Tommy Keene

Tommy Keene (born June 30, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for releasing critically acclaimed new wave/power pop songs in the 1980s. He has a longtime cult following among fans of the musical genre of power pop. Originally hailing from Washington D.C., he first received critical acclaim with his pioneering pop band The Razz, who released several local independent singles. His 1984 EP Places That Are Gone became one of the year's top selling independent releases. The EP garnered a four-star review in Rolling Stone, and was voted the #1 EP in the following year's Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll. Keene has since recorded and released numerous albums on such labels as Dolphin, Geffen and Matador Records. He has worked with producers T-Bone Burnett, Don Dixon, and R. Walt Vincent. He continues to record and tour and recently released an album with Robert Pollard, formerly of Guided by Voices, as 'The Keene Brothers.' Tommy's three favorite bands are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who. Keene also played guitar on the Goo Goo Dolls' hit song, "Broadway", on their 1998 album, Dizzy Up The Girl.
Keene released his ninth original studio album, Behind The Parade, with Second Motion Records in 2011. This is the fourth release with members of the label as founder Stephen Judge also signed and released Keene's two disc retrospective Tommy Keene: You Hear Me in 2010 and his previous release, Crashing The Ether, in 2006 on his Eleven Thirty Records, while serving as A&R Director and General Manager at Redeye Distribution.

Education

Keene attended the University of Maryland.

Keene graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda Maryland (class of 1976), which was also the Alma Mater of fellow famed musician Nils Lofgren, who went on to play and record with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. Tommy played drums in one version of Nils's early bands.

Discography

Albums

• Strange Alliance (1982, Avenue)
• Songs from the Film (1986, Geffen) U.S. #148
• Based on Happy Times (1989, Geffen)
• Driving into the Sun (1994, Alias)
• Ten Years After (1996, Matador)
• Isolation Party (1998, Matador)
• The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down (2002, spinART)
• Crashing the Ether (2006, Eleven Thirty)
• In The Late Bright (2009, Second Motion Records)
• Behind the Parade (2011, Second Motion Records)
• Excitement at Your Feet (2013, Second Motion Records)
• Laugh in the Dark (2015, Second Motion Records)

Compilations and live albums

• The Real Underground (1993, Alias)
• Showtunes (2000, Parasol)
• Drowning—A Tommy Keene Miscellany (2004, Not Lame)
• Tommy Keene You Hear Me: A Retrospective - 1983-2009 (2010, Second Motion Records)

EPs

• Places That Are Gone (1984, Dolphin)
• Back Again (Try...) (1984, Dolphin)
• Run Now (1986, Geffen)
• Sleeping on a Roller Coaster (1992, Matador)

• "Top 200 Albums". Billboard. 1986-07-19. Retrieved 2015-09-06.