So are the Dresden Dolls kaput then? Or is this just a side outing?

Did you see the whole kerfuffle about her record label being unhappy with her video because she's got a soft round belly and shows it?

The Dresden Dolls are indeed no more.

I did see the whole nonsense about her (very cute!) belly and her label. Who are being enormous weasely jerks about just about everything related to her album, and have pretty much been that way since the start. Like, not paying her the advance, or her per diem for touring.

One of the things that AFP and her companions are doing on this tour is asking fans to help out with stuff. People can email the tour manager and let her know if they would be able to bring food to the tour and so on. My friend Elana (queen of the local jam economy, a fabulous cook, and a fervent AFP fangirl) was the Seattle food-provider, and it made her incandescently happy to do so.

The Dresden Dolls are indeed no more.

Hmm, I swear I read that they were just on a break.

OK, so I know there are some Tom Waits fans on the board. To say the least. Anyway, I went to a dinner party at a colleague's home last week and found that he was a gigantic Tom Waits fan. The only Waits album I have is Alice (which I'd only nabbed because of some reference to musical theater and German cabaret music vibe, which I dig, and I do like the album very much), so I might have said something in the vein of "oh, Tom Waits; I've heard interesting things about him and been meaning to check more of his stuff out", then an hour later, I was out of his door with 7 CDs (PLUS two more compilation CDs) in my bag so that I could, you know, "try him out." Like, I've never heard so much evangelical fervour outside of conversations with Mac purists, dudes.

Anyway. I ripped the two compilation CDs as samplers ("Asylum Years" and "The Island Years".) I don't think I want to rip all of the other seven, but of the rest, which would you consider his essential albums? Let's see. I have:

Small Change
Heartattack and Vine
Real Gone
Closing Time
Bone Machine
Swordfishtrombones (I'm assuming yes to this one, since it's the title of David's book and all)
Franks Wild Years

Don't say ALL OF THEM, 'cause... no.

anyone interested in some fast food Simpsons toys? both this current batch and a previous one. I think I have 3 or 4.

Vonnie, I'd go with Small Change, a good example of early Waits, then Swordfishtrombones for the Brechtian stuff and Bone Machine because it's my favorite.

Edit - not necessarily in that order, though.

As Cor notes, Small Change is his early masterpiece.

Swordfish, definitely, though most Waits fans like Rain Dogs best of all.

Frank's Wild Years suffers slightly from the fact that it was originally a stage show. It doesn't bat a thousand like Rain Dogs. However, some of my very favorite Waits songs are on it.

Bone Machine can be a bit assaultive on first listen. It's raw. However, over time you realize that the song quality is consistently excellent and it's not quite as clangorous as it seemed on first impression. Waits tends to do that - being prone to put the challenging song up first, and the seductive one further in.

I have a whole set of Waits songs covered by other people up on Buffistarawk if you want to sample them.

Thanks for the input, you two! I'll try out those albums. It's odd that he didn't have Rain Dogs in his collection (maybe he couldn't find the CD) but somehow, I seemed to have accumulated a handful of songs from that album from elsewhere.

I'll check out BR for covers. Thanks, David.

Ted Leo IS the American Billy Bragg. Also completely adorkable.

anyone interested in some fast food Simpsons toys? both this current batch and a previous one. I think I have 3 or 4.

I love how this has become the de-facto Simpsons toy thread!

Yes, I'd be interested. Could you email me with details?