Typewriter Tim: Music’s Best Kept Secret

Move over Spoonman, make way for Typewriter Tim.

I recently caught a podcast called The Odd Podcast with Joe Parisi and the episode was about a man named Tim Jordan from St. Louis. He calls himself Typewriter Tim and is what you would call a performance artist. His instrument is a typewriter. That's right, a typewriter.

It all started back around 1993 when Jordan was home from college in his mother's basement doing laundry. There he noticed his mother's vintage 1960s aqua blue Royal Quiet Deluxe Typewriter. He noticed a light shining down on it as if from the heavens. That - along with what he believes was a message from his recently departed grandfather - led Jordan to his calling in life. He brought the typewriter to an open mic night soon after and just did whatever came naturally. He typed, he cried, he talked. The emotions flowed and audiences responded.

The open mics garnered more and more attention and continued until eventually local musicians started joining Tim on stage. Typewriter Tim soon became a popular club act, packing rooms with concert-goers eagerly waiting to see this peculiar artist with a typewriter playing along to live musicians.

Below is a video of Typewriter Tim performing back in the late 90s:

Check out this more recent video of Tim jamming away on the keys:

You can listen to Typewriter Tim tell his story on The Odd Podcast with Joe Parisi HERE.

Along with performing music Tim also creates incredibly unique sculptures using mangled typewriter parts and hand blown glass. He's even got a manager and PR guy to help bring his art to a wider audience. Check out some of his impressive work HERE.

Pretty impressive stuff. You may remember back in the 90s Soundgarden recorded "Spoonman", a song inspired by a Seattle street performer called Artis the Spoonman. They not only wrote "Spoonman" about Artis but they included his spoon solo on the track. I say we make a call out to all the rock bands out there to bring in Typewriter Tim to the studio. I say it's time to put Typewriter Tim's name up in lights....just make sure you use a typewriter font.

You can listen to Eric Senich live on Saturdays from 10am to 3pm on 95.1 FM. You can also listen online by clicking here or by downloading the radioPup app for your mobile device.