Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits

Just finished the unauthorized biography (not like there’ll ever be an authorized one) of Tom Waits written by rock writer Barney Hoskyns. Seeing as Tom Waits is one of the most reclusive musicians in history the fact that Barney was able to gather so many details, facts and quotes over Tom’s almost 40 year career was ridiculous.

Starting from birth, whenever that was, the books runs through everything from Tom being ditched (only for the day) in Mexico by his alcoholic father as a kid to selling out 150,000 London concert tickets in under half an hour and everything that fell in between.

I was a bit apprehensive about this book since one of the coolest aspects of Waits is that we know so little about him personally and that’s how he wants it so the prospect of finding out what kind of dressing Tom prefers on his green salad felt a little intrusive and terrifying. After reading the 400+ pages I’m happy to say I know a lot of detailed facts about Tom’s career but have no real knowledge of him as a guy.

So if you’re a gigantic god damn Waits fan then I would definitely recommend you pick this book up and if you’re not I guess you’re still wondering why that man sounds like the Cookie Monster when he sings, the book explains that too.

If I was a total douche I would end this review with a Tom Waits quote seeing as there’s hundreds of memorable ones out there.

Bye!

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Get the book here or if you know me and feel you can be trusted there’s an 8% chance I’ll lend it to you.