Workin' Hard!!!

Sometimes people ask me, "what do you do?" Well, I guess that depends on what hat I'm wearing.

Sure, I've been singing my songs and playing bass since grade school, but over the years my life is taken on so much more. Singer-songwriter, session bassist, MC, sound and recording engineer, producer, you name it... I've done it.

This up-and-coming season sees me looking at two really great gigs. On June 1st I will once again be hosting the Roots/Americana stage at Cambridge RiverFest by the Harvard bridge. Talent buyer Billy Beard has booked five spectacular acts for the community and I am lucky enough to MC this event once again! It's a great festival, many stages, a ton of music and a real nice day.

Then on August 3rd I will be curating a brand-new stage at Naukabout Music Festival 2013! For the past six years Naukabout has had two stages, a Mainstage and a Side Stage. The big stage has hosted mainstream acts like Bela Fleck, Rusted Root and hometown heroes as well like Ryan Montbleau and Will Dailey. Side stage has hosted great acts as well, Tall Heights, Sarah Blacker Danielle Miraglia just to name a few. This year they will be adding a third acoustic Stage and I have the honor of emceeing the stage as well! I'm very excited about this.

Of course I'm playing around town and hitting the pavement hard at the local haunts. Baker Thomas Band has been going strong at Toad on Thursday nights and is a force not to be taken lightly... for fun of course!!! Every Sunday I'm holding down the fort in Somerville at The Burren with a weekly songwriter series that's been going for more than 10 years. Monday nights I host the Lizard Lounge Open Mic Challenge of course and Wednesdays I've been lucky enough to play the upright bass with Exile On Elm Street at the aforementioned Burren with some great friends!

I hope you're doing well and I hope to see you out there thank you for checking in on www.24hourtom.com

Opening Day at Fenway

 Posted 04.06.13

Hey Folks!  Opening Day at Fenway is this Monday!  

As I write this it's about 1:35 AM Saturday morning and Danielle Miraglia and I just finished recording her song, "Heat Of The WIn," a heart wrenching ballad with a light at the end of the tunnel.  

She'll be offering it for free ONE DAY ONLY!  And that will be OPENING DAY!  

Be sure you hit her website, www.daniellem.com on Monday, and enjoy the latest single to come out of my "24 HouR StudiO!"

!!!24 HouR NewS!!!

 Posted 4/1/13

Hey Folks!  

I've been gratefully busy in this late winter month.  In Marchy work included a great 3 day stretch in the studio playing bass for Chris Trapper's (The Push Stars) new album, a 4 day run of "The Fiddler's of Inishbofin," an irish musical/comedy, a show in which all proceeds went to breast cancer research, the 12 Semi-Annual Lizard Lounge Open Mic Main Event and in the meantime I kept all of my steady weekly residencies afloat! Whew…. March madness is just behind us and spring is here!  

This spring I'm going to do my best to get some new music going for myself, Baker Thomas Band… and it's time to get a new album out for Danielle Miraglia as well!

I was just recently interviewed for Redline Roots, a brand new blog about local music along the Redline train. Here's the link. Enjoy!

Thank you for checking in on your favorite 24 HouR performer! Check out my calendar page and c'mon out and say hi!

Much Love!  See ya out there!

ToM

!!!HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

 Posted 12/25/12

It's Christmas day and underneath the Christmas tree the floor is riddled with the carnage of torn paper, empty boxes and half built toys.  Now that we've gone through manuals and figured out how all the gadgets work, my kids are playing with their new Xbox games and I've got a little time to update the ol' website!

2013 will be business as usual... but business is exiciting!  Baker Thomas Band will continue it's Thursday night residency at TOAD and I'll continue to hold down the fort at my local residencies, Burren Back-room Sundays, Lizard Mondays and Exile sessions on Tuesdays.

Some time ago at a music conference I had a bit of an eye opening.  I've always hosted local shows on off nights, but I never though much of it until I met a fellow named Tim Sweeney.  Tim picked me out of the audience and asked me, "What do you do?"

I answered, "I'm a musician."  He continued with, "Yeah... but what do you do?"

I dug in a little deeper.  "Well, I'm a singer/songwriter bassist, and I also get session work on bass...."  He cut me off.

"So you're a musician, but you're also an artist... and there's a value to art.  Never forget that.  Now, what else do you do?

Thinking more and more about everything I said I replied, "I run a songwriter series on Sundays and an Open Mic on Mondays...."

Now he got fired up.  "So!  You're a musician and an aritst, but you're also a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER.  That my friend is invalulable."

It was that day I decided to tour less and firmly plant my foot in Boston.  I take these humble residencies much more seriously now and invest plenty of time and energy into keeping them afloat.   I love this town and all the music it has to offer and I really enjoy my time here.

I get plenty of support and encouragement from the community.  Folks often give me the "pat on the back" and tell me how much they love what I do.  I will admit... it is somewhat selfish.  Sure... hosting these shows may be an asset to the community, but it is surely self-serving.  I get to do what I love and actually scratch out a living while doing it.  

What I am trying to say is, thank you for my job and thank you for an amazing 2012.  I'll see you next year!  Until then, enjoy this holiday week.

Much love,

ToM