About Two Five Burn
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Two Five Burn was born in the nineties, when our first members were just about fourteen years old. The initial line-up was me (singer-guitar), Nick Tomes (drums), Roberto Massaro (guitar) and Adam Young (bass). We played all over London and eventually got some interest from companies. We did some recordings with an independent publisher, and almost signed a deal but it fell through at the last minute, from an in-band disagreement! We played our last gig in this form in February 1998 at the Vultures Perch in Camden. After that we didn't play until 2013, but with a different drummer, Andrew Howard. Then we split again! And finally got the group going again with Rob on drums and his brother Mass on bass. That's how we are today!
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Two Five Burn's Albums (click the images)
Two Five Burn (Self-titled)
This album is really a compilation of all the studio recordings we made in the nineties with our original line-up. Many were recorded, produced and mixed at Alien Studios in London, whereas the first two songs here were recorded and mixed at Red Bus Studios in Edgware Road, and were produced by Peter Lawrence under the wings of the independent publishing company who were interested in us at the time. Also included is a live performance recorded at The Orange club. Listen to Nick Tomes' drumming!
Prefrontal Vortex
Going off of a collection of riffs and chord structures written before the pandemic, Prefrontal Vortex, TFB's second studio album, was created during coronavirus times when everybody had to lockdown and wear masks. We hired out a room at Mill Hill Music Complex in North London, and recorded drums by ourselves using our own drum mics - Rob performed some of the drumming, and so did I. Next we recorded guitars, bass, syths and vocals at Rob's home studio, and got in Charlie Honderick to sing backing vocals and do some synths. This is our most popular album to date: I think it's release was quite timely, and a lot of people enjoy it.
The Emergency Sex Bus Record
Funny story... Back in 2013 when Two Five Burn got back together for a "comeback" gig at a festival in Kentish Town, we got in drummer Andrew Howard to replace Nick Tomes, and we played the gig. Then some other crap happened and Adam left the group, and we called ourselves Schizubishi. And we did so for the duration of the time it took to record the songs on this album, which we did by ourselves, after which Andrew went to live in New Zealand, leaving us without a drummer. Well, maybe that's not so funny...
The Story of How it Happened
To make this album which we started in April 2023, we booked in time at Mill Hill Music Complex's studio one, and recorded half the tracks with drums, guitars and bass separately, and the other half live, although we only kept the drum and bass tracks from that session, and recorded guitars and vocals (as well as backing vocals supplied by Sara Newman) at Rob's home studio. We released this album in February 2024. Not many people listen to it, for some reason. But we like it.
Tobacco: Acoustic Demos
Tobacco: Acoustic Demos is another compilation, this time of songs that might have been written as far back as 2004. Some were recorded using Rob's home equipment, but in 2010 till about 2013 we recorded some of these in my own living room, using equipment I had bought at the start of the decade. It's a very raw album; my voice is raspy with the sound of tar-filled lungs on most tracks, and the songs aren't always exactly performed to perfection! But many people like the songs on this effort, which is some 31 tracks deep.
Live at the Hope and Anchor
Back in the nineties, when TFB played live, you could give the sound engineer a blank cassette and he would record your show. These days it's all done digitally, so you have to pay up! This recording, which we made in January 2023, is the first of two shows we played that year, the other being at The Water Rats in Kings Cross. Here our sound is far rawer than our recordings, but this is generally how we do sound when we rehearse.