Fairfield, a street musician who plays banjo, fiddle, and guitar and sings traditional folk songs as you would imagine they were sung when they were first written, is only just getting used to the idea of playing music venues alongside rock musicians. He is also an avid collector of 78 rpm recordings of American folk and mountain music and is working on plans to build his own spring motor gramophones.
A lot of band bios will begin with the line “with humble beginnings”. This band bio begins with the line “with outrageously immodest and ambitious beginnings”. With outrageously immodest and ambitious beginnings, The Tom Fun Orchestra sauntered into the Atlantic Canadian music scene the way an Italian funeral saunters through a mountain village. That is, with many loud instruments, casks of wine and complete irreverence for everything happening around them. Thus it went for the next five years.
Kim’s style is explosive, with intricate fingerpicking, percussive beats on the body of the guitar, and two-handed tapping intertwined with an earthy stomp box, powerful blues harmonica melodies and soulful voice. His songwriting reflects his coastal lifestyle – growing up on the East Coast of Australia, with the surf at his front door - and his new nomadic life on the road.
Kim’ achievements so far display the impact he has already had on