"My wife says I write two kinds of songs,
grand weepers and grim reapers..."

The above was uttered by Tom Waits at a show I was lucky enough to attend in 1999. I was attending the yearly SXSW music conference in Austin and the big news was that Waits may be doing a public appearance. This was especially electrifying as he had been under the radar for most of the '90s and only appeared a few times for benefit shows and the like.

The concert remains one of my fondest live memories since Waits is a particularly captivating performer. Facial contortions, old-fashioned revivalist foot-stomping and absurdist stand-up comedy are all vital elements to the experience and they are all tied together by Waits' gravel-pit baritone and his spastic marionette motions. I remember being able to sneak Photogal in to see his final song, "Innocent When You Dream," and even that simple number at a piano blew her away. She was lucky enough to catch a full show a couple months later when I got us tickets to his appearance in Chicago when he was in the midst of a handful of live dates to promote Get Behind The Mule, but there was something particularly magical about the Austin show.

I had always been hoping that someone snuck a tape recorder into the show all those years ago, even if to catch just a few of the stories Waits told, but I never came across any audio document. Then, a few days ago, I was just poking around on-line to kill some time on a Sunday afternoon and I came across a recording of the concert. Off the soundboard. And remastered so that the sound and levels are pristine. Wow!

I've been re-listening to this show all week long and it's succeeded in lifting my spirits, so I thought I would share its location with you. A copy is located at EZ Torrent (which does require a free registration...and you can got to their FAQ to learn about downloading BitTorrents and decoding the resulting files into WAVs) and it's right here:

TOM WAITS
LIVE AT THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE IN AUSTIN, TX
MARCH 20, 1999
Sit back, dim the lights, sip some whiskey, light up that smoke...and enjoy.