mr. tom profile picture

mr. tom

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

About Me

Send lawyers, guns, and money! Friend of Hank W.

My Interests

Escaping reality.

I'd like to meet:

Homer Simpson, Jeffrey Lebowski

Music:

"Night Train" rules, but you name it, so long as it's funky but chic. Anything from "Doin' My Own Thing" to "Maintaining My Cool", "Lost Highway" to "Cry Me A River". My main man: Magic Slim & the Teardrops, the last real Chicago blues band. ..

Movies:

Noir; Coen Brothers; music films (NOT musicals); Barfly; Pee Wee's Big Adventure; The Harder They Come

Television:

Never touch the stuff.

Books:

by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bukowski (there's a trio often cited in institutions of higher learning), Nabokov's Lolita, Nick Tosches, Charlie Huston, detective novels, Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Under the Volcano, Jack Vance, Fraser's Flashman novels, and (especially) music biographies and genre studies (just finished James Brown's autobiography and a bio of Mike Bloomfield; now on Howlin' Wolf's bio and an overview of country music)

Heroes:

Chuck Taylor; whoever discovered coffee as a beverage; the person who determined olives are edible; Leo Fender; the original Shark Tank mixologist; Henry Chinaski - "I don't hate people. I just feel better when they're not around."

My Blog

Worthy causes

It might be better to look good than to feel good, but doing good trumps ’em both. Herewith I present you with two opportunities to build your supply of good karma. The quick: Chris Gaffney of H...
Posted by mr. tom on Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:54:00 PST

New profile tune

Start the player and dig "Can't Let Go", a soulful cut from Sean Costello's terrific upcoming recording. It's great stuff all around. Sean and his core group of Aaron Trubic and Paul Campanella Jr. ar...
Posted by mr. tom on Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:09:00 PST

New photo

In fact, it's a semi-vintage pic of me with the legendary Chicago bluesman, Eddie C. Campbell. He and Magic Slim are the reason I own my '60 Jazzmaster. I paid a little too much for it in 1988 or 1989...
Posted by mr. tom on Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:47:00 PST

Check It Out: Sean Costello advance track

You would be remiss not to take a listen to the killer song I've linked on this page. It's some of the output of Sean Costello's recent foray into the studio - he and the band (several versions o...
Posted by mr. tom on Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:26:00 PST

One of those days

You were saying something about 'best intentions'? Well, the stars were so far out of line today that I had to eat a ticket to see Richard Thompson and band because I just couldn't make getting out of...
Posted by mr. tom on Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:35:00 PST

Now playing:

Bob Wills, Take Me Back to Tulsa (Proper box)Last: Prince, EmancipationNext: Bee Houston, The HustlerThen: Sylvain Sylvain, New York's A Go GoNeed meds?!
Posted by mr. tom on Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:06:00 PST

Jim Suhler & Monkey Beat

I was lucky enough to catch Jim Suhler's show tonight, here in the not-so-great white north, in a club that should be great but has devolved into a meat market. It's probably good that the crowd was s...
Posted by mr. tom on Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:25:00 PST

Now playing: Holland K Smith

Just picked up Enough is Enough from Pacific Blues (I was looking to replace my copy of Horton's Briefcase with Sven Zetterberg). Not sure how I missed this one - I have a couple of his Top Cat discs ...
Posted by mr. tom on Thu, 31 May 2007 07:27:00 PST