The baker’s dozen of dates on Tom Waits’ Glitter & Doom tour didn’t include much love for the left and right coasts, but thankfully we’re all getting a taste of what went down — that is, aside from the usual shaky YouTube bootlegs. Photographer Michael T. Regan has leaked the news that Waits is preparing to release Tom Waits: Glitter & Doom Live on 12” vinyl and likely other formats.

Regan got the scoop on the upcoming Waits live album because five of his photos have been tapped by Waits’ label, Anti, to be included in the project. This isn’t Waits’ first live release (not to mention his VH1 Storytellers, of which I just found a bootleg at Captains Dead), but it is the first live album with Waits’ son Casey playing the drums.

No release date or other deets have surfaced, but we’ll pass them along as soon as we hear. In the meantime, check out Waits’ spoof press conference announcement for the Glitter & Doom tour here or embedded below.

Our favorite cryptic troubadour Tom Waits has been turning quite a bit of attention to film of late, including taking on a starring role as Mr. Nick (aka Satan) in Heath Ledger’s final film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, playing an engineer in an upcoming Denzel Washington-starring action flick, and now by judging an indie film festival.

The Raindance Film Festival, which begins its run in London later this month, is famous for screening independent films by Quentin Tarantin, Christopher Nolan, and Waits’ friend/collaborator Anton Corbijn. What makes this festival even more different, however, is that it has hosted some of our favorite musicians in the past, including Beastie Boy Adam “MCA” Yauch, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Marky Ramone, The Clash’s Mick Jones, and more.

Press Association reports that this year’s judges panel will include Waits, Riz Ahmed, Kerry Fox, Armando Iannucci, and British musician, poet, and jack-of-all-trades Billy Childish. If they have as good taste in films as they do in musicians, this year’s roster should be a real treat.

Meanwhile, the trailer for The Book of Eli, starring Waits, Denzel Washington, Gary Oldham, and Mila Kunis dropped recently. Check it out here.

Dutch photographer/director Anton Corbijn has been taking iconic photos of Tom Waits for over three decades at this point and now the pair is releasing a hardcover book of their collaborative efforts, combining Corbijn-shot portraits and lyrics “from major Waits albums.” The book, titled Waits/Corbijn, contains 160 pages, including 75 color and duotone plates, and will drop this fall from publisher Schirmer/Mosel.

Meanwhile, Both Waits and Corbijn have been turning their attention towards film of late, with Waits opting for a starring role as Mr. Nick, aka the Devil, in Terry Gilliam’s forthcoming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Corbijn is following up his solid feature film directorial debut, the Ian Curtis biopic Control, with A Very Private Gentleman. According to IMDB, the latter film has George Clooney signed on as both a producer and lead actor. Waits is also doing a movie with Denzel Washington due out next year called The Book of Eli.

For more info and to pre-order Waits/Corbijn, click here.

They’ve been around for less than a decade, but the Independent Music Awards always seem to get a few famous judges to help draw attention to the contest. For this year’s events, Tom Waits and his songwriting partner/wife Kathleen Brennan are returning as judges, as well as one of the most random groups of music stars you could come up with.

She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward) start off the list on the contest’s website, which includes Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus, Hanson, Korn’s Brian “Head” Welch, The Black Keys, Aimee Mann, and others.

I’m not really sure how big of a splash winning an Independent Music Award will make these days, but they do have open submissions and getting Tom Waits to listen to your stuff is a pretty good opportunity in my book.

Whenever Tom Waits takes on an acting role, he can basically pick any famous director he wants. So it’s no wonder Waits has chosen films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Terry Gilliam, and Robert Altman to show off his more than capable acting chops. This year, Waits has been getting rave reviews for his turn as Mr. Nick (aka Satan) in Terry Gilliam’s star-studded The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Heath Ledger’s final film). In a post on the film’s official site, Gilliam reveals how easy it was to get Waits to join the cast and Waits muses on how he got into character as the devil.

Gilliam says it all started when he passed a friend’s script on to Waits, adding, “He turned down my friend, but asked ‘have you got anything going for me?’ And I said ‘well, there is this interesting part in my new film…’ and that was it. Just like that. I said, ‘I’d got a part’ and he said ‘I’m in.’ Before he’d read the script.” Just like that, then.”

On how he got into character, Waits says he didn’t try to take on 2,000 years of history. “How do you play the devil?” Waits asks. “How do you play an archetype that large, that deep in history? I finally realized that I was just going to have to play it myself; it’s my devil. It’s the way I play the devil.”

In a recent Q&A in Brooklyn about his unauthorized biography, Low Side of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, author Barney Hoskyns mentioned that Waits’ litigious past made him very nervous while writing the book. Now it looks like he dodged a lawsuit from Waits, but Herb Cohen, a former record company executive and manager for Tom Waits and Frank Zappa, is suing Hoskyns and his publisher, Random House, for $1 million over claims allegedly made in the book.

Courthouse News reports that Cohen claims the book falsely describes litigation against him by Waits regarding stolen royalties. Though Cohen concedes that Waits did sue him once in the early 80s over his company’s unauthorized licensing of two songs for commercials, Cohen denies that there was ever a legal spat over royalties or copyright issues between he and the legendary troubadour.

One excerpt from the book that’s cited in the lawsuit describes Waits’ wife and songwriting partner Kathleen Brennan telling Jerry Yester that Waits was ripped off by Cohen. “Kathleen told me Herbie had nicked a lot of money from Tom… Waits absolutely trusted Herbie to his core, and it devastated him when he found out that he had grabbed a lot of the royalties,” Yester allegedly told Hoskyns.

Imagine how pissed Waits will be if he gets subpoenaed over an unauthorized biography.

Bryan “Brain” Mantia, the former drummer for Primus and occasional member of Guns N’ Roses, taped an in studio video for EQ magazine recently with drum tips and talk of famous projects, including his work with Tom Waits and on Axl Rose’s Chinese Democracy.

Brain’s Tom Waits story is funny, but not really surprising given Waits’ known penchant for found equipment. In the story (watch here), Brain said that he set up a $10,000 DW drum kit that was given to him as part of an endorsement deal at the studio. Then Waits arrived at the “Big In Japan” session. “He walks in and he looks at it and literally it’s like set up perfect like something you would see at a music store,” Mantia said. “And the first thing he says is like ‘Can you get that at Guitar Center?’ And I was just like, ‘well I didn’t get it at Guitar Center, but you can buy it at Guitar Center.’” Waits then started dragging rusty old equipment into the studio and insisted that Brain not use anything available at a retail store.

The Axl Rose bit provides some insight into how Chinese Democracy took so long. Brain says Axl demanded he replay the exact same parts recorded by previous drummer Josh Freese on 30 songs because Rose wanted Brain’s feel, but Freese’s exact fills and beats. Mantia had to get all 30 beats transcribed, post a giant transcription above his kit, and spend 2 weeks learning each song, while the rest of the band and crew “would be watching cartoons or The Exorcist” at a cost of $2,000 per day. He was done 7-8 months later, so I guess that accounts for 1 of the 15 years.

For Brain’s various recording session stories and drum lessons from the man himself, click here.