I missed this News Flash from back in March when it was first announced but I’m trying my best now to get tickets. Tom Waits is going on a short tour of the South/Southwest and is playing three shows in Texas. I’ll be in a studio recording during two of the shows, but the third show is in Dallas on a Monday 6/23 and I think I’m going to try and find someone to watch the baby and go. Anyone want to skip work and go check out Waits in Dallas?

Find tour dates here:

Tom Waits is notorious for an erratic (at best) touring schedule. He won’t tour for years and years and then he might go out and hit a few dates in Europe and a handful in the states – then you don’t hear from him again for another few years until he comes out of hiding to do a live soundtrack of a play and then it’s back into hiding again… He played Austin’s SXSW festival nearly ten years ago(a last second add) – a show in which a much younger version of yours truly showed up very(very very very) early to try and get in only to be greeted by a long line who were already camped out. At the time, it was Wait’s first shows in the area since his 1978 Austin City Limits taping….and maybe it was the last time Austin will see Waits.

via: Houston Chronicle entertainment section blog writer:

Waits’s last Texas performance came at Austin’s Paramount Theater during SXSW 1999. Music biz insiders wrangled many of the tickets, too many for one overly-ardent fan who heckled him as a sell-out, and an even gloomier note would toll the next night, when Waits’s friend and occasional promoter Don Hyde was fuckstomped by La Zona Rosa bouncers in a stupid melee following an Alejandro Escovedo concert. Waits vowed then never to play Texas – his father’s native state – again. He kept his word for nine long years, but then again, why should a whole state have to pay for the actions of a few Austin lunkheads?

So there it is – if your from Central Texas, don’t hold your breath waiting for him to come back. If your from anywhere else in Texas, you should be informed that Wait’s last trip to Texas before the SXSW show was in the late seventies when he opened for Bonnie Rait. In other words, if your a Waits fan this is your one and maybe only chance to see him anywhere nearby. Be there!

Step Right Up by Tom Waits – I know Mason found this song in particular funny.

The Piano Has Been Drinking (not me) by Tom Waits:

Innocent When You Dream by Tom Waits