About Me

Welcome to my Serious Page.

This is where I prevent myself from writing anything too silly and instead blow my own trumpet far too loudly at your face, in the hope that you might want to pay me to do something. -A kind of CV, if you like. And if you don't like, click here to get to my other site!
My name is Tom Hughes. I live on Portland but, unlike many Portlanders, I am willing and able to leave the island and can travel as far as, oh, London at least. -Depends on what you want me to do...
Instruments
I am multi instrumentalist specializing mainly in vintage keyboards: Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer EP and piano.
I also play the piano accordion, guitar, bass and drums (badly) and I sing a bit too.
I'm not particularly keen on synths, though I do love some Mellotron sounds.
Moogs are funny.
And DX7s make me want to stab myself in the ears and brain.
I play completely by ear. (And brain.)
Band Experience
In 2008 I toured the UK with Stax soul legend, Eddie Floyd , 60s soul star, Geno Washington and The Selecter's Pauline Black .
I was/am a quarter of The Lucky Bishops , a fairly psychedelic, and very fantastic, melodic pop group with three self written and produced albums.
For a few years I was a member of 70s progressive rock giants (?), Nektar , originally joining them as an emergency replacement for Taff Freeman. (I had about 9 minutes to learn 3 hours of music.) I did plenty of stuff with them including tours of the U.S, Brazil, Mexico (BAJA prog Fest) Germany, Switzerland, Wales and even sunny England.
I have also toured Spain with Chicago blues legend, Phil Guy (Buddy's brother) and I've traveled France with The Jamie Turner Rock and Roll band.
With The Lucky Bishops, I've played gigs, festivals and tours in Germany, Spain (Felipop Fest), The U.S. (SXSW and Terrastock festivals, CBGBs, The Knitting Factory), England (Poptones Radio4 nights in Notting Hill Arts Centre, The Standard, The Garage, er, various pubs in Weymouth, loads of other places, I'm sure).
I currently play with myself, Mr Thomas Hughes Triops (erm...I have a trio called Triops who do my own songs and project our own strange films as we play), Gothic Chicken , a psychedelic 60s covers group who are now making an album of original songs, Motel 6, a blues band, The Sidekicks , a popular covers band and Wee , a horrible duo that makes a nasty unmusical racket.
Then of course, there's The Phantasy Sorcerers . I've also been in loads of other bands but I'm not going to list them here. ...Though I ought to namedrop Gastric Baby...
Recording
I record, engineer and produce music for myself and others.
I have also arranged vocal and brass harmony parts.
I occasionally record live gigs. -My recording setup is fairly mobile.
I'm particularly into recreating 60s-ish sounds but with a twist for the new millennium, (...er, ok, I don't know what that means either.)
I have appeared on lots of band recordings as a guest, including the incredible Cheese and the spectacular Eye .
Solo Music
I have made an album of my own songs under the name Mr. Thomas Hughes (which is my name).
The emphasis in my own songs is more on lovely sounds, melodies, details and lyrics, than on tight playing, or on being especially radio friendly.
I have an excellent new trio/multimedia experience (!!) called Triops who play my songs.
...So don't go saying, "Well, it's not quite Jamie Cullum is it?" Because, no, it's not.
Equipment
A souped up Hammond L100 (1960s cousin of the mighty B3, so, valves, tonewheels -the important bits are all there!) plus a souped up Leslie speaker.
A Nord C1. This is a new Hammond B3 emulator organ, which also contains incredible Vox Continental and Farfisa Compact Duo clones. And it's red!
Pianoteq, an amazingly lovely piano emulation. -Overtones, clunks and clonks all present!
M-Tron, an enormous bank of Mellotron samples, wow, flutter and all,
A Fender Rhodes (yep a real one!),
A Yamaha Clavinova, (best used with Pianoteq. -Yamaha's piano sounds are nowhere near as good as pianoteq!)
An E-mu sampler and some very, very well sampled sounds. -I normally detest samples, but these really are great: A lovely Wurlitzer EP200a (I sampled every note at different velocities) a great mellotron flute and some beautiful upright pianos. Oh, and a load of sound effects! Mooing, screaming, smiling etc.
Two digital 16 track machines,
Some fairly nice microphones: A Rode NT2, a Beyer Ribbon mic, some Audio Technica condensers, etc.
Some outboard stuff: A Lexicon reverb, a couple of compressors, a valve thing, blah blah blah.
A theremin which I built!
An autoharp,
A Victorian practice violin with an angleable tin horn!
A pretty 1950s banjo/mandolin.
A little wooden hohner reed organ.
Other Skills
I am ok at fixing Hammond organs and Leslie speakers. I had to fix a Leslie nearly every day whenever I was away with Nektar. I've also modified my own Hammond and Leslie.
I'm quite good at photoshop. I spend hours stretching heads and squashing features. Then I turn the computer on.
I make films and animations and music videos andwebsites.I can paint (pictures) a bit. -See my album sleeves in the Pictures section.
I am fantastic at sudoku.
[email protected]

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 12/1/2006
Sounds Like: Track 1: My Room.
a) Here I am, playing what I imagine might make you want to hire me: Plenty of Hammond organ and a tiny bit of (unskilled playing of) my theremin!!
b) And here's an incredibly grave sounding instrumental, made all the graver by the sampled Mellotron choir! (I normally hate sampled vocals, but this sound has it's place when saturated in reverb!)
Track 2: Bits & Bobs.
a) This is a Gothic Chicken original called Priesthole, featuring my accordion. It'll be on the new album, coming soon!
b) The dreamy ending of a chaotic Nektar song. This was recorded for XM radio, about 6 days after I joined the band (and about 2 years before I left again). Unfortunately I'm playing a digital Hammond-Suzuki XB2: One of the worst keyboards ever built. -Amazing what gallons of reverb can do though!
c) An excerpt from "Georgia" with The Sidekicks . -Here, I'm creating a wash of swirling Hammond, to back up Dan's guitar solo. -A bit like Billy Preston with King Curtis, but not as dead.

Track 3: More Soloing & Noodling.
a) Me, soloing with Motel 6. -At least two people have this as their ringtones (!!), thanks to its piercing nature, not to mention its Crazyfrogness.
b) Here's a bit of Rhodes from "Miss You" with The Sidekicks again.
c) Next is me with the now defunct New Orleans soul/funk band, Loop Garou. Here I am, doing my best (adopt spikey voice) Jools Holland impression on the piano. I'm not that keen on this solo, but it's different to the rest of the stuff here, so I've included it.
d) Then, some jazzzzzzz. ...If I was a keyboard, this might be the demo: Lots of different sounds: Wurlitzer, Rhodes, Upright, Mellotron flute, and plenty of Hammond organ here. And some fairly terrible drumming.
Track 4: A Few Things I've Produced, Engineered & Played on.
a) A bit of a Lucky Bishops song I wrote, from our new album, Unexpect The Expected ! I was (and am) listening to a lot of Os Mutantes stuff, hence this tribute, in...er...Spanish! Haha!
b) My friend Gabby Hitchin singing her song, The Winter, with me on piano. This is an example of my more straight producing. No, nothing odd here. Lovely though.
c) The Lucky Bishops again. This one is from our 2nd album, Grimstone . It's a few years old now, but I'm ridiculously proud of it, so here is a bit of it.
d) Lovely Gabs again, this time singing what, I guess would be an odd B-side to The Winter, in a parallel universe.
e) This is from a song called Butterflies and it's off my album, Mr.Thomas Hughes . This bit features massively compressed drums and cymbals, Rhodes piano and wahwah piano. Hopefully it'll make you buy it (instead of Mediterranean holidays, which it sounds like it's advertising).

Complete personnel listings are in the relevant "lyrics" sections in the music player above.
Record Label: Unsigned

My Blog

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