Seb Palmer

As well as two nice old tables bought at antiques shops or auctions, we also have a couple I’ve made.

The first of this set is a lovely gate-leg table, similar to one my dad restored many years ago, with barley-twist legs. Ours is darker than dad’s, and we use it as our dining room table. We bought this from a Riverside Antiques, in Ely.

The next is actually a window-seat bench, bought from Willingham Auctions. I got it for use as a coffee table, in our lounge. It’s the perfect height, and it really suits our space, as, like the ground floor, it’s long and thin. Again, it’s in an old-fashioned dark wood finish, and it also has some nice carved decoration.

The first of my two (so far!) handmade tables is a little thing I made for Teresa. It’s taller than the coffee table, and painted (being made from whatever scrap wood was to hand). I tried to pretty it up a little with a routed ornamental edge.

The other of my home-made tables was, like Teresa’s, one of my ‘jazz’ efforts. I busked it, without plans or much measuring. This one was built more recently, and for a very specific purpose: I had a desk in the lounge, with my iMac and printer, my home office, essentially, on it.

When we decided to start letting the guest-room on AirB&B, I decided I ought to move my ‘office’ upstairs. I’ve always meant got it to be in the box room. But that’s not possible at present, as the box room is chock-full of stuff in storage. So this latest table was buil to fit a narrow space in our bedroom, by the window, alongside our bed!

Spatial restraints meant it had to be long and narrow. I also made it considerably taller than any normal table, ’cause I’ve always found normal desks and tables leave me physically uncomfortable, as they’re too low. Again, as with most of my scrapwood builds, it’s painted.

This morning some brass plated saw-screws arrived from Thomas Flinn & co. Straightways I embarked on mounting the two blades for which I’ve so far made new handles.

I’ve made both handles considerably thicker than the plastic ones they’re replacing, firstly for comfort in the hand, and secondly to try and ensure some strength. The larger rip-saw handle went on no trouble.

But the more intricate and delicate tenon-saw handle proved much trickier. I started out on the latter by drilling the holes for the nuts in three different diameters, as I had on the rip-saw handle: 5mm for the thinner threaded male bolt; 7mm for the fatter female counterpart; and 12mm to recess the split-heads into the handles. This had worked well in the plywood. But when it came to the much softer wood (some kind of pine, I think?) of the tenon-saw, well, read on..

I was too inaccurate in my hole drilling – the various diameter holes didn’t align correctly – and the wood did prove to be too soft, with the golems perilous… eh!? That’s predictive text for you!!! With the holes perilousy close to the outer and therefore more fragile edges.

Consequently the handle broke in several places, with tear-out, and on top of that the male and female parts failed to mate. Total failure! Oh well, you live and learn! And I’m not to be that easily defeated. I have a cunning plan…

---

Some considerable time later, and in tandem with repainting the back wall of the workshop, I tried to remedy the broken, ill-fitting tenon-saw handle. I decided to use a much harder wood. I don’t know what the wood I’ve used is – it’s a scrap a local carpenter gave me many moons ago – but it’s got a very fine dense grain, and is a nicely contrasting darker colour.

I’ve attempted to make it an aesthetically pleasing addition, albeit the the two curves, despite being cut by the same 68mm radius hole cutting bit, didn’t mate satisfactorily. Attempts to correct this with a rasp and files failed. So I just slopped in loads of glue, to fill any gaps.

Due to the awkwardly curved shapes, I  couldn’t come up with a way to clamp the two pieces that didn’t cause alignment problems. In the end I simply stood the blade on end, vertically, and let the handle glue-up held in place by gravity. This joint may, as a result of this, be weak, and fail the instant I start sawing. I’m considering adding some little dowels, or screws, to address this.

I do like how these two saws look now. Certainly they’re looking much nicer than they did with their original plastic handles, and the blades rust-free and cleaned up. It still remains to actually sharpen the teeth. Then comes the moment of truth… using the blighters!

---

As alluded to above, I also (partially) repainted the rear wall, in a dark grey-green, called ‘peacoat’. The wood is OSB board, which I used on account of it being cheap. I was considering leaving the raw chipped timber look on display. But it was too much in my small and cluttered workshop. So I painted it white.

But I didn’t really like that either. Sure, white gives a light, spacious, calming effect. But it also left the OSB texture too visible for my tastes. That doesn’t show on the pic above so much. But when working in the shed, I found it annoying. I decided that this time I’d go for a darker colour – some kind of grey – in the hope that the OSB texture might recede a bit, and the tools and other stuff might pop a bit, visually.

Due to the massive amount of clutter, I didn’t clear the whole area, as I had done when I’d installed the OSB and painted it white. This time I simply (ha!) worked around all the stuff that’s there; I still have about 30-40% of the lower wall to finish. That’ll have to wait until I can clear a load more stuff out, temporarily.

But I think I’m pleased with the new and very different look. Next I need to get a few cabinetry type pieces made, which I intend to paint in a lighter buff type colour. So much to make and do!

This Sunday just passed Teresa requested that we go for a walk, locally. I was all for a visit to Peckover House, in Wisbech, or even Anglesey Abbey. But Teresa was right, this was making a bit of a meal of it. So I plumped for a ‘surprise’, for both of us, in the form of Norwood Road nature reserve.

We pass it all the time. But in two years we’d never actually visited it. So, on this beautifully crisp sunny autumn day, we finally had a look. And it was great. Not amazing, or anything. Just really verdant, quiet, and refreshing.

Still, it is a rather lovely little oasis of nature and beauty. Not something March is abundant in. So very welcome. Definitely a good place for a soul enriching walk.

The paths wind through leafy tunnels, and there are occasional peaks through to nice views, such as the lake, or gently undulating meadows and stands of trees. The only wildlife we saw on this occasion was a lone moorhen, hidden in the reeds by the pond, and a couple of local feral children, exploring the woods.

The walks all start and end at the entrance/exit, on the otherwise unremarkable bog-standard Victorian terraced Norwood Road, off Station Road. The tall meadow grasses looked fabulous in the slanting afternoon autumn light.

I have a tiny shed that I use as a workshop. It’s just behind where I was stood when I took the pic of the garden, above. The shed interior is a total mess. There’s way too much stuff, and not enough storage. So I’m always working in chaos. It’s probably quite dangerous.

Then there’s all the dust and wood shavings, etc. So, as mentioned in a previous post, I decided to try my hand at making a ‘shop-vac’, influenced by guys like Marius Hornberger and Cosmas Bauer. Mine is nowhere near as good or well made as either of their comparable ones. And I made a real pigs ear of it, at almost every stage. They say you learn from your mistakes. I should be learning plenty!

Getting th polycarbonate walls in was the biggest headache. And I ought to have added the air-intake port earlier. It was a pig to cut the circular hole at the right kind of angle. And then I had to file the entryways, until the tube fitted as I wanted it to. It ended being a bit of a sealant covers a multitude of sins type scenario. And the port shouldn’t have been quite so long either. Now it’s in place, it’s hard to see ho I can cut it shorter, without damaging the seal/glueline.

But it is at least more or less finished and assembled, as pictured above, and functioning. Just about. Suction is a touch wimpy. And the hose that came with the vacuum blocks up too quickly and easily.

So, I’ve made a second adaptor. The first was a step-down adaptor, from 68mm – the entrance port in the vac – to whatever smaller diameter the hose that came with it is (I forget!). I pick up the shop-vac thread again with this theme further down the post.

---

Next came a brief interlude as I popped out to do a few errands, and returned to wander around the garden a bit, before popping into the shed to contemplate tidying up and decorating in there. Instead of which I took a load of photos.

I’m intending to restore the BBQ pictured above, and reassemble it. It’s very, very rusty at present, and so corroded in certain areas that it won’t currently go back together properly. Plus the wood parts (two little shelves, either side of the main BBQ bowl) are rotten, and need replacing. I’m thinking it’ll make a good heat source for tempering metal, if/when I get around to making some marking knives and suchlike, as well as cooking.

Whilst I was snapping away I thought I may as well document the new vinegar bath arrangement I came up with, for soaking and rust-removal with the saw-blades I’m currently restoring, even though all the blades (and a few other odds and sods, e.g. some old files and rasps) had been removed when I took the snap. So all that’s in the white vinegar, apart from the vinegar itself of course, is dirt and rust particles.

This is the view immediately to the left of the door, looking back towards the corner, and one of the windows I made, to replace the torn flapping plastic sheet that I’d inherited from the previous owner. Under the piles of wood and assorted junk, there’s actually a pretty hefty top-loading kiln, that I got off FreeCycle a while back. Another resto’ project for some time in the future!

Here’s a small section of relatively well organised tool storage. Note the banana-shaped handle on the bigger of my two hanging hammers. Somehow I bent the bloody thing, either whilst hammering something in, or, possibly, whilst trying to remove very stubbornly stuck nails or screws.

I think I did it when I was replacing our back garden passageway gate. The old gate, an awful thing made of scrappily knocked together decking material, was held solidly shut by wildly overgrown ivy. After hacking the ivy away, the old gate fell to pieces as I tried to remove it. It had not only been held in place, but was also held together, by the ivy!

It was during this work, I believe, that I bent the hammer. I have already straightened it a little, but I stopped at a point where it didn’t seem to be improving, as I didn’t want to snap it in two! Anyone got tips on how I might un-bend the bugger?

One of my many half-arsed mini-projects was this box to hold and protect a small stereo. I had meant it to be just wide enough to accommodate both the speakers and the stereo itself. But it wound up being about one centimetre too narrow, widthways. This renders the dust-filter on the front flap – made from an old pair of Teresa’s tights! – a bit pointless, since it’s thr to protect the speakers as much as the stereo. Still, it keeps most of the dust of the latter, at least.

Here’s a view of the right hand side of the shop, another relatively well organised droplet In the ocean of chaos, where you can see my small underpowered bandsaw, bench drill-press, and crappy little chop-saw. Just visible upper right are my lumber racks.

My slightly better Rage chop-saw died on me, and needs repairing. I replaced the carbon brushes, which had worn away to almost nothing, and one of which had split. But the motor still refused to work. I’m considering getting Rage to mend it, as their pricing is fairly reasonable.

The above picture shows pretty much how most of the workshop is most of the time. There’s just too much stuff and not enough or well enough organised storage. It’s a battle I’m working on, and gradually getting to grips with.

Actually I’ve already removed lots of floorboards, intended for use in our house (and recycling as furniture), and doors and widows (for the greenhouse I’m building, and our art/music studio, etc.) outside temporarily.

---

So, back to the vac’; pictured below is adaptor MkII.

This new one, which salvages a sliver of the previous step-down model, is a step-up adaptor, going from 68mm to 100mm, the diameter of some flexible ducting I bought today from ScrewFix. The new adaptor is gluing at present.

I did try duct-taping the flexible duct to the 68mm port, but the size discrepancy was too big, and the tape simply refused to adhere to anything. Too much dust, I think!

I’m hoping that later today I’ll be able to attach the new wider hose, and see if the vac will ‘hoover’ up anything… TBC.

---

Well, I’m pleased to say that the bigger hose does work. I attached it to the adaptor with an adjustable metal circular screw-clip collar thingy (hats th proper name got these doodads?). I had to widen the aperture on the pipe inlet end of the adaptor, using a recently acquired half-ounce profile rasp, to get it to fit.

It’s too late for a pic, as I’m on the couch with Columbo now. ‘Just one more thing…’

It’s just another day.

But what a beauty! The sun is out, the sky is blue. It’s beautiful… and so are you! Haven’t I heard that somewhere else?

I’m nursing a gin-induced hangover today. What a dumb-ass I am! Yesterday was rounded off with local drama when our heavily pregnant neighbour, Ann, needed rescuing from immobility caused by back pain.

They had the ambulance out twice in the end. I was involved in attempts to move her indoors, and some general handholding and company/encouragement.

It was all rather bizarre, in a way. But also good neighbourly business. And as a result I got to know another neighbour, Rob. I see his partner all the time, but him less often, as he works long hours as a chef.

His mrs (in common-law parlance – and soon to be legal fact) looked after Tigger for us when we were last at Abbey House. And he came round with her, unbeknownst to us. A fellow musician, he was rather taken with the drum kit and various guitars lying around the place.

Anyway, we ended up hanging out and talking music, listening to stuff, chatting excitedly, and drinking. I even tried a puff on his vaping doodad.  After a few beers, he brought over this nice spiced gun, which we quickly polished off (not a full bottle, thankfully).

Haven’t had a sesh like that in, ooh… aeons. It was very enjoyable. But I’m paying for it now with a clanging chimes of doom headache, and nausea and retching. Not actually barfed, tho’.

The paramedics got Ann up and moving last night, and I’ve just seen Raphael, her husband, taking her for a slow walk down the road. Good to she’s up and on the mend. She’s due in five weeks. The medics thought it might have been her going into labour.

I can hear them coming back now – Ann and Raphael, not the medics! Good to hear her talking calmly, and not crying or moaning in pain! Must’ve been very nerve racking, esp. at her late stage of pregnancy. She did say that the baby was calm throughout. Hopefully not too much stress would be communicated chemically/psychologically?

---

In more normal news of my daily doings, my second handsaw renovation is going nicely. I’ve got three or faw sours (a pleasing spoonerism that smacks of a phonetic mimicry of a Southern U.S. accent) that Clive, the previous owner of our house, left in his shed.

I’m slowly restoring and, in the argot of our era, ‘upcycling’ them. Replacing the hideous plastic handles with handmade wooden ones. My first, a medium sized rip-saw, will have a pretty basic plywood handle; thought it’d be an interesting experiment.

And the second is a tenon-saw, for which I’ve carved a much more sexily curvaceous handle. No idea what the timber is. Kind of looks like pine.  I’m thinking I might stain it a slightly darker colour. Hmm?

---

Yesterday, in addition to the local social drama, was a good day of Freecycle scavenging. I got a nice vintage hand-drill, 50 rather rustic looking ‘cabbage-white’ bricks, a BBQ (poss to be used for tempering metal, as well as cooking sausages!?), and a set of shelves, the latter for recycling the lumber.

At last, after all kinds of admin/techy-type issues, I’m finally in a position to start posting to my new-fangled WordPress blog. I’ve been intending to do this for some years now. But somehow I either never got around to it, or I tried, but found it too time consuming to make it work.

My first post, rather dully, is about one of the many ‘workshop’ projects I usually have on the go these days. This one is one that’s been simmering on the back-burner for ages, a Cyclone Dust Vac, to help with the very real problem of dust and wood chips, etc, in the ‘workshop’.

I got the idea from Marius Hornberger, who got it from Cosmas Bauer. My build has been agonisingly slow, and plagued by difficulties, such as my 2mm polycarbonate not behaving like Marius’. Where his flexed nicely, mine was far more stubborn, and continually split or shattered. In the end I spent way too much on several sheets of plastic. But I was determined I would succeed, eventually.

In the end the solution I arrived at was a combination of two slotted wooden panel, one quite small, the other somewhat larger, and thinner polycarbonate ‘plexiglass’. I quite liked how I constructed the curved panels, from several staves. And they also had the benefit of giving me somewhere, the larger of the two panels, easier to mount the air outlet tube.

Any-the-hoo… here are a bunch of pics of the beastie. I haven’t bothered with pegs on the middle cyclone part, as yet, to help secure the clips on the bottom bucket part. I may do at some stage. The friction fit is sufficiently tight for the time being.

I tried using Frog tape to help tidy the application of the glue/sealant, mastic, or whatever it is. I bought some black stuff, as the white stuff I’d used previously obviously clashed. Very messy stuff. At least when I use it.

Then it was time to drill the hole for the suction port. This was quite tricky. Probably should’ve done this before assembling the middle-section. Had to buy a rasp and work on the circle-cutter hole I drilled out. Then wood glue and mastic were applied.

I tested it out as shown, by switching it on and covering the hole at the end of the grey tubing. It certainly works! Alas, the 1mm polycarbonate I wound up using visibly flexes when I do this, unlike the 2mm stuff Marius used. But my 2mm plastic kept fracturing, and was impossible to flex enough to put in place.

Next I need to make an adaptor for connecting the hose, and then I can start using it it…

NB – This is where my recent run of archival Tom Waits album reviews is going to end for now. It’s kind of the end of an era, within his music. At least for me, at any rate. Starting here, and ever more so after this, he would move away from his sozzled Beat persona, towards a more overtly theatrical carnival freak-show vibe. As it happens I still love most of his music after this. But it, like Tom, thanks to his marriage to Kathleen Brennan (according to the ol’ mule hisself) changed. Did Delilah cut Swamson’s hair, so to speak? In a way yes. At least in my reckoning. Partly as a result of this, and partly as this album has been reviewed into oblivion (it even has it’s own 33&1/3 book!), my review of this album is shorter than some others, and tries to address it in a way more personal to me.

You may think everything’s already been said about this album… you’re wrong!

Tom’s change of direction, marked by this release, has left me gradually less and less inclined to put the later albums on. It’s like he feared becoming a caricature barfly, so instead became a caricatured carnival freak. His relationship with Kathleen Brennan undoubtedly has some bearing on this (more on this later).

On this pivotal release however, you get the best of both worlds. Many albums after this, and including SFT, start with a rumbling uptempo oddball number (uptempo by Tom’s standards as opposed to Slayer’s): here it’s ‘Underground’ (Frank’s Wild Years starts with ‘Hang On St Christopher’, and Rain Dogs with ‘Singapore’, etc.). The fact this became a bit of a formula could, perhaps, be construed as a little formulaic for such a maverick, but all three tunes referenced are utterly brilliant. So, not too sad, really!

Enough’s been said elsewhere about the Beefheart and classical modernist influences that Brennan’s influence on Waits listening brought to bear around this time. What I want to focus on is the remaining strain of simple romanticism (what Brennan calls his “Grand Weepers”). Brennan’s appearance in Wait’s life seems, from his interviews, to signal a complete change (of personal perspective/heart), redemption, and rescue even. Testament to this wonderful and simple enduring love continues to be evident in his work: ‘Take It With Me’ from Mule Variations being a wonderful example: “ain’t no good thing ever dies”. I ain’t to proud to say I’ve cried nearly every time I’ve listened to that terrifically beautiful and moving song.

‘Johnsburg, Illinois’ is, so I’ve read, written as a love song to Brennan, and, fittingly, it transcends the theatricaltiy of other material here with its straightforward and honest confession of love. I’ve always like this side of Tom most. And it’s in the very fabric of his best music. I feel that one of his most sublime recordings, across his whole rich and varied catalogue, is the fabulously minimal and haunting Rainbirds. After a brief but exquisite ‘glass harmonica’ intro, Waits’ piano and Greg Cohen’s bass paint a picture of such desolate blue beauty it floors me, it’s my all time melancholy desert island disc number one!

Then there are such dramatic tableaux as ‘I Pulled On Trouble’s Braids, which evokes the kind of hoodlum drama he also partook of as Zack in Jim Jarmusch’s totally brilliant Down By Law movie. Shore Leave paints another sleazy picture, and the musicians – particularly the rhythmatists; from jazz and soundtrack percussionist extraordinaire, Victor Feldman, to art-blues-rocker Stephen Hodges – add a slightly dadaist wonky vibe; the shape of things to come, on future recordings like Rain Dogs and Big Time.

One more testimony as to why you should buy this CD!

The music Waits made for One From The Heart is amongst his best. It’s also interesting as a strangely anachronistic coda to his first decade of music making: already moving away from the sweeter, jazzier side of his muse towards the grittier end of town, with albums like  Blue Valentine  and  Heartattack And Vine , OFTH is a slight return to his lush melodic style. After this  Swordfishtrombones  ushered in (quite literally: if you’ve ever seen the Waits concert movie  Big Time  you’ll know what I mean [link is to the album associated with the currently unavailable movie]) the character that he’s subsequently become, and remains to to this day: the slightly unhinged, semi-apocalyptic ‘mule’, growing more ornery and experimental as he ages, ever the exception to the norm!

We’ve Francis Ford Coppola to thank for this album. Copploa decided to make a movie based around a couple’s troubled romance, basing the storyline on Greek Myth, but setting it in a totally synthetic studio Vegas, to be expressly built around Waits’ songs. Coppola’s movie goes for a feature length celluloid embodiment of the atmosphere created on Waits’ track ‘I Never Talk To Strangers’, from  Foreign Affairs  (Coppola’s son had introduced him to Waits via this song/album). A duet with Bette Midler, it portrays a humorously engaging barfly chat-up scenario. Coppola and Waits had hoped to get Midler for OFTH, but other commitments meant she couldn’t do it. Instead of Midler, Waits worked with country singer Crystal Gayle, and OFTH is actually a better realisation of the concept. Strange as it was on paper – Gayle epitomising homely, clean cut country, Waits the dissolute boho – the pairing works, exceptionally well. Gayle has, at least to my ears, a much nicer/better voice than Midler.

Whilst the album’s a complete triumph,  the film  certainly wasn’t: an awkward, oddball affair, with the air of a strange claustrophobic dream, it was box office flop, ending an era for Coppola, and independent Hollywood studios. Coppola’s Zoetrope studios, already reeling from the fall-out of  Apocalypse Now , was bankrupted by it: costing $26 million, the film bombed, netting just over a paltry half million dollars, forcing Coppola to sell off his enormous (23 acre!) studio.

Another fascinating aspect of this recording is that, in the making of it, Coppola gave Waits the chance to finally live out one of his musical dreams: in songs like ‘Muriel’ and ‘Foreign Affairs’ he’d already begun to achieve a very high standard of jazz-influenced Tin Pan Alley styled songsmithery, a side of his musical character that’d always been present, growing stronger and more assured with each album. Now, with his own office, complete with piano, typewriter, etc., he could live out that Brill Building fantasy, finally ‘going to work’ as a writer and composer. And boy did he deliver! It was in livng out this fantasy that he met, and then married, Kathleen Brennan. Truly a dream job!

So, to the music: this was the last time that Waits worked with ‘Bones’ Howe, and the crew of legendary jazz cats that had helped him wax some awesome music over the last several years/albums, including such luminaries of the west coast jazz scene as Shelly Manne, Jim Hughart, Jack Sheldon, Teddy Edwards and Victor Feldman. These sessions added other such illustrious names as Larry Bunker, Pete Jolly and Dennis Budimir to the roster of top drawer jazzers that helped Waits work his mojo. Many of these great musicians, and producer ‘Bones’ Howe, would find this was the last time Tom called on their services, as he moved off into newer, stranger territory. So this is a remarkable document; an apotheosis of Waits as crafter of gently sentimental jazzy ballads. And, thanks to the Coppola dollars, it’s a monumental no-expense-spared production.

As with Foreign Affairs, the music begins with a kind of introductory suite, or ‘opening montage’, as the track has it. A beautifully sentimental portion of the track ‘I Beg Your Pardon Dear’ precedes the sound of a spinning coin, and then we’re treated to ‘Once Upon A Town/The Wages Of Love’, the former a dreamy piano duet with Gayle that opens onto a vista of lush strings, before the Vegas swing of the latter smoothly sashays across your speakers. Waits is both a musical and lyrical alchemist, with the Midas touch, turning all these musical elements, thanks in no small part to the stellar cast of supporting musicians, into pure gold. The tune ends with the sound of punters in a slot machine paradise, ringing off their jackpots. And this is just track one; already an embarrassment of riches.

I won’t detail all the album, but there are Tom tracks, Crystal tracks, and more duets, and they’re all fabulous. From Gayle we get such gems as the gently sexy, serpentine melodies of ‘Is There Any Way Out Of This Dream?’, or the unbelievably rich guitar work of Dennis Budimir on the fabulously melancholy ‘Old Boyfriends’ (Budimir’s guitar initially sounds almost like a Fender Rhodes; the tone is rich, thick, and warm, and he turns Waits’ chords into a stunning jazz torch song), with Gayle milking the notes like a proper siren. Waits is rumpled and earnest on the piano driven ‘Broken Bicycles’, and schmoozily contrite on ‘I Beg Your Pardon Dear’, in which he delivers the wonderful line “you are the landscape of my dreams”. The arrangements are phenomenal, with the supporting musicians helping create magical musical dreamscapes that vividly brings Waits’ words to life.

‘Little Boy Blue’ is interesting in that it might be possible to see it as presaging the change Waits was about to undergo, and it even has sonic similarities – the heavy, thick sound of the Hammond organ as the main backing in particular – with the track ‘Frank Wild Years’ from Swordfishtrombones, whilst ‘The Tango’ section of the ‘instrumental montage’ (originally starting side two of the album) is like a less wayward version of SFTB’s ‘Dave The Butcher’, both sharing a somewhat drunken overemphasis of their rhythms. But whereas on SFTB things get quite dark, and a bit ‘carnival freak show’, on OFTH, proceedings are decidedly mellower, and more gentle. Waits’ wife Kathleen would late characterise his music as broadly falling into two categories, ‘grand weepers, and grim reapers’. Of the two sides of the Waits muse, this is unabashedly on the grand weepers side, and wonderfully rich and tender it is too.

Shelly Manne coaxes more magic from the tymps on the upright bass driven number, ‘You Can’t Unring A Bell’, which comes as close to Waits’ spoken word recitations as anything gets on this album. The tile track is a richly syrupy affair, drenched in strings, the piano harp-like in its glassy delicacy, and Jack Sheldon’s soft breathy tone out-mellowing the legendary Chet Baker. Edwards sax is also wonderfully and softly breathy, and Gayle Levant’s harp supplies terrific shimmering glissandos. Gayle ends the vocal selections with the rapprochement of ‘Take Me Home’; the musical movie has a happy ending, wrapped up by the twinkling litle instrumental ‘Presents’. Wow, pure musical magic! Absolutely flawless, and utterly esential for the discerning listener.

The CD I own (their are numerous versions of this recording) adds two bonus tracks: ‘Candy Apple Red’, a track not on the official release, which is a very nice minimal piece, with Tom on piano, accompanied only by upright bass and trumpet, and a version of ‘Once Upon A Town’ that has a different treatment, starting off differently, and ending by segueing into another piece not on the official album, called ‘Empty Packets’. The latter is very nice too, reminiscent of some of the music Waits had contributed to Sylvester Stallone’s  Paradise Alley [DVD ] movie. Always a lover of language, in all its rich guises, which helps explain why he’s one of the best lyricists ever, in this last number Waits manages to slip in that wonderful if perhaps somewhat lumpen phrase ‘hoist on my own petard’. You’ll have to buy the album to find out how he does it!

The very useful allmusic.com website, which, rather bizarrely, doesn’t list this in their Tom Waits’ discography (instead listing it under Crystal Gayle, despite the facts of co-star billing in which Waits’ name appears first, and the small matter of his having written all the songs!) does at least get it spot on when they describe this album as “one of the most beautifully wrought soundtrack collaborations in history”. It really does live up to such hyperbole!

A bit of a bi-polar, Janus-faced album this, the last on Herb Cohen’s Asylum label from the genius that is Tom Waits.

After a run of classic albums largely made with a steady team of collaborators (put together on the whole by producer ‘Bones’ Howe, who’s still manning the mixing-desk here), Waits had released the more gritty, urban, electric, and r’n’b based  Blue Valentine  in 1978. Two years later he entered the studio again for an even grittier set of sessions, but with a more cohesive line up, featuring Harold Bautista on guitar, Ronnie Barron on keys, Larry Taylor on bass, and ‘Big John’ Thomassie on drums. Some of these guys were also touring with Waits around this period: Barron and Thomassie were natives of New Orleans, Taylor famously played with Canned heat, and Bautista with Earth Wind and Fire. Howe, bassist Jim Hughart, and arrangers Jerry Yester and Bob Alcivar all survive from previous scenarios, providing an element of continuity in personnel as well as musical flavours. This album is also the first time bassist Greg Cohen appears on record with Waits. He would become a frequent Waits collaborator over the next decade or two

The music is roughly divided between the gritty urban-sounding electric blues material, and some heart-achingly beautiful ballads. The former consist of Heart Attack & Vine, the slightly unusual bar-band instrumental In Shades, Downtown, ‘Til The Money Runs Out, and Mr Siegal. And all, save In Shades, are soused in tales of sex, drugs, and criminal low-life, with a real whiff of  Last Exit to Brooklyn , a world populated by semi-mythical hookers and hoodlums. ‘How do the angels get to sleep when the Devil leaves his porchlight on?’ Waits wonders on Mr Siegal. Think The Beats at their seamiest: Herbert Huncke, ‘Bill’ Burroughs ‘rolling’ drunks on the subway. An American demi-monde, such as produced the real life sex/crime scenario behind the Kerouac and Burroughs collaboration  And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks .

The first of the ballads is the beautifully sentimental Saving All My love For You, which starts with ringing bells. Then, after the gravelly Downtown comes the beautiful guitar-based Jersey Girl (famously covered by Bruce Springsteen), which features a fabulous slow-building orchestral arrangement by Yester. On The Nickel was apparently either written for, or used at least in a film of the same name, about a Skid Row alcoholic, and is a real gem, Waits’ boho-hobo poetry seamlessly stitched together with his most sentimental side, and once again benefitting from a tremendous orchestral arrangement (this time by Bob Alcivar, whose work on Waits’  One From The Heart  recording is pure magic)… wonderful! Yester picks up the baton for the final fabulous ballad, Ruby’s Arms… Oh God, how I love Tom Waits when he’s at his most sentimental. This is such a great track!

All in all, a brilliant album, and slightly strange, in that his two tendencies – the two sides to his muse that his wife Kathleen Brennan has called ‘grim reapers’ and ‘grand weepers’ – can already be seen to be polarising and diverging ever more clearly. In my view, everything he did up till  Swordfishtrombones  (perhaps even including Rain Dogs and Frank’s Wild Years), including this terrific LP, is absolutely 100% essential.

This is an utterly, utterly sublime recording.

When I first bought it on vinyl in my early twenties, I’d come to Waits via two rather odd poles of his output, namely  Closing Time , his rather sweet and innocent sounding debut, and  Big Time , a mostly live recording (there was also an oddball concert movie of the the same name, documenting his rather different post  Swordfishtrombones  sound). Around the same time I also bought  Small Change , and these two records – Small Change and Blue Valentines, that is – were on heavy rotation for years after that, and remain solid favourites to this day.

Having done several albums with the brilliant rhythm section team of Jim Hughart on bass, and Shelly Manne on drums, Waits decided to change up the groove, so to speak. Having worked, in the studio at least, with a fairly stable team of players for several years, he goes for more of a pick-up band vibe, using several combinations of players on the one album. Getting a bit more raw, bluesy and electric, he brings in electric bass and keys, the latter a real rarity in most of his recorded output (numerous exceptions to this general rule can be found, but it still remains true that he usually prefers an acoustic piano).

Swapping his folkster’s acoustic steel-string guitar for a hollow bodied jazz type electric guitar, and bringing in such R&B scenester sidemen as guitarist Harold Bautista and bassist Scott Edwards, and funky jazzers like Charles Kynard on keys, and Chip White on drums – nearly all black ‘cats’, incidentally (does this really make any odds?*) – Waits thereby getting a much grittier urban sound than he’d previously gone for.

There’s a great photo, taken by Michael Dobo in 1975, of Waits on a tour bus, reading  Last Exit to Brooklyn , and, on recordings like Blue Valentine and  Heartattack And Vine  you can really hear that influence. Waits revels in stories of sleazy urban low-life (even West Side Story’s ‘Somewhere’ is a brief romantic respite from an otherwise fairly bleak tale of gangland strife, famously reworking Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, then there’s ‘Red Shoes By The Drugstore’ and ‘Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis’, in which he relates tales of minor hoodlum loserdom, whilst ‘Wrong Side Of The road’ and ‘Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard’ approach the panegyric in celebrating the mythical delinquent outlaw outsider), and, both here and on Vine, the more sordid end of that world, with numerous songs dealing in violence and death (‘Romeo Is Bleeding’, ‘$29.00’, and ‘A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun’).

The whole album is brilliant, but personal favourites include the sleazy groove of ‘Romeo Is Bleeding’, whose rhythm section benefits from congas, a sizzle ride cymbal, and one of the best reverb treated cross-stick snares I’ve ever heard recorded, not to mention Kynard’s extremely funky keys work. In ways this harks back to Waits’ raps of earlier years – in essence it’s a recitation with a bit of a chorus – but it’s reached a point where the musical backdrops have grown in sophistication. Then there’s strings and vocal feature (and a rare instance of Waits recording someone else’s composition), ‘Somewhere’, from  West Side Story , with the ever reliable Bob Alcivar, who added so much to so many of Waits’ best recordings, working his magic to stunning effect: it’s just Waits gravelly voice and the phenomenally well arranged and recorded strings, and it packs a real punch, far better than any classical or stage recordings of Bernstein’s music I’ve ever heard.

And then, leaving aside ‘Somewhere’, as it’s not a Waits original, there are the two really beautiful emotionally wrought ballads: ‘Kentucky Avenue’, the only solo piano ballad (albeit there are some strings towards the end) which can reduce boulders to tears, and the fabulous title track, which Waits delivers more-or-less solo, except for a great bluesy electric guitar solo from Ray Crawford (Crawford was originally a reeds player, which explains why his phrasing as a guitar player is so exquisite and expressive). Tom Waits was, and no doubt still is, one unbelievably cool cat, and this music drips soul. Not bad for a white guy! When I first owned the album, I spent ages trying to learn and reproduce ‘Blue Valentines’: the guitar part is pretty simple in most respects, so copping the chords and arrangement wasn’t hard, but what I could never nail satisfactorily was the nuanced rhythm Waits brings to it, and then there’s that voice.

I mostly only review stuff I really like, so I often give five stars. This album tho’, if I could only give it ten, it really is that good!

* I do think it’s a deliberate move, on Waits’ part, to try and get a grittier, rootsier urban feel; what James Brown and others might call ‘on across the other side of the tracks’, so to speak.