Saturday, January 4, 2014

Tom Waits on vinyl reminds me of the pleasure we all seek

Like many of you, I suspect, I get the daily emails from PopMarket and Soundstage Direct offering vinyl or CD bundles for sale. In a moment of seasonal weakness I looked at the the 4 LP bundle of Tom Waits 70s albums for $64 and thought, why not?  Well I'm glad I did. These Rhino 180g releases came well protected and were so appealing that I ignored one of my own rules and played one without cleaning. The Heart of Saturday Night is an album that I cannot say transcends time for me because I have very specific memories tied to songs on it and boy, did they ever come flooding back to me as I played it. How does it sound? Better than the CD releases I picked up in the 1990s, but that might not be the toughtest test. For now, this is my definitive copy. Great pakaging, and a thick enough slab of super clean vinyl to cause me to adjust the Minus K platform to accomodate the weight (yes, review of the Minus K is really forthcoming, watch this space). For now, it's time to sail away on some great Waits lines and airs....all cooler than a well-diggers ass!

No comments: