KEENE IS KEEN!
NEW YORK—Like an elephant, Kruschev or Pepperidge Farm, Tommy Keene remembers. He remembers the pulse quickening pop songs of then and now—and he remembers that great music is made by inspired individualists, not re-hash artists. While Tommy Keene’s streamlined pop stylings may offer brief glimmers of anybody from the Grass Roots to Mott The Hoople to Robyn Hitchcock, comparisons are a deadend.
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KEENE IS KEEN!
NEW YORK—Like an elephant, Kruschev or Pepperidge Farm, Tommy Keene remembers. He remembers the pulse quickening pop songs of then and now—and he remembers that great music is made by inspired individualists, not re-hash artists. While Tommy Keene’s streamlined pop stylings may offer brief glimmers of anybody from the Grass Roots to Mott The Hoople to Robyn Hitchcock, comparisons are a deadend. Tommy Keene remembers that glistening guitars can still have plenty of muscle and that carefully shaded vocal harmonies make a song more intriguing every time you hear it.
“What I did was make this gradual transition from playing drums to playing rhythm guitar to playing lead guitar to writing all the music to doing everything—writing all the music and singing all the songs,” Tommy recalls, “So the last real band I was in, a D.C. band called the Razz, I was the principal songwriter, music-wise and the lead singer wrote the lyrics...777/s was just the last frontier, (laughs)”
It wasn’t long before Tommy’s first solo LP, Strange Alliance, appeared in 1982. A mega-rarity today, it shows how Keene’s popcraft sprung out of his head fully grown. His second homemade release was the “Back To Zero Now” b/w “Mr. Roland” 45, which gathered enough favorable attention to land him a deal with North Carolina’s Dolphin Records.
Just before the ‘84 Xmas rush he released “Back Again,” a preview 12” from his upcoming album produced by Don Dixon (who worked with R.E.M.) and TBone Burnette. The 12” is backed with three non-LP tracks which reveal, among other things, that Tommy Keene correctly remembers “When The Whip Comes Down” to be one of the Stones’ last good songs before spending themselves into mediocrity.
The Tommy Keene Band includes Billy Conelly on guitar, Ted Nicely on bass and Doug Tull on drums. The guitar interplay between Tommy and Billy makes well-ordered havoc, while Ted and Doug prove that rhythm sections with receding hairlines rock harder than the rest. According to Tommy, the band is “very stable. We get along pretty fabulously, I think, because there’s an understood lack of democracy. That’s what every band really needs. I don’t think there’s ever been a band that’s been truly democratic. I think every band has its little hierarchy. That was one of the reasons I got this band together— not for egotistical reasons, but we’d all played in bands that tried to be democratic and just fell apart because of personality conflicts.”
With Tommy Keene’s musical personality becoming stronger and more involving with his every release, there’s little wonder that major labels are knocking at his door. Tommy sees his role in pop music this way: ”l don’t think we’ll ever be a big critics’ band per se or a big underground band. I think that once the music gets accessible to the people, I think that’s when we’ll really start reaching people...Maybe add a little bit of good music to what’s currently being shoved down people’s throats.”
Drew Wheeler
