October 23-29, 1975 The San Diego Reader The Low Life Waits is a specialized performer, full of images of late night bars, truck stops, and low-riding cruisers. _________________ --Anne Hutchinson-- The Back Door offered an extra free attraction Sunday night along with the advertised star, Tom Waits. After everybody had "schooched forward one more time," the casual announcer introduced Phil Gross, without any hoop-la. Gross strolled on out in his battered tennis shoes, tattered shirt and billed cap, grinning shyly and saying very little, in a soft voice that hardly carried past the edge of the stage. His bass player, David Robinson, had a little more stage presence [!!!], but it scarcely mattered, considering the warm reception they were given. The music was good, with a clear, rippling guitar accompaniment on "Corinna, Corinna" that really made it sing. Gross' voice was no liability either. It was smooth and soft, with a really sweet falsetto the few times he chose to use it. There was one perfectly lovely tune about Chicago that he said had started as a poem, and was lyrically the tightest thing he did. His voice started to fade as he finished up with what was probably the most low-key "rock-n- roll" song I've ever heard. The images all night were involved with America as freeway, constant traveling songs. Gross provided a good introduction to Waits, making mention of the old days at the Heritage, when the only audience they would have some nights was the doorman, in those days, Waits himself. These days, Tom Waits is sleazier than ever. He looked like he'd wandered in off Broadway that night, straight from the doorway he'd been sleeping in. It isn't often that you see a performer in a suit and tie at the Back Door, but the way he looked could put an end to suits and ties forever. The old wrinkled white shirt, the crumpled, loosened narrow tie, the battered coat with the sagging pockets that must hold a half-empty bottle of cheap wine (well, I was close . . . halfway through the show he pulled out a can of beer from one of the pockets). He moved right into a crowd pleaser as he stumbled onstage, with a staccato (have you ever heard a staccato mumble?) recitation that occasionally slid into song, accompanied only by snapping fingers and a steady foot tap on the wooden stage. It went on for some time, with his unique commercial imagery, vivid and sometimes vulgar ("I'm so goddam horny, even the crack of dawn better be careful around me") before it slipped into a variation of "Diamonds on My Windshield," a well-known piece to Waits fans. His voice is harsher than it used to be, and lower than I remember it, but stronger at the same time. He moved like a man strung out on alcohol and the more traditional forms of uppers, but every slurred word was understandable and in place, although a good command of the language is a necessity to follow the narrative. He went to the piano after that, to use a raunchy cocktail lounge sound as back-up for his mostly talking blues. He's like a case of arrested development that never got past the early nineteen fifties: all his images are directly traceable to the era. It's the sound of Jack Webb "B" pictures in black and white, or 2 a.m. in a very cheap dive, throat aching from the smoke that ought to be in the room. Waits was the only cigarette smoker in the room, but he managed to give the impression of three days of chain-smokers in a windowless closet. He did some of the pieces from his first album, including "San Diego Suite," [Dave's note: huh? she probably meant "San Diego Serenade" from his 2nd lp] which is the closest he came to singing all night until his encore. After a while, he picked up his guitar, and a long introduction finally brought him to "Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night," which is a classic of its kind. Waits is a specialized performer, full of images of late night bars, truck stops, and low riding cruisers. One song that got a special request, "Lady Luck" was an ode to his '55 Buick with the gold flake roof [this had to be "Ol' 55"]. The talking tunes keep wandering into each other, with scarcely a delineation between the stories, which start to bear a dreamlike similarity to each other after the first half-hour. His closing piece was a lyric to Big Joe and Phantom 309, the classic ghost tale of the dead returned for a brief spell, appearing to the unwary traveller. Cynic that he is about everything else, clearly nothing but a semi could make this man maudlin. The carefully crafted low-life appeal is odd. It might just be what it looks like, in which case, Waits is liable to fade away from malnutrition and alcohol poisoning. But in the meantime, if he manages not to fall off the stage, his Lenny-Bruce-of-song routine is a winner. ps, ticket price for that concert: 3 and a half dollars.