POST-BURNOUT
The New York native, Tomás Doncker, found his footing as a musician in the early ‘80s, when he joined the late James Chance’s no wave project, The Contortions, as their guitarist. “That was a very special moment in time,” Tomás tells Post-Burnout while reflecting on that scene.
“It was a perfect storm: a lot of things were happening; it didn’t cost anything for it to happen; artists could live in New York; we would go play; there was a circuit of clubs that we could play in; there were underground, renegade situations; there was press that would support our endeavours; there was a growing underground art scene.
“People like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and all those guys. I was friends with Jean-Michel. He used to come to all our gigs. I used to go to all his openings. We used to hang out, you know? We used to go see Eric Bogosian do theatre. There was a lot happening in New York.
“No one was getting rich…initially! So, it was possible. Anything was possible, you know? So, the idea of a James Chance, or a Joseph Bowie from Defunkt […], these guys were, you know, quote-unquote, ‘avant-garde jazz musicians’…I suppose Lester Bowie, with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, being the grandfather of all of it.
“I was fortunate enough to play with Lester many times and spend time around Lester. Genius. Genius. Me? I was like…what? Eighteen? And I’m around these guys. Literally, I was always the baby in the room, and I just kept my mouth shut and played my ass off.”
This reticent decorum was dictated by some advice Tomás’s father had given him: Make it your business to be the dumbest guy in the room. Enter spaces where you are completely out of your depth. Pull up a chair, sit in the corner, and keep your mouth shut and your ears open, and, one day, all of a sudden, you’ll be the smartest person in the room.
But the no wave scene that swept Manhattan’s East Village from 1978 inevitably came to an end around 1983 or ‘4 (depending on your source). Tomás claims that some negative influences, such as substance addiction and the AIDS epidemic that began in 1981, in addition to the concurrent rise of the hip-hop scene in The Bronx, are what killed it.
When reflecting on the death of the scene where he cut his teeth, Tomás’s attitude is prosaic and accepting, rather than elegiac or romantic. “It was thrilling,” he admits. “It was an absolutely thrilling time of my life, [but] there was no way it could have lasted any longer than it did. Me… – being an adult now, fully-grown… – I get it. Eras come and go. That was an era.”
In that era, Tomás found himself playing the same stages with the then-current wave of British two-tone, punk, and new wave acts touring the States. “I remember seeing The Specials when they first came to New York,” Tomás recalls. “It was unbelievable! It was in a club I had played at weeks before that, called Hurrah. It was the same scene, you know?”
After his time in the Contortions, Tomás continued to perform in the local music scene and collaborated with artists such as Madonna, Yoko Ono, Bonnie Raitt, and Bootsy Collins. Tomás would incorporate his experiences with varying creatives into his own art, resulting in a bricolage of world music and styles. Seeking perpetual growth, innovation, and education as an artist, Tomás has a discography that is as much a melting pot as any major metropolis.
After decades of writing, recording, and performing, a little over ten years ago, Tomás started a new venture: The True Groove All-Stars. Named after his record label, True Groove, the fluid, shifting project has incorporated artists like Bill Laswell and Meshell Ndegeocello, as well as members of Public Enemy and Parliament-Funkadelic, in its existence.
But when Tomás moved from New York to London last year, the project went into stasis. “I am very grateful to have been the recipient of the Global Talent endorsement award letter from the UK Arts Council,” Tomás explains of the move.
“That has enabled me to move outside of America. It’s been a long time coming, in theory, but… – without going into a hyper-political discussion about stuff that we already hear much too much about every single day – …I need to go where art, culture and music are celebrated and welcomed. That’s just what I need to do for my life.”
Despite being synonymous with New York, Tomás asserts that he’s a “citizen of the planet,” and that this isn’t even the first time he has moved abroad, having lived in both Japan and the Netherlands at different points in his life.
But when settled in his new home, Tomás was determined to pick the True Groove All-Stars up where it had left off. “The UK branch, many of the members are members of the legendary group The Specials,” he says.
“So, to have been invited not only by the Arts Council, but these guys, first…they invited me over. They said, ‘Hey, man. You should come over here. We’d like to work with you. We can help you navigate the terrain.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God! What an honour!’ I mean, I’m a lifelong Specials fan. A fanatic since I was in high school.”
After the move, the new British branch of the True Groove All-Stars recorded the album Hard is Hard, which was released last September. Then, last month, they released a follow-up single, called “¡2BEAUCOUP!”
The song was inspired by an interaction that Tomás had had with the legendary punk poet Patti Smith, whom he had been a fan of since childhood. The two had been in proximity many times, but Tomás never had the nerve to interact with her.
However, in Brooklyn, Tomás and Patti shared a pharmacy, and when Tomás had passed some of his music to its owners, they, in turn, passed it over to Patti. Patti and her daughter, Jesse, were huge fans of Tomás’s 2020 album, Wherever You Go.
So, there was Tomás, in the pharmacy one day, simply buying some toothpaste and a toothbrush before his trip to Finland, where he was to embark on a European tour, supporting Fun Lovin’ Criminals. Upon seeing Jesse enter, the pharmacist enthusiastically informed Tomás, “That’s Patti Smith’s daughter!”
The two struck up a conversation, and, before leaving, he told her to wish her mother a Happy Thanksgiving. As he went to leave, he felt a tap on his shoulder. “I turn around, and she’s holding her iPhone in my face,” recalls Tomás.
“And it’s Patti on FaceTime! And I literally shriek like a little girl! She’s like, ‘Hi, Tomás! How are you?’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God! I’m on FaceTime with Patti Smith! This is crazy! What do I talk to Patti Smith about?’”
What came to mind was that he always wanted to cover her song, “People Have the Power,” which she wrote with her late husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith, but explained that he was having trouble translating the second verse, as it was too idiosyncratically Patti, preventing him from continuing.
“She looked at me through the phone, and she said, ‘Change it!’,” recalls Tómas, still with an air of amazement to this day. “I said, ‘Excuse me?’ She said, ‘You have my permission. Change it. You’re a writer. You know how to write, Tomás. You know the basic gist of what I’m talking about. Make it your own.’”
After getting Jesse and the others in the pharmacy to bear witness to this permission, Tomás worked on an R&B rendition of the track, which Patti loved. A few months later, Patti was taking part in an online benefit for climate change (which also featured Michael Stipe, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, and Jack Johnson), and she asked Tomás to come in and record an acoustic rendition of “People Have the Power” at Electric Lady Studios, which he gladly accepted.
Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ European tour happened to end in Paris, about two days before Patti was also completing her European tour, celebrating fifty years of her album, Horses, in Paris. Tomás contacted Jackson Smith (Patti’s son and the guitar player in her band) to ask if he wanted to hang out while they were both in Paris. Instead, Jackson invited Tomás to L’Olympia to perform “People Have the Power” with Patti.
This experience inspired “¡2BEAUCOUP!” “When you get to the chorus [and everybody sings], you believe that message,” Tomás explains. “You believe it. It’s alive in the room at that moment. Everybody’s on the same page when she sings that song.
“I wasn’t trying to write a ‘People Have the Power,’ but… – My partner said this. I’ve been using this quote…My production partner, the legendary James Dellatacoma. – …he said to me, ‘Man, this ‘¡2BEAUCOUP!’, man, it’s two verses and a vibe.’
“That’s what it is! Which is kind of like what ‘People Have the Power’ is. […] That’s where it came from. That’s where it’s born. I stay inspired, man. I’m inspired by all kinds of things.”
Tomás Doncker & the True Groove All Stars’ latest single, “¡2BEAUCOUP!,” is out now. You can keep up with Tomás and his project through his website.
You can see Tomás Doncker live at:
April 15th – London, UK – The Cabbage Patch
May 6th – Arnhem, NL – Luxor (supporting Fun Lovin’ Criminals)
May 7th – Alkmaar, NL – Victorie (supporting Fun Lovin’ Criminals)
May 8th – Breda, NL – Mezz (supporting Fun Lovin’ Criminals)
Tune into tonight’s episode of POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews…at 22:30 IST) to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.
Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.