F150 PICKUP BAND (new name for the Bucket Brigade) (home)

Bucket Brigade play the contra dance in Lawrence, Kansas, 2001

Thom Howard and Tom Verdot, otherwise known as the T(h)oms...

Thom Howard plays classical guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and piano. He's recorded a CD of mostly original tunes on classical guitar, "Sometimes a Guitar Is Just a Guitar," which can be purchased from cdbaby.com or Play Pretty Productions. His musicianship and his sense of humor are delightful to work with.

Tom Verdot works as a fiddle maker in Columbia. He plays classical violin, oldtime and ragtime fiddle, ragtime and minstrel banjo. He's a source of endless information and anecdotes about oldtime music, ragtime, and minstrel music--and black powder guns, among other things. He also hosts a radio show one afternoon a month when Rosetta Stone can't make it, that's Hepcat's Holiday, classic swing, from 3 to 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoons, on KOPN.

They can be heard as the T(h)oms on the KOPN CD project "Everybody's Got Love: The Songs of Lee Ruth," and with Clark Buehling and the Skirtlifters.

The Bucket Brigade (now F150) have been performing on an occasional basis for years. They have performed period music at reenactments and heritage festivals, as for the Lewis and Clark Days in Jefferson City. Tom plays fiddle, Thom and Pippa play guitar or mandolin, Pippa plays some fiddle now too, and sometimes they're joined by Kathy Gordon on bass. They play for the Mid-Missouri Traditional Dancers contra dances in Columbia, Missouri.

And Pippa's new albums Animal Crackers volumes 1 & 2 (for sale at gigs) feature several tunes by F150. We do several original tunes--"Hog Alley" written by Tom, "Crabs in the Skillet" and "Galloping Gertie" written by Thom--and then we do a few traditional tunes, "Birdie" going into "Forty-Eight Dogs in the Meathouse" (otherwise known as "Stone's Rag"), and "Forked Deer."