http://rebeccakuder.com/2006/08/05/everybody-row/ "This will be loud, so lock your ears if you can." --Merida, 2/2/12 Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:18:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://rebeccakuder.com/2006/08/05/everybody-row/#comment-4 Sat, 05 Aug 2006 20:18:00 +0000 http://rebeccakuder.wordpress.com/2006/08/05/everybody-row/#comment-4 Ah, Tom Waits. I saw Tom Waits once. It was in the early 70s sometime, at a gym at the University of Texas, and he was opening for Buffy St. Marie. He was pretty much unknown then, at least outside LA. He would have been young, too, early 20s, though even then he didn’t seem young.
Anyway, pairing him with Buffy St. Marie was not a good fit. She was at the height of her popularity and the crowd had come to see her. The crowd didn’t understand Tom Waits and got impatient.
But even though I, too, had never heard of him and had come out to see Buffy, I remember being entranced by what he was doing and annoyed by the people who began to show their impatience (rudely).
He reminded me a little of Leonard Cohen — a kinship of darkness, I think. I had dream fantasies about Leonard Cohen akin to yours about Tom Waits. I saw Leonard at about the same time, at the old Municipal Auditorium in Austin, and he ended up continuing the concert on the shores of Town Lake after officials said time was up — we were out there for hours. Ah, to be so caught up in music that you made wild choices for it.

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