Tom Waits’ terrific fifth album ‘Foreign Affairs’ was released on this day (September 13) in 1977. I reviewed it for the monthly Crawdaddy (it was one of the many plum assignments that editor Jon Pareles gave me).

Back then, I was 21 and living at my folks’ house in the Bronx. I would lock myself up in their basement (when I wasn’t going to shows) and listen to test pressings of albums that were assigned to me to review.

It was always a nerve-racking experience to review albums because you hoped and prayed you would  “get it right“ and do a great album justice. There was of course no Internet back then so you couldn’t read, and perhaps be influenced by, what other writers may have been saying about a particular album ahead of its release. You were pretty much on your own when it came to forming an opinion.

Years later, in 1999 at MSO PR, I handled the PR, along with my friend and former associate Tresa Redburn, for Waits’ deeply moving “Mule Variations” album. That was a fantastic full circle moment for me.