Thom Golub lives, performs and writes music in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His early instruments were piano and drums; later, when he was eighteen, he studied guitar. He started playing electric bass when recording with singer-songwriter John Cooke in the late 1980's. This took him deep into the realm of song structure, recording arts as well as overdubbing a steady rotation of three instruments. Later in the band 'My Cat Julius" (with Cooke) he performed only on guitar for several years as a live act. In the mid 1990's Golub felt he needed to change direction; a year and a half away from music then a stint at the now defunct Sam the Record Man was, odly, just the change he was looking for. He discovered, through the space he had allowed himself, what he loved most about music: Improvisation. Through the record store job he became familiar with a wide array of music that opened his mind even further. At this time, late in 1995, while attempting to play along with John Coltrane records, he discovered the String Bass. He spent two years studying classical bass with Ioan Tetel, then with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
His interest in composed music developed seriously in 2000, though he had written numerous pieces for jazz ensembles since 1996. After fairly extensive writing for the string quartet he felt he needed to learn to write in a larger vocabulary for more instruments so joined Tonus Vivus (at that time the Edmonton's Composers' Concert Society or ECCS), which gave him the opportunity to do just that.
As a string bassist, in the past year he can be heard on recordings by Robin Hunter & the Six Foot Bullies, You Just Gotta Get Used Of It and Andrea House, The Same Inside on which he arranged a song for string quartet as well. More recently, Thom has performed on records by guitarist and oud player George Koufogiannakis, Generations: Greek Oud Jazz which has been nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award in 2009, as well as Scott Cook's This one's On The House.
Late in 2009, Mr. Golub also completed records with singer-songwriters Jason Kodie (LeFuzz, Captain Tractor, Allez Quest) and David Shepherd (James Murdoch Band). He continues to perform extensively with Le Fuzz (http://www.lefuzz.com) and Fuzzfly - the collaboration of LeFuzz with the acrobats of Firefly Theatre-across the province and westward.
As a composer Golum saw the release of a six movement suite: cynsen32 for two violins and piano, performed by the Warszinski Trio(Canada), on the recording Devil's Dance on Clef Records. In the upcoming year he will have two more works that he composed issued on Clef Records: Three Short Pieces for flute and piano, performed by Isabelle Schoeller (Switzerland) and Sylvia Shadick-Taylor (Canada), Back When the Earth Was Flat for bass clarinet and organ, performed by Harry Spaarnay and Sylvia Castillo (Netherlands). In late 2008 he completed the first draft of his opera: The Convenience Egregore. 2009 saw the premiere of May for Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra by Po-Yuan Ku on Tenor Saxophone and The Edmonton Chamber Players (culled mainly from the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra) under Polish Maestro Jacek Rogala.