As previously reported, Tom Waits was in New Orleans, LA recently recording a benefit track for and with the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as well as a song for the next volume of Anti’s sea shanty series. Well, now we have the former track’s name, a stellar list of collaborators for the upcoming album, and a not so surprising release date.

According to PR Newswire, Waits collaborated on the song “Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing”, the earliest known recorded Mardi Gras song (abstract version from MMW and John Scofield here), for Preservation, a benefit album due out on Feb. 16 of next year, aka Fat Tuesday.

That would’ve been enough for a minor news update on the project, but check out some of the other artists contributing to the album:

Though many children of rock stars have proven to be decent artists in their own right (Harper Simon, Sean Lennon, etc.), they usually lack their parents’ ability to push the envelope or—in the case of Lennon especially—shock us. Enter Kellesimone Waits, daughter of our favorite married songwriting couple Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan.

In case you haven’t heard, David Byrne takes his blogging very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that past entries to his official journal have taken on Czech Republic steel foundry/coal mine complexes, “The Kindle Experience,” and Bono. But in his latest rant/essay, Byrne goes a bit more apocalyptic. Check out “Internet Antichrist” here.

Whereas Fake Tom Waits joined Twitter in the early days, the real Tom Waits didn’t start tweeting until today. (It’s probably just an intern, but at least it’s an official ghost Twitterer or something.) Anti Records pointed their followers at the new page today with: “All the Wit and Wisdom of Tom Waits is now on Twitter! Follow @anti_tomwaits.”

So what’s he tweeting in there?

“Why wouldn’t Preservation Hall do a project with Tom Waits?” mused Ben Jaffe, musical director and son of Preservation Hall founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe, in a 2006 piece on the post-Katrina New Orleans music scene in the NY Times.

U2’s the Edge had just performed “Vertigo” with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at a benefit to replace instruments destroyed by the hurricane, including those of five Preservation Hall members who had lost their homes. The famous French Quarter music club was one of the first to reopen after the tragedy, but they needed (and still do) more star power to stay financially afloat.

Surely you know of guitarist, drummer, singer Jack White and perhaps you’ve heard of actor, upholsterer, philanthropist, or Luddite Jack White, but we’ve got a new one for you today: lecturer Jack White.

“I don’t know if Bob Dylan or Tom Waits are as authentic as I think they are. Perhaps they’re not,” White told Dublin’s Trinity College last night, according to NME, where he spoke and received an honory patron medal from the University Philosophical Society. “Sometimes you start thinking that maybe Britney Spears or someone like that who’s doing exactly what they want to do in the way that they best know how, is more authentic than any of those people you could mention.”

Tom Waits, (shown here on the red carpet of the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus premiere posing with Verne “Mini-Me” Troyer), has a new live album coming, a co-starring role in Heath Ledger’s final film, and an interesting perspective on former President George W. Bush. In a recent Q&A with director Terry Gilliam, Waits spoke both candidly yet cryptically about all three with Times Online’s Stephen Dalton.

Waits didn’t work directly with Ledger on the film, but the deceased actor did make an impression on Waits’ wife and songwriting partner, Kathleen Brennan. Ledger reminded Brennan of their son, Waits said, “who’s 24 and impetuous and scary and skating towards the edge, completely spontaneous and highly imaginative. [My wife] had wonderful things to say about him. Just full of life and contradictions. That’s what makes people interesting to look at onscreen.”

Also, I’m not entirely sure how politics came up, but here’s Waits on W. (emphasis mine):

I think the real problem was what Bush really wanted in life was to be the Commissioner of Baseball, and the job was not available. We all have a thousand parallel lives that could have been our lives, had we made different decisions along the way. We’re at the crossroads every day.

The last time Waits spoke on his upcoming Glitter and Doom live LP the only “detail” he would provide was that there’s “a lot of applause, followed by a song. And after the song, there’s more applause and then there’s a song. And it goes like that all the way through.” As it turns out, the the album also has “an extra disc in there,” Waits revealed, “that is just my quixotic ruminations between songs, at the piano. It’s added value, as they say. [laughter].”

When we first reported that Tom Waits is prepping a live LP for release this fall, many sites held off on following suit with the unofficial announcement, as our source was only a photographer involved with the project. Well, I just finished listening to an interview by Jian Ghomeshi of CBC Radio, and we now have confirmation from Waits himself, as well as a release date and cryptic Waitsian description.

“Okay, Glitter and Doom, that’s the title,” Waits confirmed. “Now I really feel like a huckster. Yeah, it’s coming out at Thanksgiving.” The exact release date, via Amazon, is 11/24. “A lot of applause, followed by a song,” Waits continued, “and after the song there’s more applause and then there’s a song. And it goes like that all the way through.”

I do suggest you download the interview here. Waits talks about his role as Satan, aka Mr. Nick, in Terry Gilliam’s new film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, signing up for email, and this interesting bit:

Thank God for stories, you know. None of us tell the truth or we’d all be dead. There’s no such thing as the truth. The word “truth” should always have an “S” at the end of it ‘cause there’s so many of them. Two guys watching the same thing. The blind man describing the elephant, you know.

Ah, there’s nothing like starting the weekend off right with a thought-provoking quote from Tom Waits. Hey Tom, now that you have email, send some of your thoughts this way.