Seven years and three albums later, in early 2003, Tom's relentless efforts on Friday's Child's behalf saw the band voted Best New Rock Band by 10 million on-line listeners. In addition, Tom was featured in the best-selling "The Real Deal: How to Get Signed to a Record Deal" by Daylle Deanna Schwartz. The book cited Tom as an expert on café tours and guerilla Internet marketing. Friday's Child headlined and packed the most prestigious venues and festivals in the country, and created the one of the most comprehensive and successful in-store café tours of Borders and other retail chains.

All that abruptly came to an end that year, when Tom woke up partially paralyzed from the neck down. Subsequently diagnosed with central nervous system demyelination from CNS Lyme Disease (tick illness) which had morphed into a form of Multiple Sclerosis, Tom lost a year of his life. That year cost him his marriage, his ability to play the guitar, and his band.

...Fortunately, that was not the end of the story, but a new beginning.

Over the second half of 2003, Tom rehabilitated his hands from numb claws all the way back to the chops that earned him his endorsement with Taylor Guitars. At the end of 2003, Tom started recording what was going to be solo album ("In a Word") with his new bass player, Rich Haddad, and his long-time friends and studio collaborators, Jimmy Wilgus (drums, producer), Zak Rizvi (producer) and Karl Kessler (violin).

Finally completed in the beginning of 2005, "In a Word" is a powerful collection of new songs born out of life-altering events.

After briefly releasing the title as a solo album, Tom quickly realized that there was power in the Friday's Child trademark. He assembled a new band, built on his partnership with Rich Haddad, adding his long time friend and mentor, Don Regan, on guitar and Rich's long time collaborator, Rob Grosso, on drums. The new band gelled quickly and made an explosive debut at the 2005 Florida Music Festival, which garnered a cover of the Music section in of the Orlando Sentinel. "In a Word" was pre-released through Bayside/33rd Street Records in August of 2005 to rave reviews.

After a brief reprise of Friday's Child's signature Borders tour in September 2005, Tom and the new band quickly realized that the most direct way to reach audiences was via broadband media.

Tom partnered with long-time friend, Brian Jude, of Dragon Rider Productions to produce a DVD called Live at Luna, with the intent to Podcast it to broadband audiences. The results far outweighed expectations. As a result, Tom, Brian, lawyer/manager, Rob McNeely (represented Creed), Friday's Child's own, Rich Haddad, overseeing the audio engineering, and video editor, Steve Maio, formed The Digital Café Tour (DCT) ™.

The DCT captures true live music performances from top Indie recording artists across multiple genres. DCT launched at Montclair, NJ's Luna Stage in June 2006. The Summer '06 Series had at least two acts per week for ten weeks of concerts and built an incredible buzz online, spiking DCT's visits to close to a million viewers in the month of September alone. After a brief hiatus, DCT did a few fall shoots and is gearing up for an even bigger '07.

Visit www.digitalcafetour.com for more information on that story.

Tom is a Classically-trained guitarist with a wide musical vocabulary. He started the guitar at the early age of seven. He got serious about it at age eleven, when he began studying with Don Regan. Tom trained with Don for twelve years, and went on to study with Jazz great, Vic Juris, and a handful of other top Classical and Jazz masters. He is a member of AF of M, Local 802, NARAS, and BMI.

A graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Film program with highest honors, Tom has also worked in motion picture development for several major motion picture companies and written or co-written three feature films and two television pilots. His other major passion is the martial arts. Tom trains under and teaches for Master Don Edwards at Integrated Martial Arts and Fitness.

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