http://beck.com/irrelevant_topics
rrelevant Topics in a new section featuring conversations between musicians, artists, writers, etc. on various subjects, without promotional pretext or editorial direction. For the first in this series of conversations, the legendary musician and performer, Tom Waits agreed lend an hour of his time to talk about anything and nothing in particular. Here is Pt. 1 of that conversation. Tom Waits: How you doin'?
BH: Good, I'm good.
TW: Are we up and runnin'?
BH: Yeah I think so. Hey, I wanted to ask you about being from Los Angeles. You grew up there...
TW: Yeah, Whittier, La Habra, Downey, that whole area. Yeah, Los Lobos, they're from Whittier. So is Nixon. I remember Nixon's market. He had his own family market.
BH: He was? For some reason I thought he was from the Midwest.
TW: No, California, and we used to get a visit every year from the Oscar Meyer wiener mobile, which was an enormous vehicle shaped like a hot dog. The driver was a Dwarf, and the wiener mobile would broadcast music while he sang the song "I wish I was an Oscar Meyer wiener." He drew quite a crowd. Pretty exciting for a shopping center.
BH: That car is still driving around. I see it from time to time.
TW: You see the Oscar Meyer wiener mobile?
BH: I've seen it parked.
TW: They used to pass out little whistles that were about two inches long and it had three notes available. (Laughs.) Whittier lore.
BH: I was born in the McArthur park area.
TW: You remember when they drained McArthur Park, the lake?
BH: I do, yeah...
TW: They found unbelievable things: Cars, human bones, weaponry.
BH: They should have done an exhibit.
TW: I don't know why they didn't. I thought that's why they drained it.
BH: I'd always heard that when they drained the Echo Park Lake they found an amateur submarine.
TW: Oh, my God.
BH: I don't know if that was lore.
TW: You mean a homemade submarine?
BH: Yeah, I think it was older too, from the early days of "home submarine building." I don't know if that subculture still exists?
TW: That was the East Kids.
BH: There's so many different versions of the city.
TW: It is pretty international. Drive over here and you're in Russia. Here, Indonesia, the Philippines, Central America. It's pretty wild that way.
BH: I think of the city as a sort of mirage. If you look at pictures of the city a hundred years ago it's just a bunch of weeds and desert dust. Its not really supposed to be here. I was always fascinated by the city it was meant to be. I guess it was a place created by developers. It's not really like a city where some people roam around and then they find a good piece of land, and then they test it out for a while and make sure there is water so they don't die, and then they decide to make a city. I started looking at some pictures...Beverly Hills was originally supposed to be called Morocco Junction. I started thinking, if they'd gone with that name we'd be in a whole other situation. I was wondering if there were any things that you remember? It seems like it's shed its skin so many times.
TW: Well, cars choked everything. I know originally there was a red line that ran from San Bernardino all the way to the ocean and for 35 Cents you could ride a streetcar you know from...
BH: Yeah I heard you'd get there in 20 minutes.
TW: And in one of those red car buildings, dispatch is right there where Epitaph records is right around Sunset and Silver Lake. You remember the Continental Club in Silver Lake? That big Latin Club in Silver Lake. Burned down.
BH: Yeah I remember that.
TW: It was lightning.
BH: Lighting?
TW: Yeah, a form of lightning.
BH: I played at this benefit concert where I was about to go on stage in 45 minutes. It was a clear blue sky and a bolt of lightning came out of nowhere. I don't know if you heard about that? It was about twelve years ago.
TW: You got struck by lightning?
BH: No, I didn't. I was inside, but someone in the audience did. I heard this crash, and looked outside and the whole venue was streaming out with people.
TW: You lost your crowd.
BH: Yeah, they had to cancel the whole thing.
TW: That's what I hate about playing outdoors.
BH: Yeah right? I've had more outdoor shows canceled from natural disasters. I was playing in Mexico once and some kind of hurricane came. Turned into chaos. One time I was in Japan. I was going to play on Mt. Fuji and a typhoon hit.
TW: A typhoon hit? Wow. I haven't really played outdoors much. I played in Japan once; I played in an abandoned temple. The roof had been torn off. They thought it would be a cool place for a concert but it was 30 below. All I remember was my sax player making a fire out of chop sticks and holding his horn over the flame to warm it up before we went on. Everyone was dressed up in moon gear. It was pretty cold out there. It's hard to compete with the natural elements. It's captured better in a theater. I'm probably a little old fashioned and a little backward.
BH: I'm always interested in how the whole festival thing evolved. Those pictures from the 50's, the early rock 'n' roll people playing at the state fair.
TW: Opening for super markets.
BH: Yeah, exactly.
TW: Stages that were built in a few hours out of scrap wood.
BH: I'm always curious what it sounded like?
TW: My bass player Larry Taylor toured with Jerry Lee Lewis in the 50's. They toured all over the US in a Cadillac and all their gear was in the trunk. The amps, the bass... the speakers in the hall they played at were no bigger than an encyclopedia. But there was still wild enthusiasm and energy created out of the performances and the crowds went out of their minds. But it wasn't done with volume. It was the odd sight of a man possessed at a keyboard, with hair hanging down. The other thing: the mics for the piano - they just used a violin pick up wrapped in a hanky and stuffed it in the hole of a baby grand. Standards were lower.