Tom Waits will co-host a special radio show with Iggy Pop during the latter’s regular BBC Radio 6 Music slot. Echoing their famous joint appearance in Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes, the two-hour program will see the pair pump the Confidential Jukebox full of nickels and dimes and spin some of their favorite tracks to one another.
The show will air on Iggy’s regular BBC Radio 6 Music slot at 11 am EST/8 am PST on Sunday, December 3, and is accessible globally. Visit the BBC Radio 6 Music’s official website for more information.
In between records, the pair will share stories, including how Tom once hitched a ride with Eden Ahbez, the songwriter who composed “Nature Boy,” and how Iggy once came across Captain Beefheart eating breakfast in L.A. but was wise enough not to disturb him.
Waits will also be promoting the reissue of his spectacular middle-period albums, which he oversaw with Kathleen Brennan. These albums, released on Island Records between 1983 and 1993, have been newly remastered from the original tapes and are available now on vinyl and CD via Island/UMe.
Waits’ transformative creative breakthrough, Swordfishtrombones (1983), its sprawling and superb sequel, Rain Dogs (1985), and the trilogy-completing, tragi-comic stage musical, Franks Wild Years (1987) were reissued on September 8, 40 years to the day that Swordfishtrombones was released into the wild. The run ushered in a new and critically acclaimed musical era for Waits and his longtime songwriting and production partner, Brennan. The Grammy-winning apocalyptic stomp of Bone Machine (1992) and the innovatory musical fable, The Black Rider (1993) (Waits with Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs) followed on October 6.
These critically acclaimed works are a monument to the artist’s ability to break through into new creative territory. Waits not only shifted gears, he deliberately established them as departures from his 70s era noir romanticism and traditional Tin Pan Alley songwriting. This new 80s era established him as an abstract orchestrator, fiercely inventive sound sculptor, and miner of the subconscious, while still retaining his innate lyricism, melodic sophistication, and humanity.
Purchase the Tom Waits Island Records (1983-1993) vinyl reissues.