drummers - FYI

from the boys in pawnshop roses:

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Pawnshop Roses are looking for a drummer who is willing to tour. We have recently released the album "Let it Roll" on Earvolution Records and are looking to really hit the road. Here are our credentials:

"You may recognize them from winning the YouTube Underground Contest for Best Live Video and appearing on Good Morning America, where they will always be known as the band that got Diane Sawyer to say "It Gets So Hard" on live tv .

After the YouTube win, the band signed with Earvolution Records ( profiled this week on CMJ) who put them in the studio with producer Pete Donnelly of the Figgs (Amos Lee/G-Love/Graham Parker) with a couple song co-arrangements by noted alt-country artist Tom Gillam. Donnelly adds some vocal, guitar and bass backing on a few tracks while Jonn Savannah (Van Morrison, Joe Cocker, Squeeze) sits in for piano on a two tracks as well. The record is being distributed by Home Grown Distribution and is available on all electronic outlets including iTunes via digital distributor TuneCore."

* we also have just charted no. 25 on the Homegrown Music Radio Chart.

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hell of a band, guys. if you need a gig, you should drop 'em a line.

pkeenez@yahoo.com




peace,


T

where have i been? glad you asked...

hi, all...


if the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions, i should be approaching the city limits any minute now...i took down my entire site, leaving only an index page, with every intention of completely rebuilding it within a matter of weeks. and, of course, that didn't exactly work out the way i thought it would. projects have cropped up, bands have been joined, many shows have been played - it's been a bit of a whirlwind, these past few months. here's the scoop.


no sooner did we get the doors open at the steelyard than we had our first project in the door - the third record from the barley boys, which came to be titled no more shenanigans. to say that it was a challenge for all concerned would be something of an understatement, and i'm sure no one would agree with me more than the band themselves.

it being a new room and all, there was a lot of tweaking going on while we worked, a lot of experimentation during the recording process, trying to get the best possible results in an as yet unproven room, with newly installed equipment.

oh, and did i mention we had only three weeks in which to do the record?

we had to have a finished copy of the album in the hands of QVC's legal department by february 1st in order to participate in their annual st. patricks' day sale. we got started in mid-january.

i think that, in hindsight, we'd have all loved to have more time to have worked on it, but all in all, all things considered - it came out ok.

in the time since, a lot of other opportunities have presented themselves, and it's becoming obvious that the studio is going to far surpass our original vision for it - which was essentially a private playground for us and our pet projects. and we're making peace with that....slowly but surely. :)

around the time that the st. patricks' day weekend rolled around with the barleys, i had gotten a call from my friend dan may, who i had finally gotten an opportunity to meet in person at a co-bill with charlie degenhart at chaplin's - and i hit it off with the guys in the band. not much later, the job became available due to his current guitarist moving on to another job, so i jumped on it. this created a bit of a predicament, though...we had a show coming up in two weeks, and the toledo show in less than a month - and i don't doubt for a minute that there were serious reservations with regard to whether or not i'd be able to pull it off.

i did have one thing going for me, though...i had become intimately familiar with dans' music from having listened to both of his albums since their release - so learning the songs and the necessary vocal harmonies came together a lot more quickly than anyone anticipated, i think. the chaplins' show and the toledo gig went very well, and in the time since, dan's live appearances are multiplying quite a bit - we've taken on a couple of festival dates this summer (to include the prestigious philadelphia folk festival...so we're all really happy about the way things are going for the band. i have to say that in the years i've been doing this, it's been a long time since i've worked with someone who generates the kind of connection with an audience that dan does...his material is first rate and it's a real pleasure to be part of what he's doing.

a lot of great gigs so far this year, as well...a benefit that gerry mcwilliams put together for bertony baptiste, a haitian immigrant who was shot in the face during a robbery attempt...which led to two other gigs with malone and mcwilliams, at the wilmington flower market and on a co-bill with dan may at milkboy. we're discussing the idea of their coming out to the steelyard to work on their next record...after the wilmington show, with literally NO rehearsal, i'm excited about the prospect of working with them. they have a great group of guys together.

let's see, what else...the jack frost celtic festival with the barley boys, opening for hal ketchum at the sellersville theatre with dan may, suzanne gorman's show at world cafe live (and playing there a week later with my hetero life mate, blake allen), and yet another great songwriters' night at chaplins' with perennials jim femino and skip denenberg, and guests larry burnett and kate klim.

and, of course, sprinkled in between all that, there's been session work, my occasional happy hour gigs here in town, and...yeah, the day job, too.

now, in other, more sobering news...


i have a good friend and a phenomenal musician who, in less than 12 hours, is going to be heading to fox chase cancer center for exploratory surgery to determine his prognosis for a recent cancer diagnosis. he's a professional musician, and as such, is going to be struggling with this financially long after whatever fate awaits him has made itself known. i won't single him out here, because i don't know that he necessarily wants that, but i hope those of you who are inclined to do so will keep him in your prayers.


and i'll try to do my part to keep on top of keeping you up to date.

a midsummer night's update

hi, everyone....



it's that time again - so here's what's going on at the moment. first, though, to those of you who may have some insight: i haven't really begun looking yet, but i wanted to get some input first - do any of you use third-party software for managing mailing lists?

i ask because i decided to go have a peek at the mailing list and saw that it had tripled in size...a lot of entries had crept in from addresses at "@0451.com", and various addresses from ".ru" (russia, where i'm apparently bigger than the beatles, based on how many of those were in there.)

so if you have something for this sort of thing that works great for you, please let me know...obviously, i have to think about this at this point. :)


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so what do you do when you can't really do much else? well...build a website, that's what!

a few of you know about my involvement with a charity auction that i've been working on with grace grantham (daughter of original poco drummer george grantham)...we've been collecting items to auction off for a month and a half, and the first auctions start on monday, august 7th. in the interim, i took some time over the last couple of days to assemble the necessary stuff to upload our new website, which you can find at www.puttingheadstogether.org - we're hoping it will act as a portal between fans of the band and george, as well. time will tell.

in the meantime, stop by the site to see what goodies we're going to be auctioning off...we're hoping to have new lots of items every other week or so. we have a lot to start with, so we're rationing them in lots of a dozen or so for the moment, starting with stuff from the kentucky headhunters, steve wariner, don henley, timothy b. schmit, and others.


to stop by the site:

http://www.puttingheadstogether.org


read about us on modern drummer online:

http://www.moderndrummer.com/viewfullnews/300001044


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sideman work continues to be an adventure:

******

most of you who are my age remember firefall - a phenomenal band who sold millions of albums in the mid to late seventies with hits like "you are the woman", "just remember i love you", "so long", "cinderella"....while their love songs were all over the radio, i always found myself drawn to larry burnett's songs - no one could call "cinderella" your typical love ballad, to be sure. his songs were always the perfect counterpoint to rick roberts' material. when i started working on "our mutual angels" i had actually recorded a version of larry's song "business is business", but i let myself get talked out of including it on the album. "only time will tell" from the "undertow" album was a staple of my setlist back in the day, as well.

i did a show with blake allen, opening for dave mason last month...and it turns out that the other guitar player in daves' band is a fellow named johnne sambatora, who spent six years in firefall in the eighties, and has quite a resume (in addition to being a hell of a nice guy). the conversation i had with johnne about firefall (among other things) left me curious as to whatever happened to larry, so i decided i was gonna try to find out.

as fate would have it, it wasn't that difficult - google took me straight to www.larryburnett.com, and i struck up an email conversation with him...larry released a limited edition, six song EP called "confidence game" a couple of years ago, and started work on a full-length, full-band follow up, but it stalled. well, to make a long story a little less painful if not short, larry and i are in the planning stages of finishing his upcoming record together, and we're also putting together the necessary arrangements to get some live work happening as well...i've already talked to a couple of folks who are making room on their calendars, so i'll keep you all posted. you won't want to miss these shows.

*******

this saturday night, i'll be playing with ben arnold's band at steel city coffeehouse in phoenixville, PA. ben is billing the show as the "ben arnold steel city roadhouse show"...we're stripping it down somewhat, keeping it relatively loose and greasy, playing some ben favorites and a few covers, as well. i'll be doing my usual lap steel/dobro/mandolin duty. lee schusterman, who played piano on my first record, is in bens' band, as well as jim stager on bass and a drummer to be named later (for this show...usually holding down the drum throne and the harmonies would be matt muir). showtime is 8pm...come see us!

http://www.benarnold.com
http://www.steelcitycoffeehouse.com

*******

back in june, i took a weekends' worth of work on a lark with an irish band called the barley boys - they had some important shows coming up, and they were looking for a temporary fifth member, and - what with construction starting on the studio around that time - i was accepting all comers. it turned out to be one of the best weekends of live work i've had in recent memory. let me tell ya - these guys are ACE musicians, every one of them, and we had an absolute blast at all three shows.

i'll be appearing with the barley boys again on QVC over labor day weekend, and also at the wildwood celtic festival in september, among other selected dates. stop by their website for their complete calendar, or to purchase either of their first two CD's:

http://www.thebarleyboys.com


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i got a pretty stern lecture from a buddy of mine recently about my complete lack of enthusiasm for promoting my solo acoustic shows, and i promised that i'd do two things....one, i'd at least mention them in my next newsletter, and two, i'd update the calendars on my website and myspace page.

this should pay off the first part of that debt:

August 6th Union County Peace Fair, Cranford NJ (http://www.unioncountypeace.org)
August 19th Canal Street Pub, Reading PA
August 30th Roosevelts' Tavern, York PA
September 2nd TomStock, Stamford CT
October 28th Village Harvest Festival, Morgantown PA

again, these are strictly solo Tom Hampton shows...few and far between, as the universe dictates. :)



so, as always, i hope this update finds all of you well - stay in touch!

update - early spring 2006

these past months have seen an explosion of session work on my part, and it's been a blast to work on a handful of really great projects. i've had the privelege of being a part of one of the last projects to be recorded in the legendary upstairs room at studio four in conshohocken - the forthcoming album from boris garcia, mother's finest. i added a lap steel part to "higher love" that turned out great. i've also had the privelege, these past few weeks, of working with skip denenberg on a new song that he's recording for a feature film at the legendary Philadelphia International Records studios - playground of the songwriting duo of kenny gamble and leon huff. skip has had me throw everything but the kitchen sink at this one - electric guitar, 12 string electric, lap steel, dobro, mandolin...he also summoned me for "ooooh" duty in the choruses. :)

a word about Philly International - this is the studio from which the legendary Philadelphia International label was run, which cranked out all those amazing "Philly Sound" hits from the seventies - the O'Jays, Lou Rawls, Teddy Pendergrass, Patti Labelle, Billy Paul...the list goes on and on. if you listened to top 40 radio at all between 1973 and 1976, you couldn't escape their reach. and in a lot of senses, the studio is the same as it was then...the technology has been upgraded, but there's still orange and lime green shag carpet on the walls, and the piano that Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wrote all those songs on is still there in the live room in the main tracking studio. (and hell yeah, i sat down and played it for a few minutes before we got to work...wouldn't you?)

anyway, the song is complete at this point, and skip and ace engineer craig white will be mixing the song within the next few days, along with co-producer simon illa...coming to a theatre near you soon!

gamble and huff music
skip denenberg
simon illa
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darcie miner...some of you know who she is, and all of you probably will soon. darcie is a phenomenal songwriting talent who just happens to sing like an angel. her most recent release is her steve ward-produced fragile EP, featuring the song "fly" (which has received over 20,000 plays on her myspace page). i've been crossing paths with darcie for years - the first time i saw her play was when we were on a bill together at SoberStock, an all-day outdoor festival at an amphitheatre in northern berks...then a few years later during a PMC showcase when i was playing in charlie degenharts' band. she's currently in the Mad Dragon studio working on a small collection of new songs that are just amazing, and i got to add some lap steel and mandolin to a pair of tracks (i also played drums on one of them).

those of you on my list in the nashville area - darcie will be playing in nashville at windows on the cumberland this coming wednesday, the 17th, at 9pm...if it's an off night for you and you're in town, you should go check her out. she's phenomenal, and i can't wait to hear the results from what we've done in the studio...the lap steel work on "explain this to me" is probably going to end up among some of my favorite work.

darcie miner official site
darcies' myspace
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friends in this business are hard to come by...friends who remain friends for extended periods of time are even more so. i've known the guys in Shame for over a decade now, and have been their unofficial fifth member for most of that time - occasionally joining them onstage and playing on songs from their five albums to date.

this past month, i engineered a live recording of the band at shippensburg university that will be released later this summer...and last week, they officially extended an invitation to me to produce their next studio album. after much discussion, we've decided to move forward with the album by using the t-bone burnett prescription for a great record...find a space somewhere that the band can use to sequester themselves at will and concentrate on their project without any interruptions from clock-watching hangers-on, and take the time to fully explore the best means for communicating the songs. it's a rather open arrangement at this point, for as some of you know, i've had to relocate recently and the studio itself has gone into mothballs as a result. so if things work out, the band and i may enter into an actual partnership - whereby we'll be joint owners of the studio as it eventually manifests itself. (we're still looking at spaces...ideas, suggestions, and intense fits of "what could you guys possibly be thinking?" are welcome.)

shame official site
shame's myspace
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as mentioned, the hunt for an appropriate space for the studio is ongoing - there are several projects that i'm working on that are in limbo, unfortunately, until such time as a new home is found for the mountains of equipment that are currently enjoying their extended storage-space hiatus. those projects include the Poco Tribute Album that's at about the 45% completion point, some tracking for good friend Michael Anthony Smith, and some tracks for one of my former bosses, Nik Everett.

while we're waiting for the opportunity to complete the Poco Tribute Album, though, i'm working with Georges' daughter, Grace, to get a new concept off the ground. Grace emailed me some time back with a new idea for helping to raise money for her dad's medical fund. she wanted to assemble some friends in nashville this fathers' day, while she's in town, to gather together various drum accessories and paint them or otherwise adorn them in some way to make them special, have George autograph them, and then sell or auction them for the charity. we talked about it quite a bit over time, and what we've decided to do is focus on drum items that are more traditionally considered souvenirs - sticks, drum heads, and the like. heads seem to make the most sense from the perspective of being able to sketch or paint or otherwise decorate them, and they're easily framed or displayed...so we've been focusing on those, as an offering. i've contacted a handful of folks about the project, and so far, the response has been great - pearl was first to jump on board, going above and beyond the call by donating one of their top of the line, sensitone snare drums to the cause, and more folks are coming into the fray all the time.

so, stand by for a formal announcement and a website for Putting Heads Together within the next week or so.

also, if you're a Poco, Pure Prairie League, or Firefall fan....all three bands are returning to PA this summer. They'll be playing at Penns' Peak in Jim Thorpe in August. Poco - well, they're Poco. I can't really say anything else to make that any cooler than it already is. PPL is on a tear...they sound amazing of late. their harmonies will raise the hairs on the back of your neck, and the material from their new record, all in good time, is clear evidence that they're at the top of their game. stop by their site and listen to "sure do miss you now" or "the cost of doing business" or the live version of "if you could say what i'm thinking" (the old Orrall and Wright song)...great stuff!

poco official site
pure prairie league official site
putting heads together site
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some breaking news....

hi, everyone!


first of all, thanks to all of you who made it to the show with poco on friday night - it was certainly a thrill to get to play with my friends again, and they sounded amazing, as usual. a whole gaggle of friends made it out to the gig...thanks to dave minnich, mitch deighan, danny mcshane, chris and jake soleil, bruce heffner, keith and sue amos, doug and joanne, dennis and esther whelan, charlie and dorothy wade, jason and his wife, sean hickey, and all the others who were able to make it. jon rosenbaum came down from stamford, ct for the show as well, and dean sciarra from my new label home, itsaboutmusic.com was in the audience as well. special kudos to dean and fern brodkin from its about music for all their help this week in assembling, mastering, and manufacturing the first volume of noises from the basement in time to make them available for the show. fern was an absolute trooper and manned the merchandise table from the beginning of the night until all the fans had filed out of the theatre - i really appreciate it.


the guys in my band performed like a machine under what could be considered less-than-ideal conditions by some. we assembled this lineup and rehearsed a total of three times before this show. most bands take a significantly longer time to pull together a set of material well enough to be able to go out and play them in a corner bar...much less a full house in a theatre setting in front of a band that, by all rights, should be in the rock and roll hall of fame. they handled the transition from tony's living room to the concert stage like complete professionals, and i appreciate their efforts. blake allen on guitar, quin jones on hammond organ, tony schepps on bass and rob "the carbuerator" johnson on drums. true professionals.

thanks to the band families for coming out and supporting us, as well.


earlier, you might have noticed a mention of a new CD, called noises from the basement...well, here's the scoop.

since i began work on blake allen's solo album, i've been accumulating a backlog of various demos of songs that never made it onto records, cover songs recorded in the studio, and other little tidbits that would never see the light of day under normal circumstances. so after i got a little weary of making compilation CD's for my friends, i decided that i was going to put these things out into the world for pretty much anyone to enjoy. so i decided that i'd release them in volumes, and name them after the studio blog from my website - thus, noises from the basement.

thanks to the efforts of dean and fern at it's about music, we were able to take this project from the concept stage to having a finished product in our hands in roughly a week - that's a testament to expertise, professionalism, and dedication to what they do.

so on friday night, we were able to make volume one of noises from the basement available to the folks who attended the show, even though the album isn't yet available on the site. within the coming week, the new album will be available via a link to the itsaboutmusic.com site page where you'll be able to buy both the new album and our mutual angels through their secure shopping cart.


another addition to the merchandise table - surreal as it still seems to me - has been t-shirts. they'll be available through the site very soon, as well.


i've posted a couple of pictures over on the rear view mirror from the colonial theatre show...stop over and check them out if you want!

our mutual angels available through tower records

hi, there...


for those of you who are regular tower records customers, you can pick up the freshly reissued our mutual angels at tower records by clicking here:


our mutual angels


honestly, the only reason to buy from here is if you're a regular tower customer, or if you have a personal beef with cd baby...but hey - it's there.


while on the subject - thanks to those of you who bought the CD over the weekend...i got an email from CDBaby monday morning at around 11am asking for more CD's, so they must've gone through them pretty quickly. i'm still a little dumbfounded about that...

poco with special guest tom hampton at the colonial theatre

some of you know already, but i'm doing a show with my old friends poco on february 10th at the historic colonial theatre in phoenixville, pa.

longtime friends will remember that this is where we had charlie degenharts' CD release party for bridge street main...it's a great room.

you can inquire about tickets through the colonial box office, through the promoters (point entertainment), or through the ticket vendor, ticketweb.



also, i want to take a minute to thank those of you who responded with such encouragement and support to the virgin installment of the mailing list - it's good to know that i still have so many friends in my corner. some of you i speak with all the time, but some of you are a little further outside my normal operating radius, and i appreciate your taking the time to drop me a line.


so, the site is live now...and while there are some components that still need some tweaking (like that empty cafepress store, for instance...), most of the necessary stuff is here. and i'll be adding to it a lot more regularly now, as well.


again, thanks to all of you...see you soon!



T

let's start by stating the obvious...

hi, all!


as you've no doubt noticed at this point, the entire tomhampton.com site has gotten a pretty radical facelift.

it's been a long time coming...please have a look around and let me know what you think!



T