*Hey guys. Sorry about the lack of post last week. Took the holidays off.
On October 13th 2010, Matt Shad was driving home from work when suddenly he felt a large bump in the road and looked in his rear view mirror to see the entire exhaust assembly of his 1992 Ford Focus laying on the ground behind his now damaged car
Shad is just one of a growing number of Tom Waits fans who has fallen victim to such a tragic breakdown in recent years. A recent study from the Institute for Roadside Safety has found that over the past 20 years since the Rock and Roll hall of Fame recording artist first signed with record label Island there has been a steadily growing correlation between those who listen to the discordant music of the recording artist and those who find themselves failing to notice pieces of their cars dragging on the ground behind them.
What's more it appears the problem may not be limited to dragging incidents such as Mr. Shads. Correlations have also been found between foreign objects caught in the engine, cars back firing loudly and failures to acknowledge loose or broken elements of the suspension.
In an interview with Reuters Mrs. Callie Bastion of the totally unrelated conservative think tank "Family Research Group" had the following to say on the matter.
"While we are cautious to point fingers or even speak prematurely about any direct evidence of causality; early findings suggest that the loud and raucous music of Mr. Waits more recent career is, to many fans, indistinguishable from the sound of screeching metal fatiguing to the breaking point."
Other theories for the strange increase in accidents are that Tom Waits fans are actually deaf and choose to label themselves as Tom Waits fans because, although he has strong name recognition, virtually no one is able to actually name any of his individual songs, or produce a copy of one of his actual albums.
This most recent theory has largely been rejected by Mr. Waits' fan base. Matt Shad has stated publicly that while he is a Tom Waits fan, he was not listening to him at the time of the accident and believes that he simply didn't notice the deafening roar from his unmuffled engine and high pitched scraping from his exhaust pipe on the ground because, as a Tom Waits fan, he finds such noises to be soothing.
One other anonymous Tom Waits fan who responded to our requests for an interview said through a sign language interpreter "I like Tom Waits music, period. The fact that I'm deaf is totally unrelated. Mule Variations is my favorite album...Oh you don't own any Tom Waits? Oh well, I guess we won't be able to listen to it then."
When Broad Shoulders tried to reach Mr. Waits for an interview we were only able to get a sound akin to lag screws in a blender, accompanied by the apparent cooing of a dove.
The authors of this study have stated that they believe this may be a break though in the study of music as it correlates to behavior and are currently seeking grants to study recent rises in the rate of narcolepsy amongst smooth jazz fans.