Accompanying pictures (screenshots)

Source: Source: 90 Minutes Live CBC interview (w. Flo and Eddie). Date: Tropicana/ LA, April 6, 1978. Credits: video screenshot, CBC

Source: CBC TV special (1980, unidentified Canadian TV show. Date: Toronto/ Canada November 19, 1980 (backstage at Convocation Hall, University of Toronto w. Kathleen Brennan). Credits: video screenshot.(also featured in: "Egos And Icons: Tom Waits Skid Romeo" MuchMusic, 1993)

Source: CBC TV special (1980, unidentified Canadian TV show. Date: Toronto/ Canada November 19, 1980. Credits: video screenshot.(also featured in: "Egos And Icons: Tom Waits Skid Romeo" MuchMusic, 1993)

CBC TV Special

[footage of Waits at the piano at the Tropicana April 6, 1978 playing "Annie's Back In Town", taken from 90 Minutes Live, 1978]

Q (unidentified interviewer): Waits performed at Convocation Hall this week. Backstage in his dressing room he was his old casual self, talking over the wine and toasting the new lady in his life. Since the last time we talked to him he's gotten married and he also spent some time living in New York city but he recently moved back to L.A.

Tom Waits: (dryly) I lived there for about four months, and uh it's too small.
Q: Oh really? In what way? Small thinking people or...? 
TW: It's a small town. I mean Manhattan itself is about the size of Fresno. And uh, I just felt a little closed in, so I moved back to Los Angeles and uh... I went back to work on a film with Francis Coppola⁽¹⁾ and uh I've been working on that since.

Q: What's the film about? 
TW: It's a love story, takes place in Las Vegas and uh...

Q: How many tunes are you doing? Or are you scoring the whole thing? 
TW: I'm writing about eight songs and uh I'm doing the additional underscoring as well.

Q: What about the new album Heartattack And Vine, it's been getting a lot of really great response. How do you feel about that?
TW: Oh yes?
Q: Oh yes! How do you feel about it? 
TW: Marcel Marceau gets more airplay than I do, so I don't really write for the general public, it's usually just for me and my friends.

Q: That's certainly not to discourage someone. I mean, what kept you "not caring" about whether your stuff gets airplay or not?
TW: You know, I uh... You know, once a year I go into the studio and make a little noise. You know? Gotta do something you know? I don't golf, you know? I try to stay busy. It's starting to seem increasingly less important to me somehow than it was when I first started out writing.

Q: Less important to get that kind of response or to get the audience's? 
TW: Yeah, you know?. It doesn't really matter as much as it did when I was like 21 or 22 and I was real insecure and I wanted some friends and uh... And I wanted to get... It's like: "Hey, look at me!", you know? "Look what I can do!". It's like showing off.

Q: Have other things replaced [...?...] 
TW: Uhm, I'm looking for some possible career alternatives right now, the entertainment business is getting so slow, it just really doesn't blow my skirt up like it used to.

[footage of Waits on stage performing "Annie's Back In Town", Convocation Hall, Toronto/ Canada November 19, 1980]

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Francis Coppola: further reading: One From The Heart