WAITS,TOM - BRAWLERS Vinyl LP

Brawlers presents probably the best-known of Tom Waits' personalities, filled as it is with vocal cord damage, found percussion, old-timey arrangements, and cartoon-buzz lead guitar. It's also the disc that flirts most dangerously with cliche, filled as it is with his well-trod inventory of Americana underbelly images: trains, jailhouses, barrooms, etc.

However, the secret of Waits' act is how well he deploys these should-be-tired cultural touchstones; at the very least, he sounds more comfortable in the role of a boxcar-hopper than he does reciting the ripped-from-the-headlines Middle East folk song "Road to Peace".

Certainly it helps that he continues to buck the aging rocker career trend of increasing cleanliness, wrapping these songs in dirt-grit production that keeps the Big Bopper warble of "Lie to Me" or the garage 12-bar Ramones cover "The Return of Jackie and Judy" from sounding like a House of Blues exhibit.

Tracks:

Side 1

1. Lie to Me (Remastered)
2. Lowdown (Remastered)
3. 2:19 (Remastered)
4. Fish in the Jailhouse (Remastered)

Side 2

1. Bottom of the World (Remastered)
2. Lucinda (Remastered)
3. Ain't Goin' Down to the Well (Remastered)
4. Lord I've Been Changed (Remastered)

Side 3

1. Puttin' on the Dog (Remastered)
2. Road to Peace (Remastered)
3. All the Time (Remastered)

Side 4

1. The Return of Jackie and Judy (Remastered)
2. Walk Away (Remastered)
3. Sea of Love (Remastered)
4. Buzz Fledderjohn (Remastered)
5. Rains on Me (Remastered)

Label: Epitaph