Been on a plane headed back (home) to New England (for the holidays), and missed a couple bits that came across the screen amid airport layovers…

• TwentyFourBit (and everyone’s) fantasy BFF Tom Waits told LA Times that he might be recording a new studio album next spring. And the Waits pull quote FTW: “You write two songs and you put them in a room together and they have offspring.”
• Stereogum counted down the “14 Best Band Beefs” of the year, which is the exact kind of list we’d do if we did lists, but we don’t. Yet.
• Steven Tyler is back in Aerosmith… and rehab. Good on him, I say.
• Our friends at Flavorwire are going mad viral with their lolicious list of indie band fan stereotypes.
• Amoeba Music has a brilliant series called “What’s in My Bag?” Check out vinyl shopping selections by  J. Mascis, Girls, Dead Weather, and more here.

Please stay tuned via RSS, Twitter, or our new Facebook page, as there might be a holiday-themed post coming tomorrow (before we take a day or two off). Also: it’s been almost exactly one year since TFB got off the ground, so expect an emo-esque rant of (possibly alcohol-inspired) graciousness at any moment, as well as some hints about next year’s schemes, dreams, and anti-memes.

Here are a few of today’s bookmarked links worth noting…

• Tomorrow’s big story: Sonic Youth are planning to release a live DVD of their Daydream Nation tour, a film soundtrack, and to start recording LP17. Boom.
• New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen came out in support of a gay marriage bill that the state Senate will vote on today. Bruuuuuuce.
• The United Nations Climate Change Summit kicked off in Copenhagen this week and—though picking Bob Dylan’s “Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” as an unofficial anthem was a nice touch—Antony has been writing to government reps with hopes to serenade delegates with “Another World” as well. mhmmm.
• Long before he was a raspy crooner, a full moon howler, the Devil, or a possible Hobbit, Tom Waits was just a clean-cut, proud member of the Art Guild (via Eyeball Kid).
• Pirate Wars: A growing conglomerate of musicians are suing the (alleged!) $6 billion pants off the Big Four.

Step aside Zac Efron, Hollywood has found a brand new It Boy (who happens to be a 60-year-old man). Okay, that’s a little extreme, but seriously: Tom Waits has always been beloved by music critics, and now his acting chops are finally getting their due.

According to Ain’t It Cool News’ “trusted” source, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro have thrown Tom Waits’ name into the mix of potential actors to either play one of Bilbo Baggins’ entourage of dwarves in forthcoming Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit—or Baggins himself. We think that Waits is more likely being considered to play a dwarf, as our resident Middle-earth expert says, “the other actors being considered [James McAvoy, David Tennant, Martin Freeman, etc.] make way more sense as Bilbo, in terms of age.”

Jay Farrar recently hammered yet another nail in the Uncle Tupelo coffin in a Q&A with Metromix Greenville, saying, “I don’t ever want to see [an Uncle Tupelo reunion] happen, and I don’t think even what Perry Ferrell suggests will make it happen.” What Perry Ferrell had suggested was that a Jane’s Addiction reunion would happen “when the sky rains money.” So the bad news is that money can’t buy a Jeff Tweedy/Farrar reunion, but the good news is that his Kerouac-inspired collaboration with Ben Gibbard makes a pretty good replacement in the interim.

The pair enlisted Nick Harmer, Mark Spencer, and Jon Wurster for a 6-night jaunt through a few major U.S. cities and they even branched out a bit from their album One Fast Move or I’m Gone. Watch here or embedded below as Gibbard and Farrar perform a duet version of Tom Waits’ Closing Time classic “Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards).”

Don’t these guys look like they could be brothers?

When a bearded Trent Reznor played his surprising unplugged set at Neil and Pegi Young’s annual Bridge School Benefit in 2006, many people, myself included, were hoping he would bring the string quartet and piano into the studio for a Nine Inch Nails record. Well that never happened, but two songs from his set, which wooed NIN fans and detractors alike, will be included on Bridge School Collection, Vol. 4, available Tuesday on iTunes.

Tegan and Sara, who also have two tracks on the live compilation, posted a news update on their site with the full track list and it looks like we have yet another charitable release to look forward to (Seattle GIVE, Preservation, etc.).

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.