AmeriSon Records releases on the charts

Peters Township resident Tom Breiding is one of my favorite Pittsburgh-area musicians, with talent to burn when it comes to songwriting, singing and guitar playing. His AmeriSon studio and record label is producing quality products. And he's a heck of a nice guy, to boot.

Tom sent this info about his latest album:

Tom Breiding's "The Unbroken Circle: Songs of the WV Coalfields" jumped 18 spots to #58 on the AMA charts with 97 spins this week! 471 total spins since the release date! Keep the requests coming!

Also:

Bill Toms' AmeriSon Records release "Spirits, Chaos and a Troubadour Soul" (produced by Tom Breiding) received its first spins this week.

From Tom:

More great news from AmeriSon Productions as "The Unbroken Circle" continues to get lots of attention. It received 97 spins this week on reporting Americana stations only. I have had several requests to service AAA stations and many non-reporting stations have included it on their playlists, so I can't keep track of them. But it is safe to say that the album is being heard in every corner of the U.S.

I received a fantastic five star review on the well known about.com this week. Check out folkmusic.about.com/.

Tom also is hosting the AmeriSon Ballroom Folk Series at Cefalo's Nightclub in Carngie. Tonight's lineup (7 to 10) includes Tom Breiding, Rick Malis, Bob Beach and headliner Beaucoup Blue,

Also, Tom Breiding and American Son is playing at 10 p.m. tomorrow at PD's Pub, Forward Avenue, Squirrel Hill.

Check out videos for Tom's 'The Longest Darkest Day' and 'Obituary of Joe Fry'

Welcome to Western Pa.

My standard punchline regarding music is that I don't know much about anything prior to 1980. Sometimes I push that date back to 1975, or even '70.

While I make no secret about my preference for tunes from the days when giants walked the earth - Beatles, Stones, Dead, Doors, etc. - I still appreciate getting to know the music of artists who are alive, well and performing today.

I learned about two such performers this week. When Bill Toms played a CD release show over the weekend for his new "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul," two musicians who were in town opened for him.


First went Erin Sax Seymour, a New Yorker who's raising some eyebrows with her compositions and performing style. I took a quick look on her myspace site to learn a little about her. Here's some of what I found:

Sax started writing songs as a teenager to help her through tough times, and then as a way to record the experiences she witnessed while traveling the world as a documentary filmmaker. … Through it all she understood that there really are just a handful of stories and moods that every person comes across in a lifetime, no matter their circumstance. Her music is the heart of these stories.

She has recorded a CD called "Good Girl" (which features some interesting cover art), and here is a video of the title song recorded at Cefalo's in Carnegie.

Another video shows her playing "New Orleans Rain."

Following Erin was Lorenzo Bertocchini, who - though you wouldn't know it from his mastery of English - hails from northern Italy, where he fronts a band with the intriguing name of the Apple Pirates. ("We just go around and steal people's apples all day," he jokes.) The English-language portion of Lorenzo's trilingual site provides some biographical information:

His live career started in 1990, when he put together a band called The Beer Bellies: a lot of fun, but not a long ride … only a few months. His second band was a guitar trio called The Wanted! Lorenzo wrote the songs, sang and played acoustic guitar and harmonica. The trio was born at the beginning of 1991 and eventually split up at the end of the following year. In December 1992, Lorenzo got in touch with the piano player Roberto Masciocchi and started a new project called The Getaway. The name soon changed to Pirates and then to Apple Pirates. With a lot of hard work and true devotion to their roots-rock roots, the band started building itself the solid reputation it enjoys today in the Italian rock scene. The boys have released a CD called "Greatest Hits" and two songs on a compilation of Varese bands called "Musica Va."

The band has a new single called "Everybody" - click here for video - which Lorenzo performed at Cefalo's with Phil Brontz, saxophone player for 8th Street Rox and Bill Toms' Hard Rain band.

Welcome to Western Pennsylvania, Erin and Lorenzo. Don't be strangers.

Bill Toms in concert

This past Saturday, I was attending an alumni weekend at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. But I didn't want to miss Bill Toms' release show for his new CD "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul."

Fortunately, that's what video cameras are for, and Marc Felman filled in admirably to capture the concert, at Cefalo's in Carnegie. Here are videos of a few of the songs to start:

• 'Tell Her I'm Home'


• 'Together'

We'll work on editing some more material by Bill and his band, Hard Rain, as well as performances by opening acts Erin Sax Seymour and Lorenzo Bertocchini.

Bill Toms: 'Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul'

If you meet Bill Toms, you'll find him to be a very polite guy who speaks in a relatively unassuming, somewhat modest tone of voice.

That's the off-stage Bill. Put him and his guitar in front of an audience, and he's a changed man, infused with the spirit handed down to him by the great rock 'n' rollers.


Bill spent two decades playing with Joe Grushecky's Houserockers, and eventually he formed his own band. Attending a Bill Toms & Hard Rain show is like chugging a Red Bull, without the aftertaste: It's all about energy. Check out the video of "Another Round for the West End Kid" recorded at a benefit Bill and his wife, Joyce organized for victims of the political fallout in Darfur.

Though he can rock with the best of them, Bill has another musical side, exploring the folk tradition of Americana with an introspective pen. He is ready to release "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul," an album that showcases his penchant for capturing real-life situations and distilling them through often bittersweet but always accessible songs.

While "Spirits" features plenty of acoustic guitar, Bill mixes it up with some heavier vibes. The album opens, in fact, with power chords and energized slide guitar leading into the upbeat "Together."

In contrast is the somber, elegaic "There Was a Time," Bill's duet with musical partner Tom Breiding (Peters Twp. resident), who produced the album, most of which was recorded at Tom's AmeriSon Studio. The production, by the way, is impeccable; Tom is a perfectionist in the studio.

"Spirits" features a revolving cast of characters playing with Bill. The full Hard Rain lineup (up through 2007) appears only on the album's sole cover, the Waterboys' "Fisherman's Blues," and the closing track, "Revelation Shuffle." Both those were recorded at Rick Witkowski's Studio L in Weirton. (You may remember Rick's guitar playing from the '70s band Crack the Sky.)

Other performers of note include Megan Palmer, whose violin adds a sense of urgency to the paranoid visions of "No Way Out"; vocalists Jill Simmons and Andrea Pearl; and even Tom's son Jack Breiding, an aspiring percussionist who helps lend to the ambiance of a couple of tunes.

A featured track on the album is shaping up in "It's Saturday Night Somewhere." Check it out on YouTube:



The scheduled release for "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul" is April 15. A local CD release show with Bill Toms & Hard Rain starts at 9 p.m. Saturday, April 5, at Cefalo's in Carnegie. Opening acts are Erin Sax Seymour and Lorenzo Bertocchini.

Have a new release you'd like to see featured? E-mail Harry Funk at hfunk@observer-reporter.com