Please donate to help save PopMatters. We are moving to WordPress in January out of necessity and need your help.

Between the Grooves: Tom Waits - 'Bone Machine'

Between the Grooves takes a deep dive into Tom Waits' Bone Machine. It's the one fans keep hidden amongst themselves, a secret treasure only the devout are privy to and the seasoned are worthy of. Simply put, it is not for the faint of heart.

                                      
Music
    
        The Most Memorable Albums of 1999 (Part 2)
    
PopMatters Staff

        09 Jun 2020
    
Music
    
        VickiKristinaBarcelona Celebrate Tom Waits on "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" (premiere)
    
Jedd Beaudoin

        09 Apr 2020
    
Music
    
        The 15 Best Tom Waits Songs
    
Alexander Heigl

        24 Mar 2020

Recent

Film

'The Dead Don't Die' Confronts Climate Change with Deadpan Whimsicality

With The Dead Don't Die, Jim Jarmusch deliberately deprives his latest film of the propulsive terrors innate to most zombie films, instead using the genre to matter-of-factly rhapsodize about consumer culture and the inevitability of the apocalypse.

Books

The Beat Goes on with 'Kerouac on Record'

These essays explore the connection between Kerouac and the music he loved -- Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, Chet Baker, Miles Davis and others -- and the musicians who loved him, in turn.

Music

Tom Waits: Preacher on a Pale Horse

A guide to nine songs for the faithful, the faithless, and the searchers.

Music

An Alternative Christmas Playlist for the Coming Ice Age

If the idea is that earth, water, fire, air and space constitute the core elements of life, then these five songs might seem as their equivalents to surviving the complications that come from embracing the good and enduring the ugly of the Christmas season.

Music

Tom Waits: Eluding the Authorities

However many smokes he’s inhaled since childhood, Waits' trademark growl is a choice -- his first step to direct listeners' attention to the work of musical performance.

Tim Scherman

Music

The 100 Greatest Alternative Singles of the '80s: Part 5: 20 - 1

Songs of anxiety, paranoia, freak-outs, chilling verses, feverish desire, harrowing lyrics -- they all make for damn good music.

Music

Chuck E. Weiss: Red Beans and Weiss

Cartoonish in nature, like an exploding cigar joke. No matter how smart one thinks he or she is, one always laughs to the groove at the moment of detonation.

Music

Robert Ellis: The Lights from the Chemical Plant

On this challenging and intimate album, Robert Ellis walks up to the brink of despair and calls it out to play.

Music

Juana Molina: Wed 21

Constructed from looping bass lines, whirring guitars and keyboards, and her enigmatic, murmuring voice, this latest collection of songs from Argentina's premiere electro-folk songstress is a glorious mess of sound.

Music

Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: Gospel Music in a Secular World

Critically, commercially and historically, gospel is the great overlooked American music, maybe because few genres of music force you to confront your beliefs so immediately.

Music

Various Artists: The Voice Project Presents Home Recordings Volume 1

Music as a tool for social change: An important cause highlighted in a simple, yet powerful way.

Film

Everyone Lost: Protest Art and the Iraq War

While people were killing and dying, what did it matter whether there were decent songs being sung, insightful films being produced, appropriate art being inspired? When did poetry ever stop a war?

Music

Counterbalance No. 114: Tom Waits' 'Rain Dogs'

Inside a broken clock, splashing the wine with the 114th Most Acclaimed Album of All Time. A 1985 cult classic is this week's Counterbalance. You'll never be going back home.

Music

Counterbalance No. 100: Tom Waits' 'Swordfishtrombones'

Counterbalance rounds out the top 100 of Acclaimed Music's ranking of the most-acclaimed albums of all time by settling down in the Valley and hanging its wild years on a nail that it drove through its wife’s forehead. Tom Waits’ 1983 landmark is next. Never could stand that dog...

Reviews

'Down by Law' Is More Than Just Another Quirky Indie Film

Down by Law is only Jarmusch's third feature but already shows his confidence in crafting a unique style.

Music

Tom Waits - "Hell Broke Luce" (video)

"Matt Mahurin has created an apocalyptic war dream to accompany the song 'Hell Broke Luce'."

Music

Dubious Ranger: Found Recordings From The Panda Valley Mining Company c.1931

Unconvincing stab at something like Beck hanging out with Tom Waits. But it's not.

Music

Duke Robillard Jazz Trio: Wobble Walkin'

Wobble Walkin' proves Duke Robillard's skill at his craft while maintaining an understated feel.

Steven Spoerl

Music

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band: Ultimate Hits

A compilation that shows that Bob Seger was at times a good artist, but also shows why he was never really a great one.

Victor Valdivia

Music

The Best Alternative Songwriters of 2011

Some of 2011's best songwriting came from artists whose work could be broadly defined as "alternative". Few of these artists fit the mold of the traditional singer-songwriter, creating music the blurs the lines defining genres.

Robert Alford

Music

Tom Waits: Bad As Me

Bad As Me is a bracing, defiant attack against things as usual. Its clash and clatter are combative, but in the end -- and here's what throws the suits off -- utterly beautiful.

Reviews

'Tom Waits on Tom Waits' Doesn't So Much Pull Its Subject in from the Shadows as Follow Him There

Much more than a poet of the streets, Tom Waits is the dharma bum who can transmute down at the heels grotesqueries into the lyrical and even the spiritually fecund.

Reviews

Bought on the Fourth of July

With The Homeland Directive writer Robert Venditti offers a deep and meditative work on the nature of personhood in an era of mass marketing. Easily the equal of the illustrious works of John Reed or Jonathan Franzen, The Homeland Directive elevates both the political thriller genre and the comics medium.

Music

Rocking Chair Blues: Howlin' Wolf - "Who's Been Talkin'"

The blues is full of songs about mean mistreater women, and Howlin' Wolf recorded more than a few. But in "Who's Been Talkin'", Wolf puts the blame for failed love affair on himself.

Music

Here’s Your 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

Music

And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Are...

When the list of nominated artists for the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was released this morning, there were a few surprises.

Music

Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Live

The idiosyncrasy with which the long-revered songwriter has built his legacy on transpires just as fascinatingly through a live venue as it does on his studio records.

Reviews

Ironweed

Besting Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Paul Newman, Jason Robards and Sam Shepard, Jack Nicholson gives one of his most complicated, consuming performances.

Film

Conversing with Rudy Wurlitzer: ‘A Beaten-up Old Scribbler’

Wurlitzer has a fondness for stories that are rooted in movement and the conflict to be found in forward movement.

Film

Conversing with Rudy Wurlitzer: ‘A Beaten-up Old Scribbler’

My conversations with Rudy Wurlitzer were not unlike a road journey itself with plenty of unplanned side trips along the way.

Features

Collapse Expand Features

BROWSE ALL ALBUM REVIEWS

Reviews

Collapse Expand Reviews

PM Picks

Collapse Expand Pm Picks

Between the Grooves takes a deep dive into Tom Waits' Bone Machine. It's the one fans keep hidden amongst themselves, a secret treasure only the devout are privy to and the seasoned are worthy of. Simply put, it is not for the faint of heart.

With The Dead Don't Die, Jim Jarmusch deliberately deprives his latest film of the propulsive terrors innate to most zombie films, instead using the genre to matter-of-factly rhapsodize about consumer culture and the inevitability of the apocalypse.

These essays explore the connection between Kerouac and the music he loved -- Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, Chet Baker, Miles Davis and others -- and the musicians who loved him, in turn.

A guide to nine songs for the faithful, the faithless, and the searchers.

If the idea is that earth, water, fire, air and space constitute the core elements of life, then these five songs might seem as their equivalents to surviving the complications that come from embracing the good and enduring the ugly of the Christmas season.

However many smokes he’s inhaled since childhood, Waits' trademark growl is a choice -- his first step to direct listeners' attention to the work of musical performance.

Songs of anxiety, paranoia, freak-outs, chilling verses, feverish desire, harrowing lyrics -- they all make for damn good music.

Cartoonish in nature, like an exploding cigar joke. No matter how smart one thinks he or she is, one always laughs to the groove at the moment of detonation.

On this challenging and intimate album, Robert Ellis walks up to the brink of despair and calls it out to play.

Constructed from looping bass lines, whirring guitars and keyboards, and her enigmatic, murmuring voice, this latest collection of songs from Argentina's premiere electro-folk songstress is a glorious mess of sound.

Tom Waits joins the Rolling Stones on a recent tour stop and the world rejoices (as it should).

Critically, commercially and historically, gospel is the great overlooked American music, maybe because few genres of music force you to confront your beliefs so immediately.

Music as a tool for social change: An important cause highlighted in a simple, yet powerful way.

While people were killing and dying, what did it matter whether there were decent songs being sung, insightful films being produced, appropriate art being inspired? When did poetry ever stop a war?

Inside a broken clock, splashing the wine with the 114th Most Acclaimed Album of All Time. A 1985 cult classic is this week's Counterbalance. You'll never be going back home.

Counterbalance rounds out the top 100 of Acclaimed Music's ranking of the most-acclaimed albums of all time by settling down in the Valley and hanging its wild years on a nail that it drove through its wife’s forehead. Tom Waits’ 1983 landmark is next. Never could stand that dog...

Down by Law is only Jarmusch's third feature but already shows his confidence in crafting a unique style.

"Matt Mahurin has created an apocalyptic war dream to accompany the song 'Hell Broke Luce'."

Unconvincing stab at something like Beck hanging out with Tom Waits. But it's not.

Wobble Walkin' proves Duke Robillard's skill at his craft while maintaining an understated feel.

A compilation that shows that Bob Seger was at times a good artist, but also shows why he was never really a great one.

Some of 2011's best songwriting came from artists whose work could be broadly defined as "alternative". Few of these artists fit the mold of the traditional singer-songwriter, creating music the blurs the lines defining genres.

Bad As Me is a bracing, defiant attack against things as usual. Its clash and clatter are combative, but in the end -- and here's what throws the suits off -- utterly beautiful.

This is not the end.

Much more than a poet of the streets, Tom Waits is the dharma bum who can transmute down at the heels grotesqueries into the lyrical and even the spiritually fecund.

The blues is full of songs about mean mistreater women, and Howlin' Wolf recorded more than a few. But in "Who's Been Talkin'", Wolf puts the blame for failed love affair on himself.

When the list of nominated artists for the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was released this morning, there were a few surprises.

The idiosyncrasy with which the long-revered songwriter has built his legacy on transpires just as fascinatingly through a live venue as it does on his studio records.

Tom Waits isn't the only Pride of National City

Besting Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Paul Newman, Jason Robards and Sam Shepard, Jack Nicholson gives one of his most complicated, consuming performances.

Wurlitzer has a fondness for stories that are rooted in movement and the conflict to be found in forward movement.

My conversations with Rudy Wurlitzer were not unlike a road journey itself with plenty of unplanned side trips along the way.