Tom Swafford

I am originally from Seattle, WA. I've also lived in Boston, the Bay Area and Amsterdam. I'm now starting a new phase of life in Brooklyn. I have several new projects going; including String Power, a group of 11 string players playing arrangements I've done of everything from Slayer to the Carter Family to Rembetica music. I've got some very great players lined up for this and I'm very excited. I've also started playing keyboard with a killer band called $.99 Dreams, we have several performances this fall. The Golden Crackers (which I play violin in) has played in parks and subways all over New York and we plan to finish a CD this fall. Photography is my new hobby. I have some of my arty pictures in the photo section here. I've also scanned in a bunch of pictures of myself at various ages with my various hairstyles (mullet, cornrows, etc) and images (nerd, rocker, hippy etc). My new website www.tomswafford.com is up and running thanks to Tony Greaves (Alleged Artist), who built the entire thing in three days. I put up some hip new photos of myself taken by Natalia (nnataly). When people ask me what kind of music I play I always find it hard to answer. Go to the MP3 section at my new website and you will see what I mean. Some well known people I have played with are: Guster, Papas Fritas, The Degenerate Art Ensemble, Wayne Horvitz, and Stuart Dempster. I have a Ph.D. in composition from U.C. Berkeley. I hope to reach the point where playing and writing music is its own reward. It's easy to get obsessed with audience approval- and don't get me wrong, I want people to be genuinely moved by the music I play- but I think that the healthiest approach is to derive real satisfaction from the process of creating. And that includes everything from the initial impulse to the final product. Finding that intrinsic motivation is the key. I like to think that whether or not I become really famous or successful, I will always be able to enjoy making music.