Thomas is the author of the book Listen, Whitey: The Sights and Sounds of Black Power, a 2012 work of African-American cultural history centering on the Black Panther Party, with a concurrently released CD and double LP recording of speeches and protest songs. He is also known for his work as a music critic. He has written for Bucketfull of Brains, The Bob, Juxtapoz, Crawdaddy and Mojo and was editor of the last issue of Ptolemaic Terrascope.
Musical career
As a musician, Pat Thomas has been drummer and percussionist for bands such as Absolute Grey, and presently for the musicians' collective Mushroom, which he founded. From 1987 to 1997, Thomas released five solo records. He has also recorded as Patrick O'Hearn. Thomas founded Mushroom in the San Francisco Bay Area, in November 1996. The group's sound has been described as a "diverse and eclectic blend of jazz, space rock, R&B, electronic, ambient, Krautrock and folk music". Mushroom released its first recording in 1997, a 12" single called "The Reeperbahn," described by critic Fred Mills in Magnet as a recording that "could fool a blindfolded test applicant into thinking its 25-minute psych blowout was some long lost Krautrock epic from the early '70s. Let the band's wah-wah guitar, feedback violin, volcanic bass, jazzbo percussion, and tape loops take you down the fabled motorway, never to return to the place you once knew." "The Reeperbahn" provided the basis for CDs released in 1998 in the Netherlands and Germany. In 1999, the band released Analog Hi-Fi Surprise in the United States and Germany, followed by a European tour, by which time keyboard player Graham Connah had exited and was replaced by Michael Holt. Toronto music magazine Exclaim! wrote that the band "dish out the tastiest psychedelic funk you're ever likely to encounter. The groove's the thang as these tasty tracks cruise on Rhodes-driven jazz, ambient beats, surf riffs, and post rock textures. The band brew all these elements into a mixture that travels the outer realms of progressive funk. Like Tortoise jamming with the Grateful Dead or Soft Machine exploring the Funkadelic catalog, these loose open-ended excursions raise the art of fusion to a new plateau. While each track works a groove toward heady epiphany, the album as a whole refuses to stay locked into any one genre. Booker T-styled organ gyrations, rock guitar virtuosity, Bootsy Collins funk ups, ambient jazz, electronic beats, and Krautrock trance all make a stand, but the bottom line is that this is music that will move you, and then some." The band then recorded Foxy Music, which included trumpeter Jon Birdsong. Q magazine in England wrote, "On the Foxy Music CD, the band steer away from determined psychedelia in favor of a friendly looseness to their playing. Jabs of electro-trombone and flute cluster alongside churning organ and splintered Rhodes Piano. Beck's trumpeter Jon Birdsong also turns on a great big blubbery blast of tuba, while musical director Patrick O'Hearn's clattering drums have an automaton rotary action that sometimes recalls Can's Jaki Liebezeit." As of 2015, the members of Mushroom were Pat Thomas, Ned Doherty, Erik Pearson, Dave Brandt, Josh Pollock, Alison Levy, Ralph Carney, Graham Connah, Matt Cunitz, Tim Plowman, Dan Olmsted, and Dave Mihaly. Mushroom's current label is 4 Zero Records.
