User:Tomross/Tom Ross (Musician)

Tom Ross (born 19 February, 1965) Kaiserslautern, Germany (US Army Medical Command) is a musician, filmmaker, graphic designer, actor and activist.

Ross has released 3 albums since 1998; Thirst(1998), Sound Vessel, Red Morning (2008) and Noise of Thy Viols (2009). His song "Albuquerque" was selected as "The Official Song of the Tricentennial" for that city's year-long celebration in 2006. In 2008 and 2009, Ross won Bob Geldof's BloomOrGloom song contest 5 times:

1. 08JUL08 - "Arcs of Sound" Thirst

2. 11NOV08 - "Hollywood Ending" Thirst

3. 03MAR09 - "Red Morning" Sound Vessel, Red Morning

4. 25AUG09 - "Appliance" Noise of Thy Viols

5. 20OCT09 - "Coba" Sound Vessel, Red Morning

Ross has produced over 250 TV Commercials and Sales Videos for broadcast properties around the US and as a filmmaker, he released his first film "The Unveiling" in February 2008. At present he is in post-production on the sequel, "Socorro" due for release in Spring 2010.

Past Projects

1981 - Lead vocals for The Diplomats (Albuquerque, NM)

1984 - Lead vocals for InVogue (Hamburg, Germany)

1989 - Lead in one-man musical The Dreams of Greane (Hollywood, CA)

1990 - Produced and performed at Soulstice 1990 (Hollywood, CA)

1991 - Produced and hosted Earth Plexus Televison (Los Angeles, CA)

1992 - Produced a series of Holophonic® recordings for The Brain/Mind Institute

1993 - Produced and hosted Unearthed [TV] (Los Angelels, CA)

1998 - Released first solo album, Thirst [BMI]

2008 - Released Sound Vessel, Red Morning album

2009 - Released Noise of Thy Viols album

Excerpt from article, "GenX Renaissance Man" by Michael Goodenow

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 period 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. He 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.