind Swamp Dogg. This music is funky, fun, often sorrowful, and always soulful. It's excellent musicians in an excellent studio, performing excellent songs, by an excellent band-leader. You literally can't ask for more from the medium of vinyl than this record. It's thrilling that as recently as last year, there is still new music like this being released. It's the kind of album that slides onto your shelf right next to Bobby Bland, The Band, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Charles Bradley, and any singer (blue-eyed or otherwise) who's ever put a chill down your spine and a tear in your eye. Swamp Dogg is the real deal, and he's here to show us all how it's supposed to be done.
Now, Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams Jr. may be a revelation to you and me, but he's been here doing this thing since the 1950s. He's gone through many reinventions in his sound, most recently with the 808s & Heartbreak inspired Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune. This album marks somewhat of a return to his more R&B 70s era recordings. Swamp Dogg reminds me a lot of Charles Bradley or Sharon Jones; in that, he's been a hardworking musician his entire life who is just now beginning to see the kind of success and recognition that perhaps he's deserved all along. The biggest difference between Swamp Dogg and his Dap-Tone counterparts is that despite a less than stellar career for the last 60 years in the music industry - he has at least had a career that entire time. Jones and Bradley were both picked out of relative obscurity very late in their lives, and both came out of the gate screaming. You can hear while listening to them that that Dap Tones or whoever is backing them on any particular record are doing a lot of heavy lifting and/or playing to their relative strengths. Swamp Dogg is in full command of this band, these sessions, and this album. The thing they all have in common is wearing their hearts on their sleeves on every single track.
"Sleeping Without You Is a Drag," "I Lay Awake," "Memories," "I'd Rather Be Your Used to Be," "Billy," all have devastating lyrics. Each song reveals a different aspect of being a man of advanced age who despite living exactly the life he always wanted - is full of regret. I've never heard a song sung from the perspective of an older person that made me understand how hard it will be to slowly watch your friends and loved ones pass away. Swamp Dogg puts you at the grave, he puts your head on your pillow while you lay awake at night, and he puts the pen in your hand while you write that letter apologizing for all the times you weren't there. None encapsulate these feelings better than the final track "Please Let Me Go Round Again," where Williams openly begs his creator (with the help of John Prine in his final bow on record) for another chance around the sun. This time he'll make good on every promise, he'll behave himself - he'll finally be a good man. Devastating shit.
This record is notable for all the collaborators, like the aforementioned John Prine, who just sink into the fabric of the recordings. Jenny Lewis and Justin Vernon are all over this record, but if you didn't know that going into listening to this you may never have caught them. Williams uses them like you'd use any guest session musician; they're not there to be featured they're there to support. Another curious thing that I'd love to hear about in the comments if you know, but I found myself in love with the drum sound on this album, but I could not figure out if an actual drummer is even on this record. Listening closely, it appears that it could be an expertly managed drum machine - although there are no credits listed for either. Buy this record. After goin' round again and again (3 times in one day) I had to purchase the LP.
It's fitting that this particular blog started with Tom Waits and is ending with his idol, Captain Beefheart. Waits famously heard Beefheart and changed his entire sound afterward in the early 80s, to the maudlin sound he still carries in his music to this day. Where Waits was beginning a new phase of his career, Beefheart was ending his career as a musician for good. Ice Cream For Crow is a particularly notable high note to go out on as an artist. Beefheart had struggled throughout the 70s to find a particular sound, always fighting off the dregs of poverty, and a few times succumbing to the pressures of the music industry to become more appealing. Ice Cream For Crow is my favorite Captain Beefheart album and the first one I try to show people before ruining their day with Trout Mask Replica. Beefheart sounds as creative as ever, confident, and triumphant on this album. It's a 10/10 by a truly one-of-a-kind artist the likes of which we are likely to never see again.
I remember the first time I heard Beefheart in college and I thought to myself "Oh, so this is the 'Berklee Bullshit' music I've heard so much about!" I don't remember which album it was, probably Trout Mask but I hated it. None of his records are remotely approachable compared to anything resembling ordinary popular music. It wasn't until I heard his first album Safe As Milk that my ears opened up to him. His first album features Ry Cooder and is an all-around triumph of mid-60s electric blues. His albums slowly descend into madness from there, with Trout Mask Replica, in particular, occupying an unusual dual place in musical heaven and hell respectively. On his later albums, Beefheart incorporated spoken word poetry, free form jazz, rock, and blues, all wrapped in an art gallery aesthetic that can be an instant turn-off for most people. It wasn't until Ice Cream For Crow that Beefheart managed to meld the blues-rock of his early albums with the circus freak show cacophony of Trout Mask.
Ice Cream For Crow features an absolute A-List Magic Band in support of Beefheart and his signature incomprehensible style. When you realize that Beefheart designs his music to sound like a band falling down a flight of stairs while playing - on purpose - that is when you can truly appreciate his bizarre kind of genius. Beefheart would write all this music out for his players and they could follow him. It's so unique that it's no surprise that only someone as talented as Tom Waits would even dare to approach this kind of material. Ice Cream For Crow weirdly enough became my go-to workout music about a year ago (don't ask what else is on my workout playlist). There is something about it that has so much forward-leaning insanity that I think flailing one's arms and legs around might have been the originally intended way of enjoying this album. Start at Safe As Milk and know that Ice Cream For Crow is waiting to reward your Beefheart journey. Even I, a huge fan of Beefheart, can't fully get into all of his material (lookin' at you Trout Mask). Take a walk on the wild side. Ice Cream For Crow.
Check-in next week, we’ll be covering music from my alma mater - Berklee!
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