Jenny Toomey is my first indie music love.
I was in a rock band in high school, and the members were very much into the fanzine/indie/DIY scene. This was where I first heard of Jenny Toomey singing a track with the band Three Shades of Dirty on their Paper Roses demo. My band covered a couple of their songs, but the one with Toomey, “For the Meanwhile,” was my favorite. The way she would belt out lyrics with no hesitation influenced my vocals for years.
I knew of her involvement with an indie “all-star” group called Grenadine and their album Goya, but the first time I saw her live was at Towson with her band, Tsunami, alongside Kristin Thomson. I immediately bought their first album on vinyl at that show, even though, at the time, buying actual records was not the thing to do. I tried to catch them whenever they came around, and after three albums and one compilation, they called it a day.
I then saw her perform solo a few times, and I remember approaching her and asking if she was planning on releasing any of the songs she had performed, as I loved them. She said she was, I said that was great, and walked away. That was all the conversation my nerves could handle.
I ran into her from time to time in clubs in Baltimore, but even saying, “Hi, I’m a fan” when she was drinking a beer at the table right next to me was too much. After Fonzi, she defined cool for me, and her vocals and song styles had a huge influence on my own songwriting. One more follow-up album, where she sang the songs of Bruno Franklin (we’ll hear from him later), and that was it. Recently, they released a Tsunami box set, including all three albums, the compilation of singles, and extras on vinyl.
Sometimes, we really do get what we want.
The song “Patsy Cline” is the first track on her solo double album Antidote, and it sets the mood for the two discs, quoting Cline in the chorus and offering (bad) advice for women to stay with crappy partners. I love the simple groove, I love the lyrics, I love the sarcasm.
Music That Matters (To Me) 