Tomandandy is an American

musical duo A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instrumentalists, ...

from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, consisting of members Thomas Hajdu and Andy Milburn. While they are best known for their work scoring films, their portfolio includes music for television commercials as well as television programs, records and art installations.

History

Andy Milburn was born in Texas and went to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

for undergraduate as well as graduate work. At Princeton, his primary focus was creating

computer music Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and ap ...

and computer music applications. During that time, he contributed to the early computer music system called Real-time Cmix. Thomas Hajdu was born in Canada and moved to the US to work on his graduate studies at Princeton University. Tom has sat on many award juries and chaired and spoken at international conferences about the impact of technology on content including

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

MIT Enterprise Forum From 1978 to 2021 the MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) operated chapters in major cities in the U.S. and worldwide. The MIT Enterprise Forum was non-profit organization affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) through MIT Technolo ...

and Digital Hollywood. Milburn and Hajdu moved to New York after Princeton and started collaborating with film director Mark Pellington at

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

and film editors Hank Corwin and Bruce Ashley in the UK. Soon their work was being used in commercials, TV shows, feature films, art installations and record projects. Tomandandy quickly grew and they built a number of recording studios in New York and later in Los Angeles. At the same time, Tomandandy invested in technological innovations focusing on digital entertainment. A notable project was the MTV "Buzz" series. In 1992, Tomandandy appeared on the

Red Hot Organization Red Hot Organization (RHO) is a not-for-profit, 501(c) 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture. Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilati ...

's dance compilation album, ''

Red Hot + Dance ''Red Hot + Dance'' is an album produced by the Red Hot Organization, an organization dedicated to raising money and awareness to fight the onslaught of HIV/AIDS. Pop star George Michael was instrumental in bringing the project to fruition and t ...

'', contributing an original dance track, "Theme From Red Hot & Dance (Gothic Mix)." The album attempted to raise awareness and money in support of the

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

epidemic, and all proceeds were donated to AIDS charities. In 2009, Tomandandy won Best Horror Score (runner-up) in

Fangoria ''Fangoria'' is an internationally distributed American horror film fan magazine, in publication since 1979. It is published four times a year by Fangoria Publishing, LLC and is edited by Phil Nobile Jr. The magazine was originally released i ...

's Chainsaw Award for their score to '' The Strangers''. In 2020, Tomandandy's Tom Hajdu reflected on '' The Strangers'' soundtrack during an interview. "There was a lot of intentionality in mixing strange sounds with familiar sounds! It was a combination of analog, synthetic, and ambient sounds, along with silence, put together in unusual ways. To create combinations that are not necessarily traditional in that respect, or expected." - Tom Hajdu

Selected discography

Other works

* '' Zoo TV: Live from Sydney'' (1994) * "You'll Know You Were Loved" -

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...

from '' Friends Original TV Soundtrack -

Reprise In music, a reprise ( , ; from the verb 'to resume') is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the 18th century—was simply any repe ...

, 1995 * "In Our Sleep" -

Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

, 1995 * "Cartridgemusic" from '' Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip'' - TVT, 1996 * "It Goes Back" -

David Byrne David Byrne (; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist and filmmaker. He was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of ...

from '' Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip'' - TVT, 1996 * ''United States of Poetry'' -

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

, 1996 * "Old Western Movies" - collaboration with

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

from '' Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness'' -

Ryko Rykodisc is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, operating as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance. History Claiming to be the first CD-only independent record la ...

, 1997 * ''

Family Tools ''Family Tools'' is an American sitcom that ran on ABC from May 1 to July 10, 2013, and aired on Wednesdays at 8:30 pm ET. The series was created by Bobby Bowman, is produced by Mark Gordon, ABC Studios and ITV Studios America. It is based on ...

'' (2013) (TV series theme)

Film scores

Selected artistic collaborations

* ''

No Maps for These Territories ''No Maps for These Territories'' is an independent documentary film made by Mark Neale focusing on the speculative fiction author William Gibson. It features appearances by Jack Womack, Bruce Sterling, Bono, and The Edge and was released by Docur ...

'', documentary collaboration with author

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ...

and director

Mark Neale Mark Neale is a British documentarian and film director based in Los Angeles, California. His best-known work is the 1999 documentary ''No Maps for These Territories'', which profiled cyberpunk author William Gibson. Prior to ''No Maps'', Neale had ...

, Slamdance, 2001 * Starn Brothers, Black Sun Burned, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, 1998 * Tom Sachs, Sony Outsider, Thomas Healy Gallery, New York, 1998 *

, Grammy/Academy Award winner, production and composition for ''It Goes Back'' from Offbeat, TVT Records, 1997 *

, Grammy Award winner, production and composition for ''You Know You Were Loved'' from Friends soundtrack, Reprise/Warner, 1997 *

, Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters novelist, production and composition for Old Western Movies from Kicks Joy Darkness. Ryko, 1997 * Remix of the

Gravity Kills Gravity Kills was an American industrial rock band from St. Louis, Missouri. Their music was described by one critic as "a blending of eerie industrial rock with a pop-infused melodic chorus and a bit of hard-core head banging."Jacquie Kubin, ...

song "Goodbye" on the Guilty remix single. TVT Records, 1996 *

La Fura dels Baus La Fura dels Baus () is a Spanish theatrical group founded in 1979 in Moià, Barcelona (Spain), known for their urban theatre, use of unusual settings and blurring of the boundaries between audience and actor. "La Fura dels Baus" in Catalan mea ...

John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

, collaboration for Spanish World's Fair, 1996 *

, Creator of Performance Art, production and composition for In Our Sleep, Warner Brothers, 1995 * U2: Zoo TV, World Tour, 1994 *

Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...

, Academy Award-winning writer/director, additional music for feature films ''

JFK John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

'', Warner Brothers 1991 and ''

Natural Born Killers ''Natural Born Killers'' is a 1994 American crime film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childho ...

'', Warner Brothers 1994 * Jenny Holzer, Laments, DiaArt Foundation, New York, 1989

References

External links

Official website
*
Official MySpace

Tomandandy Spotify
{{Authority control American experimental musical groups American film score composers American male film score composers American trance musicians Musical groups from New York City Living people Year of birth missing (living people)