I have to try and point out that I'm not an obsessive you know - if I passed Thomas in the street I'd
probably leave him alone, who needs to be bothered by fans all the time? Although...
we once had a cat... guess what I called him? Err.... well I already know a few Thomas's
(what IS the plural for that?!)... so that cat got called Dolby! A rather nice tiger-y dude he
was too... he lasted about 6 years until some odd disease got him *sniff*.
And I also kept the pages from TMDR's appearance in Hello! magazine. Oops - guilty as charged, m'lud.
(update: after a few years of email list content, having communicated with Thomas by email several times,
and now that my collection has grown rather pleasingly, I now know that I just couldn't let the guy walk
past me without me
at least saying something. If this ever happened I'd be in such shock that it would probably
be something cringeworthy that would redden my face for years to come)
I did dread to think what Thomas would think if he ever had the time to read all this,
given that I don't enjoy some tracks that I assume number among his favourites.
I imagined he probably feels that Mulu and Neon Sisters were more creative, personal expressions
of creativity than the more obviously commercial-orientated pop he's obliged to put on
albums in order for them to sell. To sell to dumb-asses like me who don't appreciate the
true art (I later found out that this was quite true). I'd say "Sorry Thomas, I know what
I like and there's not much I can do about it!".
I'd like to think he might be interested in honest opinions, and that just maybe it would be a
little spooky to have fans who hang on your every word and automatically love everything you ever do!
Update - Thomas was kind enough to pass comment on this page (more at the end of this page).
Tom's favourite track? TD : "I think it would probably be between 'Screen
Kiss', 'Budapest by Blimp' and 'I Love You Goodbye', and 'I Love You Goodbye'
would win. I'm very fond of all of them, they are the deepest of all the things that I've
done and the most multifaceted.
I think 'I Love You Goodbye' sort of wins it at the end of the day because it
is very much in the first person. You know, in other words the feelings are
very much from the inside out; versus writing songs where I take a position;
take a very specific position. I think with 'Screen Kiss' for example I think
I am taking a position somewhat on that."
I may have to be in a rarely receptive mood to fully appreciate Mulu,
Screen Kiss or Budapest By Blimp but at least I'm with him on I Love You Goodbye!
"'I Scare Myself' is probably the classic on the record (TFE). 'Hyperactive' is the most instant and the
most instantly forgettable because it's the most state of the art and the least timeless. 'Screen Kiss' is
underrated by a lot of people but it's one of my favorites - it's the song I was the most emotionally involved in.
It felt very odd because at that time I was passionately in love, which is something I generally seperate from my work"
... "The songs that I'm most proud of are early tunes like 'Weightless' and 'Cloudburst' ... The least pleasing
are the hit singles 'Europa' and 'Science'. They're the ones where I wasn't trying very hard and they're a little throwaway."
And does Thomas listen to any of his own material for enjoyment purposes?
TD : "Every now and then, but not at all often. My family and my friends listen more
often than I do. My kids put it on and dance around singing to it but they
tend to play the same track over and over and it just drives me completely
mad! It may be 'Hyperactive' or it might be ... 'My Brain Is Like A Sieve'. 'Silk Pyjamas'
they like, but they just get really into it and play it over and over again
and it drives me crazy!"
As for my 'taste', I really go for songs with a good bassline, and percussion "does it for me" too - so any
song without much of a beat has to be something REALLY special to grab my MTV-attention
span. Like Cruel for example.
Strangely, given TMDR's association with them, I remain unmoved by the
Prefabricated Sprouts. I think maybe the "Hotdog jumping for Albuque(whatever)"
thing in the King of Rock and Roll put me off for life! And the feeble wimpy
"la la la..." the young lady inflicts on us. *ugh* I bought an album and couldn't
tolerate anything on it, except one track. Machine Gun Ibiza is quite pleasant, and
towards the end you'll hear TMDR chip in - marvelous. I'll try my usual trick
one day, when I don't like an album on first listen it helps to leave it
on in the background while I'm busy doing something like tidying up/washing
dishes/etc - it allows the music to seep into the subconscious. Better than
hitting SKIP after turning my nose up at the start of each track!
I'm looking forward to browsing the TMDR web-site that ONE DAY will list every version of
every recording, for download (for a fee of course). Mmmm - dream on. Here's hoping!
Shall I get on with this then? Ok...
See my Thomas Dolby Timeline page!
Other pages here - see TMDR's appearances on / in :
"ITV Night Network Video View - "
details & pics
"Music and Computers" feature -
2 pics
The "Adam and Joe Show"
TV JPEG stills
1981/82 - EMI
Featuring Kevin Armstrong, Bruce Wolley, Andy Partridge (XTC), Lene Lovich.
A great first album of intelligent pop with a flavour of radio and travel. Only one track that I won't play on air.
This seems to be quite generally regarded as a very fine album indeed - one the best from the 1980s.
"a collection of different sessions of songs written over a long period of time - it was full of
loads of different moods."
"Most of the lyrics on the album are written in the third person ... I was writing about a fabricated,
romanticised version of my real life."
"My first album was made almost entirely with the MicroMoog and a Roland JP4 (the first polyphonic
- read 4-note - synth that worked.) Sequenccers weren't around at that time, so I'd set the oscillators
to throb and use that for rhythm, like in 'Urges" or "Cloudburst." I also had an early PPG 340/380 called
Henry that had been designed to turn Tangerine Dream's lightshow on and off. It put out PLUS and MINUS
voltages based on sequences, and I used it to trigger Simmons electronic drum modules, in the days prior
to the first drum machines (this played the drums in She Blinded Me With Science).
PPG also made a bizarre wavetable synthesizer which made very unusual noises
and looked like a refrigerator. You needed a Doctorate in German to read the manual. I used this a lot
for things like the bass part on "Windpower" and the bell-like chinks of light on "Weightless."
"I took the money I'd made in New York and booked six weeks in a small studio in South London.
I put together a band consisting of Justin Hildreth and Mark Heyward-Chaplin (the rhythm section from
Lene Lovich's band) and Kevin Armstrong on guitar. We rehearsed for a while and put down the backing
tracks in a few days. The rest of the time I spent trying to sing, without a lot of success. I'd never
really sung live, only backing vocals, and my voice was very undefined. I think my lack of self-assurance
led me to fall back on a vague kind of Bowie imitation, delivered mainly through my nasal passages.
I had a great time though. I guess all aspiring musicians dream of being able to go in the studio and
cut their own album. It was a total thrill, and if my career had ended right then, it still would have been worth it."
CD
- 1 - SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE
(CD only, and later vinyls) 3:40 - Catchy pop with a test-tube flavour.
Vocals from the late "crazy scientist" himself, Dr. Magnus Pyke. "The spheres are in commotion" indeed. I often use the
phrase "There she goes again! She's tidied up and I can't find anything" but the missus completely misses the point *grin*.
It may not be TMDR's favourite but it did the trick for his career (in some ways, while stereotyping him too),
and... well, I still enjoy it. Ends.
For an MP3 version played by a marching band (excellent!) find the link in
this Alloy digest.
Before each of Dolby's exclamations of "Science!" a thick, layered string patch corkscrews through an
eight-note figure that seems to parody the 'this is the scary part' music of classic sci-fi B movies.
"That was all a Roland JP4," recalls Dolby, "It was double-tracked with slight pitch shifts, and played
in two-octave intervals." - errr... OK... if you say so :o)
TD - "...even at the time of writing 'Science' it angered me - that I'd let it go that far and 'Science'
was almost taking it to its extreme. Saying, 'Right, if it's so important to have a public face, let's go
completely over the top, to the extent of getting Magnus Pyke into it. Let's really throw caution to the wind'
- 2 - RADIO SILENCE
3:46 - A lively, quirky song. Sparse, bare verses filling out towards the chorus, when
you'll get the bass which is delicious in the all-to-brief moments that it
thunders around the room. Nice radio flavour, with the Caroline references. Some squeeky-girly singing at 1:33 to 1:58
which some might find not to their taste. Loss of beat at 2:32 to 2:55. Well worth airplay. Slow start, could be picked
up at 0:16. TMDR sounds great - one of my faves. Fades, quit at -0:11
Some US LP album versions have a different version, longer, no squeeky girlies, prominent guitar - an altogether more
"pub rock" feel. Nice, if you can find it! "Try to think of nothing"...
- 3 - AIRWAVES
5:13 - A corker of a slow track. More radio flavour, and well worth playing on air.
1:28 "PYlon" did you spit there, Thomas? hehe. 2:03 "controls enabled" to 2:13 nice and lively. 2:52 "please don't ask
questions" strikes a chord with me! I have to be in the right mood for this, too slow for me half the
time - but marvellous when it appeals. Quiets down at 4:11 in excellent style, but not on all album/CD versions. Ends.
TD : "... on my Portastudio I basically completed seven
or eight songs ... The very first one that I ever did
was New Toy. I got my Portastudio when I was on the road with Lene Lovich, the
Portastudio had just come out and that's what I did in my hotel room on my
afternoons off. Then I went home with it and I recorded 'Airwaves' (the
version that came out on the compilation cassette "From Brussells With Love"),
'Flying North', 'Sale Of The Century' as it was then called, which turned
into 'Wreck Of The Fairchild' and one other... one other song, I think it was
'Therapy/Growth'. Those are basically the only Portastudio demos that I ever
made."
"I wrote it late one night in my studio in a huge and grim Victorian industrial building, with snow falling on the railway tracks outside, and me surrounded by short-circuited machines hacked together by a man called Igor. It conjures up a strange, futuristic world whose ecology is rotting while the sheer overload of broadcasted data is nearing saturation point. I'm standing 'knee-deep in water under a pylon' trying to take it all in, while 'the copper cables all rust in the acid rain'. There's clearly some awful catastrophe approaching, but as the narrator, I'm distant, aloof, hiding out with a lover until morning."
- 4 - FLYING NORTH
3:51 - Not one of my favourites to start with, a very repetitive piano riff, and slightly
edgy "noisy" air to the liveliness. 1:14 "here come the men in suits" it's picked up nicely now. There's a lot going
on in there, I still find things to listen out for, even now. Fades, quit at -0:20 or treat the listeners to the great
stuff towards the end of the fade.
"was written mid-way through a long plane flight. I was on the way back from a package holiday in Spain as I recall, nothing very glamorous. But it turned into a whole other scenario, with compass roses and moths in flames and paper-waving business executives' Lincolns steaming on the tarmac. When I performed it live one night at a club I persuaded two TWA stewardesses to come onstage and do their flight safety preamble during the instrumental bit in the middle."
- 5 - WEIGHTLESS
3:42 - Laid back without being slow, about a clean-cut American girl having a nervous breakdown. Very nicely done, will stick with you for ages! Varied pace, starting slow and going back there once or
twice, but keeping
it's flair right up to the end. Could be picked up at 0:40 to avoid the monks... Some great moments -
"Fruit-juice everywhere" being rather memorable, contributed by Europa herself, Ms Aumont.
"Love is all you ever wanted, all you'll ever need" - excellent. The THE would do an excellent job covering
this darkly. One to impress listeners of all ages. Ends.
- 6 - EUROPA AND THE PIRATE TWINS
3:20 - Upbeat cheerful pop. Nice percussive start. A first love holiday romance,
that somehow fails to re-ignite a decade later... Fades, quit at -0:13
"A hopeless romantic, I was determined not to leave Paris without falling in love. Two nights before my plane left I met Europa. Well, that wasn't actually her real name, which was Elisabeth Aumont. We fell head over heels, and spent the last night whispering under the bedclothes that after the Apocalypse we would meet up again on a beach in England where I learned to sail as a kid. She spoke English like a gangster from a James Cagney movie but with a thick French accent. I played her the chords to a song I was writing called Weightless, and I told her the lyrics were about a clean-cut American girl having a nervous breakdown. "Fruit juice everywhere!" she said. I laughed and put that line in the song.
Europa was the manifestation of my fascination with Europe, an infatuation which eventually turned to disdain and then to hatred by the end of my Twenties."
- 7 - WINDPOWER
4:18 - You might be tempted to skip this one if you're like me and you tend to get tired of hits
that have been played to death. Starts with pseudo-Morse code - I've listened carefully to this and I have to say that while
it all SOUNDS very Morse-y it isn't valid Morse! The structure of the "dits and dahs" doesn't resemble any of the used
combinations. Sorry. Hardly important, I know, it still sounds fine really and does it's job well, but... I'm allowed to
be fussy aren't I? hehe.
Presenters : if you like to "keep the power levels up" pick this one up at 0:45 when the beat starts.
Geek mode [ON]... features percussive effects that alternate between extreme left and right with a sound not to dissimilar to white noise -
which can be useful to spot poor stereo alignment! Geek mode [OFF]... I said [OFF]... oh darn... it's stuck.
You could leave this at -0:32 but then you'd miss the shipping forecast by the BBC's John Marsh,
which is exceedingly authentic! (Different versions found on various albums/CDs)
"Windpower was a minor hit in the UK, and got me onto 'Top of the Pops' for the first and only time."
- 8 - COMMERCIAL BREAKUP
4:16 - Lively and relentless, I always thought this was too repetitive, but listening again
after quite some time has been a revelation. This really is good! What I thought was slight monotony is "broken up" by the
splendid non-vocal section from 2:05 to 3:15 "it's a telephone!".
With a lot of cymbal, I'd like to hear The Police cover this. Ends.
- 9 - ONE OF OUR SUBMARINES
5:09 - a slow start explodes at 0:32 into pop work of art. "One of our submarines
is missing tonight, seems she ran aground on manoeuvres"... (not found on earlier releases). Fades - quit from -0:14
Originally written for the Thompson Twins, but at some point Thomas felt that the track had grown to become something he
just couldn't part with. Thank goodness he kept it!
- 10 - CLOUDBURST AT SHINGLE STREET
5:40 - An odd one to finish with. 3 minutes 23 of bearable enough atmosphere,
building up to delicious 20 seconds or so "and it's dawning on me, I've been a cork in the ocean, been bobbing in the
North Sea"... leading to a minute of noisy percussion with operatics thrown in for good
measure. I wouldn't listen to this in company, and turn the volume down in the car around town! A little too, operatic!
TMDR sounds a bit mumbly too. At 4:58 though, TMDR rescues the whole track with an unmissable heartrending finish "and
now there's only you" - which makes for a really haunting end to the album, as it will reverberate around your head
for some time after the disc stops spinning and the room returns to silence. Fades.
Vinyl
- THE WRECK OF THE FAIRCHILD
3:30 - Based on the air-crash in Argentina later featured in the movie "Alive",
where the victims ended up eating each other - after saying grace of course.
Mainly music with snatches of air-ground radio traffic.
I've come to think that the mistake about 123 MHz FM (should be AM) might
actually be deliberate, the ground controller being under some stress at the time. Perhaps.
I used to find this a weak track, and maybe I was not alone seing as it was left off the CD. Now however, I enjoy it
immensely, as over the years my taste has matured (!) slightly to encompass less pop-y material. Good stuff.
Only found on original UK LP/cass.
Thomas wrote a song aeons ago called 'Sale Of The Century' which was never
released due to his dissatisfaction with it but he liked the arrangement and
some of the parts of it so much that he developed it and it become this semi-instrumental track
TD :"While I was recording it I went to Wimbledon to look at an old Jaguar MK4 I saw advertised.
The man selling it, by coincidence, was an ex-Argentinian military pilot, and he ended up doing the voiceover on the
track, which is a conversation between a plane in trouble and a military base which refuses to let them land"
(Credit on the album for one Guido Orlando, for the radio stuff and grace)
This is the first track on side two, and it is joined to Airwaves by oooo-oooo radio noises, followed by yet more
wireless atmosphere to Radio Silence, with a small gap before Cloudburst at Shingle Street. Side one is Flying North,
Commercial Breakuop, Weightless, Europa and the Pirate Twins, Windpower.
- URGES
3:39 - Neat, lively song with a smut subject. Cool! The beat is entirely in the lower frequency region,
an absence of snare, cymbal or hi-hat makes me want to add some somehow, as it seems incomplete to me. Catchy though.
Only found on first US LP/cass, and on Retrospectacle. Ends - nicely too - sudden.
"It's about the illusions surrounding nightclubbing and being a victim of those. it's as if there's a conspiracy
to make you feel everyone but you is going out and having fun and meeting people of the opposite sex. It's also a song about dancing."
- LEIPZIG
3:51 - "39 and you need some leeway... soon you're eyeing the overseas page" -
"Leipzig is calling you". Good laid-back stuff with a hook. Nothing like the sound of taxi brakes...
I was thrilled to find this on the back of one of my 12" singles... it runs in beautifully to Therapy/Growth too.
Only found on first US LP/cass, and on Retrospectacle. Fades - quit at -0:17
"...satirises the time when it was trendy for pop stars to go and pose around Berlin."
Other versions out there somewhere include one by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin which sounds rather childlike in comparision,
and one by Boole which is rather heavily the opposite extreme!
Details of differences between various releases :
UK-1 1982 First Release, UK
US-1 1982 US
UK-2 * 1983 Revised, UK & US
US-2 1983 Revised, US
US-3 * US
(my codes) * means it is available on CD
The Wreck of the Fairchild UK-1
Leipzig US-1
Urges US-1
Airwaves 5:15 UK-1 UK-2 *
Airwaves 7" US-1 US-2 US-3 *
Radio Silence 3:46 UK-1 UK-2 * US-3 *
Radio Silence 4:32 US-1 US-2
Windpower 4:18 UK-1 UK-2 * US-1
Windpower 7" US-2 US-3 *
She Blinded Me With Science 3:40 UK-2 *
She Blinded Me With Science 5:09 US-2 US-3 *
One Of Our Submarines UK-2 * US-2 US-3 *
Flying North
Weightless
Europa and the Pirate Twins these five tracks the same on all the above
Commercial Breakup
Cloudburst At Shingle Street
For more information on album versions, please consult
Lazlo's Thomas Dolby discography :
http://www.swcp.com/lazlo-bin/discogs?dolby
- just click the "Search for" button!
Sheet music for She Blinded Me With Science, Europa, Airwaves, and One of Our Submarines was once published by
from Cherry Lane Music Co, inc (http://www.cherrylane.com ?), probably not still in print (no ISBN number).
1984 - EMI
Follow up album that seems more laid back, sparse, well produced... and frankly rather short (Total Play: 37:22).
I already had the Hyperactive single with White City on the back, so to only get five new tracks (two of which
don't appeal) was a bit of a let-down at first. As it turned out though, the title track and Dissidents are worth
the asking price on their own!
"I'd decided that I wanted to work out grooves with a group, whereas on the first one I just
started everything with a straight electronic background. So I assembled the musicians I most respected - Kevin Armstrong
who'd played guitar on the first LP, bassist Matthew Seligman, whom I've known for years and who was in the Thompson Twins - he's
very much my right hand man, a sounding board always there to bounce ideas off, and Clif Brigden, who was a real discovery
and had a great deal of energy, whose role was to put down computer drum patterns with live percussion on top. The actual feeling in
the studio was great and when I listened to the stuff back in England it didn't need much extra work - all I did was a little subversion on them."
Adele Bertei : backing vocals on 1,2 & 7. Bruce Wolley : backing vocals on Mulu.
- 1 - DISSIDENTS
4:54 - One of my faves, awesome pop on the relaxed side of lively. Nice start with typewriter
(tripewriter in my case) sounds. Plenty of variation, with some foreign language narrative too, which works perfectly.
3:27 to 4:03 I love this bit... it's done differently too in the alternative mixes.
In the video sheets of paper fall all around - I want one! On a T-shirt, hehe. Ends after a false end - I've heard this
catch out a couple of presenters in the past, so Pre-Fade-Listen first, and make a note of it!
Russian translation (intended):
"I remember the night they came for my father and mother. It was in the days when grain was plentiful ... we
had eaten a simple meal of barley gruel on the porch. The car drove away into the night. I never saw them
again ... ever again."
From the keyboard of Thomas himself :
"Actually, the lyrics I used for subtitles in the Dissidents video I made up
completely!! I recorded the sample off a short-wave radio broadcast in
about 1982 and never knew what they meant. But a Russian sent me the real
translation a while ago, and its relevance completely blew my mind... it is
aparently an old alegorical poem about a tree, and it went something like
this: "the bough that is young and supple bends in the wind, but the bough
that is old and rigid snaps." (thanks Paul Baily - Alloy)
- 2 - THE FLAT EARTH
6:30 - excellent laid-back music, starting fairly bare and thickening up deliciously
for a minute and a half before the further pleasures of the vocals. Old folks who are allergic to pop should be forced to
listen to this... they'd surely be pleasantly surprised. Fades, quit at -0:44
- 3 - SCREEN KISS
5:20 - Slow and not one of my more favoured songs. While I can appreciate its finer
moments, I find it rather disconcerting - an awkward listen, full of negativity. Pills, children crying, violence,
suicide, California tipping in the ocean. The final minute's heartbeat effect is a turn-off for me too.
Fades... not soon enough!
"It's also a very fragile song. We didn't even play it live in Britain because it's very difficult to pull off.
Everything has to be very delicate. The fretless bass and percussion make it very touch and go."
- 4 - WHITE CITY - start of vinyl/tape side 2
5:19 - slow build to the beat kicking in at 0:25.. one of TMDR's loudest feeling tracks,
with a very persistent snare drum that grates in no time. Nicely done overall, but if I pick up this album with a minute
to spare before the currently playing track ends, this isn't my first choice when looking for something to play next.
4:00 nice... Ends - with a mildly amusing monologue from "Keith" played by Robyn Hitchcock.
"Then there's 'White City', which is set very much in Milton Keynes on a
sunny Sunday morning with this incurable hippy character who couldn't
really relate to the modern world, so he builds this Utopian setting, but
then finds out he doesn't like it very much."
- 5 - MULU THE RAIN FOREST
4:48 - Very slow and bare. Starts with the coughs of a crowd waiting to be
entertained, I think they'd be bemused by this. One of my two least fave TMDR tracks, but one of his own favourites.
Creative, but to my ears a little unpleasant in places...
1:31 "morning dew" ouch! 1:41 "Mulu" Argh! 2:43 - almost gets going here, in a "Visage" sort of way... but fizzles
out at 3:12. Gets a tad noisy at 3:40. Hmmmm. I can enjoy this, but usually skip it. Ends.
All those insects chirping away does lead nicely into the next track though...
- 6 - I SCARE MYSELF
5:34 - I'm a sucker somehow for music that conjures up a feeling of dingey smokey
club/bars with gentle live entertainment - like we see on TV but never experience here in the island. One man at his
piano singing his heart out, with some expert backing, nice brass. A classic.
Pick it up at 0:06 to avoid the insect noise. Ends quietly, quit at -0:24
Original song by Dan Hicks (circa 1969).
- 7 - HYPERACTIVE!
4:09 - if you haven't heard this one you've been the unwitting victim of cruel lab
experiment or something. Excellent pop - the chart success in two different decades proves that much. A very clever
and odd beat - I was most chuffed with myself when I managed to mix this into the 12" single version, must have had
the dirty rhythm in my blood (I can't mix to save my life). If only I could stop saying "Please tell me more about your
mother" in company, *tut*. Fades - quit at -0:17 after "bones"
Apparently this was originally written for a certain Mr M.Jackson - just imagine that, ooOOh! "Tell me about your
childhood" - the first 30 years? ;o)
1988 - EMI-MANHATTAN (Capitol) - Total Play 45:14
Dolby plays now with The Lost Toy people, and it's certainly different. It's as if he's trying to prove he can have a go
at any style of music and still come up trumps. From the oddity of the first track we are strapped into our seats for a
ride through pop that would get feet tapping in a morgue, with a look-in on funk, swing, mexican hot sauce and even reggae.
A mixed bag that may only work for the musically broadminded.
"I formed Lost Toy People from the want ads in the ReCycler.
I got over 500 replies and auditioned 90 musicians over a two week period. My drummer Dave
Owens was at the time the house drummer at Knott's Berry Farm (a theme park near Disneyland)
where he reputedly had to play some gigs in a chicken suit. The bassist Terry Jackson had
put at the top of his resume that he once played a Jerry Lewis telethon. Guitarist Larry
Treadwell had just finished playing with a Catholic Ministry duo, supporting the Pope on
his stadium tour. I couldn't resist Mike Kapitan who looked like a demented Muppet synthesist,
as second keyboard player. I hired a saxist who walked all the way from the Bronx to my hotel
on Central Park South with a ghetto blaster and his sax to play for me. Lovely Laura Creamer
was about the most experienced in the band, having toured with Eric Clapton and Bob Seeger.
"The grooves I thought up to audition the band morphed into the songs contained on "Aliens Ate My Buick."
Stuff like "Pulp Culture" and "Airhead" I would feed out to each musician note by note, breaking it up
into A- and B-sections. I'd run around with my synth round my neck screaming out the sections. I made
up joke lyrics, mainly stream-of-consciousness about my experiences as a Brit exile living in the
Hollywood hills. It sounded great, very no-holds-barred and unlike the thoughtful way I'd approached
music in the past, and so we booked ourselves into a few little LA clubs."
- 1 - THE KEY TO HER FERRARI
4:37 - Whoah! This "mutant swing" took some time to get used to. But it's a grower, and now
it's fabulous. I'm quite unable to compare this with anything else I've ever heard.
"I don't want your love, I don't want your money, girl, all I want is the key to your Ferrari" - and when he does get to
take out this bright red '64 GTO his excitement rises... as he hits the magic 100 mph his love... um... exploded... Lovely.
But hilariously "at that moment, I thought of my mother", ha ha ha I love that. A great one to go really over the top
singing along to in the car "bah bah BAAH!!" much to the disturbance of friends or family.
Or the stranger hitching a ride who'll suddenly scream for me to stop the car (nah... I wouldn't dare).
I can't imagine many people stomaching this. Most definitely the one track out of all TMDR's work that's for enthusiasts
only. "All I want is the key to your Ferrari" - "because aliens ate my Buick" aah... that explains it.
(Covered by Spies Who Surf on the album Calling All Martians)
- 2 - AIRHEAD
5:06 - TMDR's often misunderstood song dealing with bimbos. "It was men made her that way". Fabulous
slice of pop perfection (except for a slight un-neccessarily dodgy bit at 3:11). Maybe I love this primarily because of the
interesting bass progression, but there's more, so much more. Thomas sings very well, no hint of straining here.
I'd have to be seriously ill to not start moving body parts in
time with this. "Quod Erat Demonstrandum baby - ooh, you speak French!" - wonderful. Ends.
- 3 - HOT SAUCE
4:53 - written by George Clinton, this is an imaginative funky extravaganza of spice.
"They call her Hot Sauce, she's hot and spicy"... it has to
be said, you wouldn't want your children wandering around singing this. Quite varied in structure, I like the road-drill at
4:14 even if the proceeding "smog alert" seems a bit forced. "shag gets in your eyes" - hmmm. Some left-right panning at
the start is a little nauseating. Ends.
Spanish outburst : "Where the devil have you been all night?!!" (thanks electrix - Alloy)
- 4 - PULP CULTURE
5:27 - laid back funky vibe. Also features lyrics of an adult orientation.
2:33 to 2:55 "on the wings of a dove" sticks in my mind most. 3:42 to 4:08 is also sublime.
One of the best tracks on the album. I remember the summer when I bought this album, there was one wonderful afternoon
when we went for a walk along the cliff paths on the north coast of the island. This track (and others) were being
played and re-mixed in my head as we explored superb coastal footpaths I'd never seen before. Perfect weather,
lush greenery, crystal blue sea, my wonderful partner and gorgeous music on my mind... what an awesome memory to keep.
Ends.
- 5 - MY BRAIN IS LIKE A SIEVE - start of vinyl/tape side 2
4:46 - "... but it knows when it's being messed with".
Another relaxed track, with a reggae flava. One that I'm tempted to skip, but then always enjoy if I don't.
- 6 - THE ABILITY TO SWING
4:24 - another cool, calm and collected track, very nicely done. More
airplay material. Soft start. Ends.
- 7 - BUDAPEST BY BLIMP
8:37 - A long one. Soft start... picks up a little at 0:33... soft vocals start 0:52...
continues pleasantly until at least 2:19 when some operatic screeching puts me right off. 2:52 sees a little sample-itis
briefly. A bit more beat picks up at 3:10 which suits me more. I have no problem with this now... 5:03 is very nice...
5:20 sees the start of the lively section, getting nicely noisy at 5:40... but it all dies off at 6:24, than TMDR shows off
his French again. Now we're back to the same plodding style of the start of the track. A crowd starts singing in stadium-mode
at 7:37... ugh. TMDR's voice echoes around, and I thought it was some eastern european language until I read the lyrics. It
turned out to be "Not really a goosestep, more of a limp", and that sums it up perfectly for me. Ends.
Hungarian translation :
"Perhaps it would be easier to forget, than to understand my departure,
A torn page from the past, a train is leaving from this fog"
- 8 - MAY THE CUBE BE WITH YOU
6:47 - funking it up with George Clinton. Wonderfully catchy ... "Late one
night a happy martian with nothing to do made the perfect pleasure drug and he called it the Cube".
I already had this on vinyl, so it was good to find it on the CD, and find out what some of the lyrics were... couldn't
get "happy martian" or "pastry abuse" for some reason!
I remember being slightly bemused when not long after, a computer supervisor at a new job handed me my first password...
cube! (in the days when there was just one terminal for all to share... hehe...
I remmember some new bloke saying "one day we'll all have one of these on our desks" and they all laughed).
3:40 to 4:01 "Half a million people are such a sight to see, lying in the sunshine in a private fantasy" is my favourite
part. The 12" versions are good too.. I used to have a cassette with them on one side, and the Searches for Truth on the
other. I'd just flip the tape direction from one to the other, over and over, as I trundled along the twenty minute
walk in to work. Ends.
1992 - Virgin - Total Play 43:29
Complete with sticker that proudly proclaims the inclusion of "Close But No Cigar" and "I Love You Goodbye".
Featuring Eddie Van Halen, Ofra Haza etc. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. Eddi Reader on "Cruel".
In memory of Terry Jackson, who played on Aliens Ate My Buick.
Once described as a cut-n-paste classic, a computer produced album that doesn't sound like it was, but then
one has to wonder why they thought so to start with :o)
- 1 - I LOVE YOU GOODBYE
5:55 - Wonderful pop - reminiscing on the fun of a previous relationship.
Was released as a single, so a shorter version is available, and "Bayou" and "New Orleans" mixes - which
are just edits rather than changes to the mix.
The only changes are similar sections swapped into the start, or chops made there (the beat
gets going sooner) - and in the central instrumental section a couple of short sections (3:33 to 4:01
on the album version, and 4:20 to 4:38) are snipped out.
Once the lyrics start all versions are virtually the same (apart from the music cuts already mentioned) except
the second lyrics section picks up again at "Under a Cajun moon" thus missing the
two lines starting with "Typhoon". So it's not really worth seeking out these versions. Ends.
- 2 - CRUEL
3:05 - Soft, gentle, sparse and bare, without percussion... but plenty of rhythm none the less.
Beautiful. "Cruel - I've been such a fool". Ends.
- 3 - SILK PYJAMAS
3:37 - Quirky and lighthearted.
"All you've gotta do is play it wrong and they're happy". Ends.
- 4 - I LIVE IN A SUITCASE
5:24 - Great pop. Great middle-8 - "they say travel
broadens the mind" - my neck hair stands on end, the pleasure starts in the stomach, crawls slowly up the back, and
by the time I reach "and in a land of dreams, I found you" I experience waves of extreme pleasure.
An "orgasm of the soul" would you say?! Ends.
- 5 - EASTERN BLOC
5:16 - Europa and the Pirate Twins re-visited, and splendidly too. I've never known anyone
dislike this. More life than a maternity ward. Top stuff. Ends.
- 6 - CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
4:24 - TMDR rocks! How much more MTV-friendly could he get? Ends.
- 7 - THAT'S WHY PEOPLE FALL IN LOVE
5:27 - more quirkiness and humour. Picks up at 1:26.
"Albert Einstein nailed spacetime but the wild thing had him stumped", LOL. Fades - quit at 5:01
- 8 - NEON SISTERS
4:48 - not a favourite, I don't like the persistant thump-thump-thump drumming and the
wrap-around wall of unrelenting sound. Could easily be re-arranged into a more palate-able version, but then it's pretty
obvious why it shouldn't be, dealing as it does with the drug death of a friend. Not one for the radio. Ends.
- 9 - BEAUTY OF A DREAM
5:01 - I can take-or-leave this, good in places yet a tad irksome in others,
although the "frog on a leaf" bit makes us smile every time! Listening again it's better than I rembered it... but
Boom! there goes the volume again... Boom! erk... Boom! next track please... oh... there isn't one... darn.
1994 - Giant Records
I think, for this to make sense, I need to see the computer animation video
for which this was written. There's some delicious music on this, but a couple of the "songs" make me cringe a
little. Some of it sounds like "TV library music" - the sort of stuff they put on
promotional spots underneath some shouty bloke reminding you that the carpet shop
STILL has a sale on... (it's ALWAYS a sale) ... that MUST END SOON! For airplay - only Armageddon, Valley of the Mind's Eye,
and perhaps Quantum Mechanic make the grade.
- 1 - ARMAGEDDON
5:30 - Good up-tempo foot-tapping track, a hint or two of industrial-ness, worthy of airplay
- although it smacks of sample-itis in placces. Nice start. TMDR a bit wishy-washy at 1:01-1:24.
Loss-of-beat from 2:38 until 3:37. Final minute is the best. Fades, quit at -0:18.
- 2 - PLANET OF LOST SOULS
3:00 - Not a song as such, just to accompany the video. Slow, and very beautiful.
Piano kicks in at 1:24, at 1:29 very reminiscent of Elton John's Song for Guy. Some "Flat Earth" sound noted at 2:42.
Ends.
- 3 - BIG BANG BACKWARDS
2:10 - Another non-song, very Yello-like at 0:47-0:54. Good up-tempo stuff. Like a naff
videogame near 1:11. Is that Miami Vice, Airwolf or something, starting at 1:33 ?!! Ends.
- 4 - N.E.O.
5:47 - Laid back song. Slow start - come out of a jingle at 0:43. Guest vocalist Dr. Fiorella Terenzi -
she does a fair job, although the singing is more pleasant than her spoken parts. 3:22 nice.
Is that a trendy whale-noise I hear at 3:40... TMDR raps softly at 4:11. Not sure about giving this airplay, can be like
a lecture set to music. More bearable if you pretend that the Neeoh 'word' is actually Eyore, a tribute to the
morose Winnie the Pooh donkey character. Fades, quit at -0:19
- 5 - THE ASCENT OF MAN
8:30 - Atmospheric music. 0:26, 2:57 - more whales!
2:40 kind of tribal... 3:40 VERY Flat Earthy... 4:07 mmm, anyone for pizza... 5:08 hey.. I'm in a monastery in the middle ages
all of a sudden... 6:48 mmm.. lovely, very relaxing... Ends.
Divided into six parts. Noticeable changes of direction at 0:54?, 2:10, 5:08, 6:48 - so can anyone tell me the official
timings for these six parts?
- 6 - THE VALLEY OF THE MIND'S EYE
4:24 - Slow song, slow start. 0:46 TMDR sings in French - sorry that
doesn't work for me. By 1:49 things have picked up nicely. The references to Josey I thought for a minute were to "Jersey"
(hehe, where I live) so I can never forget that no matter how hard I try - thus it's faintly irritating.
My problem entirely. A pleasant song, although slighty lacking in direction - seems to get no-where, and yet when
it's finished I still think "hmmm, that was good". I'd play it on air without hesitation. Ends.
"My dearest Josephine, How the world has changed since last I wrote. So tonight I take up my pen, not to marvel
at these wonderous times, but to declare the love that is in my heart."
- 7 - NUVOGUE
4:32 - A strange, jazzy song. Lively, but probably not to all tastes. Hi di-HI di-hi di-hi,
ho di-HO di-ho di-ho. I wouldn't give this airplay, it's well done and enjoyable if your taste is wide enough, but too odd.
I can imagine computer animation involving a stage and 1930s characters wearing top
hats with canes - I MUST see the video one day! 4:25 did aliens eat your Buick? Ends.
- 8 - QUANTUM MECHANIC
5:34 - A hi-hatty technology-house dance track. Slow start - take it from the effect at
0:33. A little naff (although it probably suited it's time) even though it has some great moments - particularly
1:42 to 1:58 and 2:57 to 3:31 (3:13 is marvelous).
Not too keen on 3:31 to 4:04 though. Dr. Terenzi does well here. I'd still be just a little wary about playing this on the
air. I imagine this could summon all the biro-in-the-shirt-pocket nerds to get up en-masse to invade the dance-floor,
and then of course stand there dumbstruck wondering how to dance - perhaps getting on down with jerky movements like a bad
Hungarian animation (if that made you think of programming with "Hungarian notation" then you're as guilty as I am).
Fades, quit at -0:25
- 9 - MOONBASE
5:36 - TV music. Takes until 1:33 to warm up and then sounds a bit ploddy and cheesy. 2:12 to 2:32
is the sort of thing you'd expect on low-budget TV. Sorry Thomas! A bit of World Music effect thrown in for good measure
at 2:50. Loss-of-beat at 3:44, returning at 4:19. Ends. Not a track I'd play on purpose. A disappointing end to an album
that I have mixed feelings about. I guess it is a bit much to expect a regular album when you buy this, but you do get five
songs along with four (sometimes long) pieces of interesting and enjoyable sounds. One for the enthusiast only? Not
totally, but it does help to bear in mind it's origin.
1994 - EMI
As with the other albums, the booklet includes the lyrics! Hooray!
If you already have the main four albums you may still buy this just to get Leipzig and Urges on CD.
Love the retrospectacle word-play, hehe. Compilation includes :
from The Golden Age of Wireless :
- EUROPA AND THE PIRATE TWINS
- URGES
- LEIPZIG
- WINDPOWER
- AIRWAVES - 7" version - 3:35 - misses the good bit!
- SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE
- ONE OF OUR SUBMARINES
from The Flat Earth :
- SCREEN KISS
- HYPERACTIVE!
- I SCARE MYSELF
- THE FLAT EARTH
from Aliens ate my Buick :
- PULP CULTURE
- BUDAPEST BY BLIMP
and from Astronauts and Heretics :
- CRUEL
- CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
- I LOVE YOU GOODBYE - nice way to end the album!
1999 - EMI
A wonderful CD to have, whether you have most of it on vinyl or not. I would guess that if you like the album version
of these tracks, you'll LOVE the extended versions. Only The Search for Truth has a significantly different "feel".
- EUROPA AND THE PIRATE TWINS (extended 4:02)
- WINDPOWER (High Power ext 5:51)
- FLYING NORTH (High Altitude ext 5:36)
- SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE (ext 5:09)
- ONE OF OUR SUBMARINES (ext 7:14)
- GET OUT OF MIX (sic) (8:00)
- HYPERACTIVE! (Heavy Breather sub-version 5:05)
- DISSIDENTS: The Search for Truth pt 1 (7:17)
- MAY THE CUBE BE WITH YOU (3D mix 6:49)
- AIRHEAD (Francois Kevorkian Mix 7:05)
- HOT SAUCE (extended mix 7:00)
- MY BRAIN IS LIKE A SIEVE (extended 5:37)
1999 - EMI
No lyrics, no timings, just a whole lotta orange goodness (fruit juice everywhere?)
Includes :
- 1 - HYPERACTIVE!
- 2 - SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE
- 3 - I SCARE MYSELF
- 4 - KEY TO HER FERRARI
- 5 - THE FLAT EARTH
- 6 - MULU THE RAINFOREST
- 7 - EUROPA AND THE PIRATE TWINS
- 8 - THE ABILITY TO SWING
- 9 - RADIO SILENCE
- 10 - CLOUD BURST AT SHINGLE STREET
- 11 - WINDPOWER
- 12 - SCREEN KISS
- 13 - WHITE CITY
- 14 - AIRHEAD
- 15 - HOT SAUCE
- 16 - MAY THE CUBE BE WITH YOU (3:49 short version)
CD albums
CD singles
Vinyl albums
- THE GOLDEN AGE OF WIRELESS
(with Wreck of the Fairchild 3:30) 2 copies
Venice in Peril 1981/2 VIP1001 (EMI TM 8203 GL) [062-07 607]
- THE FLAT EARTH
Parlophone 1984 PCS2400341(I) (EMI GO 8402 GL)
Vinyl 7" singles
- Windpower / Flying North
Venice in Peril 1982 VIPS103
- Hyperactive! / White City
Parlophone 1984 R6065
- Dissidents (edit) / Urges
Parlophone 1984/81 R6071
[piccy]
- Hot Sauce (3:16) / Salsa Picante (3:16)
EMI Manhattan 1988 MT59
[piccy 1]
[and 2]
- I Love You Goodbye (edit 4:35) / Eastern Bloc (edit 4:13)
Virgin 1992 VS1417
[piccy]
Vinyl 12" singles
Videos
- LIVE WIRELESS
EMI Hendring 1983 [TVE 90 1957 2]
An interesting performance, the footage is sometimes interrupted by cut-aways back to a projectionist character
played by Thomas, which sees the sound levels drop by 12dB into mono, affecting mainly Radio Silence, Urban Tribal
and Samson and Delilah. The sound quality, even on the Laserdisc version, is like a partly worn tape with dropouts and
disturbances in the left/right balance on occasion. The left channel get muffled for almost half a minute during New Toy,
still it was the early 1980s after all! The quality changes dramatically halfway through Samson and Delilah,
which may explain the cut-away at that point - it sounds like one tape got chewed up and was replaced by another.
Putting such nit-picking aside, there is still a lot to enjoy here. One of Our Submarines is a very good version,
as are Radio Silence, Jungle Line and Puppet Theatre. The other rare track, Urban Tribal is a darn fine slow song indeed,
especially if it's worked on in a wave editor program to improve the 'faults'. Some people may prefer the much cleaner
studio version, but the live one works better for me.
Europa 3:24
Windpower 3:42
One of Our Submarines 5:00
Radio Silence 4:22
New Toy 3:18 (originally written for Lene Lovich)
Urban Tribal 3:36
Flying North 5:12
Jungleline 6:35 (cover of a Joni Mitchell song)
Puppet Theatre 3:57 (an advance onwards from Whodini's Mr Magic's Wand)
Samson and Delilah 3:57 (Kevin Armstrong vocals)
She Blinded Me With Science 3:26
Airwaves 3:17
Samson and Deliliah was written by Kevin, and later recorded with his band
"Bush Telegraph" (Cliff B on percussion/ computers) for EMI, who later shelved the project.
- THE GOLDEN AGE OF VIDEO
EMI 1989 [MVP 9911773]
Europa and the Pirate Twins 9/81
Airwaves 1/82
Radio Silence 3/82
She Blinded Me With Science 10/82
One of Our Submarines is Missing 2/83
Hyperactive 1/84
Dissidents 2/84
I scare myself 2/84
Field Work (with Ryuichi Sakamoto) 1985
May the Cube be With You 1985
Airhead 1988
Hot Sauce 1988
Other...
- Adelie Deflowered (RMF) - very nice indeed, gentle piano
- Airwaves (4-track demo) 5:21
Urban Tribal (studio) 3:45
Jungle Line - Low Noise (studio, laid-back) 3:54
Radio Silence (guitar) 4:34 - wonderful!
Don't Turn Away (Thomas vocals) 5:06
Airhead (Def Ears Mix) 5:52 - well worth having, like it lots
-
The Mirror Song (from Toys - TD vocals) 4:33 - very catchy, nicely done
I Love You Goodbye (Bayou mix 4:20, New Orleans mix 4:33, version 4:34) - missable
Eastern Bloc (version) 4:17 - very interesting
Salsa Picante 3:17 - hasta la vista, baby
- Night Network Video View audio : night network - video view - with TMDR - AJ edit.mp3
- Prefab Sprout : Machine Gun Ibiza - Thomas can be heard on this one (CD)
- Whodini : Mr Magic's Wand (12") - later this turned into Puppet Theatre
- Lene Lovich : New Toy - (7")
- New toy (live, Strathclyde University 1982) sung by Tom
Commercial Breakup (live at Strathclyde - great instrumental in middle)
Sex machine 7" by Jack Heard (group) inc. Tom and M Seligman
Ghost Train 7" by Bruce Woolley and T Dolby (not by the Camera Club)
Jungle Line by Low Noise,
- and instrumental too
Wonderlust 12 " and Desert Song 12" by the Fallout Club
Field Work 12" The Tokyo Mix
May the Cube - Cubular Dub mix 12" - a little noisy but enjoyable and good to have
Ghost Train instumental
Bruce Woolley & the Camera Club - English Garden LP 1979
Video killed the radio star; Dancing with the sporting boys; Johnny; No surrender;
Flying man; You got class; W.W.9; Clean clean; Get away William; Goodbye to yesterday;
Goodbye to yesterday reprise; You're the circus and I'm the clown -
Trouble Is 7" B Woolley & Camera Club
Girls at Our Best l.p 1981 : Heaven; Goodbye to that Jazz
- Live Recording : The Flat Earth Tour (1984), The Dominion Theatre, London - nice quality
The Flat Earth - Introduction 3:18
White City 5:01
Dissidents 5:06
One of Our Submarines 4:48
Puppet Theatre 6:56
New Toy 4:25
Airwaves 5:26
I Scare Myself 5:30
Hyperactive! 4:47
Europa and the Pirate Twins 4:42
She Blinded Me With Science 4:49
Commercial Breakup 4:55
- Ferngully movie soundtrack - 3 tracks written (and produced - 2&3) by TD
Life Is a Magic Thing 4.29 (Johnny Clegg vocals) - joyous and catchy
Batty Rap 2.52 (Robin Williams vocals) - take or leave it
Toxic Love 4.38 (Tim Curry vocals) - enjoyable
-
Alloy's 'The Flattery Earth' and 'Bride of Aliens Ate My Birthday Cake' - two CDs composed of
tribute cover versions performed by various members of Alloy, along with some original music too.
These were presented to Thomas for his birthdays in 1998 and 1999.
-
She Blinded Me With Science - Marching Band performance - awesome!
Airhead (Rusty's Mix) - a bit sparse and plodding
Illusions 3:18 (with Iki Levy) - instrumental, slightly cold feel
I Love You Goodbye (Bowling Mix) - album version grafted onto a Bayou or New Orleans start, 2 "bowling"s added
Flying North (Razormaid Remix) - improves the track enormously, awesome
Gothic edit - 18:30 of the best bits
She Blinded Me With Science (Chance's End Remix) - missable, oddly redone with a strange rhythm
Get Out of My Mix (dj spinelli) - a few snips make it more listenable
Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin's version of Leipzig
Joni Mitchell's version of The Jungle Line
BBC Radio 2's 'Jamming' (2003) with TD as a guest
a "Leipzig (orginal)" which is pretty similar
She Blinded Me With Science (Hot Tracks Remix) - well overcooked!
Users of N... (err, file-sharing systems with controversial copyright issues) should note that TD
was not actually involved in any
way with Nina Hagen's Solo (a different Thomas D.) or the Fifth Element track 'Little
Light of Love' (Eric Serra).
What am I still missing... mainly other
o mixes of A.A.M.B. tracks, such as Hot Sauce, My Brain is like a Sieve
o Airhead's Revenge
o Dolby's Cube featuring Cherry Bomb :
Howard The Duck (mega mix) 4.52
Hunger City 4.12
It Don't Come Cheap 4.46
I'm on My Way 2.55 (D.C. featuring Tata Vega)
(I've got poor copies of the first three now, and guess what, I wasn't missing much!)
o more live recordings - interesting and welcomed,
but otherwise no sleep lost, I've missed countless performances anyway
o any Hyperactive! mixes perhaps(?) that would make my day to obtain.
Some items I don't yet have on CD would be welcome on said format.
Anything else absent is either a collaboration (no TD vocals), or something really obscure.
For me to value a new track with a TD connection, it has to have be something I like or feature
Thomas on vocals. Simply having TD involved in production or playing one part is not enough on its
own. So, I think I've got more or less 98 percent of what I would like.
Still, you never know what Life is going to throw your way, do you?
In a 2001 interview, Thomas said that there are no great quantities of unreleased rarities waiting
to surface. No great pile of unfinished works to delight us one day. Everything either made the grade
and saw the light of day, or was long since abandoned. There is, however, a collection of works in
progress that may eventually hit the record shops or relevant website. Patience! Science! No, right first
time, patience!
Some of the movie scoring work would be nice to see and hear.
Ferngully I have seen, it's fun if you like magical cartoons with fairies and an
amusing good-guy's-assistant character voiced by Robin Williams.
I've yet to see The Gate To The Mind's Eye, and I'm likewise always on the lookout for Gothic (1986),
Fever Pitch (1985), 'We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story' (1993).
Refer to the Internet Movie Database at http://us.imdb.com/Name?Dolby,+Thomas
Fever Pitch - A soundtrack was released
on LP and CD but no Thomas Dolby tracks were included.
TD says (http://www.smoe.org/lists/alloy/v05.n281) -
"It was the first ever movie scoring work I did. Quincy Jones was one of
the producers, and apparently had heard my music and approached me for
the score. I recorded it all on the old MGM lot in Los Angeles, which
was pretty romantic--the security guard at the gate waving me through
every day with a "good morning Mr.Dolby!" and eating lunch every day in
the Commissary, amid echoes of many a famous bustup between Kathryn
Hepburn and Cary Grant.
I recorded the score mainly using my Fairlight,
the third in the UK, which I had just taken delivery of (Peter Gabriel
and Kate Bush got # 1 and 2). Unfortunately the director Richard
Brooks--who is no longer with us--was part deaf, and would often react
to my sampled music with comments like "what's all that banging?" So we
got behind schedule and I was having to crank out about 6 original
pieces of music per day. A bit of a heartbreak, as the movie was clearly
not going to be a blockbuster and Ryan O'Neal was way below the fabulous
form of his "Paper Moon" days. But the experience was fruitful for me
nonetheless--and in fact, many songs that later showed up on my albums,
first originated during those sessions. If you do manage to find a copy
of the movie to rent, you may spot some pieces that bear more than a
passing resemblance to "The Key to her Ferrari," "The Ability To Swing",
"Neon Sisters" and others (Budapest by Blimp, perhaps).
I'm afraid I've forgotten about the famous shin-torture scene though. I
must have supressed it."
I suggested here (Alloy) what I think would be
a great compilation CD of TD's early works :
Leipzig
Therapy/Growth
Urges
Urban Tribal (studio)
Jungle line (short, laid back version)
Wreck of the Fairchild
Radio Silence (guitar)
New Toy (from Live Wireless)
Puppet Theater (needs sibilance tamed!)
Don't Turn Away (Thomas)
Airwaves (4 track demo)
I think the running order would work quite well - what do you think?
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