From the industrial side of east Austin, recorded at a primitive analogue studio which shares a warehouse space with a concrete fabrication shop, comes Tom Ovans 12th album Get On Board (FW 036).

‘It's hard to find an edgy studio anymore’ says Ovans, yet the Sweat Box, owned and operated by Mike Vasquez for 16 years, fitted the bill. Walking around work benches, power tools, cement mixers and cables to get to the studio, Tom recorded the album live in 2 days with Larry Chaney (electric guitar) and Vicente Rodriguez (drums) returning from the Party Girl (2007) sessions.

They were joined by newcomer Phil Ajjarapu on bass. Additional sessions were used to record vocals by Lou Ann Bardash, a horn part by DD Dagger and Mike Vasquez, and a piano part by Jesse Hester.

The album closes with ‘Too Late Now’, one of the longest and most ambitious songs that Tom has ever recorded, a story that begins and ends at a fenced-in basketball court down in Greenwich Village on the corner of West 4th and 6th Ave known as ‘The Cage’.

"a pessimistic prophet whose music is mostly stark, whose lyrics are fragmentary and poetic… the rough-hewn ballads carry a bleak beauty" Paul Du Noyer The Word

Get On Board was released on November 2nd, 2009.