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| Thoughts And Notions Reunited at last! |
Last Sept 7, 2024, the official Thoughts And Notions reunion finally happened in the Queen City of the South, Cebu! In a way, this had already been brewing for quite sometime since we decided to release all of our songs in various Digital Music Platforms worldwide. The three of us (Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano Escaño, and me) haven't been together since sometime in 2009 (or was it even 2008?). And this meeting marked the first time that we have been together to talk about new developments in each other's respective lives as well as what the future might hold. Come to think of it, 20 years ago was also the first time we grouped together and decided to start this Thoughts And Notions project. When we first decided to write, record, and produce an album as our contribution to our Church's fund raising efforts. And 20 years went by so fast that now we are in the prime of our lives, now happily married and having our own families to take care of. Though the music stopped for a long period of time, the connection remained strong ever since we started to give this another go as our motivation to keep on working with this project remained true to its mission. And that is to help uplift wounded souls with our brand of music. Rooted from our Christian faith and the desire to share God's amazing Love to those who have yet to encounter it. This is the only reason why we are still here continuing the work to ensure that our songs would live on until the next generation.
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| Wilbert, Thrina, and Me |
This reunion also had us revisiting our debut album and what our future plans for it would be. You see, Thrina was around 15 years old when we recorded that album. So she was very inexperienced when it came to singing and having her vocal work recorded. So whatever you think of our debut album, that is basically a historical artifact of an era during the time this project was born; anchored by Thrina's fearless resolve to take on the vocal chores for the album. Of course, Wilbert may have self-produced a couple of albums prior to ours, but he had yet to serve as an understudy of a renowned sound engineer in Manila. So his sound engineering was still very raw at that time. Then lastly, there's little old me who never experienced writing lyrics before. So there were a lot of grammatical errors on the lyrics if you didn't fail to notice it. I personally feel that as much as the album is a very important milestone for us, it is something that we feel needs to be revisited. So yes despite all of what I mentioned, the fact that someone took interest of it and wanted to sign us to a distribution deal for the album is still a huge mystery to me. But it is something that I believe that Divine intervention happened. And because of it, we now have a career in music for a noble purpose. So yes, we are planning to do something with regards to our first album. We just can't reveal what the plans are yet. Though we did have a day that was very well spent. From the morning to the evening, we were together to savor the very rare moments that we are in the same place together. I say rare because even though we founded this project together years ago, Wilbert left for Manila not long after, leaving Thoughts And Notions to Thrina and me as we built a band and started a music career in our hometown Cagayan de Oro. Now, we are scattered across the Philippines' major islands. So these are very rare moments to have.
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| With Mary Ozaraga, Thrina, Marco, and Wilbert |
We ended the day by meeting Mary Ozaraga, a rising Independent Christian Artist from Cebu. I have always been a fan of hers when I encountered her music. And it was no surprise that Thrina (and her husband Marco) became instant fans too. I've always love the work ethic Mary has put into her songs and her hard work in promoting her songs to ensure that it would reach its intended audience. Which also reminded me of our heyday when I was working hard to promote our songs back in the day during the infancy of social media. We didn't have Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, X (formerly Twitter), Youtube, and even the Digital Music platforms back then. What we had were Friendster, Multiply, MySpace (online music app), and Youtube was still in its infancy. So it was kind of hard back then but it didn't deter us to make sure that our songs would reach its intended audience. So what Mary is doing now simply amazes me as not only does she write her own songs, she bravely performs them on various online shows too. I pray that her hard work pays off. Because she deserves the big stage and to be able to perform her songs to a live audience. So if I can encourage and motivate her to pursue forming a band to back her up, I'd gladly do it in a heartbeat. Mary's sound is so fresh from the usual trappings of Christian Contemporary Music. She fuses a variety of sound, from Folk, Jazz, Alternative, Pop, Acoustic, and Rock Music. With a strong command of her song's lyrics that cuts through the noise of mainstream music. If being envious is not a sin, I'd probably say that I envy her songwriting talent.
So the day was not only spent on reunions, but we also connected for what the future holds. I mean as much as it was a lonely crusade back then to represent Christian Music in the independent music scene, we are also very much hopeful that this time around, we would have friends and allies such as Mary who are willing to share the same mission that we started. From the get go, the mission wasn't always been about us, but rather about the message of the songs that we are writing. And if someone can deliver it very much clearer than us, then we'd welcome that development. But let me end my story about the reunion part here. As there will be more surprises in the coming days. So keep your eyes peeled for the next entries...
