Time: 9:30

Cover: $10

The Tom Fun Orchestra  http://www.tomfun.ca or www.myspace.com/tomfunorchestra is an eight-piece cluster-rock ensemble from Cape Breton Island that has been impressing music fans and critics alike with their raucous stage presence and high-energy show. Their unconventional lineup of violin, banjo, accordion, and trumpet married to a driving rock trio is redefining what people think of Canada’s East Coast music.  They are Animal Houston: Guitar, Vocals
Carmen Townsend: Guitar, Vocals
Morgan Currie: Violin
Dave Mahalik: Accordion
Victor Tomiczek: Banjo
Tommy Stallion: Drum Kit
Bert Lionais: Trumpet
Shane O'Handley: Shakey Bass

Born somewhere in the north Atlantic on a large fishing vessel, Tom's mother was an Austrian gypsy who had disguised herself as a male deck-hand in order to board the ship and create a new life on the other side. Her identity was revealed when she went into labour and shortly after Tom's birth was forced to walk the plank.

Tom was taken ashore by an aging sailor named Whisky Gibbons who deposited him at a brothel on the edge of a small town somewhere outside of anywhere. So it was that Tom spent most of his childhood being raised by call girls, learning cuss words and card tricks from tramps, vagabonds and outlaws, developing a fondness for cheap perfume, bourbon & show tunes.

When Tom was 13, having learned all he could learn at the brothel he set out on his own, finding himself at a rock quarry, smashing rocks into pebbles and pebbles into dust. He was taken under the wing of a seasoned miner - a black man named Alibi Slims. On top of showing Tom how to drink without taking his cigarette out of his mouth, Alibi taught Tom how to sing the gospel songs he learned growing up; "You've gotta sing 'em with yer nuts, child".

Years passed and Tom had smashed a mountain into dust. Grabbing his few meagre possessions (including a pocket-sized sun dial and the 4 stringed guitar Alibi had given him), he hopped a refrigerated box-car and "hiccuped his way across the country".

Some more time went by; new bottles of whisky turned old and the Good Ship Tommy Fun found itself docked in the rumored 'basement' of the abandoned Vogue theatre in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Here Tom began constructing his laboratory dedicated to "tin-can clanking, bottle cap- tapping & dizzy, dizzy shaking". As word spread of the late night howling heard to be emitted from the bowels of the Vogue, a league of turned-on, former gentlemen began joining Tom in his laboratory for "all night celebrations of musical excess and prescribed chaos". By means of their musical genius, The Holy Microphone Machine - as they became known - began to supersonically spread Tom's message to an ever-growing congregation.