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Tom Waits’ Bad As Me picks up where the inimitable singer/songwriter left off in with his rowdy Real Gone (2004) and lurid Blood Money/Alice (2002). The hiatus certainly hasn’t blunted Waits’ ironic brand of gallows humor and creepy tenderness. But this album also revisits well-trampled musical ground and the novelty of musical genre mayhem is showing its age. Still, even déjà-vu Waits has few peers when it comes to deploying shape-shifting vocal personas and theatrics to describe the grit and randomness of hard times, love’s consequences, and fading dreams. And not lost is an added significance these tracks represent in a darkened economic climate. With ace musicians like Marc Ribot, David Hidalgo, Flea, son Casey on drums, and Stones’ legend Keith Richards on board, the tracks are lively, but the mix is messy and softly focused, overly compressed, and narrowly staged as if confined within a snow globe—faults as apparent on the Bernie Grundman- mastered 180-gram LP as the CD. Bad As Me does connect at times, sometimes powerfully—the “Last Leaf,” a survivor’s duet with Richards, has a tender resonance, and “Hell Broke Luce,” an industrial stomp that depicts a returning soldier’s alienation, offer the discs most unforgettable moments. If only there were more of them
By Neil Gader
My love of music largely predates my enthusiasm for audio. I grew up Los Angeles in a house where music was constantly playing on the stereo (Altecs, if you’re interested). It ranged from my mom listening to hit Broadway musicals to my sister’s early Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Beatles, and Stones LPs, and dad’s constant companions, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. With the British Invasion, I immediately picked up a guitar and took piano lessons and have been playing ever since. Following graduation from UCLA I became a writing member of the Lehman Engel’s BMI Musical Theater Workshops in New York–working in advertising to pay the bills. I’ve co-written bunches of songs, some published, some recorded. In 1995 I co-produced an award-winning short fiction movie that did well on the international film-festival circuit. I was introduced to Harry Pearson in the early 70s by a mutual friend. At that time Harry was still working full-time for Long Island’s Newsday even as he was writing Issue 1 of TAS during his off hours. We struck up a decades-long friendship that ultimately turned into a writing gig that has proved both stimulating and rewarding. In terms of music reproduction, I find myself listening more than ever for the “little” things. Low-level resolving power, dynamic gradients, shadings, timbral color and contrasts. Listening to a lot of vocals and solo piano has always helped me recalibrate and nail down what I’m hearing. Tonal neutrality and presence are important to me but small deviations are not disqualifying. But I am quite sensitive to treble over-reach, and find dry, hyper-detailed systems intriguing but inauthentic compared with the concert-going experience. For me, true musicality conveys the cozy warmth of a room with a fireplace not the icy cold of an igloo. Currently I split my time between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Studio City, California with my wife Judi Dickerson, an acting, voice, and dialect coach, along with border collies Ivy and Alfie.
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