01	Misery Is The River Of The World						04:25
	02	Everything Goes To Hell						03:45
	03	Coney Island Baby						04:02
	04	All The World Is Green						04:36
	05	God's Away On Business						02:59
	06	Another Man's Vine						02:28
	07	Knife Chase						02:26
	08	Lullaby						02:09
	09	Starving In The Belly Of The Whale						03:41
	10	The Part You Throw Away						04:22
	11	Woe						01:20
	12	Calliope						01:59
	13	A Good Man Is Hard To Find						03:57

Blood Money, 2002
(P) & c 2002 Anti Inc. 6629-2
c 2000 Jalma Music (ASCAP)
All songs/ production: Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan

Tom Waits: Vocal/ Piano/ Calliope (Misery Is The River Of The World, Another Man's Vine), Vocal/ Acoustic Guitar/ Chamberlain (Everything Goes To Hell), Vocal/ Piano/ Chamberlain (Coney Island Baby), Vocal/ Acoustic Guitar (All The World Is Green, Lullaby, The Part You Throw Away), Vocal/ Electric Guitar (God's Away On Business), Piano (Knife Chase), Vocal/ Piano/ Chamberlain/ Electric Guitar (Starving In The Belly Of A Whale), Vocal/ Piano (Woe), Calliope/ Toy Piano (Calliope), Vocal/ Pump Organ/ Calliope (A Good Man Is Hard To Find)
Larry Taylor: Bass (Misery Is The River Of The World, Coney Island Baby, All The World Is Green, God's Away On Business, Another Man's Vine, Starving In The Belly Of A Whale), Bass/ Electric Guitar (Knife Chase), Acoustic Guitar (A Good Man Is Hard To Find)
Bebe Risenfors: Bass Clarinet (Misery Is The River Of The World), Accordion (Everything Goes To Hell), Sax/ Bass Clarinet (Knife Chase), Clarinet (A Good Man Is Hard To Find)
Gino Robair: Marimba/ Bells, Gongs (Misery Is The River Of The World), Bongos & Timpani (Everything Goes To Hell), Floor Toms (Starving In The Belly Of A Whale)
Mule Patterson (= Tom Waits): Pod (Misery Is The River Of The World)
Matthew Sperry: Bass (Everything Goes To Hell)
Colin Stetson: Baritone sax (Everything Goes To Hell), Sax (Coney Island Baby, Knife Chase), Clarinet (All The World Is Green, The Part You Throw Away), Bass Clarinet (God's Away On Business, Starving In The Belly Of A Whale), Baritone Horn/ Tenor & Alto Sax (Another Man's Vine)
Don Plansey: Clarinet (Everything Goes To Hell)
Matt Brubeck: Cello (Coney Island Baby, All The World Is Green, Starving In The Belly Of A Whale, Woe), Bass & Cello (The Part You Throw Away), Bass (A Good Man Is Hard To Find)
Ara Anderson: Trumpet (Coney Island Baby, Knife Chase, A Good man Is Hard To Find)
Bent Clausen: Marimba (All The World Is Green), Pod (God's Away On Business), Bass/ Drums (Knife Chase)
Stewart Copeland: Drums & Log Drums (God's Away On Business)
Joe Gore: Electric Guitar (God's Away On Business)
Nik Phelps: Trumpet, Baby Tuba (God's Away On Business), Trumpet (Calliope)
Charlie Musselwhite: Harmonica (God's Away On Business, Starving In The Belly Of A Whale)
Andrew Borger: Marimba (Another Man's Vine)
Myles Boisen: Guitar (Knife Chase)
Casey Waits: Drums (Knife Chase)
Dawn Harms: Stroh Violin/ Violin (Lullaby, Woe), Violin (Starving In The Belly Of A Whale, The Part You Throw Away), Stroh Violin (A Good Man Is Hard To Find)
Andrew Borger: Marimba (A Good Man Is Hard To Find)
Oz Fritz: Recording, Mixing
S. Husky Hoskulds: Mixing
Jacquire King: Recording (Knife Chase, Lullaby, The Part You Throw Away, Woe)
Allen Sudduth: Recording (Knife Chase)
Jeff Sloan: Second Engineer, Production Coordinator
Julianne Deery: Production Coordinator
Heather Fremling: Cheques & Balances
Richard Fisher: Studio Support
Gavin Lurssen: Mastering at The Mastering Lab. Hollywood, CA
Jeff Abarta: A&R and Art Director
Winni Wintermeyer: Design
Jesse Dylan: Photos and Concept
Francis Kenny: Special Thanks



BLOOD MONEY

Year Of Release: 2002
Record rating = 8
Overall rating = 11

How many times is it possible to combine Kurt Weill with beat poetry and still end up with something so aggressively cynical?
Best song: GOD'S AWAY ON BUSINESS

Track listing: 1) Misery Is The River Of The World; 2) Everything Goes To Hell; 3) Coney Island Baby; 4) All The World Is Green; 5) God's Away On Business; 6) Another Man's Vine; 7) Knife Chase; 8) Lullaby; 9) Starving In The Belly Of A Whale; 10) The Part You Throw Away; 11) Woe; 12) Calliope; 13) A Good Man Is Hard To Find.

Ooh, this is not Alice. This is the harder, more "repulsive" side of Tom showing up. It's not like the two records are thoroughly uncompatible, though - certain songs off Alice (such as that cooky pseudo-German goof) would have fit perfectly well on Blood Money, and some of the songs off Blood Money, mainly the few sentimental ballads such as 'Coney Island Baby', could have fit easily on Alice. But in general, this is tough stuff. It still ain't a rock album, though, because Tom has apparently vowed not to touch a guitar in the 21st century (only breaking this vow on one or two songs - well, every vow has to have an exception, and besides, would you expect Tom Waits to keep his own vows? Heh heh). It's still the same cabaret/jazz/lounge/vaudeville/waltz stuff all over the place, only with sentimentalism, nostalgia and passion mostly giving way to anger, bleak cynicism and staged degradation.
In some ways, I like Blood Money even more than Alice: it's nowhere near as monotonous and the few ballads that alleviate the 'toughness' are just as touching as the ones on Tom's declaration of sentimentalism #1. On the other hand, Alice was at least mildly 'unusual' for Tom, as he hadn't ever done an entire album of ballads done from his "weird guy" point of view before. Blood Money, though, is just way too closely linked to The Black Rider to present any kind of surprise. Again, it's based on German themes - this time serving as the soundtrack to Waits' and Wilson's adaptation of Georg Buechner's play Woyzeck, premiered in Copenhagen in November 2000; and again, the resulting album gives relatively few clues to what the original show looked like.
And throughout, Tom isn't telling us much we don't already know. Philosophically, the man obviously hasn't advanced much since The Bone Machine - just look at the first two titles of the record and you're pretty much set up. But, once again, don't let this disappoint you. It's a friggin' soundtrack to a friggin' stage show, and for Tom, stage shows have never been the place for displaying groundbreaking musical/lyrical ideas; it was more like a pleasant diversion from the real stuff, even if as time goes by, it looks like the hobby is slowly graduating into a standard, regular occupation. Anyway, Blood Money isn't even pretending to give you anything new. It wants to entertain you. Alice wants to entertain you, too, but it softens you down and gives you a soft spiritual body massage, where Blood Money grans you by the laples and grates all over you until you wanna scream.
Scream of masochistic pleasure, that is, because the songs are, as usual, good. 'Misery Is The River Of The World' rolls along nicely like a good old-fashioned music hall send-up, except for the expected marimbas and the sometimes unexpected massive rolls of keyboard sounds, like waves on said river, washing you down into said misery. 'One thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man', the lyrics go, so there you are - if you didn't know it already, Tom is here to tell you that ultimate truth. And then he goes even further, stating that 'I don't believe you go to Heaven when you're good, everything goes to Hell anyway' on the very next track. Which is, by the way, driven by a pretty classy brass riff, but it's not like that's the point. The point is, well, you know... say, Tom, if everything goes to Hell anyway, you don't mind if I call you an old nutso overreaching the levels of crabbiness?
Particularly on the rabble-rousing 'God's Away On Business'? The album's most desperately cynical tune, and that's not saying enough. 'I'd sell your heart to the junkman, baby, for a buck' is the first phrase, after all - and the song is set to a jolly jimmy rollickin' rhythm. In pure German tradition, though, but with a flair and a hum and a ho that would make every popular German composer jealous. Particularly great is the little repetition of the chorus - 'god's away, god's away, god's away on business, business... [pause, a little heavy puff]... god's away, god's away, god's away on business...'. In the meantime, 'Starving In The Belly Of A Whale', the one tune on the album that definitely has some guitar work to it, rolls along at a much faster pace, almost as a rock tune, although the melody is plain vaudeville as usual. Wild harmonica, chuggin' guitar, isolated chimes, and ragged crooked vocals, and there you go.
Also as usual, instead of the supposed little isles of optimism, Waits offers you some relaxative ballads that may or may not also have cynical overtones, but the most important thing about which is they don't offer any direct salvation from evil - rather a little bit of indirect salvation, with the protagonists showing a little bit of human heart and human faith and all. A song like 'Coney Island Baby', for instance; almost disgustingly predictable in its ragged pseudo-naive sentimentalism, but every bit as touching as the best stuff on Alice and further up the river of Tom's past. This is, in fact, typical of the whole damn record - the themes, motives, vocals, musical tricks and production values are all as familiar as pumpkin pie (to you, that is, Mr Pumpkin Pie Eater - I ain't never seen a pumpkin pie in my whole life), but the recognizability and predictability don't prevent me from digging the hell out of it none. Is that the mark of true genius or does that mean something else? Up for you to tell, I guess. I give the record an 8 for a startling lack of originality and tell you to buy it if you get such an urge from looking at the album cover. However, deep down in the unreadable depths of my heart I do wish that when it comes to the next record, Mr Waits put some emphasis on songs rather than stage shows. Just a friendly warning.