Monday's Leaky Faucet

Who: Tom Waits
Title: Glitter and Doom Live
Release Date: November 24th
Label: Anti-
Thoughts: Having never seen Tom Waits live I have conflicting feelings about listening to his new live album. On the one hand here is a chance to hear what Waits' live show is like without ever leaving the comfort of my home. On the other, it kind of spoils the possibility of being surprised if I ever do manage to see Waits on stage. That said, I did listen to the record, both discs, straight through and I'm a little disappointed in the disjointed nature of the two discs. On one disc we are given the live songs of Waits, performed with his standard, raspy voice, that includes a slew of great tunes. It sounds fantastic, beginning to end and is exactly the way I would imagine Tom Waits sound live. On the second disc we are given the hysterical stories that Waits tells from stage between songs. It is truly a charming slew of stories, totalling 35-minutes of humor and insight from a man that seems to have seen it all. My problem with it is that it's totally separate. The great joy of the live album is hearing how an artist interacts with his audience between songs. Great live albums do this in spades, but here it's one disc of music and one disc of stories. As good as the stories are there's a good chance you won't be turning to this disc after on listen. If they had instead placed the stories between songs you'd come back again and again, each story lending a little more charm to the songs Waits had just sung or is about to sing. Really the only problem with Glitter and Doom is this formatting problem, other than that everything else is aces.
Listen: Tom Waits - "Live Circus"
Tom Waits - "Lucky Day"



Who: Norah Jones
Title: The Fall
Release Date: November 17th
Label: Blue Note
Thoughts: For the past two years a lot has been made about how Norah Jones was shifting to a more rock oriented sound. The piano was going to be discarded, band members were to be recruited, famous stars would help out, and Norah would move away from her contemporary adult standards and move to something a bit younger. There's some truth in all those statements, but none are whole truths. Norah did recruit a band of all-stars to help her move to a more guitar oriented sound, but the rock part is more of an exaggeration and really this album does nothing to move her away from the adult contemporary star she currently is. Her voice is still refined and very, very sexy, her lyrics tend to be far more mature than her 30-years, and the music is as good as it gets for the "rock you gently" sect of the population. All in all, it's an okay record that neither reaches beyond her capabilities nor does it truly ever falter. About the only fault that can be found here is that the claims leading up to the album were greatly exaggerated.
Listen: Norah Jones - "Chasing Pirates"
Norah Jones - "It's Gonna Be"



Who: The Fiery Furnaces
Title: Take Me Round Again
Release Date: ?
Label: Thrill Jockey
Thoughts: Over the past few years The Fiery Furnaces have built up the reputation of being enigmatic performers prone to re-working their songs on stage and recording some of the stranger sounds in pop music today. After releasing the very underrated I'm Going Away earlier this year the band has spent the past few months touring and have taken to re-working the songs on their most recent album. The result of this is normally only seen onstage, but this time the Friedbergers decided to record their tweaks and changes in a truly unique way - with Eleanor and Matthew each recording their own versions of these songs. Now I don't know how necessary this recording is, it is mostly just a stripped down take on what they just did, but for fans of the band they will want to own this as soon as it becomes available. The songs aren't changing the wheel but the idea is intriguing enough to merit a listen or two by even casual fans.
Listen: The Fiery Furnaces - "I'm Going Away - Matthew Friedberger"
The Fiery Furnaces - "I'm Going Away - Eleanor Friedberger"
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