Tom Ross Music

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June 2010: Tom Ross asked by Arun Gandhi (Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi) to design works for the Gandhi Worldwide Institute.
[All design fees donated to the education and housing of the children of Kolhapur.]

GenX Renaissance Man
by Michael Goodenow

Michael Goodenow is the author of the 2003 book Leading America, 1630-2030 and the 2007 book Visionary Behavior.
Primarily as a speech writer, Mike has worked with more than 700 of America’s elected leaders on policy or communications.

Today, Tom Ross is the Creative Director for one of America's leading broadcast companies: Entercom. He has developed identities for dozens of radio stations around America and has written, produced and edited over 250 television commercials and sales videos for this company's broadcast properties.

Before that, as senior designer for a high-tech marketing firm in Southern California, Tom produced campaigns for Microsoft, IBM, Q-Logic and the rock band Styx. And prior to that, Tom earned the 1997 Lycos Editors' Choice Award for Original Website.

While Director of Marketing for a national internet company, Tom's principled decision not to utilize spam techniques for lead generation—but instead to employ strict Permission Marketing practices —drew the attention of the National Foundation for Women Legislators. In chambers at the U.S. Capitol in May 2001, Tom testified* to women lawmakers from across the U.S. in support of House Resolution 718 to limit unsolicited commercial e-mail, or "spam."

Always engaged in public service in general and issues relating to Generation X in particular, Tom became one of the youngest gubernatorial appointees to California's Consumer Affairs Department's Board for Geologists and Geophysicists where he focused on environmental issues and public safety.

Born in the Black Forest region of then West Germany, Tom Ross, son of a U.S. military man, lived in six different cities before settling in the high
desert of New Mexico at age nine. He now lives,

symmetrically, in the Black Forest region of central Colorado with his wife and sons.

His first memories of art didn't portend his success. Tom's kindergarten teacher effectively failed him in coloring for not staying inside the lines. By age 17, Tom was flourishing as both artist and musician and was a published cartoonist.

Along with art and music, Tom found another passion in secondary school, in his New Mexico State Science project on dominant cognitive hemispherical brain function and group problem-solving.

He devised a method of segregating a group of students by right or left brain dominance, exercising those faculties toward a problem and then re-integrating them for an ultimate, whole-brain solution. The project earned Tom a four-year scholarship to New Mexico Tech and a research scholarship to Eastern New Mexico University.

After a year of research with university students working on the problem of US/USSR relations, the experiment's result was EarthPlexus — a networking concept designed to develop and promote new modes of communication between American and Soviet youth. Tom traveled throughout Europe, Australia and the U.S. building an engaged, multinational network of enlightened Xers throughout the early 80s.

By the time he arrived in Los Angeles in 1986, EarthPlexus was a network reaching across 13 countries on four continents.

Tom then produced and hosted 33 hours of newscast format programming about the network called EarthPlexus Television (EPTV) in Los Angeles and participating university radio and TV stations.

Tom later produced and hosted a wide-ranging interview show Unearthed. Tom interviewed Robert Anton Wilson on the "illuminati" and had conversations with everyone from Marilyn Ferguson to Charlton Heston.

All along, while producing television, staying active in state and federal public service, and managing an international network of GenXers, Tom developed his artistic talent. His kindergarten teacher was unavailable for comment. But as Tom continues his work, there's really no guessing where this artist, producer, activist and networker (who still colors outside the lines) is headed next.

The National Foundation for Women Legislators became interested in my unconventional decision not to utilize Spam techniques as Director of Marketing for
a national Internet company (and to employ only strict Permission Marketing practices) and asked me to testify about Spam at the US Capitol in June 2001.

house

TOM ROSS INVITED TO TESTIFY BEFORE MEDIA AND
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY POLICY HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE

Washington D.C., June 1, 2001: Today Private Sector Co-Chair Nominee, Tom Ross, testified before the Media and Information
Technology Policy Committee in Washington D.C. on the subject of consumer privacy and, in particular, 'Spam'.

A portion of Mr. Ross' remarks appears below.

• • • • • • •

Hearing Room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. Friday, 6|1|01, 8:28am
Called to Testify: Tom Ross Private Sector Co-Chair Nominee

"Good morning, Madame Chairwoman and thank you for allowing me to address the House Subcommittee on Media and Information Technology.
My name is Tom Ross and I am the Director of Marketing for a web infrastructure company in the private sector. As Director of Marketing, it is my job to get our product brands in front of as many consumers as possible, as often as possible, so that when our product offerings match their buying cycle we'll have adequate mind share. I'm here today to talk about Unsolicited Commercial Email or "Spam" and that it works—very well. In fact, the number of leads that such campaigns generate is limited only by the number of emails sent out—the larger the net—the larger the catch. It's an extremely low cost vehicle for any marketing arsenal that can get brand names in front of hundreds of thousands—even millions—of consumers instantly.

Our company has all of the technology and expertise necessary to conduct these massive 'Spam' campaigns. But we don't. Never have. Never will—as long as I am overseeing our marketing efforts. We have made a conscious decision not to Spam and, as the leading educators in the Radio/Internet space, we teach all of our station-clients not to Spam as well. Not only because it's distasteful to consumers—it is—we've all spent too much time deleting this junk email—but, because we've found a better way to generate higher and more qualified leads than Spamming. It's called Permission Marketing. And, because it is personalized, anticipated and relevant to the recipient, it raises the bar on Internet etiquette. Visitors to our site or at our trade shows "Opt-In" to receive communications from us—they give us "Permission" to contact them and consequently, the ratio of turning leads to sales can exceed that of Spamming significantly. Again-Spam works—but it is invasive and there are better, more respectful ways to generate leads for sales.

That's why I'm here to support House Resolution 718—the 'Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001' which aims to protect individuals and families from Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail - or Spamming. I'm here today to make the committee aware that there are alternative methods of lead generation out there to combat the proponents of Spamming when they rebut in favor of its economic potential to American business. We don't have to sacrifice etiquette,
electronic or otherwise to generate revenue in this arena. Thank you."

The Albuquerque Tribune Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Duke City song adds grace note to history
By Melissa Birks

A homesick Tom Ross looked out his living room window at the Pacific Ocean. The words "just kind of flowed." In about 15 minutes, Ross wrote "Albuquerque," one of 12 songs on his album, called "Thirst." "And I'm coming home, Albuquerque," the lyrics say.

On Friday, Ross comes home, this time for an exhibit that features his 1998 song and seven others celebrating the Duke City. The Center for Southwest Research searched its archives and asked for suggestions for this portion of its tricentennial exhibit, which continues through mid-May.

Located in the center's gallery inside Zimmerman Library, the exhibit asks visitors to use two of the five senses. They'll see 300 years of history as told through movie posters, newspaper clippings and the handwritten diary of 1850s-era businessman Franz Huning. And they'll hear eight songs. They can't buy the CD; without paying royalties, the center has one-time use of the music for this exhibit. But the collection plays continuously from a portable CD player in the center of the gallery.

The songs have one thing in common: They're about Albuquerque.

"It's a very picturesque song. It invokes the feeling
I have for the city - looking at the Sandia Mountains,
the volcanoes, the thunderstorms, the beauty
I see every day"
Katherine McCully, UNM Student

They paint images ranging from the poetic (Eddie Gallegos crooning about "the land of romance, where gay se?oritas sing love songs and dance" in 1952) to the silly ("Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 ballad about traveling to a place "where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer/And the towels are oh so fluffy").

On Friday, Enrique Lamadrid, director of UNM's Chicano Hispano Mexicano studies department, will tell the story of music in Albuquerque through the centuries."We have a reasonable idea of what people were singing and what instruments were being used (through time) and how music evolved," Lamadrid said.

Four hundred years ago, ballads imported from Europe and dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries would have been part of everyday life here. The subject matter: historic events and mythology.

Those evolved into corrido ballads, songs about interesting or significant events, performed at social gatherings such as dances, weddings or baptisms. String instruments, here from the beginning, became popular by the 19th century, Lamadrid said. An Albuquerquean would have danced to the same waltzes and polkas that made the scene overseas.

A distinctive "Albuquerque sound" developed in the 1960s and 1970s, characterized by trumpets, saxophones and electric guitars and familiar to fans of local musician Al Hurricane. "It was a big sound," Lamadrid said.

Exhibit curator Nancy Brown Martinez said two of the eight songs came from the center's collection. Both ingeniously titled "Albuquerque," they're among the oldest in the collection. The Gallegos song is one. The other, from the John Donald Robb Collection, was recorded in 1964 in Spanish by Vicente Saucedo.

Katherine McCully, a UNM student and part-time librarian who compiled the collection, found inspiration from other sources."I worked at a truck stop in Moriarty before I was a librarian. I heard that song all the time," McCully said of "Lights of Albuquerque" from Jim Glaser's 1985 album. But don't expect to hear Neil Young's "Albuquerque." "Too melancholy," McCully said.

While Ross recalled being homesick when he wrote "Albuquerque," McCully enjoyed its imagery of the city's lights snaking down the mountains. Ross knows the lights well. He lived in Albuquerque from third grade through high school, where he learned to play the guitar. After graduating from Manzano High School, he attended various colleges and then headed to Europe. In 1998, he was living in Los Angeles when he decided to produce an album to "get it out of my system."

He made a "couple of thousand" copies of "Thirst," most of which, he said, his father gave to family friends. Today, he lives in central Colorado and works in marketing for a radio group. He has another album "in my head," but he's also focusing on helping his musician son break into the business.

He's not sure what he'll do at Friday's event, but he's excited to come home.
"I guess I should practice the song," he said.

	< SOULSTICE 1990 Hollywood, CA [1990] A 2-day event held at the Barnsdall Art Park Gallery Theater in Hollywood, California on June 21, 1990 - the Summer Solstice. This event included three live bands; mine, Little Indians and Manimal as well as inspirational prose written and delivered by GenX author Mike Goodenow Weber. The gallery featured multimedia and fine art exhibits by six Los Angeles-based artists, performance art and dance on the main stage		< THE DREAMS of GREANE Hollywood, CA [1989] This Rock Opera, written by Christopher Campbell, follows the main character, (Greane) through a series of spiritual trials and carnal temptations as he tries to earn his way back into heaven after a Faustian deal. CAST Tom Ross Greane \| Vocals Chris Campbell Judge \| 12 String Rebecca Lewis Mary \| B/U Vocals Betty Nixon Muse \| Percussion	/\ THE MESSIAH of MALIBU Los Angeles, CA [1992] This film by Jim Bernet didn't get past casting and investor SWAG like this poster and shirts. It would have starred Elizabeth Lauren, me, and a cameo by Ritchie Havens.	/\ YOUBLOOM [2008] Created by Ireland's Phil Harrington with Sir Bob Geldof and launching this Summer, YouBloom is a musicians' social network designed to connect music lovers with exciting new artists.
	< INVOGUE Hamburg, Germany [1984] Within 24 hours of arriving in Hamburg from Denmark, I auditioned for this Duran-Duran-esque band in 1984. Thank goodness, because at the time— flat broke—I was seriously considering either joining the US Army in Landstuhl, or finding a Sufi monastery and becoming a Gurdjeiffian Monk in Romania. And at 19 years-old, they both seemed feasible. And then a CBS demo project in Paris for Ravenhead.	/\ THE DIPLOMATS New Mexico [1981-1983] My first garage band, The Diplomats actually did quite well for a local band prior to YouBloom or MySpace. These are shots from perhaps our biggest gig, The Jemez Springs Music Festival in front of a crowd of a couple thousand bikers and our own Diplomatic Attaches. [Tom Ross Vocals/Guitar \| Dave Pendery Lead Guitar \| Brian Ditmer: Bass Guitar \| Chris Ditmer: Drums]