Northeast Pennsylvania singer-songwriter (and playwright) Tom Flannery has been called "one of the most gifted songwriters to emerge at the turn of the century" (by the All Music Guide). Pretty heady stuff for the unassuming descendent of Irish coal miners. "I read that and I was like....well.....I guess I know what to put in big type on the front page of my website."

Since his 1998 debut Song About a Train, which the AMG called "heartfelt and brilliant", he's been steadily building an impressive, grassroots following. Mainly through the web, since he plays only a handful of live gigs a year. "I love to play live", he says with a sigh. "I just hate everything that goes with it. The travel, the near starvation, the empty chairs, the singing your guts out for $50, the folk nazis, the flat tires, missing the kids. The business of it all just sucks. So I said screw it. I'll stay in my basement and write." 

And so, after 2 more official releases, The Anthracite Shuffle in 2000 and the solo acoustic Drinking With Nick Drake in 2002 (both of which received rave reviews....the former being called "a brilliant and eclectic tapestry of American folk music" while the latter was dubbed "intimate, direct, beautifully limpid...the strongest set of lyrics he has yet penned"), he created the SongaWeek.com website. "I decided to just give everything away", he says. "And I mean everything. I write so many songs, and it costs like 10 grand to put out an "official" CD with a dozen tracks on it. I was writing 2 or 3 songs a week at that point. Hell, I'd be broke in a month. My problem is I don't dabble in anything. Once I get hooked I become manic. So I bought a digital 8 track machine and I've released everything since digitally through the web." This includes tracks that make up 2 online song cycles, 2004's heartbreaking  A Rwandan Song Cycle, and SongsforWoody.com, a collection of songs about his idol, Woody Guthrie.A brand new song cycle, this one dealing the the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, was just released in early 2007. "Ain't I a cheery bastard?", he says. Hands in the Dark is available here.

The title of the SongaWeek  website was no idle boast. Since it's debut in the spring of 2003, Flannery has not missed a single deadline. One new song (at least) has been released as an MP3 every week since then. All are recorded solo acoustic. "I'd hire a band but I don't pay very well", Flannery says. "Actually, I don't pay at all. So, solo acoustic it is. Fine with me. Less arguments and no more drunken drummers." 

The response has been overwhelming. Over 850,000 downloads in nearly 4 years.....Flannery's eclectic offerings covering everything from the horrors of the Rwandan Genocide to what he calls a "love song" for George Bush and Cindy Sheehan. Raging anti-war songs may be followed by a stirring ballad of a broke down minor league pitcher reluctant to give up his dreams. Furious leftist rants ("I'm even stand on the left side of the toilet to pee", he says) are rendered with no quarter asked nor given. A hysterical rockabilly number about living next door to Patty Hearst somehow comes from the same guy who writes poignant historical ballads about the USS Indianapolis and the infamous 1917 Halifax Explosion. "I'm a songwriter", he says. "I don't write "this" kind of song or "that" kind of song. I just write songs. Whatever comes out comes out. I'm interested in about a million different things. Why should I just write songs about love or bald eagles or whatever? I'm not in this for the money, which is a good thing since I don't really make any.  I'm actually genuinely mentally unbalanced when it comes to this stuff, which is either good or bad depending on whether you have to live with me." Finally, he says what's really on his mind....." I want to write a song about everything." 

In short, you're liable to get just about anything at SongaWeek.com. "How anybody can run out of ideas to write about is beyond me", he says. Just pick up the paper and look at Dick Cheney's fangs. If that doesn't  inspire you to write a fucking protest song nothing will."

"I just love to write. If I go a few days without trying out something new I feel like a sloth." And so the new century has emerged. And Tom Flannery plans on chronicling it through song. "If I hit the lottery I may release another official CD. You know....bass, drums, orchestral flourishes, rapping with the ghost of George Martin, snorting cocaine off the sound board...the rock and roll works. But if that doesn't happen I'll keep giving 'em away. One week at a time. People are listening. Why wouldn't I? I get bored pretty easily."

You can reach Tom here.