From Stereophile writer Fred Mills:
Tom Waits tickets for the August 2nd show at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville, NC sold out in 15 minutes. Waits publicist Tresa Redburn tells me the Atlanta date sold out in less than half hour.
"Yours truly was on-line hacking away at the Ticketmaster site," Mills said today, taking a break from pressure washing moss from the roof of his home in Asheville.
He also mentioned that a pair of tickets for the Chicago show went on eBay and someone who couldn’t wait for the auction, used the "Buy Now" function and bought them for $1500.00. I scanned eBay and found a pair of 4th row seats for the Asheville gig going for $549.00. A pair for the last date, in Akron, Ohio, are being offered for $450.00. In Akron, Ohio!!! This despite measures to limit scalping and reselling. And the fact that he rarely if ever these days dips back into the Asylumera material that everyone loves.
The best part about this eight date mini-tour of the South and Midwest is that he’s playing great old theatres, most of which have great acoustics. Here's the list: read it and weep, `cause these tickets be long gone. Or silly expensive.
Tues, Aug 1 Atlanta, GA Tabernacle
Wed, Aug 2 Asheville, NC Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
Fri, Aug 4 Memphis, TN Orpheum Theatre
Sat, Aug 5 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
Mon, Aug 7 Louisville, KY Palace Theatre
Wed, Aug 9 Chicago, IL Auditorium Theatre
Fri, Aug 11 Detroit, MI Opera House
Sun, Aug 13 Akron, OH Akron Civic
To those who don't get the whole Waits cult, all I have to say is, something's happening somewhere with this guy. Few artists, in any genre, at any time, are able to sell out tickets, quite this fast.
Well, the last time I was in Peru, I bought a piece of eight because I heard that's what Brian May uses as a pick—but that was only 400 years old and only cost about $4. These picks, made from meteorites, are 4.5 billion years old and cost over $100.
Scientific American says cognitive scientists believe chess really is "the touchstone of the intellect." Although it makes for a good story, I suspect they just think that little horsie looks cool.
The thing about Tuesday is that I've got my therapy session at 6pm. I spend the day processing submissions for our Buyer's Guide. I go through each Excel spreadsheet making sure things look the way they're supposed to. It's a tedious, generally unfulfilling, task. A task measured out in columns, rows, and cells. I have found no way to incorporate art or love. I transfer the tidied files from one folder on our server to another. Cut and paste. Control X, Control C. Kristina then collects the new file and transfers it to a Master spreadsheet. It is a strange kind of communication, this digital dance we do.
Jon Carroll reports on his summer reading—Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England,—and proves yet again that he can turn out better stuff daily than most of us can hope for in a lifetime.
One of the weirdest musical phenomena that I know of is the symbiotic relationship between really bad music, mostly classic rock schlock, played at maximum volume, and professional sporting events. I mean have you ever been to an NFL game where you didn’t hear Ozzy Osbourne’s "Crazy Train"? And let's not even discuss the NBA where the prospect of being exposed to more Kelly Clarkson or the All American Rejects keeps me from even thinking of attending.
I've never been a huge New York Dolls fan, but I like the energy of this single—and I love the cameo by the Flying Spaghetti Monster at the end of the clip.