A MESSAGE FROM TOM...

Hi everyone, I thought I'd take a few moments out to have a bit of a yarn with whoever may care to listen...

I started making these tracks in late 2003 as an expression of my personal anger & frustration. Not directed so much at politicians and the media that carry their message - but at the people who let them get away with murder (and other travesties of justice) day after day. Yep, you guys! (OK ...maybe not actually you - but someone you know, or are related to, I'm sure!). After all, its the general public's apathy, selfishness and ignorance that keeps conservative governments at the helm of the world's richest countries, preventing any genuine global progress (fairer distribution of wealth & resources, ending poverty, preventing war etc.)
 
It upset me greatly to see my country (along with others) dumb itself down and allow itself to become complicit in a war that has no moral or legal justification just because the world's most powerful man (& biggest apparent no-brainer) says so.
 
I won't waste space here ranting about the stupidity of it all as I think the music I've made public on this site serves that purpose more eloquently than my self-righteous prose. Suffice to say that the absurdity and hypocrisy of our leaders actions fueled me with a furious energy that, thankfully, I could channel into my creative passion - audio (and it'd sure been a while since I'd made any tunes).

They say that to be able to use one's artistic expressions as a vent for one's angst is a blessing for an artist (I don't know who they are and I just made that up anyway, but it helps to use a third person narrative when indulging in self-aggrandisement right?!).

I went to work, finished my first track "WMD ...American Justice" in a couple of days and sent it to a local community radio station (whose shameless left-wing boorishness had been keeping me sane as the bombs were ripping limbs off children in Baghdad). Whoever was in charge of playlists at the time promptly replied with a "thanks but it's a bit too simplistic & out of date for our tastes". Naturally I protested but he threatened to block my emails if I kept "spamming" him. A few months later they had me as a guest on their drive-time show. Ha! (fickle thing the media - even at grassroots level).
 
I sent the first EP "WMD ...and other distractions" out to everyone I could think of who might take an interest. It did the rounds of community radio here in Australia and the odd bit of pirate & community radio in the US. As far as I was concerned this was success of Beatlemania proportions (well, it hit the airwaves, that was enough for me!).

As it happened, I remained hopeful that the "coalition of the willing" (of which I was an unwitting participant) would see the error of its ways and restore balance to the world via the ballot box (and that my tunes would be consigned to a quaint footnote in the history of the anti-war fringe movement).

Of course the political process is no better than the people who participate in it. As Australians, and shortly after Americans, queued up to re-enforce their leaders mandates, I committed myself to another term of recycling media for the underground masses.
 
What now? The people had spoken and democracy had prevailed "Sure! Bomb those Arabs, trash their cities and towns, let chaos prevail! It sure makes great evening entertainment sandwiched in between The Price is Right & The Simpsons. So long as the interest on our mortgage doesn't rise over the course of your term - you can pre-emptively strike whatever you want! Go for your life! Declare war on any word you like! I don't care, I've got a big house in the suburbs fronted by a big double lock-up garage, a four wheel drive and a life-long membership with the local sports & leisure club - FIRE AWAY !"
 
Hmm, where was I? Oh right - so I began the next EP in earnest, this time realising that their was an actual audience out there. We're all encouraged to interact with the media right? To excercise our freedom of speech? Surely that doesn't mean just using your mobile phone to evict the least hip house-mate on Big Brother? I've got all I need to become a part of our mediacracy (a computer & a phone line), who needs record deals, agents or distributors - here I come!

I'd been pretty "fair & balanced" the last time around, not really putting words in anyones mouth (in fact most of the sound-bytes on the first EP are verbatim quotes - just made to synch up with a beat). This time I thought I'd adopt the much favoured technique used by most commercial news-media and completely re-contextualise every nuance.

After nine months of laborious editing of as many disparate news/media audio elements as I could physically & mentally stand to splice together, I was done. Mediacracy was distributed to the same list of select underground media.
 
I threw together "Imagine This" almost as an afterthought (after hearing RX's great work) - something to cap off my body of work in a suitably poignant yet ridiculous fashion. I had no idea what a buzz this track would create. It went relatively un-noticed for a few months - though the community radio stations gave it a generous dose of airplay. Then one day JJJ (the Australian national youth/music broadcaster) added it to their playlist and things started snowballing. I was getting requests for interviews from newspapers, radio & TV broadcasters in Australia, the UK and US, hundreds of emails flooded in, an underground vinyl single spread throughout clubs and festivals in Europe. Move over Britney, Wax Audio had arrived!
 
And what did I do? Stuck the computer in a box with the rest of my possessions, quit my day job, scrubbed the flat & handed back the keys and took of with Ishbel (the bonny Scottish lass I married 4 years ago) here to Indonesia.

We're on our way across Asia on an epic overland journey back to Ish's native Scotland. I'm typing this from under the ceiling fan of a hot 'n sweaty internet cafe in Yogyakarta after 10 days of trekking around volcanoes, clambering amongst ancient ruins, watching shadow puppet plays, eating Nasi Goreng and checking out how Indonesians spend their days.
 
I'm also collecting sounds with a minidisc recorder and stereo mic - the next EP will bare the fruits of the developing collection (sampled a brilliant gamalan orchestra in Bali last week!). I'll be keeping this site as updated as I can given my circumstances, though don't expect another politically-charged media montage EP anytime soon. The tunes on this site will definitely remain public for the rest of the foreseeable future however.
 
...and so, as I have your attention I just wanted to say a sincere THANK YOU so much to everyone who has emailed me with kind words of support and encouragement, to everyone who downloaded the tracks and played them to friends & family, to the broadcasters around the world who plugged this site, to the reporters who turned Wax Audio into an underground & then mainstream news story. To the artists, webmasters, politicians, event organisers and EVERYONE ELSE I had the pleasure of meeting (via email, telephone or in person) over the course of this Wax Audio odyssey.

I may be mainly preaching to the converted, but what a fine convent we make!

Keep the faith, keep on rockin' and keep on listening!!
 
Cheers for now,
 
Tom