Don't Tom Brosseau's video for "Tami" off his upcoming album, Grass Punks - Out January 21st, 2014 on Crossbill Records

Tom Brosseau returns with his first solo LP in five years,Grass Punks
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Out January 21st, 2014 on Crossbill Records, don't miss the Chel White directed video for "Tami" that debuted recently atFILTER calling it "a perfect way to get emotional about your past and remember how much you appreciate your loved ones."

Grass Punks (January 21st, 2014 on Crossbill Records) is Tom Brosseau's first solo release in 5 years and his 7th studio album to date. Themes of the album include emptiness of a false dream, loyalty, betrayal and perseverance. It was recorded and produced by Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek) in a room in a house near the 101 FWY in Hollywood, California 2011-2012.

Brosseau's thoughts on Grass Punks:

The title of this album is a phrase belonging to a very talented, original San Diego female artist, who would perform her soft, low voiced poetry over cafard melodies on the piano. Her words would run through my head, and because they were so open to meaning, play on repeat.

I take the city bus, which is an experience that has plugged me back into humanity. The faces, languages, the dress, daily I am part of the mix of what is the real face of this town, and though learning the schedules has been challenging, and the temperament of some of my fellow commuters eyeopening, it feels good to be in the same boat as everyone else. People come to Los Angeles because like Frank Lloyd Wright said it's where everything loose collects, and though I am nothing more than another pebble I am the number one observer of this place.

My first musical recordings were done so on the family dictation machine. Cassette tapes I bought for cheap at garage sales, the soundtrack to Batman, Beethoven, Enya, which I then unlocked by obstructing the write-protect tab with tape. My idea of a recording studio isn't some climate controlled facility with cutting-edge technology but a bedroom, Radio Shack mic and tape machine, and when I think of album manufacturing I think of Leslie Dillahunt, who still runs media production out of her home in La Mesa, California.

Enough time goes by and you can make sense of anything. Grass Punks at once brought to my mind an earthen smoldering stick, used to light a wick or ward off peskiness, but now it stands for something greater, a sort of heading for everything I believe in when it comes to my brand of folk music and DIY recording.

Tom Brosseau is a folksinger and songwriter from North Dakota. He comes from a working family with a musical background, though none have received formal training. His grandmother Lillian Uglem taught him the acoustic guitar while he was in grade school. He has toured Japan, Canada, Portugal, Iceland, Australia; performed in bars, backyards, grand halls, subways, theaters, old folks homes; exchanged songs and poetry with many talented folks, including Susan Orlean, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Patrick Marber, Bonnie Raitt and the late Sam Hinton. Mayor Mike Brown presented Brosseau the Key to the City of Grand Forks, North Dakota in 2007 for his album of original work entitled Grand Forks. The songs were based on the devastating Red RIver flood of 1997. Natalie Portman chose a track fromGrand Forks, "Plaid-lined Jacket" as part of her continuing work with FINCA, an organization whose mission is to assist communities of impoverishment. Since 2010, Brosseau has performed with Becky Stark and John C. Reilly in John Reilly & Friends, a band devoted to the current American folk music revival, whose members also include Dan Bern, Willie Watson, Greg Leisz, Jerry Roe and Sebastian Steinberg. In 2011, Reilly and Brosseau recorded a 7" vinyl single entitled John & Tomthat was produced by Jack White for Third Man Records. Tom Brosseau has toured with John Doe, Juliana Hatfield, PJ Harvey, and his songs have been covered by such acts as Chris Thile (bluegrass), Mice Parade (shoe gaze), Silje Nes (experimental), Emily & Christy (pop). He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.   Tour Dates: 01.11.14 – San Diego, CA @ the Swendenborgian Hall 01.21.14 – Los Angeles, CA @ Largo at the Coronet: Album Release Party 02.05.14 – Cambridge, MA @ Passim 02.06.14 – New York, NY @ Rockwood Music Hall 02.07.14 – Philadelphia, PA @ Ortlieb’s 02.08.14 – Hudson, NY @ Half Moon   Press for previous Brosseau albums: He is "totally earthbound and at the same time sorta out there in the ether." - NPR's All Things Considered. “Posthumous Success find[s] Brosseau expanding his sonic palette while retaining the lyrical (both literal and figurative) qualities that have made him a quietly special performer and singer. He's the type of guy who can casually reference Dave Grohl, Vincent Price, and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood protagonist Hazel Motes without waving the red flag of pretension, let alone breaking the slightly surreal, waking-dream quality of the music he's so carefully fostered.”  - Pitchfork  “Young North Dakotan folk troubadour won the audience over completely with his literate Leonard Cohen-esque songs, clear androgynous voice and funny nervous anecdotes...”  – THE WIRE “No artist possesses the same peculiar qualities as Brosseau…. The power of his performing persona is so strong that he can pervade the whole room with his subjective existence, making time-warped acolytes out of his audience.”  – BBC.com “His blues-folks songs seem simple and plain, but there’s a real depth to the lyrics, and they’re sung in a voice so confident in its smooth, Ricky Nelson-esque purity that it barely needs accompaniment.”   - Sylvie Simmons 4 stars, MOJO “Almost unbearably intimate, and featuring some of Brosseau’s most heartbreakingly gorgeous songs to date.” – Don Yates, KEXP Seattle  “Like the pleasure of film noir and ageing port…[Brosseau’s music] is refined folk on a crackling gramophone and comfort-wrapped in cigarette smoke…. Beautifully dated, ‘Brass Ring Blues’ sounds, in the best possible way, like something John Peel would have taken from boot sale obscurity.” - NME “You know, someone just said to me a couple of days ago in an interview that there didn’t seem to be any great new songwriters coming up or that it seemed more bleak, and I just said, “Oh, no … it’s not bleak at all.”…[J]ust when you think you’ve heard everything there’ll be the most unusual great new song. Like this guy Amos Lee, and there’s a guy Tom Brosseau—wait till you hear him.”  - Bonnie Raitt, interview:  Performing Songwriter