by Jesse Martinez

The TammanyHallCollective is simple.  It’s our attempt, as musicians, artists, and writers, to pull our work together in one place, where we can then share them with the world.  Art – whether through visuals, sound, words, whatever – is something that is meant to be shared.  We are all about the arts, the independent arts.  We’re about creation, and we would like all of you to experience our creation because, who knows, you might actually like it.  We also wanted to do without dealing with corporate baggage (it’s also hard to find corporate baggage in Wisconsin).  So I guess we’re kind of against “The Man” too, but I wouldn’t look too much into that because saying you’re against “The Man” really doesn’t mean all that much any more.  Regardless, we define ourselves as independent (not indie) – in literature and visual art, in music of any genre.  It is art, in all its forms, that breathes life into culture, and by creating and dispersing our work independently, we hope we can help the trend against a watered down and cookie-cutter mainstream culture because mainstream culture’s natural state is stagnation.  We loathe cookie-cutter stagnation (though we do enjoy cookies, feel free to bake for us).  We hope that our Collective, starting with this website, can provide a platform or a gathering place of sorts, where you can find new music (both ours and those we love), new paintings and sculptures, and new literature to add to your own culture.  In short, we hope you enjoy this – because we sure do.

In keeping with this spirit, we do what we can to support independent musicians, writers, and artists of all kinds; therefore, we will gladly listen to and possibly post any work anyone wants to send us (mp3 or wave format for music files, Word for text, jpg preferable for pictures).  If you have something to say through your art, we would love to help you get it out there.  No one should be silenced, and we can all add to human culture through ourselves as individuals.