TOMBOYFRIEND was a name my friend thought he coined and the suggestion I ditch the punk-folk solo thing and sing with an acquaintance of a friend (who is a visual artist), a decision to compose only on a junky, cheesy-sounding Casio (as opposed to my well worn acoustic which tended to lead me down Guthriesque paths) and a hiatus I took to Winnipeg in 2006 where I wrote the stubs of the first of what would become the twelve Tomboyfriend songs. After writing a manifesto detailing thoughts about how to use camp as a form of epic theater Tomboyfriend quickly became an endlessly headed hydra incorporating the talents of many Toronto musicians, performers, critics and artists. Central imagery were the expressionless pigeons in paper masks and fake Jello blood. A somewhat garbled demo of End of Poverty became a weird, sort of sleeper cult hit via the internet (still available on our myspace). Our first album, Don't Go To School, will be finished soon. The resultant collaborative effort has transformed this already charmed indie experiment into a really new sounding, totally convincing band for which I can only take a more or less historical credit. You can see our tremendous press here.
Tomboyfriend has been or is or has incorporated the talents of John Goodrich, Lindsay Fisher, Karilyn Ming Ho, Marlena Zuber, Dan Rosenthal, Susan Bustos, Margaux Williamson, Sherwin Tjia, Jim Munroe, Lee Towndrow, Jason Yang, Sholem Krishtalka, Les Tager, Teresa Fulker, Adriana Alarcon, Sheila Heti, Cassie Ross.
Our dancers are too numerous to recall but one day I'll recount the whole list. Our dancers tend to come from the intelligentsia.
