Thinking plague

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thinking plague
General information
origin Colorado , United States
Genre (s) AvantProg
founding 1982
Website http://www.generalrubric.com/thinkingplague/
Founding members
Mike Johnson
Bob Drake
Current occupation
Mike Johnson
Mark Harris
Dave Willey
Elaine Di Falco
Bill Pohl
Robin Chestnut
former members
Bob Drake
Deborah Perry
Matt Mitchell
David Shamrock
Dave Kerman
Shane Hotle
Susanne Lewis
Maria Moran
Mark Fuller
Eric Moon
Lawrence Haugseth
Sharon Bradford
Harry Fleishman
Rick Arsenault
Kimara Sajn

Thinking Plague is an American avant-prog band that combines influences from progressive rock , jazz , folk and new music . It was founded in Denver in 1982 .

Band history

Mike Johnson and Bob Drake, who had known each other since 1978, began rehearsing together around 1980. In 1982 they founded Thinking Plague in order to be able to perform their compositions live. In addition to Johnson and Drake, the first cast included Rick Arsenault, Harry Fleishman and Sharon Bradford. They performed several times in Denver in 1983, but without much success with the audience. Without Arsenault, the band started recording and released the self-titled debut album on their own label Endemic Music in 1984 . The improvisations, the experimental and complex compositions of the low-budget production brought Thinking Plague a good reputation in the rock-in-opposition scene.

In 1985 work began on a second album. Mark Fuller, Eric Moon and Susanne Lewis met for Fleishman and Bradford to the band, Moon songs appeared in 1986. With again a changed line (Mark Harris, Shane Hotle and Maria Moran instead Fuller and Moon) and Fred Frith as a guest musician came in 1989 In This Life on the Market. Then Drake, Lewis and Moran left the band, whose existence was temporarily at stake due to a lack of equivalent replacement. But in 1990 Drake returned and Lewis continued to work with the band despite their move to New York City , which Dave Kerman had now joined. Over the next few years, Thinking Plague rehearsed sporadically, took and performed very little.

Drake and Kerman started working with 5uu’s and moved to France in 1995 . Johnson was invited to tour Europe with them and 5uu's , after which he returned to the United States alone and, as Thinking Plague was again virtually non-existent, Hamster Theater joined. Their band leader Dave Willey was convinced by Johnson to work for Thinking Plague, Kerman returned to Denver and proposed Deborah Perry as a further member. Again with Harris and Hotle, the band released In Extremis in 1998 through Cuneiform Records .

The album was well received by the press and fans, Thinking Plague played live for the first time since 1991 and won many new fans in the United States and Europe with performances at the 1999 Progday Festival, the NEARfest 2000 and the MIMI 2000 Festival. Matt Mitchell had since joined the band for Hotle. Kerman got out now to work with Present ; he was replaced by David Shamrock from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum . A new album was released in 2003, a live album the following year. With Kimara Sajn, Robin Chestnut and Elaine Di Falco instead of Mitchell, Shamrock and Perry, Thinking Plague released their sixth studio album at the end of 2011. A crowdfunding campaign was started for a seventh album in August 2015 and the album was released in early 2017.

Discography

  • 1984: A Thinking Plague
  • 1986: Moonsongs
  • 1989: In This Life
  • 1998: In Extremis
  • 2000: Early Plague Years (re-release of the first two albums)
  • 2003: A History of Madness
  • 2004: Upon Both Your Houses (Live at NEARfest 2000)
  • 2011: Decline and Fall
  • 2017: Hoping against Hope

Web links