My Two Toms – The Silent Cinema

By thatch • Jul 23rd, 2007 • Category: Acoustic, Folk, Music
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Artist: My Two Toms
Website: www.myspace.com/mytwotoms or www.mytwotoms.co.uk/
Track Name: The Silent Cinema
Playback: flash
Download?: No

My Two Toms formed in Newport, Wales in 2001 and moved to Bristol in 2002. They play instrumental songs on banjo, guitar, ukulele and xylophone.

Now I can hear the cries of “OH NO… not another banjo” out there but (dare I say it?) TRUST ME.

This is wonderfully live and simply recorded, but the music is from a deep tradition. I have this real soft spot for performance, I have always preferred a live album to a studio album. It has to do with chance and ephemera. It’s never the same two shows in a row. But I digress.

So where was I? oh yes… My Two Toms are Tom Cops and Tom Stubbs. The duo formed in 2001 after they met on a film shoot in Newport, South Wales. Cops was taking the stills, and Stubbs was recording the sound. They annoyed the rest of the crew by playing banjo during the coffee breaks. (Go figure)

Within two weeks they scored a gig, so they hastily had to write some material. They continued this quick practical approach by recording their first album later that summer. The album was recorded in one day, from the back of a van, using a mini disk and a small stereo microphone. “Field Recordings” was released on CDR through Slumber Party, and by February 2002, John Peel had played four tracks.

My Two Toms are currently working on their new record, featuring their sometime collaborators Matt Jones and Kate Wright (Movietone, Crescent).

The melodies are direct, memorable, and inseparable from the interlocking harmonies that are weaved around them. My Two Toms carries the traditions of the most memorable music; the complexity found deep within the drone of the Appalachian Mountains, the spiraling melodies of Northumberland pipe tunes, a simple song that stands well the test of time and is remembered not in a crazy-making way but as an old friend.” – Charlie Parr, April 2006

Here is a clip from youtube

Enjoy.

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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