Artese 'N Toad is Perry Artese, guitar, accordion and vocals, and Tom DiMeo guitar, harmonica and vocals. The duo is based in Southeastern Pennsylvania and has been writing and performing together since 1979. Artese, who had an interest in recording met DiMeo at a mutual friend's house. "I had hung around with his brother Paul and his friends for a long time and never knew Tom wrote songs." " Now some two hundred songs later I discovered how good a writer he was." "Early on I learned the craft from him," says Artese.

Today a typical Artese N Toad set will feature songs from every recording, some covers and stories about how the songs were written. "It's an important part of the show," says DiMeo. Echoes of Creedance, John Prine, Jackson Brown and Zevon can be heard in their original material. But at end of the day it is songs like "Old Folks," and " Willie's Old Guitar, "Ghost on The Track," and their trademark A and T harmonies that captures the audience.

Trains have been the inspiration behind the two latest CD's from Artese 'N Toad. Their "They Don't Write Songs About Trains Anymore," series, now in national distribution, was initially introduced through MTH Electric Trains when they packaged 50,00 units in Christmas train sets. The popularity of those songs created a partnership with a national retail distributor. Thousands of the train CD's have been sold.

Radio has also discovered "Trains" with airplay from Canada to Maine, to New Zealand. "We discovered that trains have an international appeal," says Artese. "We hear from fans all over the world. Yes, there are some train song fans, but overall people just like our stories." Songs like "Angels Ride Trains", "Little Joe," "Daddy's Old Train Box", and "Ghost on the Track," continue to win over new audiences through radio and live performances. The same tracks are also steady sellers at i-Tunes and CD Baby.

For Christmas 2007, Artese N Toad released "The Americana Christmas Project," which featured ten new original acoustic Christmas. The uptempo single "Christmas Street" held the number one position at Podhoster for 5 weeks, and was downloaded 3600 times in about the same time. The Americana Christmas Project was also released to radio across the US.

The duo also cover a nice mix of the 70's including artists like: John Prine, Creedance, Stones, Little Feat, Van Morrison, Paul Simon, The Band, and many more. We have found that these songs have great audience appeal along side of our own material.

For larger venues Artese 'N Toad has assembled a five piece band of very accomplished musicians including:

Daoud Shaw- Saturday Night Live drummer, drummer/producer for Van Morrison, Etta James, Jerry Garcia band, among others. Daoud is the duo's producer/co-writer.

Michael Radcliffe- Internationally touring bass player and top Philadelphia session musician.

Bob Tangrea- Fiddle, mandolin, acoustic guitar- He also performs with the Angel Band and David Bromberg.

For more information contact Artese 'N Toad at
info@artesentoad.com

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