Heart of Saturday Night took place at Wally Heider's Studio 3 on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood in April and May, with Waits conceptualising the album as a sequence of songs about U.S. nightlife. The album was far more widely reviewed than Closing Time had been, reflecting Waits's growing notability on the American music scene. Waits himself was later dismissive of the album, describing it as "very ill-formed, but I was trying". After recording The Heart of Saturday Night, Waits reluctantly agreed to tour with Zappa again, but once more faced strong audience hostility. The kudos of having supported Zappa's tour nevertheless bolstered his image in the music industry and helped his career. In October 1974, he first performed as the headline act before touring the East Coast; in New York City he met and befriended the singer Bette Midler, with whom he had a sporadic affair. Back in Los Angeles, Cohen suggested Waits produce a live album. To this end, he performed two live shows at the Record Plant Studio in front of an audience. Again produced and engineered by Howe (as all his future Asylum releases would be), the recording was released as Nighthawks at the Diner in October 1975. He followed this with a week's residency at the Reno Sweeney nightclub, an off-Broadway–style club in New York City. In December he appeared on the PBS concert show Soundstage. From March to May 1976, he toured the U.S., telling interviewers that the experience was tough and that he was drinking too much alcohol. In May, he embarked on his first tour of Europe, performing in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Copenhagen. On his return to Los Angeles, he joined his friend Chuck E. Weiss by moving into the Tropicana motel in West Hollywood, a place that already had an established reputation in rock music circles. Visitors noted his two-room apartment there was heavily cluttered. He was living in what biographer Hoskyns later called a "pastiche of poverty"; Waits told the Los Angeles Times that "You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty". Small Change and Foreign Affairs: 1976–1978 In July 1976, he recorded the album Small Change, again produced by Howe. In later years, he described it as a seminal episode in his development as a songwriter, describing it as the point when he became "completely