Tom Waits

Riot Grrrl

Update: Times Story on Coachella 2013 Was Fabricated, Says Writer

Update: The Times writer whose byline appears on the screengrab, Mikael Wood, says that the post is completely fabricated. His comments are at the bottom of the post. According to a screengrab of what appears to be a page from the Los Angeles Times website -- which was posted on a Coachella message ... More >>

The Best Concerts To See in L.A. This Weekend: Nov 2-4

Friday, November 2 Grace Potter & the Nocturnals THE WILTERN If anyone should be a star, it's Grace Potter. Commercial enough to sing duets with Kenny Chesney, she's also freaky enough to trip out occasionally with folks like Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne and Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, who produced part ... More >>

Listen Up: Here Are the New Rules for Internet Jukeboxes

By John Seaborn Gray Used to be you'd have to hit bar after bar until you found just the right jukebox, which promptly became your own personal lair of alcohol consumption. Folks demanded more freedom of choice, however, so many bars have switched over to Internet jukeboxes, where you can download ... More >>

Is This Tom Waits' First LP?

Could Tom Waits be one of the trumpeters on this old junior high school band recording? A 1964 album by a Chula Vista junior high concert band -- an ensemble in which the songwriter is known to have performed -- is now listed on eBay, and could well be his first LP. Titled 1964: Sounds of Music, it ... More >>

Music Picks: Rusko, HARD Summer, SMOD

Also, Beachwood Sparks, Jesca Hoop, Ravi Coltrane and others

John Baldessari Tries Mash-Up Art at Margo Leavin Gallery

"John Baldessari is so successful, he carries absolutely nothing in his pockets," says gravelly-voiced Tom Waits, halfway through a six-minute film about the 80-year-old, 6 feet, 7-inch tall, L.A. pop-conceptualist. "Not a thing," Baldessari confirms. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the duo behind ... More >>

5 Best Booze-and-Culture Pairings in L.A.

We all know that a good drink -- or two, or three -- sometimes help to make high-minded cultural events somewhat more, let's say, palatable. Or it's a good way of convincing your friends to come along to the gallery exhibit you've been meaning to see for months. Either way, L.A. is a city where cock ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: Iggy, Bowie, Boris and More

​KCRW BROADCAST #1246 for Saturday, August 6 Fanatics! I am sitting in Dulles International Airport, with a long day of travel and traffic ahead. Last night, I was at the Evens show at Fort Reno in Washington DC. What a show! I have not slept much in the last few days. I'll even out before my ... More >>

Amanda Palmer talks David Lynch and Neil Gaiman

​KCRW BROADCAST #1246 for Saturday, August 6 Fanatics! I am sitting in Dulles International Airport, with a long day of travel and traffic ahead. Last night, I was at the Evens show at Fort Reno in Washington DC. What a show! I have not slept much in the last few days. I'll even out before my ... More >>

Top Ten Songs About Beer

​Wine and cheese; scotch and cigars; tequila and...more tequila: Good things come in pairs, and drinks are no exception. Our personal favorite? Beer and music. As card-carrying beer nerds, we couldn't be more excited that Monday kicked off American Craft Beer Week; and, as your trusted music ... More >>

MAKE US LAUGH, FUNNY BOY!

Marc Maron

The Axmen Cometh

Marc Maron

Tom Waits Writes a New Poem (about a Boner, Among Other Things)

Michael O'Brien"The trees look like hula girls"​Regular old songwriting just ain't enough sometimes. A few of our favorite living legendary wrinkly musician men are exploring their creativity, venturing into forms beyond their usual mind-melting melodies. While Mike Watt's new opera is circula ... More >>

Top 10 Songs For the Apocalypse (Bird Death? Crabicide? Snooki's Book? Signs of the Endtimes!)

TK 10 Songs For the Apocalypse

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2011 Inductees Leaked?

​A much less momentous version of Wikileaks has interfered with the mysterious selection process for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Website Hits Daily Double apparently got hold of the list of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees for 2011 a few days early (the official announcement is tomorro ... More >>

Music Picks: Circa Survive, Joanna Newsom, El-P, Roots Roadhouse

Also, Scorpions, Viza, the Park and others

ODB Lives!: N.A.S.A. Releases New Video for Ol' Dirty Bastard, Karen O, and Fatlip Track

N.A.S.A. Releases New Video for Ol' Dirty Bastard, Karen O, and Fatlip Track

Aging With Delta Spirit

The Long Beach band channels old folk on its mature new LP

Day Tripping on the Tom Waits Bus Tour of Los Angeles

​"Most of the stops on this tour are in piss-stained alleys," chuckled David Smay, as a motley--if well-dressed--crew of 47 settled themselves on his bus, which this past Saturday was parked outside King Eddy's--the only dive bar left "on the nickel" in downtown's increasingly gentrified Skid ... More >>

Baal

​"Most of the stops on this tour are in piss-stained alleys," chuckled David Smay, as a motley--if well-dressed--crew of 47 settled themselves on his bus, which this past Saturday was parked outside King Eddy's--the only dive bar left "on the nickel" in downtown's increasingly gentrified Skid ... More >>

10 Great Heavy Metal Albums of 2009 (Or, Well, Make That 14)

Over the Top Eyes open and ears bleeding, Phil Freeman loads up on the year's best metal. This year was such a good one for heavy music, we wound up having to cheat when putting this list together. We just couldn't settle on ten albums that kicked my ass the hardest in 2009; there were dozens of ca ... More >>

Tom Waits Live Album Streaming at KCRW

Tom Waits Live Album Streaming at KCRW

Of Ukeleles, Tolkien, Garfunkel and Bond: A Chat With Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords

Brian TamborelloMcKenzie (front, with Clement) rides the folk train​ October is Folktober for fans of New Zealand's fourth most popular digi-folk parodists, the mighty Flight of the Conchords; following the second season of their acclaimed eponymous HBO show, which bagged several Emmy nominati ... More >>

Blood, Dumplings, & Nicotine Gelato: Esotouric's Unusual LA Tours, With Food

It still feels like summer vacation, and whether you have guests, or just feel like exploring a bit, Esotouric isn't your cookie-cutter tour company and promises an "intelligent, unpredictable ride into the secret heart of the city we love." The tour's themes integrate literature, rock and roll, ar ... More >>

Brick's Picks: Goodbye Pasadena Jazz Institute, Hello JI Lounge

It still feels like summer vacation, and whether you have guests, or just feel like exploring a bit, Esotouric isn't your cookie-cutter tour company and promises an "intelligent, unpredictable ride into the secret heart of the city we love." The tour's themes integrate literature, rock and roll, ar ... More >>

GO LA: The Man Who Sold the Brangelina Air

Plus lots more to do, see and inhale in L.A., May 15-21

THIS NEW TOM WAITS BIO IS SO AUTHENTIC THE PAGES SMELL LIKE CHEAP GIN

Plus lots more to do, see and inhale in L.A., May 15-21

Jesca Hoop "Farewell Show" Tonight: She's Moving to Manchester, England

Please don't go. Jesca Hoop, whose gorgeous, singular pop songs, has announced a series of four "farewell shows," which will take place at the end of April at the Hotel Cafe, a venue that has long supported her work. Hoop's aesthetic, which her former boss Tom Waits described as "like going swimmi ... More >>

Rock Picks: Acid Mothers Temple, Kate Maki, Marissa Nadler, Mirah

Also, Jesca Hoop, Jerkagram, Puscifer and others

N.A.S.A.'s DJ Squeak E. Clean: Ready for Liftoff

Teams with Tom Waits, David Byrne, MIA, Santogold, Spank Rock, RZA, Ghostface Killah, Kanye West and others to create The Spirit of Apollo

The 1921A's 'Drunkyard Percussion'

A band of McCabe's workers conjures American urban noise out of guitars, kitchen utensils, pie pans

LA Weekly Road-trips to Catch Tom Waits in Phoenix

Tom Waits, Orpheum Theater, Phoenix, Arizona, June 17. By Peter Gilstrap And so it was that Tom waits came to Phoenix after a three-decade absence on the first night of the American leg of his Glitter and Doom tour, an expedition that will take him to such exotic ports o’ call as El Paso, Tul ... More >>

Scarlett Johansson's Album of Tom Waits Covers Doesn't Suck

Tom Waits, Orpheum Theater, Phoenix, Arizona, June 17. By Peter Gilstrap And so it was that Tom waits came to Phoenix after a three-decade absence on the first night of the American leg of his Glitter and Doom tour, an expedition that will take him to such exotic ports o’ call as El Paso, Tul ... More >>

Damien Hirst, Tom Waits, the Beatles, and the birth of the ubiquitous contemporary persona. PLUS, some cool shit I saw while I was in London and some thoughts on the Amerindie aesthetic vs. the Anglophile aesthetic.

This post RIYL: Damien Hirst, Amerindie record labels, Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Islington's Union Chapel, pretentious statements about life.

Social Suicide

In Wristcutters, the afterlife is just a lousier version of real life. Oh, and Tom Waits is there

Let There Be Dark

Robert Wilson’s bleak cabaret

Theater Reviews

Robert Wilson’s bleak cabaret

The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets

Robert Wilson’s bleak cabaret

Uneasy Rider

Robert Wilson’s bleak cabaret

The Contemporaries

Robert Wilson’s bleak cabaret

Time of the Session

When the music was fast, and the players anonymous

Good Vibrations

Some great sessions

Date With the Night

Some great sessions

Do Right Man

Back on Track With Solomon Burke

Work the Dream

Home, the world and Eleni Mandell

Vintage Voodoo

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins rises from the grave

Dystopia, Datopia

Southern California on film

Gone North

Tom Waits, upcountry

Music Reviews

Tom Waits, upcountry