Rockin’ the finance office

Timothee Goselin spends his days in the Yale Divinity School finance office processing financial paperwork, everything from reimbursements to office supplies to room reservations. While Goselin daylights as an administrative wiz, you’ll sometimes find him hunched over an iPad at lunch tapping out a guitar riff or a bass line. By night, Goselin is a rock musician, composer, and recording artist.

Until recently Goselin and his colleague Sachin Ramabhadran were part of a five-piece surf rock band, the North Shore Troubadours. I caught their last show at the divey and lively East Village bar, Otto’s Shrunken Head. Among the mix of freaks and geeks that only the East Village can deliver, Goselin and his band delivered a thrilling show that riffed from standard surf rock chord progressions to notes of jazz and classic rock and pop. It was a fitting fusion of Pulp Fiction sound, East Village energy, and just a bit of Bikini Beach realness.

Goselin has been fascinated by music and performance since his early teens. Although his first instrument was a bass guitar, he fell in love with playing the lead guitar. From an early age he knew he wanted to be a professional musician. Tim recalls finding his calling while watching rock bands on MTV. After begging his parents for a guitar, he taught himself chords and technique and practiced to imitate the guitar riffs of rock idols like Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty.

His first band of high school friends called themselves Undertow and played rock covers in bars and events around Southern Connecticut. While his friends made their extra money bagging groceries or mowing lawns, Goselin performed on weekends and began pursuing his ambition to be a professional musician, building his musician’s chops on heavy-metal, ska, and classic rock.

But playing Sweet Home Alabama for the umpteenth time soon lost its appeal for Goselin and he taught himself to compose and perform original music with various bands.

While his musical career developed, he also developed a professional career, studying political science at Southern Connecticut State University and embarking on a job in finance and business administration. Goselin credits his training in the workplace with helping him develop the business savvy required of working musicians. A steady paycheck is nice, too.

His interest in surf-rock came as he began to get more serious about the business of music. Having grown tired of standard rock, Goselin began to think about writing soundtracks. With surf rock he could experiment with a niche genre of music to develop stories and scenes through music. He is interested in the ways music can express and expand emotional experience of film, story, and even real-life events.

The life of a musician is not usually glamorous and is often grueling, but some aspects are changing for the better. Musicians are taking advantage of new technologies that can deliver studio quality composing, mixing, and recording at home, and social media has revolutionized the distribution of new music. Goselin’s North Shore Troubadors has played its last show, but Tim continues to compose and record on his own. He hopes to sell his work for use in film or commercials.

Goselin is currently recruiting musicians for a new project. For now, you can find some of his music at nstmusic.com.