This is the site for former Projekt Records act, Thanatos!
NOW
About a year ago, probably more since I live in a strange time warp, Thanatos finished what was going to be its final CD. But a funny thing happened on the way to getting that record released. I decided I didn't see the point of a physical release anymore. Sam Rosenthal at Projekt was gracious enough to offer to release it. We had a contract all signed. Fortunately Sam was equally gracious in allowing me out of that contract!
The record was The Exterminating Angel, and sometime in the not too distant future, I will be putting it up on this site for download (and you will get to decide what to pay or if you pay). I took me awhile to even bother getting this site up but then I realized that while Thanatos doesn't have tons of fans, we have them scattered all over the place and this crazy thing called the internet was the best possible way to get the music out. Why not iTunes? Why not all the other various venues where you can toss your music out ? I am not really sure--except to say I would just rather be the distribution point for what I do musically these days. The artwork for the CD is included here (complete with Projekt logo for the time being...with apologies to Sam but I don't have the original files to remove the logo!). The record features myself, Tim Larson (The Drovers, The Read Letter), Eric Polcyn (Godbullies), Ashkelon Sain (of Trance to the Sun and Submarine Fleet), Marcela Aguero (XVortex) and Chris Connelly singing back up on a couple of tracks.
HISTORY
Thanatos began as a studio project between myself and Sam Rosenthal in the mid 1980s in South Florida. We released a cassette on Sam's brand new label in 1984. I don't even have a copy of that. Later we began to work on something more coherent! The result--after two fairly short recording sessions but years of writing--was 1993's This Endless Night Inside. Some of the hidden tracks on Endless Night were from the Thanatos cassette. In 1995, we released, An Embassy to Gaius. This took much longer to do. I gave myself an ulcer (and probably gave Sam one too) . Following this (I was moving back to Chicago from Los Angeles) I decided to make the band a live thing. Sam (having his own band obviously) wasn't in my live thing. I enlisted the help of Eric Polcyn (if you want to hear him on something else...check out the Godbullies CD War on Everybody...Eric was in the Godbullies). He suggested I get in touch with William Tucker about playing guitar. I had just seen Tucker play with the Chris Connelly Band on the Shipwreck tour. I believe I asked him "Why the hell would Tucker want to play with me?". But he did for whatever bizarre reason and we did three tours , a couple of Projekt Festivals and other odds and ends. Tucker, Sam and I did an ep called 665 Neighbor of the Beast--partially made up of live tracks from the First Projekt Festival (which occurred on my 30th Birthday). The live tracks have (here I get to name drop), Sam Fogarino, now drummer for Interpol. I can say that without fear of seeming too self promotional as this ep was a limited edition. You cannot buy it anymore..although Projekt may have one or two lying around! After this the lovely and talented Vince Grech was the drummer. More recently Tommy Henry has been the guy with the sticks.
In 1996 and most of 1997 Tucker and I worked on and finished my favorite of the Thanatos recordings, Blisters. We never got to tour with it. We had one track more or less done in 1999 but there was never another Tucker/Me Thanatos CD. I had no intention of releasing another Thanatos recording --in fact I released Tucker and my last track, On Your Dime, on a CD under the name illegalteenagebikini, I Am Not Job. Then I was out with guitarist Greg Lucas (Greg was HUGE in recording the illegalteenagebkini record...it wouldn't have happened without him) seeing the documentary on The Ramones. We got to drinking and decided to play a show. The lovely and talented DJ Scary Lady Sarah booked us. It was fun. We played another few shows here and there and I did acoustic gigs in Chicago, Austin and South Florida....(I kind of suck acoustic most of the time I admit but sometimes I am awesome...). Somewhere in the midst of al this I started, with the help of Tim Larson, recording the last Thanatos full length, The Exterminating Angel.
When I said "last" I never meant I would never do music. I meant I would never do a full length CD. And I never will. I also am highly unlikely to ever tour with a band. And I will talk about playing shows but don't hold your breath.
Thats the story. I am stopping now cause even I am getting bored. Thanks for looking...and listening.
Patrick Ogle (aka Padraic Ogl)
Here is a blog I love!
This Is Probably My Favorite Acoustic Guitar These Days
Chris Eudy was spot on and Third Coast did a fine job on this guitar. It sounds super but it also needs a fret job too (he told me that). As soon as I have a spare $75 or so I will get right on that. This guitar, incidentally, was made in Bridgeport on the South Side of Chicago in 1968. I spent hundreds getting it fixed. It cost $69 new.