A few days ago, I was knocked out by some pics and vids taken by Tom Murphy, Keeper-of-the Flame-of-All-Things-Music-in-Denver. The show was with Jesus and Mary Chain and Psychedelic Furs at The Fillmore Auditorium on 10/26/24.
I didn’t go; but I didn’t have to, thanks to Tom! And this has been true of quite a few other shows as well. Tom is our local Vagabond-Chronicler-of-Denver-Music-Venues, a wanderer of not just the big shows but a frequenter of the local oases and watering holes, rattletrap and grungy, basement, spare room, backyard, gallery, big, small, cold, hot, yurt, sweat lodge or broom closet — you got a band, Tom is there.
And here’s the thing: Tom doesn’t need Elon Musk to set up a million dollar a day lottery to induce him to go to the hundred or so shows a week he seems to attend. He does it because he genuinely loves the music.
One of the things that makes Tom such a fine observer of the local scene is that he has an uncanny knack for coming at the music from the band’s point of view. I think what he is listening for is what the band hears — not what he, Tom, wants to hear or thinks he should hear. Tom is a ‘Band Whisperer’: he has an empathy and a sympathy for where the music is coming from that is as broad as it is deep, as informed as it is sensitive.
And I’ll tell you what I’m most envious of Tom about — he’s the Google-Machine-of-Local-Music, the Samuel Pepys of who was where and what they were doing. It’s not just that he’s seen every band (heck, I used to be in that category myself!), it’s that he has kept a record of it: who the band was, where the venue was, the date of the show, who all is in the band – yes, dammit, he makes a point of knowing their names and what instrument they play, what other bands they may have been in, what releases they have put out, and, for all I know, their shoe size and favorite breakfast beer!
You can chalk some of this up to the fact that Tom is a musician himself and has been in bands forever, most notably the long running Pythian Whispers (and, yes, as much as I admire and respect Tom, that is the worst band name since Shellyean Orphan). PW doesn’t play out as much as they used to but when they do, check them out: they sound a bit like Karlheinz Stockhausen re-imagining the Joy Division songbook.
Tom used to write music pieces for the Westword. (sample Westword piece from Tom – https://www.westword.com/music/the-melvins-break-the-mold-with-a-walk-with-love-and-death-9318728 ) That stopped, much to Westword’s loss, and now he has a regular column with Birdy called Queen City Sounds. It is a must read if you are at all interested in the often messy and chaotic churn of the local music scene — again, this guy has the low-down.
Tom is also a prolific poster to Instagram at @queencitysoundsco. There, Tom keeps a running diary of the shows he gets to (again, a lot!) often with multi-paragraph background and analyses of the bands and their music. And if that isn’t enough, Tom is a fine videographer and photographer, capturing images and videos that put you right at the show and make you think, damn! I should have been there!
Okay, a final word to wrap this up. Tom goes to a lot of shows, but, so do a lot of people. What sets Tom apart is his writing. Taut, economic, loaded with info and insights, tightly organized and deeply felt. I can do no better than recommend you look at the two links below to see what Tom can do with words on a page. The first is Tom’s elegy for a friend and fellow musician, David Mead, a brittle, testy squeak/squonk experimental saxophonist who lived here in Denver. (Birdy, Issue 085 from January 2021 https://www.birdymagazine.com/issue/085/ ).
The second is Tom’s intensely emotional and moving tribute to his mother, Shizuko ‘Suzie’ Murphy, who had passed away a few months before this was printed in Birdy, Issue 121 from January 2024 https://www.birdymagazine.com/issue/121/ ). Here, grief, dignity, the everyday commitments of love and honor, the terrible indignities of illness and decline, the shadows and echoes of all that has passed into the darkness behind us, life and life’s ending — all are here: sorrow and memory, tears and smiles, and the small, rueful moments we carry forward: ‘Sorry for joking about how you looked like you were ready to drop your gangster trap mixtape when you wore your hoodie, mom.’
Thanks, Tom. Denver would be a smaller town without you.
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Tom’s Instagram: @queencitysoundsco
Tom’s archive at Birdy: https://www.birdymagazine.com/tag/tom-murphy-birdy/
Tom’s archive at Westword: https://www.westword.com/author/tom-murphy-1
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