SOME GEAR · SOME WORDS · SOME IDEAS
Songs with
scuffed edges.
Hello friend! I’m Tommy Transplant. I write, play, record, and release music from my tiny little corner of France—loud guitars, odd detours, and whatever I can get working in the studio.
DIY MUSIC / HOME RECORDING / GUITAR WORK
Side A / Side B / Repeat
Three songs.
Start anywhere.
Deeply imperfect, all original, delivered to your ears with humility.
01 / VIDEO
Riding High
It’s on YouTube. (and BandCamp!) This is the most produced song I’ve done yet; I’m still learning the ropes of music production.
02 / VIDEO
DRYING OFF
Also on YouTube. Not on Bandcamp…yet. My first song upon landing in France, so I felt compelled to sing in French.
03 / VIDEO
This Joke
The video is up on YouTube. This was my first real song, and it sounds like it.
Keep digging: Bandcamp · YouTube channel
Built / Rebuilt / Played
Guitar gallery.
Inspired by Strummer
Just before the pandemic in 2020, I built this inexpensive Telecaster kit in the kitchen of my RV. Joe Strummer was the main inspiration, with a side of Billy Gibbons. The body and rattle-can paint are the only things left from that first build.
It’s got hot pickups, a brass nut, and a super trick bridge from Lucky Dog Guitars. All the electronics have been replaced with higher-quality units, and I eventually settled on Billy Gibbons’ “Mexican Lottery” .008 strings. It’s also on its third fret job and its fourth set of tuners (they’re finally good!). It remains my favorite-playing, favorite-sounding, most comfortable and beloved noise generator. Goofy shit like painting the neck pickup with orange tractor paint and knobs snatched from retired medical equipment make it actually one-of-a-kind.
Faked it because I made it.
This started life as a cheap, B-stock Harley Benton. The inspiration was somewhere between Mike Dirnt and Dusty Hill. I rebuilt the whole thing—there isn’t anything I didn’t rework.
A generic but decent high-mass bridge with a J-bass cover, Seymour Duncan Quarter-Pounder pickup, brass nut, reshaped headstock with (marginally) better tuners, dyed fretboard… yeah, kinda all of it. It’s got flatwound strings that look pretty cool in black. Considering I’m somewhere around €250 for the overall budget, I’m pretty happy with it…but likely not done with it, either.
The rest of the collection
