User:Stnicholasday/Thom Moore

Thom Moore

Thom Moore is a songwriter, poet, linguist, translator, and musician. He was born in California in 1943, spent his formative years (1950-1961) in Ethiopia and Lebanon, served in the US Navy as a journalist (1961-65), attended University of California, Los Angeles (1965-70) where he obtained a BA in 1969 (Magna cum laude) and an MA in 1970 in Slavic Languages. He moved to Ireland in 1971, where he established the music groups PUMPKINHEAD (1973-75) and MIDNIGHT WELL (1976-78). The single eponymous recordings made by the groups were both released by the Bothy-Band house label MULLIGAN RECORDS (LUN-001, 1975, and LUN-011, 1977). The latter group based itself in Dublin, where it was among the first bands ever managed by Paul McGuinness. Under various pressures, Midnight Well disbanded in 1978, and Thom was persuaded to return to California, where he ultimately found himself teaching English grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary to machine-stenography students in Los Angeles, which job he held from 1980 to 1987. He renewed his familiarity with the Russian language from 1987, joining the On-Site Inspection Agency of the Department of Defense (1988-89) and later working in Russia as a contractor at OSIA's portal site at Votkinsk, Udmurtia (1989-1992) and then as a teacher of English syntax and intonation at Udmurt State University in nearby Izhevsk (1993-95). He returned to Ireland in November 1995, obtaining Irish citizenship and working as a songwriter, translator, and musician up to the present.