FILM SCREENING God's Away on Business: The Music of Tom Waits Performed by Madeline McNeill

THE FILM

On Friday the 13th in January 2023, jazz and opera singer Madeline McNeill, with a band and a burlesque dancer, performed the gritty music of Tom Waits to a sanctuary of saints and sinners at the West Central Abbey. Filmmaker Ira Gardner made magic with his camera capturing the shenanigans to create a full length documentary with interviews of the artists and the presiding vicar Jonathan Myers. Together they wove a story of the West Central neighborhood in Spokane, Washington, delving into the dark and light of the spiritual, the sensuous, and finding community.   

THE FUTURE PROJECT

Tom Waits' publisher arranged with our cohort the rights to screen the film for one year starting this December - no easy feat - with an opportunity to renew depending on how we do. We plan to send this film to festivals which stipulate minimal publicity, so we are going old school with a private screening. Join us for a screening of this project! 

"I’ve always loved songs of adventure. Murder ballads, songs about shipwrecks and terrible acts of depravity and heroism. Erotic tales of seductions. Songs of romance, wild courage and mystery. Everyone has tried at one time or another to live inside a song. Songs where people died for love, songs of people on the run, songs of ghost ships or bank robberies. I’ve always wanted to live inside songs and never come back."

-Tom Waits