Tim Keegan is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist.
Keegan has recorded and performed with various bands and as a solo artist. He has worked with a number of noted musicians including Robyn Hitchcock – he can be seen in Jonathan Demme's film about Hitchcock, Storefront Hitchcock – and played guitar on the Blue Aeroplanes' Rough Music album.
Keegan's first band was Railroad Earth, formed in 1988 in Guildford, Surrey. Keegan sang and played rhythm guitar. The other members in the original line-up were Duncan Smith (vocals and guitar), Liz Waller (piano and keyboards) and David Ashford (bass guitar).
In 1992, Railroad Earth changed their name to Ringo and released their only album, Call It Home. The other members of Ringo were Patrick Ranscombe (lead guitar), Andy Prins (bass guitar) and Graham Russell (drums).The album was recorded by noted alt-rock producer Gary Smith at his Fort Apache Studios. The album was released on Dog Gone Records, a label owned and run by R.E.M.'s former manager Jefferson Holt.
Ringo split up in 1994 and Keegan continued to work solo and in combination with a number of other musicians. His first post-Ringo band was Homer, consisting of Keegan, Patrick Hannan (of The Sundays)Andy Metcalfe (of the Soft Boys and Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians), Jake Kyle and Andrew Claridge. Homer released two singles in 1995, "Lucky Thirteen" and "Superkeen". During this period, the band served as the backing band for Robyn Hitchcock, and played on several of the tracks on Hitchcock's Moss Elixir album. Additionally, the band toured with Hitchcock, and played small dates throughout the south of England in the summer of 1995. The shows typically featured an opening Homer set, followed by a Robyn Hitchcock set. During the late 1990s, both Tim Keegan and Jake Kyle accompanied Hitchcock, including the 1997 and 1998 fan shows.
Keegan's next group formation recorded under the name Tim Keegan & the Homer Lounge and featured Keegan (vocals and guitar), Jake Kyle (bass guitar), Daron Robinson Drugstore (lead guitar) and Lindsay Jamieson (drums and keyboards). Tim Keegan & the Homer Lounge released two CD EPs ("Disconnected" and "Save Me From Happiness") and a US only mini-album on CD ("Long Distance Information"). Most of the tracks on these releases were subsequently released under the name Tim Keegan & Departure Lounge.
Keegan's next and most critically successful band was Departure Lounge. Departure Lounge featured Keegan (vocals and guitar), Jake Kyle (bass guitar), Chris Anderson piano, keyboards and guitar) and Lindsay Jamieson (drums). Keegan, with Departure Lounge, supported Robyn Hitchcock on a US tour in 1999. Departure Lounge released 3 albums: "Out Of Here" on their own Meek Giant label in 1999 (US version "Out Of There" (Flydaddy, 2000) featured a revised tracklisting), the instrumental album "Jetlag Dreams" (Bella Union/Naive, 2001) and the Kid Loco-produced "Too Late To Die Young" (Bella Union/Naive/Nettwerk, 2002). These albums all received warm critical praise. "Too Late To Die Young" was made 'Album of the Week' on BBC 6 Music.
Departure Lounge disbanded in 2003 and since then Keegan has worked on solo projects and has also appeared as guest vocalist on these other artists' releases: Kid Loco, Josh Rouse, Emilie Simon, Tahiti 80, aswefall, Olga Kouklaki.
His first solo album, Foreign Domestic (recorded in Nashville, Paris and London) was released in 2007, receiving positive reviews in the British and French press. His cover version of Destiny's Child's song "Survivor" appeared on the compilation albums "La musique de Paris Dernière 4" in France and "Tory Burch Foundation: Volume 1" in the USA.
Keegan continues to perform with Hitchcock, including on the latter's recent tours reviving his I Often Dream of Trains album and he appears in John Edgington's live performance film "I Often Dream Of Trains In New York", which was released as a DVD and CD in 2009.
Keegan lives in the UK on the West Sussex coast with his partner and two children. He has completed the recording of a second solo album for release in 2013.
Famous quotes containing the words foreign and/or domestic:
“Science is an integral part of culture. It’s not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It’s one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.”
—Stephen Jay Gould (b. 1941)
“We all have—to put it as nicely as I can—our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terrible power that sometimes destroys us; but they don’t talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before—truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)