FREE LOWSIDE OF THE ROAD: A LIFE OF TOM WAITS PDF Barney Hoskyns | 640 pages | 12 Oct 2010 | FABER & FABER | 9780571235537 | English | London, United Kingdom Lowside of the Road: A life of Tom Waits | The Independent T om Waits is an intriguing subject for a biography. Also a reluctant one, as Barney Hoskyns discovered to his cost when writing this book. Never mind getting an interview with Waits himself. Even the author's requests to speak to friends and colleagues of Waits were blanked by almost everyone who still had any contact with this remarkable but shadowy performer. The stonewalling, which was clearly orchestrated by Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan, reached such a pitch that Hoskyns eventually found himself questioning his own right to proceed with this book about the singer, songwriter and part-time actor whom he believes to be "as important an American artist as anyone the twentieth century had produced". Hoskyns is not one of those writers who goes looking for a fight. Quite the reverse. He is a diligent, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits weaver of historical narrative and a confirmed footnote addict. The very first sentence in the book ends with one of those pesky asterisks directing you to the bottom of the page, and there are long stretches where the flow of the narrative is subject to interruption by a steady stream of Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, interjections and afterthoughts. But above all Hoskyns is a music fan, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits like so many other professional taste-makers has found himself beguiled for many years by the Waits voodoo. As he points out, with the slightly peeved air of one of those who was a supporter from the beginning, Waits has now become "as much of a sacred cow on the world stage as Bob Dylan" - so much so that "you could count the negative reviews of [his] recent albums on two hands". That still doesn't stop Waits from walking through the pages of the book like an unexploded bomb. Journalists and photographers may love his music and rough-hewn, beat-poet style, but they have also learned to beware his short temper and sudden mood changes. When he lived for a while in New York one of the few features of the city that appealed to him was the social acceptability of public expressions of rage or, as he put it, "being able to confront people without feeling conspicuous". After Ralph Carney, who played saxophone in his band for 15 years, had the temerity to complain about being dropped from the line-up, he was telephoned by Waits who explained his decision in such forthright terms that Carney remembers only that "It was such a heavy call that I kind of blocked it out". It is hardly surprising that Waits guards his privacy. But is he guarding something Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits His former manager, Herb Cohen, always urged his acts to lie about their private lives. The son of two teachers, Waits spent an unremarkable childhood in the humdrum Los Angeles suburb of Whittier. His parents' divorce when he was 10 and his father Frank's developing alcoholism doubtless provided grist for the creative mill, but it was not an obvious preparation for a life on Skid Row, or some showbiz approximation thereof. Even so, if the boozed-up, bohemian barfly role that Waits invented for himself as a performer was an elaborate act, it was one which he maintained and immersed himself in long after he had left the stage. When Waits went on the road with Ry Cooder around this time, Cooder was astonished to note that, while the rest of the band stayed in decent hotels, Waits insisted on staying only in "flophouse hotels". By the time he reached 30, the method approach had taken its toll and Waits was on the way to being an alcoholic himself. As well as becoming his wife and the mother of his three children, she took control of his business affairs, became his co-songwriter and co- producer and persuaded him to stop drinking. It is the absence of her voice from the narrative that is the greatest shortcoming of this book, although Hoskyns does his best to compensate with some inspired speculation. Music, she said, should reflect the fact that life can be strange and grotesque. With contributions from the main players thin on the ground, Hoskyns focuses considerable attention on the actual music, and some of the best passages in the book are his descriptions of the songs and, particularly, some of the ever-more outlandish sounds on the various albums. On the song "Shore Leave" the arrangement comprises "multiple Feldman marimbas; Franny Thumm's metal aunglongs; Aldcroft's trombone sounding like a rubbed balloon; Tackett's no-wave guitar played with a car key and a banjo that sounded like busted bedsprings; plus the chair being dragged - in tune - along the studio floor What we heard was not music as such, but what the character himself heard in this nightmare version of Hong Kong. And of course the quotes from Waits himself, many of them from interviews with the author from years ago, are always well turned. As it turns out, he has become and remains a worldwide success very much on his own terms. The story ends with Hoskyns standing forlornly in the rain outside the stage door of the Edinburgh Playhouse hoping to catch a glimpse of Waits after one of his shows there last year. But Waits, it transpires, has already left the Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. Topics Biography books. Pop and rock reviews. Reuse this Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. Most popular. Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits | Faber & Faber Self-revelation has never come easily to the Los Angeleno songwriter, musician and occasional actor Tom Waits, which is presumably why he writes the kinds of songs he writes, and talks the kind of talk he talks. A Waits outburst is usually worth hearing, whether it comes in song form or in the form of the florid jive he shoots at those members of the press he is prepared to outburst to, but what it reveals of Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits private life is invariably either negligible or misdirecting and can usually be inscribed, fully punctuated, on the flap of a pack of Lucky Strikes. So poor old Barney Hoskyns, that most reliable of rock'n'roll narrators, is on a hiding to nothing here. How do you write a sophisticated, penetrating biography of such a studiedly impenetrable figure when his ferociously tamped-down public image amounts to an enigma wrapped in a torn scarf within an old tarpaulin guyed into place with a total media lockdown? How do you begin to loosen the ropes when a small army of Waits's friends and associates are unwilling even to say nice things about him? Not even Keith Richards. Hoskyns worries about the question no end. In fact he devotes his prologue to agonising about the problem and then, in the appendix, prints Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits amiable thanks-but-no-thankses of those Waits mates he approached for a quiet word. It's a big book which has clearly required of its writer a substantial emotional outlay — there is no question that the author knows and cares about his subject. Yet, in terms of personal revelation and disclosure, small change rains. Nevertheless, Lowside of the Road is highly enjoyable for those readers who bring to it a ready-made interest in the Waits oeuvre and its bric-a-brac of "broken things". You want Freudian interpretation? Then look elsewhere — but take Lowside along as a handbook and source of symbolic material. It's a career biography of the highest class, full of considered judgment, wise contextualisation and detailed Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits read it and you will have nothing less than a firm grasp of what "Tom Waits" means. Also, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits have a much clearer understanding than before of the impact that Waits's marriage in had, if not on his selfhood then certainly on the arc of his creative dive. Kathleen Brennan is clearly a remarkable woman, artistic as well as protective. It's her ghostly passage through the fringes of the story that makes for the most compelling and frustrating aspect of the narrative. To mangle another Waits-ism: what's she doing in there? Looking after the interests of her marriage seems to be the answer. And that includes ensuring that everyone else keeps their noses out. So Hoskyns is left with the songs, the performances, the mediated image, his own travels, his interviews and the good offices of the few Waits sidemen from the past who will talk. It's a measure of how good he is at reading ashes that the book is such a good read itself. Click here to purchase this book. You can find our Community Guidelines in full here. Want to discuss real-world problems, be involved in the most engaging discussions and hear from the journalists? Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits your Independent Premium subscription today. Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more.