The Tompo of the Ringing answers this question-if an eclectic garage and roll band earning three dollars a night split five ways explodes in an empty Tenderloin bar at 3am, does it make a sound?
Tracy Santa offers evidence that someone was listening to that ping in the cosmos. And furthermore documents the journey of a pre-adolescent naturist whose buddies-like Nashville Cats-all play guitar twice as better than he will, out of the tail end of the 60s, through mixed-up confusion in the 70s, rising and crashing in the D.I.Y. free market of the 80s.
Rock bios chronicle the triumph of the chosen few. What of the rest of us? Tracy Santa's story of a life in and around the music of his youth works to fill that gap. Thrill to the origin story of Joe Doy, weird scenes inside the sex mine, and being ignored by the Go-Go's.
Misunderstandings, marching out of step, and not quite getting it right dominate The Tompo of the Ringing. We've read about playing the Hollywood Bowl doped to the gills. Isn't it time we examined the simple pleasures of watching cartoons with Dee Dee Ramone? Or the strand of dental floss connecting "Wooly Bully" and Caesar's Gallic Wars? And just what-when all is said and done-is The Tompo of the Ringing?
The Tompo of the Ringing is a way of seeing that reveals rock and roll as community, as quest, as inquiry, as hopeful practice, and as path, one that imbues Santa's singular tale with broad appeal and larger relevance. Besides, it's just plain fun. Marc Zegans, Pop Matters.
The Tompo of the Ringing is really funny, paced at Markey Mark Ramone speed, stirringly written, incisive, and a great testament and time capsule to that whole era. Tim Parrish, author of The Jumper.
The literary landscape is littered with rock autobiographies. So many of them follow the same narrative, rags-to-riches-to-rags. Imagine if-get this-a book was well-written and unconventional in its storytelling. In The Tompo of the Ringing, Tracy Santa delivers on this promise. Michael T. Fournier, Razorcake.
Tracy Santa's always treated each rock and roll moment like a precious thing. He's the guy smiling when someone throws a drink on the band and tells them to go home, forever. Warren Zanes, author of Petty: The Biography.
