Shane Meister
Drums, Vocals
Tom Penick
Guitar, Vocals
Mario Marrufo
Bass, Vocals
Brian Chase
Keyboard, Vocals
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Shane Meister Drums, Vocals |
Tom Penick Guitar, Vocals |
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Mario Marrufo Bass, Vocals |
Brian Chase Keyboard, Vocals |
Tomzap is a rock and roll group from Oatmeal, Texas, composed of
- Tom Penick Guitar, Vocals
- Mario Marrufo Bass Guitar, Vocals
- Shane Meister Drums, Vocals
We sometimes add Brian Chase on keyboards and vocals. Tomzap plays family-friendly good time rock and roll. The playlist includes an eclectic mix of original and cover songs including classics from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, as well as some more obscure songs, 3 Spanish-language songs from the Argentinean band, Soda Stereo, and songs from movie and TV soundtracks. We are based in Oatmeal, TX, and we have played for the Leander Car Show, Leander Popup Festival, Round Rock Police Car Show, Georgetown Red Poppy Festival, Georgetown Music on the Square Summer Concert Series, Wimberley Armed Forces Day, first annual Hutto Spring-A-Palooza, Pflugerville Deutschen Pfest, Stephanie Meyers Pflugerville Classic Car Show, Leander Beer Market, The Hollows Beach Club, Riata Apartment Community, Bryson Community, and Roots Bistro in Georgetown. The name Tomzap is borrowed from another active project, The Pacific Coast of Mexico.
In the song list below, you will find "play" links to listen to most of the songs. "About" links take you to lyrics and descriptions. More live recordings and videos are available on the Past Dates page.
See More about Tomzap.
Tom Penick and Jeff Pounds met in 1978 when they played together with Randy Staudt in a band called Innerphase. Many of the original songs we play now were written around that time. After a time, Jeff had to move away and he sold his drum set to Tom and left the band.Later, in 1982, Rodger Hutchins, John Slider, and Tom Penick formed another version of the band, Innerphase. Eventually these members also moved on to other pursuits.
Finally, Jeff moved back into the neighborhood in 2011 and contacted Tom. We contacted Rodger and realized that we all still had a strong interest in playing rock and roll. Tom still had Jeff's old drum set which he resumed playing. The band played for three years at places such as the Leander Car Show, the San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, and the Guy Fawkes Festival in Wimberley. Jeff Pounds passed away due to cancer in December 2014.
We added Shane Meister on drums February 28, 2015.
Brian Chase began playing keyboards with us on a few songs in the spring of 2015 and became a frequent guest musician by 2016.
We replaced bass player, Rodger Hutchins, with Mario Marrufo in October 2016.
In 2018, Tomzap began performing more frequently, mostly in outdoor venues. New venues included several subdivisions and communities: Travisso, Orchard Ridge, Santa Rita Ranch, Riata Apartments, City of Hutto, Round Rock Car Show. We also began playing at Bill's Burgers in both the Marble Falls and Burnet locations. In August of 2018 Tomzap moved its base from Leander to Oatmeal, TX.
We needed a name and "Innerphase" was already being used by another band. So we adoped the name, "Tomzap", which was being used by Tom Penick for an unrelated project, "The Pacific Coast of Mexico" web page.The name, Tomzap, is born of a need for uniqueness in what is now a global community thanks to the internet. It came about from Tom Penick's search for an unused email address from the popular ISP, aol.com. Addresses such as tom@aol.com, tomp@aol.com, tpenick@aol.com were already taken. AOL wanted to add numbers to the email address but Tom didn't want a number so continued to search for something short that didn't include numbers. Tom, who was an electrician at the time finally coupled the name, Tom, with the electrical sound, zap, to produce the email address tomzap@aol.com (no longer retained) and that is where "Tomzap" came from. Tom now holds the URL tomzap.com and his email address is tom@tomzap.com.
The funny name has the advantage that it has no meaning in any language and there are no places by that name, so when performing an internet search, it is pretty easy to find us.
What Equipment? Tomzap at Bill's Burgers in Burnet, TX
A lot has changed with band equipment since the early days of Innerphase. Amplifiers and speakers have become lighter and more compact, computers or mixers with recording capability have replaced tape decks, processors can replace guitar amps as well as provide a host of effects, and radio links replace cables. It is definitely a better world. So we have no guitar amps and we have no floor monitors. We use wireless in-ear monitors and the guitar signals are processed and go directly to the PA system. We use electronic drums. This makes for a clean setup and a clean sound that we can deliver from very low to very high volumes without a lot of heavy lifting involved. See More Details about our equipment.
By "good time rock and roll", we mean upbeat, positive rock and roll. We are not interested in dark or unpleasant topics in our music, so we play the music that we like and we have a good time doing it.