A Thinking Plague

Background

Thinking Plague formed in Denver in 1982 when guitarist–composer Mike Johnson and multi-instrumentalist Bob Drake expanded their home-recording partnership into a band with vocalist Sharon Bradford, keyboardist Harry Fleishman, and drummer Rick Arsenault.

Johnson taught himself guitar as a Colorado teenager and encountered 20th-century classical music through family records by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Britten, and Prokofiev. He also absorbed King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, and other early symphonic-rock groups. After four years in the U.S. Navy, Johnson enrolled as a music major at a local city college, where he studied theory, music history, sight-singing, and notation.

Drake grew up in rural northeastern Illinois and played in cover bands at school dances and local events. He took up bass in 1972, inspired by the work of Chris Squire on the 1972 Yes release Fragile. At Watseka import stall, Drake stumbled on the 1974 Henry Cow album Unrest, which demonstrated that intricate, noise-based rock could exist on record.

In 1976, Drake joined songwriter Mark Bradford and singer Sharon Bradford in a Kankakee Christian-rock group, which gave him regular gigs and regional travel. He followed the Bradfords to in 1978 to Denver, posted a music-store notice seeking players interested in The Beatles, Yes, and Henry Cow; Johnson answered the notice.

Early Activity

Drake and Johnson made a cassette recording at their first meeting by bouncing two machines through a small mixer and effects pedals. They spent roughly ten months in a basement cover band, then joined a gigging guitar-rock cover band. The pair home-recorded further Johnson pieces on cassette and four-track reel-to-reel. They also joined free-improvisation sessions under the Ganglion Orchestar name, with Arsenault among the drummers. Johnson wrote “Warheads” in 1980 and recorded an early four-track version with Drake, who proposed Pleasant Pestilence as a project name; Johnson retained the disease image and coined Thinking Plague.

By now, Johnson moved away from direct emulation of seventies symphonic rock and focused on rock interpolations of odd meter and 20th-century polytonal/atonal harmony, inspired by the recent works of Henry Cow (Western Culture) and the Art Bears (Hopes and Fears). 

For the live lineup, Arsenault drew on earlier bands with Johnson and sessions with Ganglion Orchestar. Fleishman was a luthier and bassist who owned an organ and shifted to keyboards for the group. They also summoned Sharon Bradford, who held a B.A. in music and supplied the formal vocal training required by the material. Thinking Plague rehearsed in living rooms and warehouses, then played a small run of 1983 Denver dates, including the Jack Kerouac Festival at the Mercury Café. Johnson and Drake dissolved the live configuration after those shows and redirected the project toward an album.

They cut most of the album at Jeff Landers’ eight-track Packing House Studios in the basement of an Armour Star building near the north Denver stockyards. Late-night sessions occupied much of 1983 at the Packing House. Johnson and Drake largey self-recorded the album with select input from Fleishman, Bradford, Arsenault, and alternate drummer Mark Fuller. Johnson secured a loan from his older brother for a 500-copy pressing of the mastered album. Drake and Johnson prepared the record for a self-release on Endemic as the 1984 LP …A Thinking Plague.