As the world holds its breath for the third Thinking Aloud CD, which may or may not arrive before the end of the world (one prediction has this in October 2011), let's dig through the layers to see what might be the root cause of all this sound.
It began with the toy keyboard with the multi-coloured keys...
Although fortunate enough to take up the piano at the age of five, strangely it was vocal performances that marked Thinking Aloud's early insertion onto the stage. A live, unaccompanied rendition of "Half Way Up The Stairs" to an audience of several hundred adults, at the age of six, was probably the event put me off performing anything for anyone ever again. Thus it was a reluctant nine year old who was coaxed into playing various "Sonata in G"s at school christmas shows, and an even more reluctant 10 year old who sang a duet of "The Holly And The Ivy" from the local choir loft.
The first identifiable Thinking Aloud composition, a keyboard, xylophone, wood block and glockenspiel piece called "Minotaur", was penned shortly after starting High School, and can be found on the million-selling "Hour Tape" compilation. I say "million" but I probably mean "a couple of dozen". Influences at this time were typical late 1970s - early 1980s pop, clearly reflected in the electronic soundscapes found in Minotaur. It was again, however, vocals that brought the young Thinking Aloud back to the limelight, being cast as the voice of Caesar Augustus in the 1984 production of "The Rock Nativity" (also available on cassette).
Minotaur (Hodgson) and Caesar Augustus (Peter Adamson) - excerpts.
By 1986, however, songwriting was in full swing, as the epic sounds of Velocity (a keyboard / bass / keyboard combo) developed in the school practice rooms with co-conspirator Alistair Tuxworth (vocals, bass).
Velocity performed live on two occasions, rocking audiences to the strains of Tuxworth's "Twisted Love" and "In This World Of Shadows", however big things were in the pipeline, and an epic musical about war and peace almost made it to production, but it wasn't to be. Despite the release of debut cassette, "0-60 in 3 and 3/4 hours", which featured the classic "Nuclear Submarine", the band split as educational differences came between the members, but all was not quite lost and forgotten.
Nuclear Submarine (Tuxworth/Hodgson) - excerpt.
The last years of Velocity had shown a marked new musical influence, as the work of the Moody Blues was discovered. The quest to reproduce the curious and haunting sounds of the Mellotron on their early albums led to investment in new and old keyboards, and brought in the era of the sampler and the string synth.
The true genesis of Thinking Aloud came in 1988, at 6th form college, where the house band, Doctor and the Sick Notes drew yours truly into the line up, alongside Gareth Bibby (guitar, vocals), Anthony Dewhurst (bass) and John Brown (vocals, guitar), amongst others. The Sick Notes performed three covers gigs over two years (all preserved for posterity on magnetic media), featuring that early Thinking Aloud keyboard / piano / flute / vocal sound somewhere near the back, however it was the home-grown adventurousness of Stonehenge that saw the songwriting and arranging / recording burst forth.
Doc & The Sick Notes - Nights in White Satin (Justin Hayward) - excerpt.
Stonehenge comprised Messers Bibby, Dewhurst, Brown and Hodgson (in various combinations) and recorded about seven albums'-worth of material between 1988 and 1991 (with yours truly acting as the nominal keyboard-pianist-flautist-cellist-engineer-programmer-occasional-vocalist). Output varied from downright weird "Mr Caterpillar Takes A Trip" to the almost-quite-nice "I'm Calling Out"). One live performance in the Common Room rounded off a marvellously productive period, however the band was set for a fall.
Mr Caterpillar Takes A Trip (Bibby) & I'm Calling Out (Brown) - excerpts.
Stonehenge split due to geographical differences, and Thinking Aloud came fully into being as a solo affair.
Fate stepped into the breach and unexpectedly reunited Velocity after a chance meeting on a train. Some further musical ventures ensued, although these remained unreleased until the compilation CD, "0-16 in ... er ... 16 years" was created in around 2002. Meanwhile solo efforts continued slowly but surely.
As with Stonehenge, the musical output was recorded via a cassette 4-track: bouncing of tracks, cueing-in of secondary mixes, and the recording of live vocals on the same track as direct feed drum machine sounds was commonplace. The resulting mixes reflected the rather limited capabilities of the medium.
The Flightless Bird - excerpt.
The ultra-hi-tech recording method continued until the mid-1990s, producing a couple of albums'-worth of stuff ("Fading Light" in 1994, and "System Conflict" in 1996, both of which had a vaguely 'concept album' feel to them), as well as a handful of "one offs" including the Geology Department's 1992 single, "Orgyology". The old four-track machine subsequently wowwed and fluttered itself to death, and that was the end of that.
In the meantime, it was the piano playing that was in demand. Thinking Aloud's ivory-tinkling was, for nearly fifteen years, a regular weekly feature at various congregational gatherings, which was quite long enough for anyone, I think.
A decade in the musical wilderness came to an end abruptly in 2006 following a family holiday to Canada. Distant relative, and Canadian rocker Steve Jones introduced Thinking Aloud to the new world of digital recording and eyes long closed were reopened, to much dismay.
The digital age had begun. Songs that had lain dormant for decades were dusted off, pushed down USB cables, and resucitated through the magic of modern technology. This coincided with the release of Steve's album "Acoustic Bootleg". Several tracks from this CD, recorded only with guitar, bass and vocals, were given the Thinking Aloud treatment for pure experimental fun, adding piano, orchestral arrangments, Mellotronic sounds, drums and whatever else was available. On hearing the results, Steve was unexpectedly impressed, and thus began a trans-Atlantic collaborative effort for his next album, "Clear Blue Sky". Recorded during 2007, full backing track arrangements for all the tracks on the album were recorded, featuring piano, Mellotron, orchestra and a host of other bits and pieces. The culmination of all this effort was my first live gig in 19 years, playing piano and flute at Steve's 2008 CD release concert in Penticton, British Columbia.
Empty Promises (Steve Jones)
Meanwhile, self-penned compositions were also taking form, and Thinking Aloud's first "proper" album, "Conglomerate" was completed in late 2007. Released in 2008 on CD, Conglomerate featured a number of re-recorded older songs that featured on the 1990s albums, together with a handful of new compositions. Although the CD only had a small production run, copies sold as far away as Switzerland, Iceland, the US, and Canada.
An internet collaboration took place in 2008, with lashings of Mellotronic sounds added to Octave's song, "Midnight Train", featuring Alastair Artingstall on vocals. This song received airplay nationally in the UK, and reached the semi-finals of an international songwriting competition.
Midnight Train (Rob Dixon)
Further collaborations with Steve Jones resulted in four tracks on Steve's 2011 album "Pictures" getting the TA treatment. At the same time, Thinking Aloud's second international CD, "Erosion" was released at the end of 2010, featuring mostly new compositions and returning to the 'concept album' feel of earlier years.
With work well underway towards a third CD, there is still time to equip your bunker and escape the worst of the fallout.
