Tom

Hmm, a bio for the website. Don’cha just hate writing about yourself? Oh well, I guess I’ll take a shot at it by updating the one from the last band I was in.

  I grew up in a fairly musical household, mydad sang Irish music, and we would all gather ‘round the stereo and sing along with whatever records my dad had just brought home. So of course when I got to those teenage years of rebellion, it was all electric guitars and Marshall stacks and loud rock and roll. I mean I was even in a band named “Loud”. But one day I traded in an electric guitar on a classical guitar and started trying to read lute tablature. And soon after that I traded a Les Paul for a mandolin and mandocello.  Started hanging around at renaissance festivals. And somehow I got back around to playing Celtic music again.

  So in the late 1970’s I was playing in a band called Grimalkin at those aforementioned ren faires, including the one north of Houston. Everyone said that we should check out Austin, so one day we packed up the van and drove in, set up on the drag across from the university, and started into our act.  We attracted a large crowd that spilled out into Guadalupe St., so we got shutdown by the police. With that being our first experience of Austin, of course we moved here in 1979.

 That band Grimalkin ended up lasting about10 years, and we played all the famous places around Texas, including The Armadillo World Headquarters, Soap Creek, Liberty Lunch, Gruene Hall, The Kerrville Folk Festival, and the first North Texas Irish Festival. We also won the Austin Chronicle music poll a couple years running in the folk category.However, we only released one self-titled album during all that time.

 After a few short lived projects, I hooked up with a band called the Coffee Sergeants, and did sound for their electric shows, while sitting in on mandolin for their acoustic sets.

 When their acoustic guitarist Mike Barnett (from Grimalkin originally) injured his hand, I ended up playing all the gigs for a while. And then in the mid 1990’s I answered an ad in the Chronicle looking for Celtic musicians, and ended up a founding member of the band Two O’clock Courage.

 Over about a ten-year period, Two O’clock Courage released two critically acclaimed albums, “Feets of Courage” and “Postcards Home”, and performed at many clubs and festivals - from the gulf coast to Chicago. Our last performance was at The Dog ‘n Duck Pub for their big St.Patrick’s Day show in 2005.

 Next in November 2005, a friend of mine that played drums in The Wesley Cox Band called. He had seen me play for a party, and knew I played fiddle. Wanted to know if I wanted to try playing in a country band. Well he is also a neighbor of mine, so I didn’t have to travel too far to audition – just around the corner. And just weeks after that, there I was recording on their “The Road of No Return” album. Singing and playing parts to songs that I had just heard for the first time.

 So most recently I played Austin style country with Wes for about 3 years, until he “put the band on hold” to get areal job. He’s still got a myspace page up with a few songs from that album that I played on, in case y’all want to compare and contrast: http://www.myspace.com/thewesleycoxband  However, he never did put the band back together, and that was 2008, so there I was checking craigslist for a new musical outlet, and I found the Acoustalyn folks. That’s my up to the minute story; who knows what will happen next.