Member Since: 10/28/2005
Band Website: tommywomack.com
Band Members:
The main band in Nashville and some other towns: Me, guitar and vocals. Paul Slivka, bass and vocals. Fenner Castner, drums and vocals. Lisa Gray, vocals and acoustic guitar.
But I'm a man of many bands in many cities. In Birmingham, AL I play with Jay Johnson and Tommy Prewitt. In St. Louis I've played with a band and one of the guys name is John and that's all I remember other than it was a great gig. In Iowa I used David Zollo ..s and a great drummer who's another name that escapes me, but it was a great gig. In England, my band is Paddy Bradley, drums, Dougie Robertson, bass and John Barker, guitar. In New York I've used Will Rigby, drums, Mark Spencer on guitar and Scott Yoder on bass among others. In St. Paul one night Slim Dunlap of the Replacements was my backing band. In Italy one tour it was Enrico Catena, drums, Max D'Lago on bass and Elisabeth Cutler on guitar. I've literally walked onstage and met my musicians for that night right there on the stage. You'd think it's a recipe for disaster but I seem to have a knack for it. It's rock and roll, it ain't brain surgery. It always turns out great. The trick is to hold your guitar where the bass player can see what the chords are and lead the drummer with your ass, which in my case there ain't much ass to shake but I do my best with what I've got. CONTACTS:
For distribution contact Thirty Tigers www.thirtytigers.com or www.myspace.com/thirtytigers
For label contact Cedar Creek Music at
http://www.cedarcreekmusic.com
For booking, management & publicity contact Mary Sack at [email protected]
Influences: Jesus. The Rolling Stones. Abraham Lincoln. Muddy Waters. Freedy Johnston. Ray Davies. Bob Dylan. Chuck Berry. Todd Snider. Will Kimbrough. Keith Richards. Bill Hicks. The Clash. John Lennon. Jason & the Scorchers. R.E.M. Bruce Springsteen. Robert Johnson. Cheap Trick. John Prine. The Velvet Underground. Del Amitri. Patti Smith. Randy Newman. John Hiatt. Dan Baird. Ronnie Van Zandt, Gary Rossington & Allen Collins. The Dictators. The Faces. Waylon Jennings. Elvis Presley. Johnny Cash. Richard Thompson. The Beatles. The Replacements. Eddie Arnold. Peter Buck. Willie Nelson. Steve Martin. Monty Python. Tom Robbins. Mark Twain. The Who. Merle Haggard. Thelonious Monk. Nick Lowe. N.R.B.Q. Stevie Ray Vaughn. Warner Hodges. The Kinks. Tom Littlefield & the Questionnaires. Jason Ringenberg. Led Zeppelin. Cary Hudson. Robbie Fulks. Jimmy Reed. Dale Carnegie. Norman Vincent Peale. The Monkees. Marshall Crenshaw. The New York Dolls. John Anderson. The Ramones. The Neighborhoods. Jonathan Richman. Lou Reed. Frank Sinatra. The Sonics. Dusty Springfield. Allen Ginsberg. D.T. Suzuki. Mom. Dad. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dolly Parton. Webb Wilder. Steve Earle. Joe Ely. Smokey Robinson. Steve Cropper. Stray Cats. Scotty Moore. Arlo Guthrie. Tom Wolfe. The Sex Pistols. Buck Owens. Southern Culture on the Skids. Eddie Cochran. Three Dog Night. Carl Perkins. Jerry Lee Lewis. The Happy Goodmans. Charlie Watts. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. Ken Kesey. Carole King. Elvis Costello. Neil Young. Husker Du. James Taylor. Harry Truman. Joe King. Howlin' Wolf. Johnny Carson.
Sounds Like: I aim to pick up Bill Hicks' Cross and combine that with what Todd Snider and Steve Earle do. I put a guitar around my torso and aim for truth with a capital T and a lot of people come to see me just to hear what's going to come out of my mouth next, which is often as much a surprise to me as it is to them. That can make for great entertainment for an hour onstage but let me tell you it's no picnic having to be the guy who says all that stuff, all day every day. There's this popular myth that I'm some sort of iconoclastic lunatic who acts crazy and runs at the mouth and doesn't "see" himself the way everybody else does. Not true. I remember every great and terrible thing I've ever done on a stage and believe me I've done plenty of both. I'd give anything for one day a week of not being me, one morning a week where I can wake up and not be immediately embarrassed by something I said or did last night or ten years ago.
Oh yeah, what do I SOUND like? Well, I sound like a 44-year-old white guy who start out in punk and grew into a grizzled singer-songwriter with a bone up his ass, who's at least learned enough about singing to know what not to do. I write great lyrics even though I know they're secondary to the primary purpose of making you feel good. I play damn good rhythm guitar and pretty good Keith Richards-style slash and burn leads. That's the electric gigs. Most gigs are acoustic though (budget, you know) so on those gigs, on the acoustic guitar I'm really good about framing my voice with it, sometimes playing loud, sometimes barely breathing on the strings. Past that, I ain't no virtuoso, but I've got soul. I just try to put my emotions through my intrument and voice and make you feel good, and occasionally talk a blue streak that either makes you laugh out loud or pity me because I'm oviously an idiot who's beyond help.
I'm also real good about fitting into any band I get thrown into and making the band sound better (so if you ever need a guitar player...). My idea of Heaven on Earth is just playing rhythm guitar, locking in with the drummer, and letting somebody like Will Kimbrough play all the fancy shit while I just go to that trance place rhythm takes you to. As they say, I don't play my instrument; I play the song. As for a "format" of music I play. They call it Americana, or indie music. I call it country rock and roll blues with a lot of words. Let's have a contest. Comeup with a genre name for me. I'll pick the one I like and we'll start a trend.
Discography
Stubborn
Positively Na Na
Circus Town
Washington D.C.
Daddy- Live at the Women's Club
Government Cheese doing Somewhere Between
..
Government Cheese doing Camping on Acid, Live at the Exit Inn 1992
Record Label: Cedar Creek Records
Type of Label: Indie