Listen to Tom's Podcast at Hardcore Troubadours added 09/18/06

Welcome to Tom House's home on the Web

Last updated 09.18.2006  

New album : "The Last Desperate Man".  Get it from tom.house@gte.net   

About The Last Desperate Man: TOM HOUSE It’s a fitting coincidence that House would be playing this record release show the same night that Sufjan Stevens hits town. Like Stevens, House is a singer-songwriter with an abundance of vision and a singular way of expressing it—in House’s case, through sprung rhythms and a melodicism that drinks as deeply of the plaintive lyricism of Appalachia as of the lilting, brooding folk-blues of East Texas. House’s take on humanity is fairly bleak; it seems that the best people can hope for is not to hurt each other too badly. Nevertheless, moments of transcendence part the gloom, if just for the moment. House’s new album is called The Last Desperate Man, and from “Crawling With Creeps” and “Death’s the Dark Sleep” to its Peckinpah-inspired art and graphics, the record is as bracing as its title suggests. Working again with co-producer Robb Earls and the loose cast of locals who often accompany him, House achieves a sound that verges on indie-rock in spots, something in keeping with the creakier titles in the Drag City catalog, albeit with typically more to say. The 5 Spot —Bill Friskics-Warren, The Nashville Scene 09/22/05

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09/01/01: Tom was on Live Lunch on WFPK in Louisville

Listen to "Picking up & Going and Tell Lorraine"

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I recognized Tom more because of his style rather than the actual music. He stays completely away from whatever might be of trends and picks his sound and influences from Harry Smith's folk chronicles, Hank Williams sr. and Woody Guthrie. An American old-time explorer who still keep an eye on the world that he lives in today.

He's got a unique guitar style that traces influences from banjo style frailing and percussive flatpicking. His main guitar is an old square-shouldered Gibson dreadnought that has taken a lot of beating throughout the years.

House really got interested in folk music after seeing Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in 1964. The North-Carolina born House spent a lot of time in the progressive Nashville songwriting environment during the seventies before the open-mic scene dried up. His latest album was released in 1999 and he's starting to get some of the recognition he deserves.

Marius Molstad, Norway

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