Clap Hands: Bovine Social Club Performs the Poetry & Song of Tom Waits

Bovine Social Club has had a crush on the music of Tom Waits for years, nodding to his profound lyrics in nearly every one of their shows since 2012. The Bovines first performed their Waits re-creations at the legendary Jazz haunt Deer Head Inn, selling out their Clap Hands show, which earned high praise.

Now they’re hitting the road to celebrate Waits’ perfect spectacle of love and misery, angst and serenity. The Bovines will creatively mine Waits poetry, lyrics, obscurities, and oddities, interpreting and performing them in pure Americana style. “Tom Waits preaches, much like my Pentecostal father, parading across the American emotional landscape,” says Samuel Saint Thomas, band leader for the Bovines. “That’s one thing that attracts me to Waits’ work.”

Bovine Social Club has been lighting up audiences with their original music in listening rooms, famed coffee houses, theaters, and amphitheaters from Vermont to Virginia. Their unique blend of folk music is informed by Celtic, old time, Gospel, country, and bluegrass vocabularies. Formed on the banks of the Delaware River, the band’s rotating lineup of seasoned musicians backs the thoughtful lyrics of vocalist, philosopher, memoirist and former Franciscan brother, Samuel Saint Thomas.

Their debut CD, produced by Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone, charted at #7 on both the Roots and Americana charts. BSC is one of the most highly respected Americana bands in the Northeast, sharing stages with some of the region’s finest talent. Their most recent release “Live at Mauch Chunk Opera House” was recorded at the legendary vaudeville venue in the historic town of Jim Thorpe, PA with their friends from Railroad Earth.