Tommy's Post

I'm posting in a shitty state tonight. Not in a shitty mood...but more in a shit-ass drunk state. So you'll have to forgive both the typos, lack of writing skill, and the increased sentimentality (as if the last post was not soberly sentimental enough). I'm posting tonight for my friend Tom, who owns much of the credit for my musical pedigree. Tom introduced me to, among other things, the Stones, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. In other words, Tommy introduced me to all things good in music. I really cannot say enough about what he showed me in music. I met Tom in Austin, Texas in 1991. I had moved back to Texas after a 2 year nightmare-stint in D.C., working in advertising (which I had misguidedly majored in at UT Austin). Tom was having a short lay-over in Austin in between semesters at USC. We met while waiting tables. I was trying to reestablish residency in Texas so I could get back into UT at the cheaper native-Texan rate. Tom was hanging out and getting high waiting tables, waiting to go back to L.A. to finish his degree. It was just one of those things. We clicked as friends. He went back to USC to finish his degree, but came back to Austin. I was still at the same restaurant when he got back, and we later became head-waiters together. We spent many an evening in his apartment, smoked out on cheap weed, making the month-long schedule for the waiters at the restaurant (saving the best shifts for ourselves). I later moved into a 3 bedroom house with Tom and our friend Mark. Both Tom and Mark were guitar players...Mark the more accomplished. Tom taught me the basics of guitar on the front porch of that house...my first lesson in the early morning hours after a late night of partying. Instead of teaching me finger style and blues scales, he taught me 3 major chords, a minor chord, and three songs to play with them, "Browneyed Girl, Wonderful Tonight, and something else I can't remember in my current inebriated state. What better way to learn to play an axe? At the time (and, really, to this day) he's the coolest guy I had ever met.

Tom taught me one essential thing in life. No matter what anyone else ever said, the coolest album ever recorded is Sticky Fingers...period. He also taught me that no matter how much you paid to see a concert, it was okay to fall asleep in the middle of it. He and I and our friend Johnny paid primo dollars (or it seemed so at the time) for good seats to see Neil up close and acoustic in Austin. By the third song, I looked over at Tommy and he was in classic pose...arms crossed, head to the side, sound asleep. (There was herbaliser involved.) Legend has it that Tommy fell asleep on the floor at a Guns-n-Roses concert. I wasn't there, but I totally believe it.

At the end of this mix I'm including "Powderfinger" from Rust Never Sleeps. Tom gave me this CD in 1998 right before we took off for a New Years Eve trip to New Orleans. Tom and I and our friend Joe took off for N.O. for the holiday, got shitty, smoked a bunch of dope, and did the Bourbon Street thang for the New Year. I remember me trying to sing "Shine a Light" a cappella in the middle of Bourbon Street, Tom telling me to shut the fuck up. (I tend towards the annoying when drunk and happy.)

The ironic part of this mix is that it is absolutely NOT rock-n-roll. This is the alt-co mix. While Tom may have introduced me to the greatest rock-n-roll band of all time, he also showed me the building blocks of the alternative country movement of the 90s. Neil Young is the basement floor of alt-co. Here are some of the artists that I have truly come to love in the last 20 years since those days of waiting tables at OTB. They are truly some of the fondest memories that I have.

Thanks Tom.

Alt-Co Mix:

1. "Elvis Presley Blues," Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)

2. "Nashville," Indigo Girls, Rites of Passage

3. "I Am a Cinematographer," Palace Brothers, Days in the Wake

4. "California Stars," Billy Bragg and Wilco, Mermaid Avenue

5. "Blue," Lucinda Williams, Live at the Fillmore East

6. "You Are Not Needed Now," Townes Van Zandt, High, Low and In Between

7. "In My Mind I Was Talkin' To Loretta," Pieta Brown, Remember the Sun

8. "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere," Dwight Yoakum, This Time

9. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," Ramblin' Jack Elliot, The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliot

10. "Deep River Blues," Doc Watson, Doc Watson

11. "Our Town," Iris Dement, Infamous Angel

12. "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," Phil Ochs, I Ain't Marchin' Anymore

13. "Baltimore," Lyle Lovett, Joshua Judges Ruth
14. "When You Walk On," Eliza Gilkyson, Paradise Hotel

15. "South Tacoma Way," Neko Case, Furnace Room Lullaby

16. "Powderfinger," Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps

Click HERE for this mix

Full Album Post:

Neil Bootleg (trust me, this is some good shit):

Fuck Me Cause I'm Stoned (Disc One)

Fuck Me Cause I'm Stoned (Disc Two)