The Thoughts

Photo Shoot!

Last week we had the pleasure of working with photographer Justin Nunnink, who, along with filmmaker Erinn Clancy, have recently launched Shot and Cut Productions.  Erinn recently completed one of the short films for our new album, and we're excited for you all to see it soon!

Justin and Erinn made a special trip up from San Francisco to work with us, and we couldn't be more excited to have worked with them.  We donned our shirts, ties, and dresses, and headed out into the wilds of Seattle. The picture above is from a session we did where we were lucky to get some beautiful early evening sunlight... a rarity for a Seattle September.  The weather continued to cooperate and we had a night shoot out under the moon and stars.  We should have something to share with you in a few weeks!

Erinn and Justin are now on their way out to Brooklyn to set up shop, and we wish them the best of luck on the other coast.  

Here's a few more pictures of pictures being taken...

 

In other great news, we're on to mixing the new album!  We are also very happy that we were chosen to open the Seattle Rock Orchestra's 2010-2011 Season, with a show at The Moore in Seattle on November 13th!  We will be backed by the full orchestra!  After our set, the Rock Orchestra will be playing The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" in it's entirety!  

See you all soon,

The Thoughts

What do you think?

As some of you know, I'm of the opinion that there's nothing you can't accomplish with a can of PBR and a hot glue gun.

I've been putting both to good use working some design ideas for hand made packaging for a set of The Thoughts' b-sides (this five song collection is a special gift for folks who helped us in our fundraising campaign for the new album). The current idea involves paper cut art over a rugged cardboard shell. Here's how it's shaping up:

 

So, what do you think? Keep working or go a different direction?

A free song and a special opportunity

We are plugging along in the studio producing our second album, I Won't Keep You Here, and just couldn't wait to share our work with you—we've posted a free download of Orange Sky on our page at Kickstarter.com. While we act as our own record label and self-fund the costs of making and producing a record, we've teamed up with Kickstarter.com to raise funds to go further with our next album.

We want I Won’t Keep You Here to be more than a listening experience. We want to hand our stories, our sounds, to a group of super-talented filmmakers and artists and let them create what THEY see. We have some really talented filmmakers, choreographers and visual artists lined up and ready to get to work, but we need your help! Visit our MusicArtMovement project to see how you can be a part of the project.

And of course, while you're there, download a free copy of Orange Sky. Orange Sky will be the opening track on the new record and it's luscious strings, tender vocals, and hint of tambourine make for an epic listen. Enjoy!

Harp!

We debuted "You're Not Happy Here" at The Comet last week and received rave reviews, so we thought we'd share a little video. Enjoy!

Join us for an art show and a special instrumental set!

First Thursday is just around the corner and there will be lots of great art to check out down in Pioneer Square. Ian and I will be playing a special instrumental set at the OK Hotel for the opening of a super show featuring local artists Tenley DuBois and Pamela Robinson. We hope you will stop by, look at some beautiful art, and hear some lovely music!

Bowie Tribute videos and a band update

Katie and I had the pleasure to be involved with last weekend's David Bowie Tribute at The Moore theatre in Seattle, which was spearheaded by Scott Teske and The Seattle Rock Orchestra, and Scott's band The Kindness Kind.  The whole week was such a great experience, fun rehearsals all building to a fantastic performance to a near full-house at The Moore.  We got to meet lots of other great musicians and singers, including Jon Auer (The Posies), Tom Beacham (The Raggedy Anns), and Alessandra Rose (the Kindness Kind).  Also got to hang out with the wonderful Tim Keller (Discs of Fury and Her Majesty, a Queen tribute), and countless other great orchestra folks.  It's rare to have such a large collaboration in the indie-rock community, and Scott Teske (the orchestra leader and arranger, and bassist for The Kindness Kind) pulled it off with admirable patience and ease.  I highly recommend that you keep The Seattle Rock Orchestra on your radar, we don't know what's next, but it's sure to be a delight.

I had the opportunity to sing two Bowie songs for the show, Heroes (from the album of the same name) and 1984 (from Diamond Dogs).  Our good friend Shasta Ivey took these videos at the show...

We also got to play "Heroes" live on KEXP with The Kindness Kind and a small string section (including Katie), and if you missed the performance on the air, it is archived here.   I run a mac and needed to download Realplayer, but it only took a second.  It was a ton of fun... Katie had been in the KEXP studio before (with Carrie Biell), but it was my first time.  Here are some pictures:

 

The whole set of pictures from the in-studio can be found here.

And finally, a link to a review of the show (also has a great video of Jon Auer singing "Quicksand", the encore)... and if you were in attendance, comment back and let us know what you thought!

Our thanks again to Scott Teske, The Seattle Rock Orchestra, The Kindness Kind, and everyone else involved. 

In more The Thoughts-oriented news, we've been hard at work recording our second album, and we're all really excited about how it's turning out.  We now have about half of the songs at the rough mix stage, and are putting the final tracks down (mostly vocals and violin) on the other half.  Some are songs that you've heard live, and others are brand-new surprises!  The working title of the album is I Won't Keep You Here, and we should have a little taster up for you in the next couple of months.  Until then, make sure to come out and hear us at The Comet on April 28th, and at the Folklife Festival on Memorial Day weekend.  Check the calendar often!

Hope you're all well, and having a great spring.  See you soon!

        - The Thoughts

Join us at The Moore, March 26!

The Seattle Rock Orchestra, featuring a vocal performance by our very own Ian Williams, will be performing a tribute to David Bowie on March 26th at the Moore Theatre in Seattle. Katie will be hanging out in the orchestra, and you should be hanging out in the audience! Here's a little preview:

Tickets are available at www.stgpresents.org.

JOSEPHINE and DAVID BOWIE

Here are some pictures from our January 16th show at Josephine... we had such a great time, and got to play with our friends Bryan Free, M. Bison, and RL Heyer.  Thank you to all the people who came out and made it such a wonderful night.  Thanks to Bennings McElmoresworth (photos 1,2,4,5) and Ryan J. Salva (photo 3).

 

We're also very excited to be a part of the Seattle Rock Orchestra's David Bowie Tribute at the Moore Theatre, coming up on March 26th.  Make sure to get your tickets early!  Katie will be playing with the orchestra and Ian will be a guest vocalist, joining Jon Auer (the Posies), Alessandra Rose (The Kindness Kind), and many more.

The Comet 12/30

We had a great show at the Comet, our last of 2009... thanks to our new friend Lynn Gravatt for the photos.

We all apparently lean in tandem.   

Katie, playing a happy line.  Or, amused at some face that I'm making.

Maybe that face.

 

Maybe this one.

Jon "tuning up" between songs.

Make sure and join us this Saturday, January 16th at Josephine in Ballard!  We had the pleasure of being able to put the bill together ourselves, featuring some of our favorite NW musicians, including M. Bison, Bryan Free (from PDX), and RL Heyer.   Hope to see you there!

BOOM BOOM CRASH

We had two back-to-back days down at Foundry Studios a couple of weeks ago... we ended up getting a lot of great tracks down, including some brand-new songs we haven't played live yet.  Here's some pictures -

Here's Jon and I recording the basic tracks of Form and Color. 

Jon thinks hard about what sounds to make.  Or maybe he's sleeping.

Staring into the void, or something.  Those sweet headphones are the only nice thing I own.  The sweet guitar is not mine.  It's Pierre's.

BOOM BOOM CRASH BOOM BOOM BOOM CRASH CRASH BOOM BOOM CRASH...

Katie and I also played an acoustic set over the Gage Academy's annual Drawing Jam, where we played songs while people sketched away and figure models posed.  We even got to be temporary stand-ins  when of the models was running late.

Note the handwarmers that make it possible to play violin AND stay warm.  The artists were probably glad when the model showed up, and they could stop trying to draw the weird faces I make when I sing.

All in all it's been a great December, the recording is coming along nicely, and we have a handful of shows coming up that we're very excited about.  Make sure and check our calendar, or our facebook and myspace pages for the latest shows! 

www.facebook.com/pages/The-Thoughts/36947004354

www.myspace.com/thethoughtsmusic.com