What makes Tom Waits such a great songwriter? With his songs you get to hear wonderful melodies telling you terrible things. Things, about love, life’s mellow dramas, society, you name it. Just like your mother use to do with that horse pill you hated to take. She had to crush it and add ice cream to it.
Tom makes this look easy. A master at his craft putting paper to pen and weaving these vignettes of life’s darker side . The man has a tool bag full of different molds for different occasions. He is one of those individuals that you can tell listens to an eclectic array of music to hone his craft. He calls his collection of song structures “molds.” The basic structure of the tune otherwise known as the formula. Different songs and genres call for different approaches. For example if you are making a cake you don’t use a crock pot to get there. One of my favorite quotes on the topic came from Tom “Listen actively, collect molds and add your own Jell-o.
Tom Waits was inducted to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in 2011 and is nominated for American songwriter Hall of Fame class of 2012. A man who has never had a hit single but is recognized as one of the best!
As a songwriter you can take a song and travel within in it, color it, add a single mother prostitute as a character using the model Tom Waits has demonstrated since his first release way back in 1973.
The tune Moving Like Silent Movies Do off of our up coming album “Soulful for Your Pleasure,” takes a stab at applying Waits model. Attempting to take the listener from the agony of a job you can no longer take and the healing of sitting with the one you love to ease the mundane existence.
In the words of Tom Waits “You gotta have someplace you want to go so you know when you’ve arrived.” If you don’t have a specific goal, now’s a good time to set one. Everybody needs something to chase.
This week the band goes back to work on recording and finishing the next EP and we prepare for our first show of 2012! Harvelle’s the home of Funk and Blues in Southern California along with Koffeehouse Productions plays host to the band on Feb 2, 2012. You can hear the song Moving Like Silent Movies Do at the Harvelle’s show along with special guest MC Prose and the always fabulous Dirty Rotten Horns.
Here is the event invite on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/events/262463543815715/
Ekaterina makes this comment
Friday, 10 February 2012