Tom McShane

Calling London from a Faraway Town…

I’ll be playing a show in London on Thursday 15th January. The details are as follows:

The venue is the Troy Bar, 10 Hoxton Street, London N1 6NG. The doors open at 8pm and I’ll be on at 8.45pm. Admission is free!

I’ll be performing with two fine acts, Maighread and Paul O’Kane. 

I hope to see you there!

Tom

Maighread

A Little Solidarity Saturday 15th November

I have some news of a last minute show I’ll be playing tomorrow as part of the A Little Solidarity festival in Belfast. I’ll be playing an acoustic set in the Yurt (a temporary venue at the QUB Students’ Union), along with Cat Malojian, Cara Cowan, Heliopause, Robert Holmes and Johnny Black. Over in the Mandela Hall Oppenheimer, And So I Watch You From Afar, Fighting With Wire, Panama Kings, General Fiasco and many more will be performing. The acoustic shows will be kicking off at 13:00 and I’ve been given to understand that I’ll be on at 17:00. There are two shows in the Mandela, a matinee show for 13:00-18:00 and the evening show from 19:00 to late. Tickets are £10. For more info see: http://www.myspace.com/andsoiwatchyoufromafar  I hope to see you there!   Tom

Kitty & the Can Openers

Tomorrow evening I’ll be playing a solo set in support of my very good friends, Kitty and the Can Openers who’ll be launching their excellent debut EP. Also performing will be Joe Echo (AKA Ciaran Gribbon, formerly of Leya). 

See you there!

Tom

Nell Bryden Support

Tonight, Tom will be performing with New York singer/songwriter Nell Bryden in the Black Box in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. Doors open at 8pm and admission is a very reasonable £6.

White Hinterland (Portland OR) with Tom McShane *Tonight*

Hi Folks,

Just to let you know I’ll be playing a show in Belfast tonight with an awesome Portland band called White Hinterland.

The gig will take place in Auntie Annies Porter House on the Dublin Rd in Belfast. Doors are at 9pm and it’s £5

Please check these folks out, they really are something very special.

White Hinterland

 

See you tonight!

Tom

Muzu TV Session

So, as I said in the last post, I was off to Dublin yesterday to perform a session for Muzu TV. Some of you may be asking what Muzu TV is, though possibly not as I’m usually the last to catch on to these things. Anyway, I found a good description on Crunchbase.com which may or may not tell you something you didn’t already know:

“MUZU TV is a interactive music only platform website for artists and fans. It offers personal profiles, photos, personal channels, music videos, and FAN TV upload for free. MUZU TV protects the rights of music on the site and generates income by a shared advertising revenue with the music content owners including unsigned artists.”

Check out the site and see what you think for yourself.

The folks at Muzu TV are recording live performances of all the acts performing at this year’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival in Dublin. They were really nice people, very dedicated to making Muzu TV a success. The session went off without a hitch. I played a solo version of Fighter which we did in one take. I’m becoming a big believer in the power of the first take!

I’ve done so many sessions and what-not now and I’m starting to feel like a bit of a hack. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy doing them and I’m always grateful for the opportunity to perform my music to a wider audience but there’s definitely a loss of naivety about how these things work. I used to get so nervous about performing in front of cameras but now it’s more a case of “Okay, where do you want me to stand?”. The important thing is that when you go for a take you’re not going through the motions. I hope that day never comes for me but I see a lot of band s on TV who are clearly there already. And not just old bands either. That’s kind of depressing. This probably isn’t making any sense. I put that down to the Porterhouse cocktails. Go Dublin: we love you!

Some photographs:

In the Muzu TV beer garden.

Me and the hands of Muzu TV’s Marina Kenny.

Marina Kenny & I.

Recording: Day One

Hello all,

I just wanted to give a little update on the recording. We went into Start Together last Sunday as planned and laid down the drums and bass for “Private Rooms”, “The End of the Summer” and the new track I rehearsed with Nick a couple of days before the session. It’s provisionally titled, “Love is Hard on the Heart”.

I’m so happy with how it’s all sounding so far. Nick nailed the first two tracks in the first take. The man is a drumming legend. We took a bit of time with the new track, trying different approaches but in the end the take we used was very close to how Nick and I were playing it at our pre-recording practice. The recording has a great moody quality to it. I’m going to keep the arrangement sparse but I have a few ideas for some subtle additional instrumentation.

I’m already planning ahead to getting the next bunch of songs recorded. I guess I should finish these first though! Exciting times!

Here are a few more snaps:

Fighter reviewed by The Devil Has The Best Tuna

Another review of Fighter is now online at the ace The Devil has the Best Tuna Blog:

BOXING CLEVER: Tom McShane
Genre: Indie / Alternative
From: Belfast, Northern Ireland United Kingdom

Tom Mcshane is a singer songwriter from Northern Ireland who takes you on a tour of his emotions with his heart firmly pinned to his sleeve. Like a mellow, melancholic David Ford or Will Oldham if he’d been brought up on the streets of Belfast instead of Kentucky Tom reaches right into your chest tugging at your heart and leaving you breathless. Such honesty is rare in a scene that emphasises style and fashion over passion and should be treasured by anyone with a passion for music.

Tom has recently released a single, ‘Fighter’, a lo-fi tale of a son following his boxing father into the ring. ‘Fighter’ was released as a split 7″ single with fellow Belfastians, the altogether more mainstream sounding indie pop trio Escape Act (of which more tomorrow).

If you’ve grown tired of run of the mill singer songwriters like David Gray then Tom McShane has arrived to restore your faith.

Thank you kindly, sir!

Tom

Back to the Studio

I’m going into the studio with Rocky today. The plan is to begin recording two or perhaps three new songs. This recording session isn’t going to be very intensive, my plan is to take a relaxed approach where I record for a day, take the rough mixes away and see what ideas come in between sessions. With the fighter sessions I had a very fixed idea of how I wanted things to sound from the outset, this time I’m not making any decisions until I get into the studio. When I record at home, how I worked on the Songs Are Sad stuff and other home recordings, I would invent and arrange as part of the recording process. Now I want to see if I can get that sense of spontaneity with a studio recording.

Working with Rocky is great. It’s important to record with someone who gets what your music is about. It makes recording so much more fun. I guess you need to trust the person you’re working with, trust their ideas.

Nick came over to my house on Friday night and we worked on drums for a new song he hadn’t heard before. It was really good fun and I recorded a rough version of the song. It’s the first time I’ve ever had anyone come and recorded with me on my eight track. Actually no, my friend Rigsy Recorded piano on a few songs for Songs Are Sad back in 2003, but apart from that! It was great anyway, I’d like to do more of that!

Here are a couple of shots.

Fighter reviewed by Subba-cultcha.com

A brief but very kind review of Fighter appears in the single review section of Subba-cultcha.com; 

TOM MCSHANE – FIGHTER – PENNY DISTRIBUTION

Slow burning lament, touched with melancholy and exploding into falsetto when the emotion calls for it, a touching song from an artist with a pure soul…

Jeremy Chick, Subba-cultcha.com, July 2008

Thanks, Jeremy!

Tom