Been a big fan of TW since the late 70's. Guess I'm the opposite end of the spectrum from Nrchy. Indeed he is not for everyone, but who is then? I love most of his work. Actually the more accessible ones folks have reccomended here are probably my least favorite, though I'd agree that they are indeed more accessible to average tastes than his later work. I didn't see the Austin City Limits show but wish I had. I'd imagine that if it was a recent show he would likely be playing plenty of stuff from his two newest releases, "Blood Money" and "Alice", both of which are great and neither falling into the kind same category of 'accessible' that folks are recommending above. If it is the case that he was playing mostly tunes from recent works, you might be dissappointed if you go out and get all his early stuff. My favorite albums are those when he began to collaborate with his wife Kathleen Brennan. 'Swordfishtrombone', 'Raindogs' and 'Bone Machine' are all wonderful, imaginative and richly textured albums. Swordfishtrombone is a great album to enjoy soundstage on (wide and deep and full of nuance). He continues to collaborate with his wife right up to the most recent albums which are also great. He's also a pretty darn good actor, though the parts he plays he mostly seems to be playing himself (Rumblefish, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Mystery Train, Down by Law, Ironweed and a pretty over the top performance in a small roll in the 1992 version of Dracula ...among several other films). If you want to see him more as his hilarious, street-wise self try to find the short film by John Lurie (of The Lounge Lizards) called "Fishing with John" in which he documents his fishing trips with some of his friends, among them Tom Waits. He also did a very funny concert video titled "Big Time" which is out of print as far as I know, but worth looking for. He puts on a great show. I wish I could have seen him perform live but it is a pretty rare occurance. A few years ago when he came back to Seattle and performed here at The Moore it was the first time in eight years he'd returned. The tickets sold out in under ten minutes which was some kind of record as I recall hearing on the news.
I guess a good tact would be to get one of the many compilation albums that a few folks have recommended. These collections only cover various periods of his career. There are six different compilation albums I know of and each is a different mix. They are:
Anthology
Asylum Years
The Early Years
The Early Years Volume 2
Beautiful Maladies
Used Songs
I'd agree with Abysmillard that Beautiful Maladies and Used Songs would be an excellent place to start and are my favorites among the compilations.
His "official(?)" website may tell you more if you want to check it out
hereMarco
