If you read his reviews or talk to his fans, it is quickly apparent that no two descriptions of Tomás Ford are the same. And while that opens the door for elaborate fanciful fluff and hyphenating half a dozen genres together in a daisy chain, the truth requires nothing more than sheer simplicity.

In the truest sense of the word, Tomás Ford is an entertainer.

In his hometown of Perth, where he is a five-times WAMi-nominated artist, Tomás Ford has become somewhat of an institution, and, strangely enough; a bridge between different worlds.

The electro crowd love him because he has an ear for a beat, the indie crowd love him because he has an eye for visual art, and the punks love him because he’s mad as fuck.

But that’s on stage. Off stage, you would have to travel far and wide to find someone who wouldn’t tell you how much of a nice guy Tomás Ford is. His reputation as a gentleman always precedes him. And, in complete contrast to his utterly fearless live show, Tomás Ford is a very shy fellow, most often found working away at night, bathed in the glow of a laptop screen as he chases the musical dragon.

Like all artists, Tomás Ford lives for his art. Sometimes that means starving for it, and sometimes it doesn’t… but the point is that it doesn’t matter either way. You keep on doing it because it’s what you do.

And the longer Tomás Ford keeps doing what he does, the bigger what he does gets.

His first shows more or less consisted of what he had at the time: a laptop full of weird evil-disco, a microphone, a couple of milk crates and a hurricane of ‘don’t know what else to do with it’ energy. It was Spartan, but the shows were electrifying and strange.

An artist unlike any other, Tomás was quickly noticed and never forgotten.

The press surrounding Tomás Ford’s ‘arrival’ was almost as amusing as the shows themselves… nobody ever quite knew what to make of Tomás other than unanimously agreeing he was both weird and brilliant. 

The more the word spread, the bigger the stages got… and the bigger the stages got, the bigger Tomás made his show; from touring nationally with the Big Day Out, to his most recent accomplishment of twice selling out Perth’s beautiful and historic Astor Theatre for his biggest audio/visual extravaganza to date.

And as Tomás Ford’s road keeps forking off in new and unexpected directions, so too does the man himself - ever the mad scientist with a lightning storm of ideas.

As an artist, Tomás Ford is driven to keep searching. To keep creating. As a performer, he is driven by the adrenalin and escapism that comes when Mr Hyde takes over.

And although everybody describes Tomás Ford in a somewhat different way, the common denominator is that every single person who witnesses a Tomás Ford show leaves with a smile on their face… and that, ladies and gentlemen, is entertainment.

BOOKING ENQUIRIES:
Tyranocorp
Laith Tierney
Email: tyranocorp [at] jazi [dot] net

MEDIA AND ALL OTHER ENQUIRIES:
Tomás Ford
Email: management [at] tomasford [dot] com
(Phone number not listed on website due to freaky stalkers.)

2010
Loudspeeka Cassingle
Laneway Festival (WA)
Southbound (WA)
Future Music Festival (WA)
One-off Headline Show (VIC)
Loudspeeka Cassingle Launch & Disco Wonderland (WA)
Disco Bunker Theatre Show (WA)

2009
Bash Myself EP
Big Day Out (NATIONAL)
Big Day Out Sideshow (VIC)
Perth International Arts Festival (WA)
Bash Myself EP Tour (NATIONAL)
Birds Of Tokyo Tour Support (NATIONAL)
Headlining Tour (NATIONAL)

2008
This Is Not Art Festival (NSW)
Artrage Silver Festival (WA)
Headlining Tour (ACT/NSW)
Headlining Tour (TAS/VIC)
Headlining Tour (NSW/ACT/VIC)
Headlining Tour (NSW/ACT/VIC/TAS)

2007
Tomás Ford’s Idea Of Fun EP
Five Times Single
This Is Not Art Festival (NSW)
Perth Festival (WA)
Headlining Tour (NSW)

2006 
Nobody Wants To Be You Album
Adelaide Fringe Festival (SA)
Artrage Festival (WA)
Tomás Ford Vs The Audience, Season (WA)

2005
Geraldton Arts Festival (WA)
Overload Poetry Festival (WA)
Artrage Festival (WA)
Headlining Tour (VIC)
Headlining Tour (NATIONAL)

2004
Melbourne Fringe Festival (Vic)
This Is Not Art Festival (NSW)
QFest (WA)
Headlining Tour (SA)

2004-2008: Big Day Out Lilyworld (Perth)

REVIEW:
Tomás Ford, The Astor Theatre Mt Lawley
By Ben Watson, Fasterlouder.com.au

Mount Lawley, Western Australia. On a hill, on Beaufort Street. In a theatre, or a cinema, which is old and historic and awesome but for some reason isn’t used very often any more except for cultural events or the occasional independent film (which is worrying, yet also awesome). In a small, upstairs lair hidden around a corner, to an intimate seated crowd of around 100 slightly apprehensive yet good-natured punters, a normally demure man of average stature, dressed smartly as some kind of affable Haçiendan chimney sweep, is smashing the fuck out of a computer keyboard. His name is Tomás Ford, and he has just recovered after tripping over backwards and stacking it into his shit.

Tomás Ford’s ‘shit’, for those who are unfamiliar, consisted on this occasion of about a half-dozen (or more) computer screens, painted up and bandied about the floor space at the front of the cinema. Behind him, the cinema screen simulcasts an appropriate mix of low-fidelity footage, Invaders-era video game shenanigans, and a consistently hilarious mix of perfectly self-deprecating and amusingly self-referential slogans. Things like ‘It is now appropriate to lose your shit’, and an extended dialogue on why Tomás Ford is not a DJ, but plays DJ gigs regardless.

After following up his mess-making with an appropriately mellow number during which he used a dust-pan and broom to clean keys off the floor while serenading the audience, Tomás Ford faced the crowd and declared with a grin: “most people in Perth think I sold out down stairs!” (a reference to the cinema’s cavernous main room which is nowadays used for Karvnivool gigs and the like). This comment was, naturally, met with rapturous grins from the full cinema—a perfectly intimate setting for Ford’s first theatre show since his legendarily controversial Tomás Ford vs The Audience gigs back in ‘07.

The first thing that needs to be understood about Ford, who is by now a road-hardened and theatrically accomplished audience provocateur, is that the man’s show, with all its invasions of personal space and outrageously extraverted behaviour, is simply unadulterated comedy from start to finish. Combining pre-conceived ideas with spontaneous hilarity, Ford’s self-deprecating stage demeanour and reflexive banter are the perfect counterpoint to his outrageous on-stage behaviour. In one moment, the entire crowd was cheering for Ford’s mother, who was in attendance and designed his costumes, and the next, were yelling ‘fuck me harder!!’ as the performer introduced his supposed ‘safe word’ for the evening.

There was also music, of course, and aside from a brief acoustic interlude (during which volunteers from the audience assisted by holding microphones and acting as comedic bait), Ford stuck to his staple of brain shattering electro beats, twiddled and programmed using boxes of mysterious noises and knobs. The music itself often seems incidental, but it’s as much a part of the show as anything—and it was nice that, tonight, Ford took the time to explain some of his lyrics and concepts as he lead into re-mixed versions of classics like Five Times and Bash Myself.

For the most part, the awkward social interactions that so often have pub punters baffled and disturbed were actually kept to a minimum—or perhaps they were more contextually appropriate as Ford fell through the audience, hugging people for just long enough for it to be uncomfortable, before moving on to his next folly. Ford made great use of the space though: at one point sliding down the banister above the theatre’s entrance, at another utilising the cinema’s small stage for an hilarious cover of a song from Billy Elliot during which he struck some of the cheesiest Broadway poses known to man.

After just the right amount of time, Ford invited all his guests for the evening to join him down in front of the cinema screen, where he crowd surfed, then serenaded his way through a final couple of numbers. In perfect style, avoiding any uncomfortable final applause, Ford then issued one final instruction: “GO HOME”. To the end, this was hilarious, because naturally the audience had no idea whether or not the man was serious. He was, and Ford soon took to physically evicting patrons, swearing at them if necessary. GTFO.

A great concept, and a great performance, Tomás Ford’s Disco Bunker was rad all round. More stuff like this in Perth please.