Tom Letson & the Letdown There’s a Hole in My Head Where My Brain Used to Be
Tom Letson & the Letdown has a new album There’s a Hole in My Head Where My Brain Used to Be, which is an accounting of lives across the country and stories of interesting characters in songs that Tom Letson wrote as a youthful wanderer. Tom is a certifiable roamer, who has hitchhiked, stowed away on freight trains, and spent time in Alaska too in his youth. All that roaming has shown Tom a few slices of human nature and provided him with plenty of tales and stories to share, which is exactly what he’s done here in these songs. Except that Tom’s a little older now, so the songs are already a glimpse back to younger, greener perspectives on the world that he can identify too.
“1935” is a hobo’s tale with a pulsing, driving tempo in acoustic guitar and drums: “my Salvation Army jacket’s spent but its all I’ve got left inside my tent / now the things I own no longer own me, and the restlessness is gone for now I hope my thoughts become a little more profound.” “Into the Ether” has a syncopated tempo and a creative unusual song with the drums and the guitar at odd timings and it’s quite experimental: “heading into the ether now, I’m staring into the void.”
“Hurry While Supplies Last” is slide resonator guitar that picks up the pace as it goes, and the anxiety of society’s rushes is adeptly embodied. Tom’s vocals are nearly at an auctioneer’s pace, mimicking the rush of capitalistic materialism we are immersed in.
“Coming to Terms with Reality” is a melodious, finger picked sound with shuffly pops of drums that toy with the rhythms we might expect as familiar. It’s an upset of expectation, and surreal lyrical self-realizations: “I am the heat I am the cold I am a walking contradiction I’ve been told / My heart’s the bed And my head’s the door I am pretending that I’ve done all this before.”
On the title track, “There’s a Hole in My Head Where My Brain Used to Be,” it’s a bluesy buildup that one fan described as perfect song for a late night run. But amidst the driving groove and the cycling guitar melody are lines like “I am walking on my knees I’d rather die than bum another ride with Jimmy Crow himself.”
“Dealing with a Madman” sets out with blues licks and the offbeat dueling rhythms feel a bit like madness as Tom sings eerily: “With the television off / Oh it’s been taking all my will / My body feels there’s love / But he’s taught my mind to kill / And I can’t tell him what to do / I am dealing with a madman now. So nothing will get through.”
Lots of musicians have traveled the road but there aren’t many who’ve done it to the thorough extent that Tom Letson has. These songs are for all of us who’ve felt like the outsider; and moreover, they’re songs for that part of us that’s felt they’re at the edge of insanity. They’re clever, inventive, and unique all while feeling homegrown and folky, but in a offbeat, counter-rhythmic way.
Find more information here on their website: https://longgonetom.com
The album was engineered by Callie Day, mixed by Mike Coykendall, and mastered by Zach Hanson with cover illustration by Guillermo Serrano Amat.
Musicians on the album are Tom Letson on vocals and resonator guitar, and Justin Letson on drums.