TOM WAITS ON NPR

Tom Waits is adding an extra stop to his sold-out "Glitter & Doom" summer tour: NPR Music's "Live in Concert" series. NPR Music is the only place to hear a full concert from Waits' tour, which will be available for both free streaming and podcast at www.NPR.org/music.

During the show, recorded at Atlanta's historic Fox Theater on July 5, Waits gives a two-and-a-half hour performance, featuring songs he's never played outside a studio. The 25-track set includes "Hold On," "All the World is Green" and "Hoist That Rag," followed by an encore of "Anywhere I Lay My Head."

Waits is the latest musician to have an entire performance streamed by NPR Music, which frequently webcasts rock, pop and indie concerts as part of its extensive "Live in Concert" series. The series has featured more than 100 events to date.

In March, NPR Music and Member stations traveled to Austin, TX, to live webcast and broadcast 14 concerts from the influential music festival South by Southwest, among them R.E.M., My Morning Jacket, Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver and Yo La Tengo. All SXSW performances are archived at the site. This summer, NPR Music is also webcasting and broadcasting performances from the Newport Folk Festival and JVC Jazz Festival Newport in Rhode Island.

NPR Music launched in November 2007 as a free, comprehensive music discovery destination, featuring content from NPR and 12 NPR Member public radio stations, as well as original-to-NPR Music features such as live performances, studio sessions, interviews, reviews and blogs. Specific sections of the site are dedicated to rock/pop/folk, classical, jazz/blues, world and urban music. The site culls from NPR's and the stations' extensive music archives to present thousands of features; its popular Concert section offers hundreds of regional and national web concerts, with more than 15 new performances added each month. NPR Music also has dozens of original music podcasts.

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NIRVANA (Bukowski poem)

In this super-quick update, check out this Chuck Buk poem "Nirvana." It's quite different for Bukowski. It seems to be at a slower pace. He's somewhere peaceful, somewhere the young Bukowski perhaps would've liked to have stayed.

In a weird way, it's the ultra-American poem. Truck stop diner; waitresses. The whole bit... Enjoy.

Before you check out the poem, though, click HERE to hear an awesome NPR radio show about Bukowski.

"Nirvana"
not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the way to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arrived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a natural
humor which came
from her.
the fry cook said
crazy things.
the dishwasher.
in back,
laughed, a good
clean
pleasant
laugh.
the young man watched
the snow through the
windows.
he wanted to stay
in that cafe
forever.
the curious feeling
swam through him
that everything
was
beautiful
there,
that it would always
stay beautiful
there.
then the bus driver
told the passengers
that it was time
to board.
the young man
thought, I'll just sit
here, I'll just stay
here.
but then
he rose and followed
the others into the
bus.
he found his seat
and looked at the cafe
through the bus
window.
then the bus moved
off, down a curve,
downward, out of
the hills.
the young man
looked straight
foreward.
he heard the other
passengers
speaking
of other things,
or they were
reading
or
attempting to
sleep.
they had not
noticed
the
magic.
the young man
put his head to
one side,
closed his
eyes,
pretended to
sleep.
there was nothing
else to do-
just to listen to the
sound of the
engine,
the sound of the
tires
in the
snow.
- Charles Bukowski

Now check out a nifty short film (by Tyler Martinolich) based on the above poem. Pretty damn cool...

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