new radicals... wha?!?

i'm surprised.

week after week. month after month i sit and listen to the only new radicals record. i'm comfortable with gregg alexander's ability to write great songs and consequent getting them published, however, he writes great songs.

the edge of u2 wishes he wrote get you give... and to me it serves as constant inspiration. maybe it is an awareness of the trials involved in a pursuit through poverty, tours and the new york bar scenes; but regardless, for some reason, 'you've got the music in you' still pushes me to write, record and keep on the path.

We don't all get the chance at fame. we don't all get the chance to see our dreams realized to the point where we never need to work again... but its nice to find inspiration in such places where we continue to press on with said hopes.

its better to hope.

Thanksgiving and the passion for writers

I'm sitting in midtown about to get my hands soiled by the inner bits of a turkey... i can't say that i'm unimpressed, but i can't say i'm impressed. its sort of on the fence, the thing that startles me is the type of music that pops into my head around this season. They are artists I have a strong affection for, but there is this characteristic quality to them that fits well with the color of the leaves and the scent of the air.

these people are bill mallonee, bob dylan's early love songs, toad the wet sprocket, wilco, etc. they have had a tremendous impact on the direction of this forthcoming record - and that makes me happy.

all that being said, right now i'm getting down to the boatman's call by nick cave. a beautiful record to be experienced only start to finish. Murder ballads also is to be experienced only the same way, but when you're cooking with your lady and the inexperience on both sides is apparent it is well and good to keep both minds as far from murder as possible :)

thanks for dropping in.

Cowboy Junkies? ya... i stole the idea

Its going to be cold, windy and far more snow covered than i have experienced in the last few winters... but only for a few days. In late January or early Feb I'm going to make the trek up to Rochester to meet with some of my favorite musicians and engineers to produce a record similar in format to the Trinity Sessions.

It will be a live tracked recording with a bunch of us standing around staring at one another but we will be using more than just one microphone. Mike Muscarella will be at the helm once again and a few players pulled from one of the best undiscovered talent pools in the nation. So far its slated to be a full record with a staggered release of just a few tracks at a time.

In the meantime, I did a 3 song demo, Kristin, with Mr. Muscarella back in 2007 and its available on itunes, napster, etc. all over the world if you just search tommy hawkins kristin you'll have no trouble finding it. I'll keep you posted in the coming weeks as we prepare for the record.

thanks for checking this site out.

tommy

the art of tension and release

so i did a show last week w/ ready fire aim... it was very intense and we seemed to entertain the crowd very well... we use a lot of electronic devices that take both patience and faith to keep fully operational - between guitar effects cutting out, the computer malfunctions and drum triggers that are intense and necessary to maintain our cutting edge sound, it keeps our hands full.

since the loss of a keyboard player it has been my job to offer the 'weird noise' element to the band live which leaves me mostly on my knees twiddling with knobs to make the perfect concoction... last weeks show was very intense for this reason.

so the show starts, i've got phasers and flangers and vibrato effects going on with no actual note... just this hum building into an intense shriek of noise and almost abrasive sounds that leads up to the burst that starts the first song of the set, 'wannabe your' - and this, is what leads me to my point of a rather short blog entry.

as the sounds spin around, dizzying at times, sage plays this simple line that sets the tone for what is to come on a violin. usually we hope this takes about a minute and a half or two minutes, but we had the electronics malfunction so it took about 5 minutes instead. the suspense was maginficent! there was nothing really happening, just swells of noise perplexing an intrigued audience. at long last, it all came together... an explosion of tone and sound that would frighten most... and at last, we had our release.

check out what we're all about @ www.rfasociety.com

my boys and the transition to living in manhattan

i moved to manhattan on a whim. i mean, seriously, 36 hours before hitting the road for the big apple i had turned to my boy whiggels and said, "dude, i think i'm gonna move to new york". At this moment we're in a tour bus on the way back to Nashville for something of a hiatus after a 5 month tour. He looked back at me and said, "i'm renting a car to go back to philly, you want me to get a bigger one and just roll up with me"? - of course i said yes.

so here go whiggels and i 15 hours of great tunes, great laughter and both teeming with excitement, but both of us for different reasons. Whiggels hadn't seen his wife in a few months, and i'd been itching to get back to new york for a few years. So we roll into philly, my sister is swinging by on her way back from chicago and so she stops and picks me up and runs me to princeton. I hang there for a few days then catch a train to new york to crash with another old boy of mine, dan.

So i wind up on a couch in brooklyn, he sells brooklyn to me like a used car salesman and as i look for my own spot i find myself looking exclusively in brooklyn. after a month of searching i finally wind up in williamsburg and then go off on the job hunt to try and support myself living in new york.

To put this in perspective, it was the very beginning of october that i moved to the city, it was the beginning of november i found my spot, and it was at the beginning of december i was afraid i'd have to leave because the job market had dried up. I had lined up this gig with a few of my friends in the city for dec. 4 and was getting ready to load up the truck with junk (another boy of mine, not the term for my gear) when my phone rang and to tell me i'd gotten a job and i start on saturday.

I didn't have to leave new york, but after working tirelessly at this joint for a few months the sensationalism of brooklyn had really worn off and i found myself pining, once again to live in manhattan proper... just with a little more sincerity as to which part of the city.

So after searching and searching i wind up in the east village, a nice spacious apartment with large windows and a wick of a lease remaining, i was settled. Then I thought about things, and talked with my boy billy and my boy jason and we decided to get a spot even closer to the action than where we are living now*.

So one day in the office Billy jumps up to go look at this spot thats a duplex, 3 bedroom 2 bath with a huge outdoor space just off of 4th street and convinces us that it is a winner, jason and i head over at about 6 to look at it, we say we'll take it... we start the paper work and i run out coz' i realize i'm late for a dinner and drinks tour of williamsburg.

So today i write you. in linen pants and a very light shirt to tell you that in ten months i have gone from tour bus to couch to hipsterville to manhattan to two apartments in manhattan for the month of august. is this excessive that if i'm on 14th st i'll only have to walk 3 blocks and also if i'm on houston st. i'll only have to walk to blocks? i suppose so, but i suppose its just a preparation of things to come.

check out my band at rehearsal



http://www.myspace.com/readyfireaimnyc




*we all live on eleventh street in the same building but in different apartments - 10 blocks away from said action.

wild mood swings

when i think of the cure its always the ambient synths, those ever so familiar, yet inexhaustable, single string guitar lines and robert smith's round shaped voice weighed heavy with depressing, yet lovely, lyrics.

so a decade and then some ago i got the then new record which was something of a surprise. canonized in my mind will always be pictures of you, friday i'm in love, etc. as who the cure is, but wild mood swings is a record jam packed with winners. its still got all the characteristics of the old cure, its not an about face as we saw with bush and third eye blind - rather, a continuation to a brighter end. the entire record serves as a booster. instead of the happy songs still seeming to be sad, the sad songs even leave the listener feeling good. the aura of the album is fully radiant.

the lyrics were very well chosen, the placement of songs to keep the record moving forward could not be better and the music is incredibly tasteful.

this record should be a staple in any music lovers collection. so if you haven't heard it, buy it. if you think i'm wrong, i'll take you on.

so i now live in what is best described as a hobbit tree house (hth). its the guest room of the apartment i've been living in for about 5 months. the apartment is rad, the roommates are off the hook and there is this beautiful living room with a ceiling that nearly rivals the tower of babel.

interestingly enough, it doesn't quite reach the heavens. and it seems much higher from the ground level as climbing up the 7 feet into my hth leaves me unable to stand. its spacious and elegant. just not very tall. and by elegant i mean it sort of looks like the mario brothers house with random pipes popping up all over the place. but its pretty cool.

a narrow stairway. a lot of shelves. a futon mattress. a night stand. a lamp. a fan. and a few boxes of cds.

i won't be living up there for long... but it means that i'm not homeless and it seems like a good place for me to hide out and illude all the people trying to steal the coveted ring my grandparents gave me for graduating college.