Where would the world of Americana be without Alexander Graham Bell’s little invention? How could anyone call their Baby to let them know they’re coming home to them? How else could they pour their heart out to someone they’ve never met or are likely to meet? When it comes to letting someone know just how you feel, whether it’s good, bad or pretty indifferent, a letter just doesn’t cut it. Letters are great for returning to sender or encouraging you to take an aeroplane instead of a fast train, but you’re not going to write to the sorting office imploring them to save your love life and a letter won’t encourage you to pull over to the side of the road, on a whim, every twenty miles or so, just to hear a loved one’s voice on the other side of the country. For instant yearning declarations of emotion you need a phone – and a good telephone system. You need lines, operators, call boxes – you need telephony! Continue reading “Ten Americana songs about telephony”
Gold would surely have been the obvious choice, not because Waits’ voice reminds one of the Spandau Ballet dirge, but because that’s what his 2006 triple album ‘Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards’ achieved in terms of sales. What the first ever vinyl release will be though is red, grey and blue – it’s a triple album after all. So that’s yet another reason to be camping outside the Friendly Local Record Store (FLRS) on the evening of the 20th of April. 
It isn’t often that a record reminds the listener of Ray Davies, Mark Linkous and Tom Waits, as this one does. It has the lyrical sensibility of Davies, the clatter and oomph of Waits at his most extravagant and it has the shifts in tone, the juxtaposition of the abrasive and the beautiful as mastered by Sparklehorse. This eclecticism raises it above the usual level, enabling him to use bold swipes like the way the brass slashes across ‘Problems of Your Own’, changing the arc of the song. And how many are brave enough to use the bullfrog rumble of the tuba as Johnson does on ‘Put the World on Standby.’ 
If you’re stuck for stocking fillers for 6 different people this Christmas, Tom Waits is set to release newly remastered versions of each of his acclaimed albums in the Anti-catalogue next month. In addition, the album ‘Real Gone’ has been fully remixed and individual releases of each of the 3 discs of ‘Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards’ will be available early 2018.