Having met on a film shoot in Newport in 2001, Tom Cops and Tom Stubbs formed My Two Toms, writing instrumental songs for guitar, banjo and ukelele and self-releasing their first two albums: Field Recordings and Two (re-released in 2006 on the Mole In the Ground label).
They take inspiration from rural American culture, but without following a grand folk tradition, which is what gives the unique sense of melody and interplay between their two instruments.
Who We Were And What We Meant By It is the third and most recent album by My Two Toms, and their first for seven years. On some of the songs they are joined by friends Matt Jones and Kate Wright of Crescent and Movietone, who add subtle bass, drum and piano parts, and François Marry, who played trumpet on the dramatic Finding Old Things. In turn, as part of the Bristol music community, the Toms have featured on recordings by Crescent, Movietone, François & the Atlas Mountains, I Know I Have No Collar, Ray Rumours, Bucky and The Lonely Ponies.
The originality and accessibility of My Two Toms’ material has won them many fans with the musicians that they have played with; They have supported artists as diverse as Kimya Dawson, Mirah, Herman Dune, Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective, Nina Nastasia, Movietone, Crescent, Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Little Wings, Nancy Elizabeth, Chatham County Line and Jeffrey Lewis. As well as playing shows in the UK, they have been on 2 tours of the American midwest with Charlie Parr.

Praise for My Two Toms

“Their instrumentals are still full of tender plucks, lullabies and roving melodies warmly captured, intentionally unadorned.” – Venue Magazine
“I don’t know where these things come from, but I’m glad that they do” – John Peel
“The melodies are direct, memorable and inseparable from the interlocking harmonies that are weaved around them” – Charlie Parr
“Friendly, charming, lo-fi, but highly intricate, fun” – Everett True
“It hurt right, like, you know, in the heart, where it’s at, it spoke to me straight, you know? And I was there, I was a My Two Toms fan” – David-Ivar Herman Düne
“Spare, ramshackle and very endearing instrumentals that stick in the mind... I can’t wait for more” – fRoots magazine
“Incredibly authentic, well thought out and constructed and if that wasn’t enough it’s all tremendous fun” – Norman Records
“An endearingly ramshackle charm belies the precision of the details” – Careless Talk Costs Lives Magazine

Lost in Translation


Back in 2006, when Mole In The Ground Records re-released "field recordings" and "two" we had a couple of reviews from blogs in other languages. Using google I did an expert job of translating them. Here they are...

"Because frankly, while being bear cub, you leave in
turned in the whole world, you have fun the festival every evening
on scene and the whole, with your best buddies. Nothing with
to repeat, it is the best job of the world. And if there is one well
group which would need my services of bear cub, it is
My Two Toms. Initially because they do not have a singer
or of singer thus a bear cub would be a large asset. And
then because their small instrumental pieces lo-fi
with the guitar, with the banjo and with ukulélé are absolutely
perfect that that a small bear cub trémousse or will make
calins with the girls of the public.
Knut falls asleep every evening by listening to “Field
recordings and Two " of My Two Toms which it ordered
at Mole in the Ground Records."

"10:20 rising. From planting field mail. Wax, fair-hair and thing etc.
of banjo. Because today is shrine town duty, appearing of the house to
10:30, it makes connection the bus, going to work. It meaning that the
processing of CD one box is prepared, you do that. The sale so-so at
first sale last day. Having fallen even from so, "it is terrible don't
you think?" as for last year that how being? The night, Heda you come,
the store. The your grateful word that the return you send. In the
car, various grumbles are made to hear. With side seeing
blast running. You make lower before. When you return
home, there is a New Year's greeting card from Ota. You call poem that
it stopped, but it probably is vigorous? From Heda you mail. Case of T
shirt. From Hamada mail. Greeting in beginning of the year and case
etc. of dawn. At you look "the miserable" last time with ETV.
After all, the Mali mortar was the small article, it seems. Meal. You
telephone from Kumiko. In the middle which you speak, it goes round,
there is an incident that stands with own power. You telephone from. Circumstances of and thing etc. of hanging scroll of
house. Heda you, it replies to the planting field. From Ono mail.
miserable, case of caramel cone. From Heda you mail. side and case
etc. of T shirt. It replies Hamada and to Ono. From Yamane mail. New
Year's Day picture. From planting field mail. and the
case etc. of my two toms."