Thinking Metal: Frequently Asked Questions
How and when did Thinking Metal come about?
Thinking Metal was originally formed in 1995 as Thinking Metal Productions and its primary focus was as an outlet for the musical ambitions of writer, instrument designer and composer David J. Hughes.
The company released 2 discs on the original Thinking Metal label, The Infection of Time and Connexion, both by T-Bass UK.
Thinking Metal Productions ceased all activities following the disasterous Alfa Centauri concert in Holland in April 1999 ("The wrong band playing the wrong kind of music to the wrong audience..."). However, the label was successfully resurrected again in 2006 as Thinking Metal Music.
Why have you resurrected Thinking Metal?
Thinking Metal was resurrected because we felt that it was time to move our ever-expanding musical activities out from under the Infection Music umbrella and into a separate venture. The same was true of our web page activities, which we broke away into a separate company, Infection Media.
This move will allow Infection Music to concentrate purely on electronic musical instruments. Thinking Metal will focus on music production, CD's, concerts and our new library/licensing project leaving Infection Media to provide web services to both of the above companies.
Will all of the Infection Music CD's be available on the Thinking Metal label?
Yes, they will. Better still, much of our back catalogue such as The Infection of Time and Fallen Angel has been remixed and remastered with additional tracks and new artwork. These titles are available from our own on-line shop and from the download facility MusicZeit, where they are available as loss-less FLAC(*) format files along with high-resolution 300 DPI artwork.
(* You will need some means of converting FLAC format files into WAV's or AIFF audio tracks but these are available as freeware on the web. Full instructions are available on the MusicZeit site.)
What about the album download service?
Our own album download facility has been greatly extended and enhanced to give the best possible service. Why not give it a try?
We have also signed distribution deals for all of our existing titles. Magnatune.com support two of our more popular releases, Future Forever by Ion, and The Secret Life of Angels by SkinMechanix. Both titles are also available as downloadable albums from iTunes, CD Baby, E-Music and many other faciltities (some of whom actually pay us!).
Those discs not supported by Magnatune are now available from the MusicZeit download facility. All MusicZeit discs are available as high quality FLAC files along with with full colour, high resolution artwork.
Do you send out CD's to radio stations?
Sorry, no. Sending discs through the mail is expensive and seriously reduces our level of stock, especially many of the limited edition discs (in some cases, we have only five or six copies left).
There's also the issue of the Black Hole at the centre of our local Post Office to contend with, if you see what we mean. These days, we prefer to e-mail links to our download area, and we only send discs out to radio stations when there is no alternative. Sorry about that.
What's all this about a library/licensing project? Why?
Our main activity at the moment is producing material for licensing, as this generates considerably more income than CD and download sales, which have fallen dramatically in recent years, partly due to the recession and partly due to those theiving immoral bastards who think it's okay to pirate our discs. Please do not support these scum bags. Most are a front for criminal activity. They won't send you any product or pay us any royalities. They'll just use your credit card details to pay for stolen goods. You have been warned.
Which bands are currently signed to Thinking Metal?
At the moment, we have three bands signed to the label. These are:
- 1. T-Bass (currently deceased)
- 2. SkinMechanix
- 3. Ion
Ion and SkinMechanix are still active and although T-Bass has formally been declared dead and buried, they have received a lot of airplay this year and last, and so there has been some talk of resurrecting the project albeit in another guise. We really don't know at the moment.
Right now, our priorities are firstly to ensure that both SkinMechanix and Ion continue to generate enough material to satisfy our licensing projects and, secondly, to ensure that both bands start gigging in the local area sooner rather than later.
Is Thinking Metal currently looking for new talent?
Sorry, no. We want to focus all of our efforts on our current roster.
Who are the people behind Thinking Metal?
David Hughes is the writer, composer and instrument designer behind the venture. David has been active in the field of electronic music for over 30 years and, thus far, he's scored 8 full length albums, written for TV and video, contributed pieces for magazines such as the industry bible Sound-on-Sound and is the designer of the ZEIT and ATEM Step Sequencers.
Jules C takes care of all of the important stuff such as the accounts, the legal stuff and also deputises on keyboards at live appearances.
Where does the name Thinking Metal come from?
It's from the song "God Only Knows" by Gary Numan on the album, "The Fury", and the line goes:
"I've been surrounded, for hours
by the sound of thinking metal..."
The Blog
Every now and again, someone asks what became of the blog.
If you don't already know... the blog ran between 2006 and early 2009, and it was an attempt to detail my thoughts and actions whilst designing and building the ZEIT Step Sequencer, as well as recording what might have become the new Ion album (if the ideas contained therein had actually been worth a damn.) I also included some day-to-day observations and insights, ideas, hints, moods and feelings. The content was variable to say the least. I was still learning. Some of the entries were humourous, others a bit in-ya-face. Some were clever, insightful, intelligent and thoughtful. Others were a right load of old bollocks.
Anyway, I set out to create a 'trail of electronic bread crumbs', some way of recording what was going through my head at the time and perhaps to map out the steps along the way to what I hoped would become a successful endeavour. And it worked - to an extent. The blog meant that I, and others, could witness the daily, weekly and monthly progress - as it happened. They could listen to the album taking shape and watch the sequencer emerging from a few sketches and a rough assemblage of electronic components into a properly formed and fully developed instrument.
Alas, it was not all plain sailing. There was also a dark side to the blog. After a few months, it became apparent (to me, at least) that I was getting a little bit too full of shit for my own good and, once the penny had dropped, I decided that the blog needed a rest so that I could get my head back together.
Later, when I felt better, more centred and less like spouting forth unsolicited and unqualified bollocks, I began updating again.
However, not long afterwards, I started to receive a series of strange phone calls from someone who called themselves a fan but in fact quickly became something a little more sinister. We're not talking about an out-and-out bunny boiler here. This is not someone who would go through your dust bins at 3 am looking for toe nail clippings. Not yet, anyway. Never-the-less, their attentions became just a little too creepy for my tastes. Okay, you have to remember - this is the music business where creepy is just part of the normal business week. You're supposed to get used to this kind of crap but, in truth, you never do.
At first, the phone calls were casual - "You haven't updated your blog in a few days... I was quite looking forward to it...". That's okay. I don't have a problem with this kind of polite, casual enquiry. However, in time, the pleasant, easy-going discussions morphed into something distinctly creepy, a slightly angry "Where's the blog?" and "Haway, man, Dave. Pull your finger out. I need something to do in my lunch hour."
This quickly became a nuisance and, frankly, a bit worrying.
The point of the blog was that it was a way of telling people what I was up to, what I was thinking about, where I was going with the whole adventure. From my point of view, it was fun, entertaining and good therapy, a means of purging demons and ghosts in equal measure. What I didn't want was a two-way dialogue. Had I wanted a discussion then I would have left space for readers to comment. I didn't. End of. And I absolutely did not want someone constantly looking over my shoulder, telling me when to write and what to write, especially someone who was actually only borderline literate.
And so I killed the blog, stone dead. I took it out with a single shot to the head. Bang. Gone.
There were a few howls of protest and demands for its immediate return but they quickly subsided. Okay, so I didn't have a much-needed and much missed outlet anymore. However, I breathed a sigh of relief in that I didn't have this latent bunny-boiler in my head 24/7.
I do miss the blog and really miss some of the comments and some of the witty banter from genuine readers like Julian L or Rob S. I still keep a diary of sorts. It lives in my studio and I use it to describe what I've been up to musically in as much detail as I think a piece demands though it's usually never enough to recapture the essence of what I found first time around.
So, that's the blog. I have been tempted to restore some of the posts as I think they had some merit and I do, occasionally, add small posts and missives to the various news pages but with so many fruit cakes and losers on the loose, I have to consider my family and their safety as a first concern.