01	Earth Died Screaming						03:38
	02	Dirt In The Ground						04:08
	03	Such A Scream						02:09
	04	All Stripped Down						03:02
	05	Who Are You						03:57
	06	Ocean Doesn't Want Me						01:50
	07	Jesus Gonna Be Here						03:21
	08	A Little Rain						02:57
	09	In The Colosseum						04:50
	10	Goin Out West						03:20
	11	Murder In The Red Barn						04:29
	12	Black Wings						04:37
	13	Whistle Down The Wind						04:35
	14	I Don't Wanna Grow Up						02:31
	15	Let Me Get Up On It						00:55
	16	That Feel						03:13

Island Records, Inc. Publ. 1992

Produced by Tom Waits.
Recorded by Biff Dawes at Prairie Sun Recording, Cotati, CA, except 8,13 recorded by Joe Marquez.
Mixed at Studio 900 by Tchad Blake except
7,10,14 by Biff Dawes;
8,13 by Joe Marquez;
16 by Joe Blaney.

ISLAND I2 12580 (USA)
(P) (C) 1992 Island Records, Inc.


Biographical Info from the
Bone Machine Press Kit


A little background...
Although it's been nearly 5 years since Tom Waits' last album of entirely new material, he has been quite busy. Aside from acting in eight movies, producing his highly regarded and rather theatrical concert film (and album), "Big Time," he wrote the songs and music for the Robert Wilson production of the opera, "The Black Rider" (William Burroughs did the libretto), which was premiered by the Thalia Theater Company in Hamburg, Germany in 1989 (and is now in repertory performance in Hamburg, and touring the world.) He is also composing songs and music for another Wilson/Thalia operatic production---"Alice in Wonderland," due to premiere in Hamburg this December.

Waits has hardly been absent from performing or recording. He contributed two pieces to Ken Nordine's 1992 word-riff opus, Devout Catalyst, sang a song and made a video for the Red Hot & Blue AIDS benefit album, made a guest appearance on Primus's lates release, Sailing the Seas of Cheese, sang two songs on tenor sax great Teddy Edwards' album, Mississippi Lad, and just recently organized (and performed at) a fund-raising concert for victims of the Los Angeles unrest, with help from Chuck E. Weiss and the Goddamn Liars, Fishbone and Los Lobos.

Tom Waits has been recording songs for 20 years now. His first album, Closing Time, was released in 1973. Aside from the two operatic scores mentioned above ("The Black Rider," incidentally, will be his next recording project), he has written two film scores: Francis Ford Coppola's "One From The Heart" (1980), which was nominated for an Academy Award for best original score, and Jim Jarmusch's just-released "Night On Earth." He wrote the theme song to Ralph Waite's portrait of skid row, "On The Nickel," in 1980, and contributed two yet-unreleased songs for the film "Street Wise," a 1985 documentary about street kids in Seattle. Including soundtracks, Bone Machine is Waits' 14th album.

Waits' songs have been recorded by, among others, Bruce Springsteen ("Jersey Girl"), Rod Stewart ("Downtown Train"), Marianne Faithfull ("Strange Weather"), the Bullet Boys ("Hang On St. Christopher"), Bob Seger ("Blind Love," "New Coat Of Paint"), and Dion ("Heart Of Saturday Night," "San Diego Serenade.") Artists including Los Lobos have cited his influence as a songwriter.

The acting career of Tom Waits began with a small part in Sylvester Stallone's "Paradise Alley" in 1978. He has since had roles in Coppola's "The Outsiders" (1983), "Cotton Club" (1984); Jim Jarmusch's "Down By Law" (1986); Ironweed (1987), Robert Frank's "Candy Mountain" (1988); "Cold Feet' (1989), "Queens' Logic" (1990), "The Bearskin" (1990, released only in Europe), "The Fisher King" (a cameo, 1991), and "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" (1991.) Waits played the lead in a stage production of the musical he wrote with his wife Kathleen Brennan, "Frank's Wild Years," performed by Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago in 1986. He will act the plum part of "Renfield" in Coppola's upcoming "Bram Stoker's Drakula."

The Waits story is probably best understood by listening to the albums. They are, in order:

Closing Time---His 1973 debut LP was hailed by critics for the inventiveness of the songwriting, the beauty of the melodies, and the promise of things to come. The Eagles recorded its leadoff track, "Old '55," and many still consider "Midnight Lullaby" to be one of Waits' great songs.

The Heart of Saturday Night---Regarded as a great leap forward from Closing Time, this 1974 work was still comparatively embryonic material. It was also critically endorsed, and lauded for the poignance of songs like "San Diego Serenade," "Shiver Me Timbers," and the pithy ode to the American night, its title song, "The Heart of Saturday Night."

Nighthawks At The Diner---This 1975 live double-album brought attention to Waits, correctly or otherwise, as a beat storyteller given to stroking his goatee, smoking a lot, and singing anthems to alienation and hash browns (over easy.) "Eggs and Sausage" is still regarded as a minor Waits classic.

Small Change---Although Waits has remarked that it's difficult for him to listen to some of his earlier albums, there is no denying the enduring potency of this completely remarkable 1976 record. Backed by the late Shelly Manne, Jim Hughart (bass), and Lew Tabackin (sax), Waits hit his first great stride with Small Change. He recently opened his fund- raising concert for unrest-ravaged Los Angeles with the title track ---a story of untimely and unnecessary death.

Foreign Affairs---On this 1977 work, Waits worked with orchestra arranger on what can legitimately be called a symphonic poem, "Potter's Field," and sang a witty and tender duet with Bette Midler, "I Never Talk To Strangers."

Blue Valentine---Waits managed another tour-de-force of songwriting excellence in 1978, maintaining a very difficult album-a-year pace. "Kentucky Avenue,", remains an arresting bit of poetry about a crippled child. The musically kinetic little drama, "Romeo is Bleeding," the title track, "Blue Valentines," and "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" became concert staples for Waits, who was almost perpetually on tour in the 70s.

Heartattack and Vine---Waits Played a lot of electric guitar on this more R&B-oriented 1980 record, which yielded a song that eventually became part of Bruce Springsteen's repertory, "Jersey Girl." The album also included Waits' poetic title song from Ralph Waite's film, "On The Nickel." The album had a grittier edge than anything previous; Waits seemed to be pushing himself stylistically, perhaps as much out of restlessness as artistic drive.

One From The Heart---For eighteen months beginning in 1980, Waits worked with Francis Ford Coppola on what the director termed his "lounge operetta." Waits composed and wrote according to Coppola's descriptions of the movie, rather from a prepared script. With Crystal Gayle sharing the vocals, Waits Academy Award-nominated soundtrack album came out in 1982.

Swordfishtrombones---This 1983 critically hailed work was a breakthrough for Waits. It was far more abstract than anything he's done before, musically and thematically, featuring everything from calliopes to Balinese metal aunglongs. Waits said he tried to "listen to the noise in my head and invent some junkyard orchestral deviation" to create a "demented journal of exotic design." While a precursor of even larger experiments in noise-making, the album somehow also yielded one of his most affecting songs, "Soldier's Things."

Raindogs---This 1985 LP was the second part of what Waits has come to regard as a sort of trilogy, beginning with Swordfishtrombones. It pushed the tentative forays of its predecessor further, notably in the new ways Waits began to manipulate his voice (including using a megaphone; Waits described his pipes at this point in his career as "the right horn for my car.") It was also critically lauded, and is one of the richest collections of Waits songs on one record. A landmark recording. (A "raindog," incidentally, is a dog befuddled by the rain erasure of canine territorial markings; this is a phenomenon Waits observed during two years in New York City in the mid-80s.)

Frank's Wild Years---Dubbed "un operachi romantico in two acts," this 1987 work was made of the songs from Waits' stage musical of the same name, co-written with Brennan. The show was a parable, Waits said, a story of one accordion player's redemption and baptism. The album rivals Raindogs for its rich array of songs and textures. Styles ranged from Edith Piaf-ian melodies to what Waits termed "Jerry Lewis going down on the Titanic".

Big Time--A mostly live concert album released in 1988 along with a concert film of the same name, it also featured two new studio tracks: "Falling Down," and "Strange Weather." Critics loved both the album and the film.

Night On Earth---The soundtrack to the just-released Jim Jarmusch film features three songs by Waits and Brennan: "Back in the Good Old World (Gypsy)," "Good Old World (Waltz)," and "On The Other Side Of The World,"---and fourteen instrumental tracks by Waits.





Bone Machine
Operator's Manual Promo
Transcript



TRACK ONE:
INTRO... "Welcome as the CMJ..."
{"Goin' Out West"}

Well, Bone Machine started out as a, just a title. Let's make something that sounds like it could be part of a group of songs that were entitled Bone Machine. Let's come up with songs that...ya know. Now, I guess the first thing that you'd think of is, maybe, this is like Halloween music or this is...umm...like...What is this?...kind of skeleton music, this is like horror, like music from a horror movie...Is that what it is? Well... Maybe see a little bit. There's a little bit of that in there. Umm. That gets ya thinking about bones, ya start thinking about, Oh God. We have to die and all that. I hate to break it to you...um...that's a little joke there. Umm. So I guess Bone Machine deals sometimes with, also with, not only does it have a particular sound because of Bone Machine, it kind of conjures up an image of, ya know, wood then...Well, I don't know. Different for everybody, but for me kinda like wet leaves in your hair and ya know autumn. I don't know. Anyway, Bone Machine. So it's...some of the songs deal with dying and, ya know, with the fact that were all hurling through space here and eventually the earth will probably open up and swallow us all...some day real soon.

{"Earth Died Screaming"}

"Earth Died Screaming" is kind of a cyber, a cyber-drama, umm...

And the moon fell from the sky
It rained macarell, it rained trout
And the great day of wrath has come
And here's mud in your big red eye
And the poker's in the fire...locusts take to the sky

Umm...Revelations. It's all in Revelations. It's a heavy chapter. The "Earth Died Screaming" is a warning I guess, It's one of those songs... I haven't written a song like that really before. Like that, what I mean is kind of a, it has a certain, it is a warning...ha...like the end is near. The guys that I used to always love on downtown LA - Fifth and Main - with the briefcase with the speaker in it and the crummy little amplifier in it, going back and forth on a little wire screaming about the end of the world. I used to just stop and listen to those guys. Oh! To keep a crowd on a corner, now that, that is where you cut your teeth as a public speaker, is on a busy corner at like 5:00 on a Friday afternoon, downtown Los Angeles...and you're talking about Jesus. Now...Those were thrilling moments for me. I guess, umm, if you can make somebody wanna stop and listen, you can pretty much tell them anything, at least for the period of time it takes you to tell them, and then they're going to move on. And a record is really like that, songs...some songs you'll sing only once...the day you recorded it and never again. Other songs, you'll sing every night and still not understand it. Umm...Another song you'll have forgotten one verse and can't remember the second verse, and so you had to make up a new one. Songs are...I guess when I was a kid, I thought songs lived in the air. I didn't know anything about songs publishing. I just thought they, one day a song like landed in your backyard like a UFO or something. God, did you hear that song? I still, I still do, I mean even though I know more how...about songs. I still think it's important to look at them that way, and wonder about them. Songs are small. You hold em in your hand, and they're about as big as a bar of soap, really. And, umm, sometimes you only listen to them for maybe that long. As long as it takes to wear down a bar of soap and then move on to something else...another song.

{"Dirt in the Ground"}

"Dirt in the Ground". umm, That Ralph Carney played all the saxes on that. I think he has kind of an Allen Tonian sound he got on that, with the horn section. I just play a very simple piano, um, ya know. I tried to sing in my high, my Prince voice...ha. I can only do that once or twice and then it's gone. If I try to sing like that on the road every night, forget about it. So when you're in the studio, you're taking better care of your voice, umm, you can do things like that. On the road, my throat becomes ravaged by the weather and from just little sleep and bad food. So, and the song is based on something that was a, Teddy Edwards used to say to me all the time. Ya know, we're all going to be dirt in the ground. So hey, he used to tell girls that in hotel lobbies. He'd try to get them to come up to his room. He'd say "Listen darling, we're all gonna be dirt in the ground." So I always thought that would be a good song title.

OUTCUE... "and music from BONE MACHINE"


TRACK TWO: (22:11)
INTRO... "We're back..."
{"I Don't Wanna Grow Up"}

(incomplete)

{"Murder In The Red Barn"}

(incomplete)

{"In The Colosseum"}

OUTCUE... "...Beware! BEWARE!!"

TRACK THREE: (16:27)
INTRO... "Welcome back to CMJ..."
{"Jesus Gonna Be Here"}

(incomplete)

{"That Feel"}

OUTCUE... "...what I say"


TRACK FOUR: (:38)
"Next Week" PROMO
TRACK FIVE: (:35)
"This Week" PROMO
TRACK SIX: (:36)
"Tonight" PROMO





Official Tom Waits Digest
Author : Seth Nielsen : snielsen@airmail.net
Design : Andrew Boris King : boris@easynet.co.uk




Bone Machine, 1992
(P) & c 1992 Island Records, Inc.314-518 559-2. The copyright in this sound recording and artwork is owned by Island Records Inc. and is exclusively licensend to Island Records Ltd in the UK.
Warner Chappell Music Ltd except "That Feel" Promopub B.V./ Warner Chappell Music Ltd.
"Let me Get Up On It" published by Jalma Music Inc. (ASCAP)
Island Records 314-512 580-2.

Tom Waits: vocals, producer, album cover concept, Chamberlain ("Earth Died Screaming", "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me", "In The Colosseum"), percussion ("Earth Died Screaming", "Such A Scream", "All Stripped Down", "Who Are You", "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me", "Let Me Get Up On It"), guitar ("Earth Died Screaming", "Such A Scream", "Who Are You", "Black Wings", "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", "That Feel"), sticks ("Earth Died Screaming"), piano ("Dirt In The Ground", "Whistle Down The Wind"), upright bass ("Jesus Gonna Be Here"), Conundrum ("In The Colosseum"), drums ("Goin' Out West", "Murder In The Red Barn", "Black Wings", "That Feel")
Larry Taylor: upright bass ("Earth Died Screaming", "Dirt In The Ground", "All Stripped Down", "Who Are You", "A Little Rain", "In The Colosseum", "Goin' Out West", "Murder In The Red Barn", "Black Wings", "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", "That Feel"), guitar ("Jesus Gonna Be Here")
Les Claypool: electric bass ("Earth Died Screaming")
Ralph Carney: alto ("Dirt In The Ground", "Such A Scream"), tenor sax ("Dirt In The Ground", "Such A Scream"), bass clarinet ("Dirt In The Ground")
Bryan Mantia aka. Brain: drums ("Such A Scream", "In The Colosseum")
Joe Gore: guitar ("All Stripped Down", "Goin' Out West", "Black Wings")
David Phillips: pedal steel guitar ("A Little Rain", "Whistle Down The Wind", "That Feel")
David Hidalgo: violin & accordion ("Whistle Down The Wind")
Keith Richards: co-writer, guitar & vocals ("That Feel")
Waddy Wachtel: guitar ("That Feel")
Kathleen Brennan-Waits: associate producer, sticks ("Earth Died Screaming"), co-writer ("Dirt In The Ground", "Who Are You", "A Little Rain", "Murder In The Red Barn", "Black Wings", "I Don't Wanna Grow Up")
Biff Dawes: recording, mixing ("The Ocean Doesn't Want Me", "Jesus Gonna Be Here", "Goin' Out West", "I Don't Wanna Grow Up")
Joe Marquez: recording & mixing ("Whistle Down The Wind", "A Little Rain"), second engineer, sticks ("Earth Died Screaming"), banjo ("Murder In The Red Barn")
Tchad Blake: mixing ( "Earth Died Screaming")
Joe Blaney: mixing ("That Feel")
Shawn Michael Morris: third engineer
Francis Thumm: musical security guard
Teresa Jones: production coordination
Holly Ferguson: production coordination
Jesse Dylan: album cover concept, photography
Christie Rixford: art direction & design




BONE MACHINE

Year Of Release: 1992
Record rating = 9
Overall rating = 12

This is an album about death. No, this is THE album about death.
Best song: really impossible to choose

Track listing: 1) Earth Died Screaming; 2) Dirt In The Ground; 3) Such A Scream; 4) All Stripped Down; 5) Who Are You; 6) The Ocean Doesn't Want Me; 7) Jesus Gonna Be Here; 8) A Little Rain; 9) In The Colosseum; 10) Goin' Out West; 11) Murder In The Red Barn; 12) Black Wings; 13) Whistle Down The Wind; 14) I Don't Wanna Grow Up; 15) Let Me Get Up On It; 16) That Feel.

Another definite winner for old Mr Waits here. Now look, sometimes a five-year break in between albums can do you good, see? Whether it has to do with your inspiration getting thinner so you have to save up little bits of it over a long period of time, or whether it's just a matter of prolonged prosperity from the ever and ever increasing royalties, is another matter - the good news is, five years gone done Tom a lot of good.
So much good, in fact, that he finally decided to make a wicked album. I doubt anybody could have expected this sinister monster. Waits' albums had always been morose and dark, but the permeating feelings there were usually restricted to sorrow, separation, aimlessness, and disillusionment. They're all present here as well, but essentially the album is just about death. D-E-A-T-H, all capital letters. The very first song on the album contains the word 'died' in the title, and the second song begins in a most straightforward manner: 'What does it matter, a dream of love or a dream of lies? We're all gonna be in the same place when we die'. Just about every other song has these kinds of references, too, and I'm not even mentioning the album title or the album cover.
But don't you think this is something pathetically generic. So many albums have been written about death, can there be any more that'd say something new? Well - the important thing, of course, is not exactly what you say, but how you say it. And Tom has found his own, unique and challenging route. The 'bone machine' in question isn't just a cool album title; it refers to the basic musical stylistics of the album. Waits had always placed a huge emphasis on percussion (ooh, remember those marimbas all over the place?), but this album carries this dependance over the top - most of the songs are based upon Tom, Kathleen and one or two other guys banging away on 'sticks' - they even call their small group 'The Boners' - so that it gives the horrific effect of many many bones rattling and pounding upon each other, kinda like in an imaginary Dance of Death. Perhaps one of the most bizarre uses of percussion I've ever heard, too, and pretty chilling if you ask me. Not that the rest of the music doesn't match up: heavy guitar tones abound, with evil distorted effects thrown in in places. Technically, this is probably the heaviest album Tom ever produced, even if it's nowhere near the 'normal' definition of heavy.
Likewise, the lyrics aren't all that straightforward and understandable. Only a couple tracks actually get the message through as transparently as possible; most of the others, however, deliver it through waves upon waves of chaotic, confusing, occasionally disgusting imagery, all swarming with blood, dirt, murder, suffering, pain, and despair. 'Earth Died Screaming' comes to a climax each time Tom gets to the ravaging chorus - "WELL THE EARTH DIED SCREAMING WHILE I LAY DREAMIN!", in between calmly and nonchalantly telling about ant bones and water in skulls and somebody eating up shed lion skins, while The Boners rattle 'em bones around. 'All Stripped Down' begins with a series of piercing 'rattlesnake shakes' and evil funky wah-wah guitars tuning up, and not until Tom's paranoid falsetto begins spewing forth the lyrics and scary electronically encoded vocals start chanting 'all stripped down, all stripped down' do we get to understand he's actually making a song about such an innocent thing as the Final Judgement. 'The Ocean Doesn't Want Me Today' is the confession of a suicidal person, set against more bone rattles and a chilly electronic pattern.
'Jesus Gonna Be Here' is one o' those tracks that could set the entire Christiandom on Tom's back: it's obviously a song of a dying person evoking the Lord, but the way it's sung and performed, you get to really understand Jesus ain't gonna do no good for the man - obviously, in a matter of moments this guy is gonna be pretty disappointed about his illusions, yet we catch him in this final pre-agony state when there's still belief in salvation. 'In The Colosseum' is perhaps the goriest track on here, depicting a bloody battle scene in the Roman Amphitheater and using it as a metaphor for the entire world. We start from decapitation and dogs feasting on the wounded and injured gladiators and end up with a general picture of the world as a place where nothing but murder, betrayal, and evil take place. Now who else can sing about murder and evil with such absolute conviction but Tom Waits? Ha! And if that's not enough, then the next song is 'Goin' Out West', the heaviest and creepiest song ever recorded by Tom - the rhythm section is absolutely MONSTROUS on there, with a bassline thicker than a sumo champion and drums that threaten to kick out the very life of you. Granted, the lyrics just tell about about a guy who wants to get out west... but the music does suggest a bit that the guy's really up to no good.
It's not as if there are no 'softer' spots, of course. There's a small bunch of ballads scattered among the album, although even the ballads are drenched in pessimism and despair. 'Dirt In The Ground' is basically Tom's analog of 'Dust In The Wind', although there's not a drop of genericity in the song, unlike the vomit-inducing Kansas epic. Occasionally a little speck of softness and 'redneck romanticism' jumps out, like in 'A Little Rain', but you can never be sure - for all you know, the next 'soft' song could be 'Murder In The Red Barn', a 'soft' nice acoustic-and-bone tale about, well, a murder in the red barn... did you think it was going to be about Peter the Purser? Or it could be the evil 'Black Wings'. Or... whatever.
Of course, since Tom is a nice fella and all, he can't leave the listener in such a completely deranged state - so the album closes with 'That Feel', a vaguely cheerful and optimistic 'anthem' that reminds me of 'It' from Genesis' The Lamb: same type of 'spiritual' ending that leaves the listener puzzled and waiting for an answer that never comes. But since the exact answer about 'that feel' never really comes, it's kind of a half-hearted consolation, really. Yet on the other hand, it does flow in well with the rest and besides, Tom's basic rule was never to let an album close on a tragic note, so there you go. A workable closer for one of the most sinister, truly 'dreadful' albums ever made. And in a way, Bone Machine breaks up with Tom's past maybe even more than Rain Dogs, as it doesn't just throw on a veil of avantgarde eccentricity on his barroom past, it annihilates that past with a vengeance.