Thomas Csorba

One Liner:  Americana from a kid at Baylor

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but this is Americana and Alt. Country
Home: Waco, Texas

Poster Position: Late Addition

Weekend One Only.

Thoughts: I'm weird.  I know this.  But I always find some secret pleasure as I begin to type the new band's name to find out if they are the most popular band with the start of their name.  Like, if I started to type in the Spotify search box and I typed just "Ma" what do you think is going to come up?  Madonna?  Matchbox 20?  Mariah Carey? Macklemore?  Maroon 5?  Marshmello?  Nope, Mac Miller.  Anyway, so I play this game in my mind as I slowly type new artists, hoping I'll guess it right.  This guy had to wait for his whole first name to be typed in, plus the first initial of his last name, before he popped up.  T is for Taylor Swift.  Th is for The 1975.  Tho is for Thom Yorke, as is Thom.  Thoma and Thomas both pull up someone called Thomas Rhett.  Sorry, I know none of this has to do with anything about this dude, but I'm tired of researching these no name artists down here in the nether regions of the poster and I find fun where I can.

Ol' Tommy Csorba!  Everybody knows this cat!  Not really, but after a few songs, I'm actually into it.  Americana/alt. country stuff, with some good storytelling that is reminding me of a Slaid Cleaves who served in the military.  You might ask whey I am talking about him with the military?  Well, the album is called From the Foxhole, and the "Enlisted" song talks about him having his brothers in the foxhole with him and how thirty years later he's a vet.  Then he's got a song called "Life in the Foxhole" and one called "Friendly Fire," so it sure seems like he could have been a military guy who finished up his tour and started making music.

But he didn't serve in the military (although he writes a good tune about it), but instead is (or maybe just recently was) a student at Baylor up in Waco.  Which is kind of wild.  Dude is from Houston, and went to Memorial High (about the only Houston High School I really know, its the fancy kids who aren't in private), and then ended up at Baylor?  Dude's lyrics about his sister's funeral and life in the foxhole/enlisting don't sound anything like some pampered Baylor Line kid.  Dude was playing Waco coffee bars, but now he's doing legit touring around the country.  Pretty impressive.

One album, 2017's From the Foxhole, and that one has his top streamer, "Fifty Miles," with 323k streams.  But there is no YouTube video with that one attached, so I need to find a different one.  I think my favorite tune on here is either "Spinning It Too" (like an Americana John Mayer tune) or "Friendly Fire," and that second one has a video.  It's a live one, but you'll get the idea.

His voice has a little bit of David Grey's whine to it, but its damn good.  Heart-felt and powerful track.  He looks like he should be one of the spare super heroes in on of the WB or CW shows.  "Enlisted" also shows some instrumental fire - its not all just good lyrics, the guitar lines and militaristic drums work great.

Here is a random cover of an old traditional of sorts, but I think he makes it kind of fun.  "Plastic Jesus."

I wish he wasn;t doing the effects on his voice - he doesn't need them, but the guitarwork and guitar tone sounds amazing, and the shit-eating grin on his face is hilarious.  I wonder if, because of this song, cops check all plastic jesuses for weed?

One more - this is his most recent track, not all that recent, being released in 2018, but still.  "Murmur of Yearning" is the top track in his most popular list on Spotify, and has 145k streams.

Homie needs to make a friend in the RTF section at Baylor and see about getting some real videos made of his stuff.  He still sounds nice in this video, but it looks like he is filming it in the driveway of the duplex where I lived in Waco.  Banjos are dope.

I'd go see this guy - these songs are great.