Tommy Keene (born Alan Thomas King on June 30, 1957) [1] is considered one of the 1980s most critically acclaimed (and commercially ignored) singer/songwriters and a prime example of the musical genre of Power pop. Originally hailing from Washington D.C., 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 and Don Dixon. He continues to record and tour and recently released an album with Robert Pollard, formerly of Guided by Voices, as 'The Keene Brothers.' His biggest influence is said to be The Raspberries. In May 2006, Keene confirmed that he was gay in an interview with The Advocate. [2] Keene is slated to release his 8th studio album "In The Late Bright" with Second Motion Records on Feb 17th 2009. This is the second release with members of the label as founder Stephen Judge also signed and released Keene's previous release "Crashing The Ether" on 2006 on his Eleven Thirty Records while serving as A&R DIrector and General Manager at Redeye Distribution.

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Discography

Full-length albums

• Strange Alliance (1982, Avenue)
• Songs from the Film (1986, Geffen) U.S. #148 ^[3]
• Based on Happy Times (1989, Geffen)
• 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)

Compilations and live albums

• The Real Underground (1993, Alias)
• Showtunes (2000, Parasol)
• Drowning—A Tommy Keene Miscellany (2004, Not Lame)

EPs

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

References

1. http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&rank=1&gsfn=Thomas&gsln=Keene&=&f6=&f9=California
2. [1]Keene comes out
3. Chart, Billboard