Buffalo Tom and Me

With Buffalo Tom’s new album, “Jump Rope”, being released soon, I am transposing a Twitter thread I posted in 2022 outlining my history of listening to the band.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1993. I was managing a retail clothing store on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Corporate in-store music started including “alternative rock” mix tapes to be rotated with the usual Top 40 and dance-pop.

Buffalo Tom’s “Torch Singer” was featured on one of these tapes, and I was instantly drawn to the lyrics, the chord progression, and the harmonies. I’m sure I had heard Buffalo Tom before that, but this song caught my ear and quickly became a favorite.

Then “My So-Called Life” aired, and Buffalo Tom officially entered the 90s zeitgeist, performing “Late At Night” in an episode of the show:

Fun fact: Devon Odessa, who played Sharon Cherski, would later appear in Buffalo Tom’s video for “Wiser”:

Fast forward to the summer of 1995 and the release of “Sleepy Eyed”, the followup to “Big Red Letter Day”, which would further cement my love for the band. “Summer” was on repeat at the end of that season.

Living in a shore town, the end of summer was bittersweet; with the tourists gone and the beaches empty, it was always a time for quiet reflection. “Sleepy Eyed” spoke to the angsty 23-year-old that I was then.

“But what of BT’s first three albums”, you ask? It was around this time I dug into their back catalog. The first two records (the eponymous first album and “Birdbrain”), were different from the BT I had come to know and love.

With their edgier sound and production by J. Mascis, they were tough to get my head around at first. But with repeated listens, the songwriting shone through and tracks like “Sunflower Suit” and “Fortune Teller” became favorites.

“Let Me Come Over” is a different story. I immediately fell in love with every song on the album, from the opening bass line of “Staples” to the last notes of “Crutch”. To this day it’s my favorite Buffalo Tom album, full stop.

Let’s hop in the Wayback Machine again, this time landing on March 25, 1999, when Buffalo Tom played the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia. How did we get here? Serendipity, of course!

In 1999 I was four years into a new career in tech, working as a network administrator for a school district in South Jersey. One of my colleagues at the school was a lovely woman who I’d chat with whenever I was in the admin offices. One day the conversation turned to music.

“Oh, you’re into rock music? Have you heard of a group called Buffalo Tom? My son-in-law is the singer and guitarist.”

[jaw dropping slightly] “Heard of them?!? They’re one of my favorite bands!”

“Oh, that’s great! Are you going to see them when they come to Philly next month? If so I will get you backstage to meet the guys!”

[jaw drops all the way to the floor]

Not only did my girlfriend and I get to meet the band and have a beer with them in the dressing room, we got to watch the whole show from the side of the stage:

It was one of the coolest music experiences of my life, for sure. “Smitten” had just come out about six months earlier, and that album saw the band’s sound continuing to evolve. It was another one that I listened to over and over, every track.

Eight years and nine months would elapse before the release of Buffalo Tom’s next album, “Three Easy Pieces”. This is a collection of songs that finds the band hitting their 40s, and the subject matter reflects that change.

“You’ll Never Catch Him” is an allegorical song of sorts about a band member’s daughter trying to catch a squirrel. “Thrown” is written from the perspective of a middle-aged guy watching his life pass by from his lawn while reckoning with mortality.

In 2008 the band was on tour supporting the album, and at the time I was working at an advertising agency in Manhattan. I went downtown after work on January 26th to see them at Joe’s Pub, where they would be performing some songs in a more stripped down/acoustic fashion.

That wouldn’t be the last time I saw Buffalo Tom perform – there were several shows at Mercury Lounge and Bowery Ballroom in the 2010s. Oddly enough, I don’t have pictures; I guess I was too absorbed by the music.

The next album, “Skins”, came out in 2011. This one I preordered on vinyl as well as CD, and had the cover framed in my home office:

(Also in the photo is my Takamine guitar that became unplayable due to a cracked headstock and so it ended up being decor, and since this was taken around the holidays, some antique toys that belonged to my dad that my family used for Christmas decorations when I was a kid.)

“Skins” is a further progression into a more mellow and refined sound (e.g., “Don’t Forget Me”, featuring Tonya Donelly on vocals), but it never loses the rock underpinnings that make the band who they are (“Guilty Girls”):

Another seven years went by before Buffalo Tom would give us “Quiet and Peace” in 2018. Another preorder, this time a signed copy!

I turned fifty-two this year, and the opening track, “All Be Gone”, hits home a little harder when I listen to it now:

“Seems like I was just a kid not so long ago
So many arrivals
So many hellos
But now my time behind is greater than my time ahead
Save up the minutes like flowers before they’re all dead and gone”

The album can be summed up, like other Buffalo Tom albums, as introspection and observations wrapped up in songs that are at times quiet, at times rocking, but always intelligent and heartfelt. That’s Buffalo Tom!