01	Big In Japan						04:05
	02	Lowside Of The Road						02:59
	03	Hold On						05:33
	04	Get Behind The Mule						06:52
	05	House Where Nobody Lives						04:14
	06	Cold Water						05:23
	07	Pony						04:32
	08	What's He Building?						03:20
	09	Black Market Baby						05:02
	10	Eyeball Kid						04:25
	11	Picture In A Frame						03:39
	12	Chocolate Jesus						03:55
	13	Georgia Lee						04:24
	14	Filipino Box Spring Hog						03:09
	15	Take It With Me						04:24
	16	Come On Up To The House						04:36

Mule Variations, 1999
(P) & c 1999 Anti Inc./ Epitaph 86547-2
c 1999 Jalma Music (ASCAP)

Tom Waits: producer, vocals, guitar ("Big In Japan", "Lowside Of The Road", "Hold On", "Cold Water", "Pony", "Black Market Baby", "Chocolate Jesus"), Optigon ("Lowside Of The Road"), organ ("Hold On"), piano ("House Where Nobody Lives", "Picture In A Frame", "Georgia Lee", "Take It With Me", "Come On Up To The House"), pump organ ("Pony"), percussion ("Black Market Baby", "Eyeball Kid", "Filipino Box Spring Hog"), Chamberlin ("Black Market Baby")
Brain Mantia: drums ("Big In Japan")
Les Claypool: bass ("Big In Japan")
Larry LaLonde: guitar ("Big In Japan")
Ralph Carney: sax/ trumpet ("Big In Japan", "Come On Up To The House"), reeds ("What's He Building?", "Black Market Baby"), bass clarinet ("Eyeball Kid"), alto sax ("Picture In A Frame")
Smokey Hormel: chumbos & dousengoni ("Lowside Of The Road", "Get Behind The Mule"), dobro ("Pony")
Chris Grady: trumpet ("Lowside Of The Road", "Filipino Box Spring Hog")
Stephen Hodges: percussion ("Hold On", "Get Behind The Mule")
Larry Taylor: bass ("Hold On", "Get Behind The Mule", "House Where Nobody Lives", "Cold Water", "Filipino Box Spring Hog", "Come On Up To The House"), rhythm guitar ("House Where Nobody Lives"), guitar ("Filipino Box Spring Hog")
Marc Ribot: guitar: ("Hold On", "Cold Water", "Black Market Baby", "Eyeball Kid", "Filipino Box Spring Hog"), lead guitar ("House Where Nobody Lives")
Joe Gore: guitar ("Hold On", "Come On Up To The House")
Charlie Musselwhite: harp ("Get Behind The Mule", "Chocolate Jesus"), harmonica ("Filipino Box Spring Hog", "Come On Up To The House")
Christopher Marvin: drums ("Cold Water")
John Hammond: harp ("Pony")
DJ M. Mark "The III Media" Reitman: turntable ("What's He Building?", "Black Market Baby", "Eyeball Kid", "Filipino Box Spring Hog")
Andrew Borger: drums/ percussion ("Black Market Baby", "Filipino Box Spring Hog", "Come On Up To The House")
Greg Cohen: percussion ("Eyeball Kid"), bass ("Picture In A Frame", "Chocolate Jesus", "Take It With Me")
Larry Rhodes: bassoon ("Eyeball Kid")
Ni(c)k Phelps: bari sax ("Picture In A Frame", "Come On Up To The House")
Dalton Dillingham III: bass ("Georgia Lee")
Linda Delucia-Gbidossi: violin ("Georgia Lee")
Oz Fritz: recording and mixing at Prairie Sun Recording Studios
Jacquire King: recording and mixing at Prairie Sun Recording Studios, programming ("Lowside Of The Road", "Filipino Box Spring Hog")
Gene Cornelius: recording ("Lowside Of The Road") at Sputnik Sound
Jeff Sloan: production coordinator, percussion ("What's He Building?", "Filipino Box Spring Hog")
Kristin Vanderlip: art direction
Christie Rixford: design
Matt Mahurin: album photography
Kathleen Brennan-Waits: co-producer, percussion ("Filipino Box Spring Hog")


MULE VARIATIONS

Year Of Release: 1999
Record rating = 9
Overall rating = 12

A terrific summary of all the personalities of Mr Beefheart-Meets-Dylan in one place.
Best song: BIG IN JAPAN

Track listing: 1) Big In Japan; 2) Low Side Of The Road; 3) Hold On; 4) Get Behind The Mule; 5) House Where Nobody Lives; 6) Cold Water; 7) Pony; 8) What's He Building?; 9) Black Market Baby; 10) Eyeball Kid; 11) Picture In A Frame; 12) Chocolate Jesus; 13) Georgia Lee; 14) Filipino Box Spring Hog; 15) Take It With Me; 16) Come On Up To The House.

The sleeve cover is pretty scary out here... kinda like Ol' Tom slowly getting from under the ground, and his face all ghoulish white and all. He does look pretty scary, now doesn't he? Not exactly in a Keith Richards way, more like... ugh... okay, never mind. He does sing about sleeping in the graveyard on one track on here, so I guess it's no coincidence. Tom Waits likes to spook people off, particularly in the Nineties.
So anyway, Mule Variations is kind of a resume album for the man. Critics throughout the world have 'mildly scolded' the album for not breaking any particular new ground, but give da man a break, even if, granted, he gave himself a six year break, too. But then again, how much new ground did Rain Dogs break in comparison to Swordfishtrombones? Not too much, and it was the better album. On the positive side, Mule Variations gains a lot from the benefit of being Tom's first thoroughly non-conceptual album in a decade; if you can find a concept or any definite unifying theme to these songs, you're obviously sharper than I am, because I can't find 'em none. It is more than that - it is a fascinating and entertaining ride through just about all of Tom's personalities, kind of a retrospective for his entire career. You'll find songs on here that couldn't have written a year earlier than Bone Machine, and you will find songs that could have easily made it onto Closing Time. Throughout, the sound is so raw and fresh you'd swear the album was recorded thirty years ago, and yet, much of the instrumentation boasts tricky modern production technologies that couldn't have appeared earlier than the Nineties. That's Tom for ya, ladies and gentlemen.
One thing that's for certain is that the songs on here are all just as, or maybe just a little less, bleak and morose as the ones on Bone Machine. It's a dark, creepy album that firmly suits the cover, with but a few (necessary) drops of optimism scattered through the tracks - seems like growing old doesn't affect Tom's positive nerve centers at all. The ballads are tragic and depressed, the rockers are evil and sarcastic, the moody atmospheric numbers are shiver-sending; in general, the atmosphere is a bit more blunt and straightforward than the dreary 'boner hissing' of the 1992 masterpiece, but this means only that the songs are more readily accessible, nothing more, nothing less. Give this album to your nearest friend! And if he proceeds to decapitate you with a swift wave of his hand, propelling the newly-sharpened glistening CD towards your unprotected neck, the last thing you know will be - 'how come I made friends with a sucker who isn't even able to appreciate the genius of Tom...?'
'Big In Japan' - ah, what a perfect way to open an album. A mad, neurotic industrial drum machine rhythm opens, a neat guitar/brass pattern joins after several tacts, and then the famous vocals: 'I got the style, but not the grace/I got the clothes, but not the face/I got the bread but not the butter/I got the window but not the shutter/But hey, I'm big in Japan, I'm big in Japan'. Was Tom Waits really big in Japan? Don't tell me! Even if he wasn't, this is one of the most slyly-formulated putdowns of a showbiz star I've ever witnessed - unless I got something wrong. There's not too many aggressive guitar-heavy rockers remaining, though, but the ones I did encounter kick near-equal amounts of ass. 'Cold Water' is a psychotic slow 'folk-rocker' driven by grungy primitive distorted guitar and absolutely harrowing vocals... 'Eyeball Kid', with its scary story of a circus freak, is so utterly disgusting I haven't really been that sick since the last time I heard Jimi Hendrix play his revenge upon the national anthem (in a good sense, of course!) And 'Filipino Box String Hop'... strike me dead if I know what it's about, but it's pretty cool to hear a slow trip-hop beat in a Tom Waits song anyway. You know you're shitproof in any case, so there you go!
The moodier 'relaxed' material works just as well... 'Lowside Of The Road'? 'I'm on a black elevator going down'? I suppose there's no need to explain what the 'down' stands for, and if you need further explication, just listen to that production hiss, to the tired brass grunts, to the rattlesnake percussion in the far, far, far away background, to the squirky minimalistic banjo chords that a five-year old could have handled... 'Get Behind The Mule', with its repetitive 'she got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow' chorus, gives you the impression of constant, endless pain, suffering and disillusionment more vividly than the entire Steinbeck catalog, even if the actual lyrics aren't always understandable. Then there's the weird Beefheart tribute 'What's He Building?', a lengthy spoken monolog as Waits plays the part of an 'outside observer' watching some strange building take place (as illustrated by booming and squeaking noises in the background). It's just too dang strange and open to interpretations to discuss here, really, but you ain't heard nothing like that. The little humble country blues 'Chocolate Jesus' could easily get Waits anathemized, if only for the line 'it's best to wrap your saviour up in cellophane, he flows like the big muddy but that's ok, pour him over ice cream for a nice parfait'. Ha! Nice little veiled anti-religion rant out there.
I won't say too much about the ballads, cuz they aren't as impressive when compared to the arrogant stuff out there... still, they're all beautiful in a classic early Tom Waits kind of way, with the optimism of 'Hold On' and the pessimism of 'Picture In A Frame' definitely earning a spot in your heart if there's any left. But, of course, word must be given about the grand final, the near-gospel uplifting 'Come On Up To The House' - again, in the old tradition, a thoroughly negativity-drenched record must end with a bit of hope and light. Again, as in the case of 'That Feel', you gotta be wondering what the 'house' really is (naturally not the Heaven, but not a real house either - 'the world is not home, I'm just passin' thru', Tom proudly declares), but the line 'come down off the cross, we could use the wood' alone should earn the song immortality. What a great, great, great way to end a terrific album.
It is, in fact, incredible that Tom, who's pushing fifty now, is still able to make records like these - granted, there's nothing revolutionary or trend-setting on Mule Variations, but it continues in the same vein and expands on the same ideas that he's already mined over and it doesn't sound even a wee bit nostalgic. Usually, when we see some of his contemporaries, like the Stones, or McCartney, or even, at this point, David Bowie, chime in with a new album, we all go like, 'oh no, here comes some more nostalgic stuff from the guy(s)'. Nothing at all here: MV relates to Waits' past like, say, Magical Mystery Tour relates to Sgt Pepper - similar to its predecessor, but expanding on it and sounding like a natural development, not a self-parody or a run-of-the-mill stereotypic formulaic record. And hell, the guy is really in his fifties now. About the only people of his age I know of that can boast similar 'inexhaustible' attitudes are Peter Gabriel and Lou Reed (and, to a lesser extent, Bob Dylan), but even them chaps have had their ups and downs, while Tom should probably hold the number one spot for Most Consistent Songwriter of all time. Dang, what a guy.





(April 27, 1999)

Tom Waits, Mule Variations

Tom Waits
In further alcoholic singer/songwriter news, Tom Waits also checks in this month with the much anticipated Mule Variations, his first album in nearly six years and his first for punk label Epitaph. It might seem strange to have this piano troubadour share the same label as hard-core bands like Rancid and Pennywise, but Tom's a strange guy and his new collection of surreal, boozy, and bluesified tunes confirms this yet again. Whereas his last two albums were more theatrically oriented (the Night on Earth soundtrack and a mini-opera called The Black Rider), Mule Variations picks up where his 1992 masterpiece Bone Machine left off. Bizarre songs like "Big in Japan" and "Low Side of the Road" are backed by wild beats spirited from the amalgam of iron pipes, steel rods and pieces of wood and skeleton that form a drunk xylophone called the Bone Machine which Tom has constructed for himself over the years. "Eyeball Kid" is also equally odd, with Tom's gravely voice alternately sounding like Louie Armstrong, Captain Beefheart and Kim "Betty Davis Eyes" Carnes. It's the first song I've ever heard to sample a livestock auctioneer.

The sorrowful ballads Waits is famous for are also plentiful on Mule Variations. His Chivas Regal voice belts out tales of pain and woe by the bucketful on songs like "Picture in a Frame," "Take It with Me" and "Georgia Lee." Just a man, a piano and a broken heart. Listening to them kinda makes you sad, but in a good, cathartic way. You just wanna have a good cry and then down an entire bottle of wine sitting in your underwear.

Waits' bag of tricks is also chockfull of rock songs. The sludgy blues stomp of "Cold Water" and the piercing scrap-metal guitar of "Filipino Box Spring Hog" contain some of the best and nastiest hard rock you'll probably hear this year.

Mule Variations is a truly great record that delivers a potpourri of musical styles, themes and moods, all backed by Tom's melancholy, happy-hour poetry and bartender philosophy.




A lot of artists try to be eccentric, but for Tom Waits, it comes naturally. He's an expert of sorts on the most peculiar of subjects, like the daily lives of ants. As a musician, he's in a league of his own. His masterful, yet disturbingly odd, improvisations result in songs of sheer melancholic beauty - delivered by one of the raspiest voices in the business.

As an actor, his characters take on a life of their own. He's the notorious outlaw, the washed-up hobo with a rough charm. Who could imagine Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law or Robert Altman's Short Cuts without him?

Although in his early 50s, Waits manages to look like a 100-year-old beagle. A legend in his own right, who shows us the crooked beauty of dissonance, Waits always comes across like the guy who's got the blues so bad, he's ready to sell his soul for another glass of whisky.



NYROCK:
Mule Variations is an interesting title. I almost expected to hear a mule as a guest musician...

WAITS:
My wife called me a mule. She once said, "I didn't marry a man; I married a mule!" I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.

NYROCK:
Sounds like you're pretty stubborn...

WAITS:
Of course, I am. She didn't call me a mule for nothing. But I'm rather consequent in my stubbornness. I think they're pretty straight animals. They don't listen to anybody else.

NYROCK:
Do you have a thing for animals? I heard that you confused one of my colleagues a few years ago when discussing insects with him...

WAITS:
(Raspy laugh.) I like weird things, ludicrous things. I have a notebook full of eerie facts. Don't get me started on them. I could go on for ages and would confuse you - or probably even scare you.

NYROCK:
Just one? And then I'll pester you about your work...

WAITS:
OK, this will scare you... If you decapitate a cockroach, a simple cockroach, it won't die. It's able to live for a couple of weeks without a head, but regular flies die after two weeks. Imagine that, just two weeks and they're dead. It doesn't even seem worth the effort it takes to kill them. Or there are 400 million sperm in each ejaculation - and if you look around, take a look at some people, it's kinda hard to imagine that they beat 400 million... It makes one wonder...

NYROCK:
Wow, where do you get your information from?

WAITS:
I read papers. I read magazines, and if I find something that's worth collecting, I'll write it down in my little notebook. Just call it a hobby or a weird spleen.

NYROCK:
You're signed with Epitaph now, the legendary punk label. How did that happen?

WAITS:
I like them. I like them a lot, and I like their taste when it comes to music, barbecues and cars.

NYROCK:
Brett Gurewitz [owner] is famous for his passion for fast cars...

WAITS:
He is, and he infected a lot of other people...

NYROCK:
A lot of musicians claim that Epitaph is completely different from other labels...

WAITS:
That's true. What I really like about it is that a lot of the people there are musicians. They're working for the label, but they're still playing gigs. It's not run like a business; it's more run like friends and partners who are working together. They're one of the few labels who give artists time to grow.

NYROCK:
Between Big Time [1988] and Bone Machine [1992] were four years. Then you released The Black Rider [1993] one year later, but it was another six years until Mule Variations...

WAITS:
Well, yes. I guess I took my time.

NYROCK:
What was the reason behind writing new songs now?

WAITS:
I think it's always the same reason. There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs. It's not that I didn't do anything during the time when I wrote no songs. I was creative, but in another way. I had ideas for songs and collected the ideas.

NYROCK:
Did you use all ideas?

WAITS:
No, of course not. Sometimes I didn't even use the songs I wrote. Sometimes we recorded as much as four or five different versions of one song before I decided that I wouldn't use it.

NYROCK:
How do you view your old songs? Are they a part of you, or are you sick of them?

WAITS:
It's different. Some songs became a part of me and some just don't fit anymore, like an old sweater or a pair of pants you've outgrown. You hardly ever know what's going to happen with a song and how you'll feel about it in ten years time.

NYROCK:
Are you going on tour?

WAITS:
I think I will. I might go on tour, do a few shows, but I'm not really a fan of touring. It's just so inconvenient. You're far away from home. You're wasting a lot of time sitting around waiting. When I was young - oh well, younger - I toured a lot. I lived out of my suitcase, but now that I have a home, kids, a family, it's different. I guess I'm getting old.

NYROCK:
You're always the strange character in a movie. Is that what suits you best?

WAITS:
I think I get type-casted. A lot of actors are trying to avoid that. They're trying to avoid getting pinned down as always the villain, the cop, the pimp... But I'm not a real actor. I don't care.
May 1999