Tim Young

Artist Information

Biography

I'm communicating stories and experiences from my life. I grew up on American top 40 radio in the sixties. Those melodies and beats set the tone in my brain to be unleashed later once I realized I was a musician. Rock n roll is something that has to be 'soaked' into one. It can not be plastered on or 'learned' in any traditional sense. However, if it is absorbed and finds a place to grow and mature, develop, then there is the chance to create exciting music. So I play my guitar hard and sing loud and if I've done my job the best I can then the music can really send me and my audience.


When I first moved to New York City in the mid 70's I lived in Greenwich village and you could still feel the cool vibes from when Dylan and company ruled on MacDougal street. There was a pub there, Kettle of Fish, where not only Dylan had hung but also Kerouac before that. One night someone was passing a guitar around in there and so I got to play a song in the Kettle of Fish bar. I wanted to be connected to that scene so bad and that moment really helped me to establish that connection. I am influenced by the Beat writers as much as by my musical influences. Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassidy, Allan Ginsberg or at least by their attitudes and philosophical leanings.

I'm originally from Easton, PA. A visit to New York City as a kid convinced me at that early age that
Manhattan would one day be my home. Soon after graduation from Mansfield State University in Mansfield
PA, I arrived in the Big Apple.

It was at Mansfield that the performing bug really bit me. I
studied acting and picked up a friends guitar and the girls noticed. Bingo. The songs started to come.

Once in NYC I joined Actor's Equity, SAG and AFTRA and was a professional actor for a number of years. I also helped establish an Off Off Broadway company that produced original
plays for four years. During this residence I began writing songs for the plays and either performing them
or recording them for the production.

When the theatre scene eased it's grip, I turned to music full time. I formed the first of many Rock
bands and performed at many bars and clubs in town. It was during this string of bands and recordings
that my song catalog really had the chance to grow. Many of the songs from that fertile period are
still performed today; as are the constant stream of new compositions. It is a combination of these songs
that make up my solo debut release, RED.

RED is released on the Not Fade Away label. The record was co-produced by me and my friend
George Grant at George's Planet Grey Studios on Manhattan's lower east side. We had not met
before the recording but were able to quickly develop a trusting collaborative relationship and so the
project moved ahead with confidence and talent.

I have also composed for short films and video. In 2002 I released an all instrumental album of
various moods and meditations called NO STRANGER. Now I began to get my music up on the web.

Right now it is the heartfelt rock n roll and constant performing that keeps me rolling and
forging into the future.

And the latest development is that I'm working with this great drummer, Sand Edwards, and so have formed The Tim Young Band. The solo days have once again slid into the past. A new cd will be recorded this March in Dearborn, Michigan with Mark Meisel of Counterclockwise Music as producer. The name of the new album and of the title track is THE COST.

Instrumentation

Tim Young; acoustic and electric guitars and vocals.

Discography

2002- NO STRANGER- Instrumental rock spiced with blues and hint of jazz.
2004- LIVE AT ELECTRIC BANANA
2005 RED-Debut solo cd
Samples of all the tracks from RED and selected tracks from NO STRANGER are available at www.cdbaby.com/timyoung(NO STRANGER) and www.cdbaby.com/timyoung2(RED)
2008 THE COST www.cdbaby.com/cd/timyoung3

Audio

• The Cost
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• Drifting Cowboy
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• Movin' On
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• Work Today
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• The Road
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• The Cost
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Lyrics

• The Cost
• Drifting Cowboy
• Movin' On
• Work Today
• The Road

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• First Cost Review [+ Show ]
  

  Drifting Past Pain and Becoming a Renegade: A Review of Tim Young Band’s ‘The Cost’ By Liz ...
  Drifting Past Pain and Becoming a Renegade: A Review of Tim Young Band’s ‘The Cost’
  By Liz Singer
  
  Tim Young Band’s ‘The Cost’ is the perfect summertime soundtrack. It feels best to listen to it while sitting in front of a campfire, surrounded by company but alone with your thoughts. Every fleeting idea of pain, loss, and confusion come to full circle on each track, bringing to light the themes we all need to spend time thinking about.
  
  The single “The Cost” tugs right at your heart-strings with fully-charged, emotive lyrics like “Now the night is sawin’ at my heart...nobody knows the cost of losing you.” Moving forward from the pain of loss, this twang-y, sorrowful lament about heartbreak infuses country-western rock to create a catchy melody. “Outta Town” adds the electric guitar and makes you imagine what it would be like to just run away from all your problems as Young lists daily hassles we all deal with, such as traffic, landlords, and stresses from work.
  
  One of the strongest songs, with the best intro, is “Drifting Cowboy.” With sliding guitar riffs, the vocals slow down, providing a nice tune to meditate to, amidst your confusion. While listening, you can actually envision a cowboy alone on the ranch, gazing out at the flat land ahead, wondering where to go. Creating an original story on this track, Young tells the tale of a young cowboy from Alabama who quit school: “Rejection filled his cup until he landed on the stage in Nashville.” As Young switches to first person with “I’m a drifting cowboy,” we have to wonder if Young himself is the drifting cowboy. Either way, the story is nothing short of riveting.
  
  “Just For You” has a nostalgic feel to it, bringing Elvis’ generation of country/rock back to the mainstream music scene with strumming guitar and wailing, honest vocals: “I’d shine every night just for you / I can see just what I need to do.” “Remember” certainly has an Elvis attitude, with its “bad boy” tone shining through: “And even when I write these words / I don’t understand the past.” The track presents a concept any listener can understand: being at a crossroads of the past and present, trying to decipher what’s happened before in order to know where to go in the future.
  
  On “Hangin’ In,” Young sings the blues, country-style, telling middle class woes of trying to get by, while inspiring listeners to keep their heads up: “It’s a long road every day / everyone I know says they’re hangin’ in.” Shifting the album’s tone, on “Cold Wind” Young introduces the theme of being, as Bob Dylan sings, “Blowin’ in the wind”: “Cold wind keeps on blowin’ me around; cold wind spins the truth right through the ground.”
  
  “Renegade” fittingly closes the album, since after moving from a wandering cowboy, to a lost soul, to the dust blowing through the cold wind, Young advances to a renegade: a proud, brave man advancing forward through nature and city scenes alike, ready to dominate whatever environment he finds himself in. Without looking back, and with his eyes always set straight ahead, Young proves the ability that we all have to completely move on past the painful yesterdays and transform ourselves into powerful individuals that we never thought we could become. Then, truly, the cost of the pain becomes inconsequential; all that matters are the rewards reaped from the incredible growth process that we all are able to enter and emerge from.
  
  ‘The Cost’ forces listeners to ask themselves, “Where am I? Where have I been? How does it all make sense?” And more importantly, “Where am I going?” But by the time the CD stops spinning, you realize, thanks to the Tim Young Band, that, no matter what the answers are, everything’s going to be all right.
  
  

• The Latest RED Rave [+ Show ]
  

  Greenwich Village is for many a living memorial to the artistic greats; its with an air of reverence...Greenwich Village is for many a living memorial to the artistic greats; its with an air of reverence that one walks down the street and visits the hideouts that served as home to the crop of horrendously talented youths in the 1960s. One cannot help but be inspired by this atmosphere, and Tim Young is one such man. Born in Pennsylvania, he moved to the Village in the late 1970s, where he says one ‘could still feel the cool vibes from when Dylan and company ruled on MacDougal Street.’ Further showing his admiration for his idols, he mentions time spent at the Kettle of Fish pub, an old haunt of Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac before him.
  
  Although he has now moved his gigging focus to Mid-town's renowned Hell’s Kitchen, Tim Young’s song writing skills clearly benefited from immersion in the Village’s musical heritage. His 2002 release, No Stranger, was a well-received instrumental but his real gift seems to be in spinning a yarn or two. And that’s what he gets to do on 2005’s Red, sixteen songs that dare the listener not to get involved. His voice is one of his strongest assets, commanding yet empathetic as he invites the listener into his world. Of course, it does not hurt that his message is backed by skilled musicianship. Highlights for me include ‘Dreams’ and the NPR featured ‘On The Road.’
  
  I won’t lie; at first I was confused that a singer-songwriter was calling himself the Hell’s Kitchen Rock ‘n’ Roll Legend. But I was forgetting one of rock’s fundamental elements: honesty. After all, it’s all about laying out your heart and soul and Young clearly does this in every song. It does not matter how hard you bang the drums, if your hearts not in it, the audience will know. In this way, Tim Young truly is a rock ‘n’ roll star.
  ---By Kate Flavin---

• Stunning RED Review [+ Show ]
  

  "RED" : Stunning New CD From Hell's Kitchen Rocker Tim Young by Eliot Camaren -The Clinton Chron..."RED" : Stunning New CD From Hell's Kitchen Rocker Tim Young
  
  by Eliot Camaren
  -The Clinton Chronicle
  
  Hell's Kitchen Rock & Roller Tim Young has a new CD out, titled RED, and it delivers
  the goods. Many in the neighborhood know Tim from his regular gigs at the Electric Banana
  and other venues across the city. Through these sessions Tim has honed his musical style
  to a razor-sharp edge, playing hour after hour for a live audience; the way performers used
  to do it before prefabricated computer junk took over the music scene. Just when I despaired
  of ever again hearing tight, passionate, honest, slam-bang ROCK, along comes this new CD
  from Tim Young.
  
  His hard work of performing up close before actual audiences - plus an extra heavy dose of
  real talent and taste - add up to an hour of jammin' music on RED, Tim's new CD. It rocks,
  it winks, it nods, it wails and it laughs - RED tells 16 stories of life etched into song by an
  artist who has seen a thing or two in his time and knows the ways of the world. Lenny
  Bruce said that the job of the artist is to look at life and report back. It takes guts to do it;
  to expose your inner mind to the world. Tim sings about exactly this predicament in
  "Maybe You." "It's so hard to be myself," the song begins. but Tim pulls it off in a style that
  rocks the roof.
  
  RED starts out with "Work Today" in which Tim proudly announces, "I ain't going into work
  today, I'm sick of making my pay." But this is an irony, because Tim then spends the next
  hour working like hell, delivering an astounding array of music.
  
  Among the 16 tracks, all written by Tim, there's "Lori," which tells of life, love and loss in what
  starts out as a simple love song and then, just like that funny old dog life itself, veers off into
  questions that cannot be answered and actions that have no explanation.
  
  The exuberant "New Orleans" is constructed along traditional blues lines overlaid on a rock
  core. It is a complex musical fusion that sounds deceptively simple but it takes real talent
  and skill to pull this off as Tim has. With this song Tim delivers the kind of earthy music
  Eric Burdon and the Animals might have made had they taken the time and effort to stick
  it out and grow.
  
  The haunting loneliness of "With You" is palpable, hammered home by a driving acoustic
  guitar determinedly running through the tune like a monkey on the back that you simply
  cannot shake. "Torture" is five minutes of rock poetry musing on the meaning of life, no less,
  rounded off by a crying-out-loud guitar solo that absolutely ranks with the best of them.
  "Torture" is followed by the lyrical, hopeful "Dreams." So who said life was easy? It's
  enough that in the right hands, life rocks. "Disaster" is the gut-twisting cry of a talent that
  knows, correctly, that it is far better than most of what passes for success in today's culture.
  Yet "Disaster" never swerves into self-pity though it unflinchingly explores that enticing
  option. Anger, puzzlement, incomprehension, impatience...it's all there on this track. Why
  not? That's life and "Disaster" faces life's unfair disappointments square on and rocks like
  hell while doing it.
  
  With RED, a large talent grabs you and puts you right inside his mind to share the world as
  he sees it.
  
  The trip Tim takes you on in RED gets the feet moving and the blood roiling. You just don't
  get this kind of stuff every day. It comes from a talent that has worked out in the "gym" to
  develop itself, and a maturity that reminds you just what personal rock and poetry are all
  about. Tim Young is the real thing.
  
  

• RED REVIEWS [+ Show ]
  

  INDIE ROUND-UP REVIEW BY JON SOBEL CD: TIM YOUNG, RED If you pine for a time when people co...INDIE ROUND-UP
  
  REVIEW BY JON SOBEL
  
  CD: TIM YOUNG, RED
  
  If you pine for a time when people could simply write songs and sing them, not caring whether someone called them rock, pop, folk, blues, country, or psychedelic...you'll particularly appreciate this batch of heartfelt songs from New York City troubador Tim Young. Young's unschooled, urgent vocal delivery and lo-fi aesthetic combined with his solid and energetic guitar playing and fertile creativity places his music at the intersection between urban folk, heartland rock and outsider music.
  
  ...Tim Young is impossible not to like. Many of the songs are well-crafted; all illustrate the human condition in its complicated glory and shame.

• Tim's Live Video [+ Show ]
  

  From my former weekly gigs at the Bellevue Bar comes this clip of three songs shot by Rob Safuto of ...From my former weekly gigs at the Bellevue Bar comes this clip of three songs shot by Rob Safuto of podcastnyc fame.
  
  Please check out: 'Take Me Back(Kerouac)'; 'Ain't Nothin Like it Was Before'; and from my cd RED, 'Outta Here.'
  
  http://podcastnyc.blip.tv/file/4822

• Praise for RED and TIM YOUNG [+ Show ]
  

  RED It sounds terrific! I'm getting to be a big fan! You have no idea how little contemporary ...RED
  
  It sounds terrific! I'm getting to be a big fan! You have no idea how little
  contemporary music I listen too. Naturally, I avoid all the top 40 crap manufactured by the big labels; but serious rock, with sound and lyrics that send the listener into the mind of the artist is a rare find these days. You are in that tradition. I listen to your music, it is not there as background when I play it. It exists for a reason. You are communicating with a language.
  --Eliot Camaren, Contibuting Editor, Clinton Chronicle, New York City.
  
  ...I've really enjoyed seeing this album come to life and I appreciate the fact that allowed me to have some input and live vicariously through you...You are a GREAT songwriter and I can't tell you how much I enjoy working with you.
  --George Grant, Co-producer of RED.
  
  LIVE AT THE ELECTRIC BANANA--
  I was particularly amazed by the way you grabbed the audience on 'Disaster.' At the start they are all over the place - by the middle to the end they are right with you. An amazing lesson in showmanship that i would urge anyone who is thinking of performing real rock before a crowd to hear and learn from.
  --Rob Ward, Producer, songwriter.

Setlist

My sets can range from 45 to 90 minutes plus.
Here is the present Hit Parade:

1. Work Today
2. Renegade
3. Drifting Cowboy
4. Red
5. Salvation
6. The Road
7. New Orleans
8. Lonely Explanations
9. Maybe You
10. Lori
11. Wishing
12. Cold Wind
13. Dreams
14. Disaster
15. Outta Here
16. Movin' On
17. Kerouac
18. Outta town
19. Remember
20. Just for You
21. The Cost

Covers:

1. Like a Rolling Stone
2. Pink Cadillac
3. For What It's Worth
4. Don't Think Twice
5. White Rabbit
6. Will the Circle Be Unbroken
7. Sunday Morning Coming Down
8. It Ain't Me Babe
9. Playing with fire
10. Paint It Black
11. Tonight's the Night

Basic Requirements

Calendar