Jenny Toomey is a singer, songwriter, & guitarist in DC punk & indie bands since the early 1990s (Tsunami, Liquorice, Grenadine & solo albums, Tempting & Antidote). She co-founded Simple Machines Records, which helped define the DIY ethos of the era. When not making music, she’s spent her time trying to wrangle the chaos of technology and politics— though honestly, touring was probably easier.

Antidote

Double album, Misra Records, 2001

Antidote's 16 tracks range between bitter ("Patsy Cline") to resigned ("When You Get Cold"), and borrow some of the best talent offered by the two cities each of these discs respectively represent: Chicago and Nashville. The Chicago disc features not the first names that come to mind when you think of the city, but arguably more interesting ones in these post-post-rock days: engineer and ex-Pulsars member David Trumfio, Trip Grey on drums, super-cellist Amy Domingues, Aluminum Group frontman John Navin, Drag City crooner Edith Frost, and violinist Andrew Bird (of Bowl of Fire fame). Nashville artists Jean Cook and Lambchop member Mark Nevers (who has also engineered albums for Leann Rimes and Vic Chesnutt) fill out the lap-steel and slow, caramel-drip sadness of the Nashville disc. - Excerpt from Pitchfork review

Listen

Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno

Album, Misra Records, 2002

Musician-activist Jenny Toomey takes a break from the Future of Music Coalition crusade to devote her second solo album to the proposition that Franklin Bruno is a postmodern Stephen Sondheim deserving both a songbook treatment and wider recognition. She's right on both counts: Bruno, who teaches philosophy at UCLA and tours sporadically as a solo artist or with his trio, Nothing Painted Blue, crafts smart, sophisticated songs that are equal parts pop, cabaret and Broadway. In fact, you can go back a bit further to the classic show tunes of lyricist Lorenz Hart, whose dark musings on matters of the heart foreshadow both Sondheim and Bruno. - Excerpt from Washington Post review

Listen

"Your Inarticulate Boyfriend"

From Tempting, included on Musicexpress 73: Cargo Records Germany Compilation, 2003

"Miss Otis Regrets"

On the Executioner's Last Songs compilation, Blood Shot Records, 2002

Jon Langford, his Pine Valley Cosmonauts, and a bevy of guest vocalists sing "songs of murder, mob-law, and cruel, cruel punishment" with eighteen songs penned by Hank Williams, Louvin Brothers, the Adverts, Johnny Paycheck, Stanely Brothers, Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard. Proceeds benefit Artists Against the Death Penalty and the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project.

Listen

"Baby Would It Matter" and "Pressure"

On the Isn't It Romantic compilation, Verse Press, 2003

CD and book of 100 love poems by American poets including Jeff Tweedy, David Berman, Joshua Beckman, Hoa Nguyen, Kevin Youg. Edited by Brett Fletcher Lauer & Aimee Kelley. With an introduction by Charles Simic and songs from SIlver Jews, Chuck Prophet, Doug Martsch, Vic Chesnutt, Jenny Toomey and more...

"Last Harbor" with Amy Domingues

On Come On Beautiful: The Songs of American Music Club, compilation, Glitterhouse Records, 2000

On the songwriting landscape, Mark Eitzel has been consigned to a dark, shady corner, the result of about a dozen American Music Club records filled with tunes that painstakingly detailed the emotional life of the urban romantic. The artists contributing to Come On Beautiful pledge allegiance to AMC, offering passionate tributes to a band that only flirted with getting the recognition it deserved. - No Depression