Wild Years (31 page)

Waits had no choice but to shrug off the taunts of “sellout” and continue his minitour of world hot spots, including Los Angeles, New York, Denver, Boston, Toronto, Florence, Berlin, and Stockholm. The
Get Behind the Mule
trek was far more low-key than 1987's theatrical tour de force, the
Frank's Wild Years
tour. Waits had called
Mule Variations
“surrural,” and he wanted the tour to be, too.
²⁵
He wore a rumpled old sports coat and hat. Ably supported by his band, he tore through his back catalog, his face pushed into the microphone, deconstructing and reimagining his tunes. Waits did pull a few of his old concert tricks out of the bag, however — that familiar knock-kneed strut, the police bullhorn, the glitter dust that wafted across the stage. He also stomped on a platform sprinkled with a fine powder, and swirls of dust would rise — like the dust that rises in the wake of a cruiser on a dry dirt road. During “Eyeball Kid,” Waits wore a hat constructed of mirrors, creating a weird human-disco-ball effect. The movements of the band members were syncopated with the lights as he conducted their solos. During “What's He Building?” Waits, lit only by a flashlight, performed as an electric fan blew dust wildly
into the rafters. The tour's set lists were much more open than usual, and Waits did more of his early Elektra songs than he'd done on any tour since signing with Island.

Like so many other artists, Waits turned to the Internet to deliver his music to his fans in a whole new way. Though adamantly computer illiterate — “I don't surf,” he has insisted — he was a presence on the Web as
Mule Variations
was coming out. He previewed the album by releasing “Big in Japan” on the official Tom Waits Web site nearly three weeks before its release date. Five other
Mule Variations
cuts were released to Sonicnet in the week leading up to the album's release. The Austin show was broadcast online in its entirety the day before. And, finally, on the day the album came out, Waits had his first online chat. Tom Waits had entered the new millennium.

Waits's other profession was calling him back, as well. He signed to play a role in yet another ensemble piece with some of the best film actors around.
Mystery Men,
a parody of superheroes, was released in 1999 and starred Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush, and Paul Reubens. It tells the story of a group of super hero wannabes whose pathetic little powers include shoveling, throwing silverware, and extreme anger. They must all pool these limited resources to rescue Captain Amazing, the metropolis's true crime stopper, who's been kidnapped by his nemesis. It's either that or hand the city over to the forces of evil.

Waits plays one Dr. A. Heller, a mad scientist with unusual taste in women. Heller likes them old, but Waits didn't find that strange. “Perverted?” he said to Hoskyns. “I don't know. There's a scene with a woman in her nineties at a rest home where we watch television and I make advances, but I wouldn't necessarily call that perverted. Dr. Heller likes older women, and I guess it's so radically different from the Hollywood cycle of older men with younger women. What's really perverted is these old-timers going and picking up these young gals. I respect maturity and longevity.”
²⁶

Heller specializes in creating weapons — of the nonlethal variety. Guns hold no appeal for him, but diabolical devices that disable a person do, like a tornado in a can or a clothes-shrinker. As Heller, explained Waits, he got to “make something called a blame-thrower. You aim it at people and they start blaming each other; ‘It's your fault!' ‘No, it's your fault!' It's a nutty movie.”
²⁷

To adorn Heller's lair, Waits gathered up many of the contraptions and instruments he had around the house and brought them to the set. And director Kinka Usher was pleased at the way that Waits contributed to the film's largely improvised dialogue; it was his idea, for example, to offer the clothes-shrinker with its own clamshell holster and a full warranty. Usher also gave this explanation for why Waits often talked with his hands in the film: he'd jotted many of his scripted lines on his fingers so he wouldn't forget them.
²⁸

Another project that Waits took on was a television special created by buddy John Lurie, his
Down by Law
costar.
Fishing with John
was a postmodern version of that old daytime-T.V. staple, the fishing show. Lurie mustered his hip friends and they all headed off to an exotic Caribbean island to fish, banter with one another, and soak up a little local color. At one point, Waits and Lurie are stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down (strangely, the invisible camera crew that is capturing it all on film never lends them a hand). Then, when they go deep-sea fishing on a tugboat accompanied by a local guide, Tom suffers a serious bout of seasickness. As the show continues, we see Waits enjoying a high-stakes poker game, negotiating who gets the big bed, and arguing that driftwood art is a travesty.

The show's humor is at times sophomoric — Waits catches his first red snapper and stuffs it down his shorts — but the scenery is breathtaking, the local people play nicely off their strange visitors, and Waits and Lurie's discussions flow naturally. As the special ends, we see the carless Waits and Lurie trudging across the island while Waits grouses that he should have his head examined for agreeing to come on the trip.

So what was next on the agenda for Tom Waits? Hot on the heels of releasing
Mule Variations,
he provided songs for two movie soundtracks. He agreed to appear in a movie called
The Boom Boom Room,
which was to be shot in Philadelphia in 2000 but ended up never getting off the ground. Early in 2000, Waits, for the first time in his long career, produced a full album for another artist. He sat behind the knobs for blues artist and old friend John Hammond. Throughout the years, Waits also participated in projects with various musicians he respected, guesting on albums by the Tin Hat Trio and
C-SIDE
(California Sonic Instrument Designers Ensemble) with
Petit Mal; as well, he contributed two songs to a Ute Lemper album.

In the summer of 2000, Waits embarked on a brief tour of Europe, playing in Poland for the first time, as part of the tpsa Film and Music Festival at Warsaw's Sala Kongresowa. That short tour also included three nights at the Grand Rex Theater in Paris. Robert Wilson again approached Tom and Kathleen with another proposal for a musical collaboration, and in February 2000 the couple traveled to Copenhagen. There they constructed a new version of Georg Büchner's tragic 1837 play
Woyzeck
. Based on a true story,
Woyzeck is the story of a soldier who is tormented by military personnel, mysterious doctors, and circus performers. Slowly descending into madness, he murders his unfaithful common-law wife in a jealous rage. Considered a socialist document, the play exposes the social and economic pressures that have triggered these terrible events. Tom and Kathleen's version of the play premiered on November 14, 2000, at Denmark's Betty Nansen Theater, as part of the Culture Bridge 2000 celebration. It appeared that Tom Waits had had it, at least for the time being, with the quiet life. He's puttered enough. Once again, he hurled himself into a dizzying variety of projects.

With Waits's musical renaissance going full steam ahead, one of his old labels started looking backwards. Rhino Records, the record company which pretty much single-handedly sparked the whole compact disk reissue craze, had been bought up by Warner/Elektra/Asylum Records. wea saw Rhino as the ready-made home for releasing their vast musical catalogue (and saddled the imprint with the much more corporate moniker Warner Strategic Marketing). Execs at Rhino/wsm started planning an anthology covering Waits's Elektra/Asylum tenure: the first official U.S. collection of this period since
The Anthology of Tom Waits,
which had come out in the very early days of the compact disk and was never released on cd. In the time since, only the imported
Asylum Years
and the inferior demo collections
The Early Years (Volumes 1 & 2)
had been released. It seemed a long time past due for a collection of Waits's early years.

They planned a two-disk compilation (tentatively entitled
Low-Rent Romeo: a Tom Waits Anthology
) which would include songs from all the albums for the label, as well as a few non-album rarities like the single B-side “Blue Skies” and “Mr. Henry” (which was only on the long out of-print compilation
Bounced Checks
). They briefly considered including some
One From The Heart
songs, but that idea was dropped when the label had trouble cross-licensing the songs from Sony. The idea of plumbing the vaults for some interesting unreleased tracks appealed to them as well, although they agreed with Bones Howe when he insisted that they could only be used with Waits's express permission. Rhino contacted Waits and Brennan early on in the process, and for a while they were on-board with the idea. Then they decided that the compilation should only be a single disk and include no rarities. The label had their hearts set on a two-disk
set, so the project went into limbo for over a year.

Finally, they decided to see if they could put together a good proposal and try to sell the collection to Waits and Brennan. When Waits found out that they were again thinking about a two-disk set he went ballistic, calling nearly everyone on the Warner Music food chain from the project's producer to the head of Warner Brothers Records to complain. While they had the legal right to release it that way, the label had no interest in having a pissed-off star on their hands, so they agreed with Waits and Brennan to make it a single disk. They also conceded to the singer's request to only include previously released album tracks and asked the couple once again to be involved in the making of the set, which would eventually be called
Used Songs (1973–1980).

Bones Howe, who as the producer of many of the songs that would be included had also been approached at the early phases of the project, was not too surprised by Waits's hesitance. “I think that Tom was dragging his feet on it,” Howe said. “Tom has never been big about the past… Part of it was that there were four tracks that sit in the can to this day that were done during the various
LPS
that I did with him… Tom's attitude about the past was [to] leave the past alone. Don't screw with it.”

When the decision was made, the label's A&R guys made some song suggestions. Howe also pointed out some favorite tracks. “The list went to Tom, and he thinned it out until it was what is actually on the cd now,” Howe recalls. Waits chose the songs he wanted to be included and also was responsible for much of the sequencing, which was not the typical chronological approach. Instead, Waits sequenced the album much like he did with his new material, in a way that the songs led into each other like chapters of a good book. Then, he returned his ideas to the label. “Tom said that these were the songs that [he] will approve,” Howe recalls. “When I say Tom now, I always put in parentheses ‘and Kathleen.' I think it is Tom and Kathleen [who make these decisions together].”

So for the first time since parting company that day at Marconi's so many years ago, Bones Howe and Tom Waits were working together on a project again. Well, sort of, but not as closely as Howe would have liked. “When it came to doing this record, I dealt with Tom through his assistant, who was very nice to me. She treated me with the appropriate respect. [However] I would have rather have had a fight with Waits on the phone than be treated with appropriate respect, you know what I'm saying?” Howe laughs. “I'd rather have had him growl at me, like we did over the sequence of various albums and stuff. To just be talking with him on the
phone, even if I couldn't see him personally, instead of being [dealt with] politely.”

Once the song sequencing was determined, Rhino sent Howe a recording of the proposed album. “They were kind enough to say you were the producer on these tracks and the engineer. Would you please listen to these and say what you think about the levels and that sort of thing? I can't remember which track — I think it was the second track on the album [which was ‘Eggs and Sausage'] — I thought was a little bass light. I called Tom's assistant and said before I talk to the people at Rhino, let me just tell Tom to see if he agrees with me. One track sticks out because I think it needs a little more bottom. She called me back the next day and said, ‘I talked to Tom, and he listened to it and he thinks you're right.'” That type of thing was basically Howe's role on the project; as he referred to it, he was “just on the sidelines coaching.”

Howe is very proud of the finished product. “My opinion of the record is that it's a wonderful selection of material from the time that Tom and I worked together. Certainly, ‘Ol' 55' [the only song from the
Closing Time
album produced by Jerry Yester] is an appropriate addition to that, because that's the tune that he's really known for. It belonged on there. I'm very pleased with the record. I think it's a lovely record. I've given it to a lot of the people that knew Tom during that period, guys that used to come around the studio like Michael Collins, the documentary filmmaker. People like that who just really adore this record. Of all the tracks we made together, it's certainly a wonderful representation. I like it a lot.”

Not all collections of music from the past ended up quite so happily for Waits. A more distressing look backwards came when a European record label called Burning Airplane claimed that they had secured the rights to release an album from a live show that Waits had performed in the mid-seventies. While the company's claims of contractual legitimacy seemed rather tenuous at best, they were able to officially release
The Dime Store Novels (Volume 1) — Live at Ebbett's Field
in Europe, where some of the copyright laws were less stringent. The concert the label used for the album was an often-bootlegged bicentennial performance at the Denver club where Waits had originally befriended Chuck E. Weiss. Though it disturbed Waits to have an “official” boot reaching store shelves, his protests could not halt the cd. Waits may have been unable to stop the release of that first disk at the time, but four years later a promised
Volume 2
has still never shown up.