Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Speed of Sound
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Robertson, Thomas Morgan
BIRTHDATE: 10/14/1958
WEBSITE: http://www.thomasdolby.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: British
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dolby * https://www.ted.com/speakers/thomas_dolby
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 92100998
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n92100998
HEADING: Dolby, Thomas
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PERSONAL
Born October 14, 1958, in London, England; son of Martin Robertson (an academic); married Kathleen Beller (an actor), 1988; children: three.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Musician, entrepreneur, record producer, educator, and writer. Electronic musician and multimedia artist, 1980s–; Headspace (now Beatnik Inc.), CA, founder, 1993; TED Conferences, musical director, 2001-12; Retro Ringtones LLC, founder, 2002; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, Homewood Professor of the Arts, 2014–. Performer on music albums, including The Golden Age of Wireless, Harvest, 1982, The Flat Earth, Capitol, 1984, Aliens Ate My Buick, 1988, Astronauts & Heretics, Virgin UK, 1992, The Singular Thomas Dolby, 2009, and A Map of the Floating City, 2010; filmmaker of the documentary The Invisible Lighthouse, 2012; public speaker.
AWARDS:Recipient of five Grammy nominations; Lifetime Achievement in Internet Music, Yahoo! Internet Life, 1998; Moog Innovation Award, Moogfest, 2012.
WRITINGS
Composer of film and video-game scores.
SIDELIGHTS
Thomas Dolby is a musician, entrepreneur, record producer, and writer. Throughout the 1980s, he worked as an electronic musician and multimedia artist, earning five Grammy nominations. By the 1990s, he shifted to become a digital-music entrepreneur by founding a company that developed polyphonic ringtone software. He later programmed music for TED talks. In 2014 Dolby joined the staff at Johns Hopkins University as the Homewood Professor of the Arts to lecture on music and film topics.
In an article in Billboard, Dolby talked with Phil Gallo about how he sees the advancements in technology throughout his career as allowing for musicians to better connect with their fans and listeners. Dolby admitted: “To be able to interact with fans is a joy. In chapter one of my career I would look at the charts and I’d say, ‘I don’t know who these people are [buying my albums and singles].’ I hope they’ll continue to come out of the woodwork and support me. I finally feel like I am making music for an audience rather than an A&R executive. For kids starting today, that approach will be healthy.”
Dolby published the memoir The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barrier between Music and Technology in 2016. The memoir introduces Dolby’s early start in music and how he evolved throughout his career, taking time off for a stint in Silicon Valley. Dolby also discusses his mixing of technology with his music and the many sources for his inspiration.
In an interview in Salon, Dolby noted that “there were some similarities” between writing his memoir and writing music: “When I was writing every day, it felt like the creative process. It was sort of like working on an album, to a degree, and very satisfying. So far, the experience of working with a publisher and doing the design and getting it out in the streets and going out and promoting it offers a lot of parallels.”
A Publishers Weekly contributor suggested that for readers who only know him from his singing career in the 1980s, Dolby’s “punk roots and windsurfing chops will come as shock, but the bespectacled Brit is more Renaissance man than one-hit wonder.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews claimed that “this stellar book will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers interested in modern technology’s startling effects on music and popular culture.” The critic also took note of the “fascinating detail” on offer in the account. In a review in Blurt, Tim Hinely observed that the book “is told in a real off-the-cuff style and is very entertaining and highly readable.” Hinely appended that “it’s all told from the perspective of a guy who I’d enjoy sitting down with and chatting over lunch sometime.”
Reviewing the book in Second Disc, Randy Fairman remarked that “if you only know Thomas Dolby from ‘She Blinded Me with Science,’ there is much more of his story to experience. The biggest hurdle for music fans might be the second part of the book which largely eschews talk of that world and focuses on Silicon Valley. However, that story still fascinates with a brief look into the early days of the tech industry and Internet boom. And of course real-life tales usually don’t conform to what we expect. But, while a bit disjointed, Professor Dolby’s story is one worth reading.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Dolby, Thomas, The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barrier between Music and Technology, Flatiron Books (New York, NY), 2016.
PERIODICALS
Billboard, October 29, 2011, Phil Gallo, “6 Questions with Thomas Dolby,” p. 39.
Chronicle of Higher Education, April 29, 2014, Andy Thomason, “Pop Icon Joins Johns Hopkins.”
Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2016, review of The Speed of Sound.
Publishers Weekly, July 25, 2016, review of The Speed of Sound, p. 61.
Wireless Review, March 1, 2002, Jason Ankeny, “Thomas Dolby Robertson: Beatnik,” p. 70.
ONLINE
Blurt, http://blurtonline.com/ (November 27, 2016), Tim Hinely, review of The Speed of Sound.
Salon, https://www.salon.com/ (October 12, 2016), Annie Zaleski, author interview.
Second Disc, https://theseconddisc.com/ (October 12, 2016), Randy Fairman, review of The Speed of Sound.
TED Web site, https://www.ted.com/ (May 8, 2017), author profile.
Thomas Dolby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the musician. For the novelist, see Tom Dolby.
Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby 2016.jpg
Dolby at the 2016 Texas Book Festival
Background information
Birth name Thomas Morgan Robertson
Born 14 October 1958 (age 58)
London, England
Genres New wave, synthpop
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, entrepreneur
Instruments Keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, vocals
Years active 1979–present
Labels Capitol/EMI Records, Giant/Warner Bros. Records, Invisible Hands Music
Associated acts Whodini
Website thomasdolby.com
Thomas Morgan Robertson (born 14 October 1958), known by the stage name Thomas Dolby, is an English musician and producer. His hit singles include "She Blinded Me with Science" from 1982, and 1984 single "Hyperactive!". He has also worked in production and as a session musician, as a technology entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and as the Music Director for the TED Conference. He is a Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University.
Contents [hide]
1 Personal life
2 Stage name
3 Solo music career
3.1 The Golden Age of Wireless
3.2 Dolby's Cube
3.3 The Flat Earth
3.4 Aliens Ate My Buick
3.5 Astronauts & Heretics
3.6 The Sole Inhabitant
3.7 2009 re-issues
3.8 A Map of the Floating City
3.9 Map of the Floating City game
4 Studio and live performance collaborations
4.1 Professional music career beginnings
4.2 1985 Grammy Awards and Live Aid
4.3 Other live appearances
4.4 Other production credits
5 Film and video games
5.1 Scores for film and video games
5.2 Film roles
5.3 The Invisible Lighthouse
6 Other endeavours
6.1 Headspace and Beatnik
6.2 TED Conference
6.3 Academic career
7 Awards
8 Discography
8.1 Singles
8.2 Albums
8.2.1 Studio albums
8.2.2 EPs
8.2.3 Compilation albums
8.2.4 Live albums
8.2.5 Soundtracks
8.3 As session musician
8.4 As producer
9 Collaborations and connections
10 Instruments and equipment
11 References
12 External links
Personal life[edit]
Robertson was born in London, England, contrary to information in early 1980s press releases that reported his birthplace as Cairo, Egypt. His father, Martin Robertson, was an internationally distinguished professor of classical Greek art and archaeology at the University of London, Oxford University, and Cambridge University (Trinity College). In his youth Thomas lived or worked in France, Italy and Greece.[1] He attended Abingdon School in 1975–1976, completing his A Levels while there.[2] One of his first jobs was a part-time position at a fruit and vegetable shop.[3]
Thomas Dolby spoke of his early musical experiences in a 2012 interview:
"I sang in a choir when I was 10 or 11, and learned to sightread single lines, but other than that I don't have a formal education. I picked up the guitar initially, playing folk tunes—Dylan—then I graduated to piano when I got interested in jazz, listening to people like Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, and so on. The first electronic instruments started to become accessible in the mid-70s and I got my hands on a kit built synthesizer and never looked back."[4]
He married actress Kathleen Beller in 1988; they have three children together.[3]
Stage name[edit]
The Thomas Dolby stage name originated from a nickname that he picked up in the early 1970s, when he was "always messing around with keyboards and tapes".[5] His friends nicknamed him "Dolby", from the name of the audio noise-reduction process of Dolby Laboratories used for audio recording and playback. Robertson chose to adopt the stage name "Thomas Dolby" to avoid confusion with British singer Tom Robinson, who was popular when Robertson began his career. Early publicity implied that "Dolby" was a middle name, and that the artist's full name was Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson;[6] this is legally incorrect, but he does sometimes informally go by the initials TMDR.[3]
After the release of "She Blinded Me with Science", Dolby Laboratories expressed concern regarding the musician's stage name. Dolby's record label refused to make him change his name, and Dolby Labs did not raise the issue again until later. After a lengthy legal battle, the court decided that Dolby Labs had no right to restrict the musician from using the name. It was agreed that the musician would not release any electronic equipment using the name.[7] (Coincidentally, inventor/founder Dr. Ray Dolby had a son named Thomas, now a novelist professionally known as Tom Dolby.)[3]
Solo music career[edit]
Dolby is associated with the new wave movement of the early 1980s, a form of pop music incorporating electronic instruments, but Dolby's work covers a wide range of musical styles and moods distinct from the high-energy pop sound of his few, better-known commercial successes.[3]
The Golden Age of Wireless[edit]
Originally released in the UK and US including the songs "Europa and the Pirate Twins", "Airwaves", and "Radio Silence", the first releases of Dolby's first solo album, The Golden Age of Wireless (Harvest, 1982) did not include the album's signature hit, "She Blinded Me with Science". After the five-song EP Blinded by Science introduced the catchy single, The Golden Age of Wireless was re-released with the single that, combined with its accompanying video, became Dolby's most commercially successful single, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.[8] The album was released a total of five times, each with changes in song order and included songs, or even including a different version of "Radio Silence" or extended remix of "She Blinded Me with Science".[3]
Dolby's debut album, Wireless, peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard album chart.[9] It juxtaposed themes of radio technology, aircraft, and naval submarines with those of relationships and nostalgia.[10] While much of the album's instrumentation is synthesizers and samplers, the album credits a long list of guest musicians as well, with instruments ranging from harmonica and violin to guitar and percussion.[3]
"She Blinded Me with Science" included spoken phrases from Magnus Pyke. A short sample was included in the "Treehouse of Horror XIV" episode of The Simpsons, where Professor Frink was winning an award at a science convention. It was also sampled at a lower speed by the group Mobb Deep in the 2006 song "Got it Twisted".[11] "She Blinded Me with Science" was also used as the theme song for the pilot episode of broadcast television sitcom The Big Bang Theory though it was not used for later episodes (it was, however, later used in that show as Howard's cell phone ringtone in the season 2 episode "The Vegas Renormalization" and season 3 episode "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary").
Dolby's Cube[edit]
Beginning in 1983, Dolby collaborated with a number of artists in an occasional studio-bound project called Dolby's Cube. The project had no set line-up, and was essentially a forum for Dolby to release material that was more dance-oriented. Dolby's Cube released a single in 1983 ("Get Out of My Mix"), another in 1985 ("May the Cube Be with You"), and performed soundtrack work for the film Howard the Duck in 1986. Collaborators in Dolby's Cube at various junctures included Lene Lovich, George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic, Francois Kevorkian, and Lea Thompson.
The Flat Earth[edit]
In 1984, Dolby released his second LP, The Flat Earth (Capitol), which peaked at No. 14 on the UK Albums Chart and at No. 35 on the Billboard album chart in the US. Utilizing a wide range of influences ranging from nostalgic jazz, funk-tinged Motown R&B, and world music along with a strong electronic element[12] and featuring a slew of guest musicians, including longtime Dolby collaborator Matthew Seligman on bass, Kevin Armstrong on guitar, and Cliff Brigden on percussion, and guest vocals from Robyn Hitchcock, Bruce Woolley and others, The Flat Earth further established Dolby's wide range of talents as musician, songwriter, and producer. The album also included a cover of the Dan Hicks song "I Scare Myself".
"Hyperactive!", originally written for Michael Jackson,[13] was the first and most successful single from the album, peaking at No. 17 on the UK Singles Chart, making it Dolby's highest-charting single in his home country.
Aliens Ate My Buick[edit]
In contrast to the overall introverted nature of The Flat Earth, Dolby described his next release, Aliens Ate My Buick (1988), in the following quote: "I think it's very bold. Some people who've known my stuff from the beginning find it a bit hard to stomach. They think it's a bit brash. It's certainly unsubtle in a lot of ways. It goes for the jugular. There was always a side to the stuff that I did that was very extroverted and wacky. The flip side of the coin was the more atmospheric, moody stuff. There was always room for both of them. But this album, with the exception of maybe one song ["Budapest by Blimp"], is all on the extrovert side."[7]
Aliens Ate My Buick was strongly funk and dance influenced. The first single was "Airhead", a satirical song about a stereotypical young-and-rich Californian woman, which peaked at No. 53. The second single, "Hot Sauce", a cover of a George Clinton song, peaked at No. 80. There was one more single, "My Brain Is Like A Sieve", which peaked at No. 89 on the UK Singles Chart.[14] The album was co-produced by Bill Bottrell, and featured Terry Jackson on bass guitar.
Astronauts & Heretics[edit]
For Astronauts & Heretics (Virgin UK), Dolby expanded even further stylistically, starting the songwriting process at the piano, then again collaborating with a variety of guest musicians. Both Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia played guitar on "The Beauty of a Dream". Eddie Van Halen plays on "Eastern Bloc" and "Close but No Cigar". Other collaborators included Jimmy Z on sax, Budgie on drums and Leland Sklar on bass guitar. Terry Jackson also contributed bass guitar on four songs before his 1991 death in a plane accident with seven other members of Reba McEntire's support band for her "For My Broken Heart" tour.
The highest-charting song off this album was "Close but No Cigar", which reached No. 22 on the UK charts.
Two other songs on the album, "I Love You Goodbye", and "Silk Pyjamas" employed Zydeco influences, courtesy of Crowley, Louisiana and guest musicians Michael Doucet of BeauSoleil on violin, Wayne Toups on accordion, and even banjo. Even though some recording for the album was done in remote locations, the bulk of Astronauts & Heretics was recorded at NRG Recording Studios with input from trusted Dolby co-producer Bill Bottrell, and mixed down at Smoke Tree Studios in Chatsworth, California.[15]
The Sole Inhabitant[edit]
Thomas Dolby
Following his involvement in Beatnik Inc, Dolby returned to his musical career in 2006. He performed his first solo public show in 15 years at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco, California on 21 January 2006, surprising the crowd who were there to see local band Notorious. He then launched an American tour, the Sole Inhabitant Tour, on 12 April, comprising a string of small dates in California, a science education benefit in Boulder, Colorado, and gigs across America before receptive crowds.
The United States leg of the "Sole Inhabitant Tour 2006" was captured on a "live" CD and DVD. The CD represents a recording of two gigs played by Dolby at Martyrs in Chicago, while the DVD was filmed at the Berklee Performance Center at Berklee College of Music. The DVD also includes a 30-minute interview, and a lecture by Dolby at the Berklee College of Music. Both the CD and DVD were released in November 2006, and are distributed through CD Baby and iTunes. Dolby autographed and numbered the first 1,000 copies of the CD and DVD.
A show at the 800 capacity Scala club in London was booked for 3 July 2006 as a warm-up for Dolby's Hyde Park set opening for Depeche Mode. The show sold out in a matter of days and prompted Dolby to reprioritise the UK, resulting in him moving with his family from California back to England, and a nine-date Sole Inhabitant tour of the UK in October 2007, coinciding with the release of a lavish box set of the Sole Inhabitant CD and DVD by UK independent label Invisible Hands Music.
Thomas toured throughout the months of November and December 2006 with electronic musician BT. This tour included a version of "Airwaves" that BT added his own technique to, which was the opening song on the UK leg of the Sole Inhabitant tour (sans BT).
Thomas Dolby's performance of 15 March 2007 at the SxSW festival[16] was released as the live EP "Thomas Dolby & The Jazz Mafia Horns, Live at SxSW" (with musicians from San Francisco's Jazz Mafia collective, through iTunes and on CD Baby.)
The 2007 UK Sole Inhabitant tour included three new songs previously played on the US tour, one called "Your Karma Hit My Dogma" another called "Jealous Thing" and a cover version of The Special AKA's "What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend". "Your Karma Hit My Dogma" was inspired by Kevin Federline's unauthorised use of a sample from Mobb Deep's "Got It Twisted" which in turn had used an authorised sample of "She Blinded Me with Science". The tag-line from that story became the title of the song. The wording was lifted by Thomas from a bumper sticker on a car that he saw whilst living in the San Francisco Bay area. In a move close to performance art, Dolby tried to post a 'cease and desist' legal letter on Kevin Federline's MySpace page when other attempts to contact him proved fruitless.[11][17] The song is on the Live at SxSW EP.
The second new song, "Jealous Thing" was performed at least at The Graduate in Cambridge and London's Islington Academy on the UK tour in Summer 2007 and features a Bossa-Nova type rhythm.
2009 re-issues[edit]
A CD + DVD set entitled The Singular Thomas Dolby has been released by EMI on 18 May 2009. As the name suggests it is a digitally remastered compilation of previously released singles. The DVD contains all the video singles which were available on the original VHS/BETA/LASERDISC release of The Golden Age of Video, as well as the videos for the songs "Silk Pyjamas", "I Love You Goodbye", and "Close but No Cigar". These three missing videos are for the singles taken from the 1992 album Astronauts & Heretics, which received critical acclaim but garnered unimpressive sales.
The Golden Age of Wireless and The Flat Earth were reissued and remastered later that year with numerous previously unreleased bonus tracks. The former was a two disc set including a DVD of the complete "Live Wireless" video.
A Map of the Floating City[edit]
In 2010 Dolby began work on a new studio album entitled A Map of the Floating City.[18] The album is divided into three parts, with the first two parts initially made available to members of The Flat Earth Community Forum, Dolby's online community.[19] Each of the three digital EPs takes its name from one of the three sections of the full-length album that later followed. The first EP, Amerikana, was released digitally on 16 June 2010. The second EP is entitled Oceanea, and was released on 29 November 2010. Due to favourable reviews and radio airplay, Oceanea was released commercially on 28 March 2011. The third section of the album, entitled Urbanoia,[20] was not released as a download or physical CD, but the songs were premiered online as part of the Floating City game (see below).
Contributors to the album include Kevin Armstrong, Matthew Seligman (both had played together with him on The Flat Earth and as part of David Bowie's Live Aid appearance), Bruce Woolley, drummer Liam Genockey, guitarist Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, Regina Spektor, Natalie MacMaster, Eddi Reader and Imogen Heap.
In a 2010 press release he was quoted as saying:
"I marvel at the new landscape of the music business – distribution via the Internet and recording technologies I barely dreamed of when I started out," he continues. "But this album does not sound electronic at all. I have zero desire to add to the myriad of machine-based, synth-driven grooves out there. The Net has made a music career approachable for thousands of bands – but I hear too few single-minded voices among them. What I do best is write songs, tell stories."
"The new songs are organic and very personal," says Dolby. "This album is a travelogue across three imaginary continents. In Amerikana I'm reflecting with affection on the years I spent living in the USA, and my fascination with its roots music. Urbanoia is a dark place, a little unsettling ... I'm not a city person. And in Oceanea I return to my natural home on the windswept coastline.[18]
A Map of the Floating City was recorded in the "Nutmeg of Consolation", Dolby's recording studio built within a 1930s lifeboat and powered entirely by renewable energy, which is located in the garden of Dolby's beach house on England's North Sea coast.[18]
Map of the Floating City game[edit]
In June 2011 Dolby announced the Map of the Floating City game, a multiplayer online game that shares a title with the full-length album release planned to follow after the game's conclusion. In Dolby's own words, "The Floating City is set against a dystopian vision of the 1940s that might have existed had WWII turned out a lot differently." Survivors explore a fictional Google map, forming tribes and trading relics amidst a bizarre sea-going barter society. As they struggle to unravel the enigma that is The Floating City, players can haggle over merchandise and music downloads, including brand new songs from A Map of the Floating City, Dolby's first album in 20 years, scheduled to be released following the climax of the game. The game was played from June through August 2011, and included elements of trading, mystery, competition, and co-operation. Players earned free song downloads, and the winning team or "tribe" was awarded a private performance from Dolby.
Studio and live performance collaborations[edit]
Professional music career beginnings[edit]
Early in his career, Dolby played keyboards with Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club and is credited on their debut album. The instrumental track "WW9" in the album 'English Garden' is the first recorded example of Thomas' writing. He also wrote Lene Lovich's hit single "New Toy" and played keyboard as part of the backing band for her tour.[21] Dolby played some synthesizer parts on the Thompson Twins album Set and co-wrote "Magic's Wand" with Whodini, and played keyboards on one track ("Love") on Robyn Hitchcock's first solo album, 1981's Black Snake Diamond Role. Dolby played synthesizer on two tracks on the album Pleasure by the band Girls at Our Best!. Around this time, he also formed a short-lived band called The Fallout Club.
By far the most significant session relationship for Thomas in the early days was when he contributed the signature synthesizer sound on the track "Urgent" on Foreigner's 1981 album 4. On the same album he played the atmospheric synthesizer intro to the mega-hit "Waiting for a Girl Like You". The fees from this work, including tour dates, bankrolled the studio time for the recording of the 1980s benchmark album The Golden Age of Wireless from which his solo career began.
In October 1981 Dolby made an appearance in the video for the Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin British number one cover of "It My Party", playing the part of Johnny in the "Judy and Johnny just walked though the door" section of the song. The video made its first Top of The Pops appearance on the 29th October 1981.
Dolby also worked as session keyboard player on Def Leppard's 1983 Pyromania album. Dolby appeared on Pyromania using the alias Booker T. Boffin,[22] as his affiliation to another record label restricted the use of his real name.
1985 Grammy Awards and Live Aid[edit]
In 1985, Dolby appeared at the Grammy Awards, which were televised, along with Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, and Howard Jones. All four musicians were successful in the mid-1980s music scene, and they were also all keyboard and synthesizer experts. That same year, Dolby performed at the Live Aid concert in London as part of David Bowie's band.
Other live appearances[edit]
In a 1985 news clip produced by WEWS Channel 5 in Cleveland, Ohio, Thomas Dolby is presented as an example of a new breed of musicians who use synthesizers. There is a brief appearance by Thomas in a prerecorded interview.
He also appeared onstage playing keyboards with George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic during the band's lone appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live in 1986. Since he was not technically part of the band, Dolby sat in the audience with a wireless keyboard on his lap until directed onstage by Clinton.
Dolby continued to perform live in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including an appearance supporting Depeche Mode at their 18 June 1988 Pasadena Rose Bowl concert which was released as the 101 concert album and movie.
In 1990 he appeared in Roger Waters' charity performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall album in Berlin. Dolby, in costume as the Teacher played a keyboard solo during "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" (sung by Cyndi Lauper) and then reprised the role for the closing "The Trial" sequence.
He appeared on-stage with the reunited Soft Boys in San Francisco on 7 April 2001 and played synthesizer on "You'll Have to Go Sideways", "Evil Guy" and Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine". "Evil Guy", from that evening's sound-check, wound up on the Soft Boys' 2002 EP Side Three. It was not the first time Dolby and members of the Soft Boys appeared on record together. Dolby had played keyboards on former Soft Boys member Robyn Hitchcock's first solo album, Black Snake Diamond Role. Meanwhile, Hitchcock appeared on Dolby's The Flat Earth, performing the role of Keith on "White City". Soft Boys bassist Matthew Seligman recorded and toured with Dolby in the 1980s, including the Live Aid performance.
Dolby also performed a portion of "The Sole Inhabitant" show for the Bob Moog Foundation Moogfest 2007 in New York City.[23]
In 2012, Dolby headlined the first "Steamstock" outdoor steampunk music festival in Richmond, California, alongside steampunk favourites Abney Park, Vernian Process, Lee Presson and the Nails and others.[24] Dolby is considered one of the early pioneers of retro-futurist (i.e. steampunk and dieselpunk) music.[24] Amanda Palmer was once quoted as saying, "Thomas Dolby is to Steampunk what Iggy Pop was to Punk!"[25]
Other production credits[edit]
In 1985, Dolby was credited as co-producer on Joni Mitchell's album Dog Eat Dog.[26] He was credited as producer for Prefab Sprout's albums Steve McQueen, From Langley Park to Memphis, and Jordan: The Comeback. He also played keyboard on George Clinton's 1985 album, Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends.[27]
Film and video games[edit]
Scores for film and video games[edit]
Thomas Dolby has also worked as a soundtrack composer for both films and video games. He scored "The Gate to the Mind's Eye", the third instalment of the CGI collection, the Mind's Eye. Dolby also wrote the songs for the 1986 George Lucas film Howard the Duck and chose the members of the film's fictional band, Cherry Bomb.[28] Dolby wrote and produced three tracks for the 1992 soundtrack of the animated movie FernGully: The Last Rainforest.
He wrote the score for the Ken Russell film Gothic.
He also created the score for the 1993 interactive movie Double Switch.[29] Additionally, the song "Hyperactive!" is featured in the 2002 PlayStation 2 videogame Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as part of the new wave radio station Wave 103.
In 1992 Dolby co-created and performed "The Mirror Song" with Robin Williams and Joan Cusack for Toys alongside Trevor Horn and Bruce Woolley.
In 1995, Dolby composed the score to the cult video game The Dark Eye.
In 2009, Dolby's song "One of Our Submarines" appeared in the horror film The House of the Devil, but not on the official soundtrack release.
Dolby's song "She Blinded Me with Science" is featured as a collectible cassette which can be played back as desired in the 2015 video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Film roles[edit]
In 1990 Dolby played the role of the villain Stanley in the movie Rockula as well as contributing the songs "Stanely's Death Park" and "Budapest by Blimp".
The Invisible Lighthouse[edit]
In 2012, Dolby learned of the decommissioning of the Orfordness Lighthouse near his Suffolk home, and proceeded to film a documentary, The Invisible Lighthouse,[30] to chronicle the shutdown of the lighthouse as well as his childhood growing up in the area. Dolby took this film on the road through the US and UK in the Fall of 2013, accompanying the film with live music, narration, and sound effects by Blake Leyh. The film won the DIY Film Festival award for Best Picture[31]
Other endeavours[edit]
Headspace and Beatnik[edit]
In 1993, Dolby successfully established the Headspace company. Headspace developed a new downloadable file format designed specifically for Internet usage called Rich Music Format with the RMF file extension.[32] It had the advantage of small file size like MIDI but allowed recorded sampled sounds to be included at a higher bitrate for better overall reproduction. RMF music files could be played in a browser using the free Beatnik Player plug-in. Later versions of RMF permitted artists to place an encrypted watermark in their files that were supposed to prevent unauthorised duplication. In 1999, Headspace, Inc. was renamed Beatnik, Inc., and specialised in software synthesizers for mobile phones, which it licensed to mobile phone manufacturers including Nokia. Beatnik is no longer in business.[33]
While still remaining on the Beatnik board, Dolby stepped down from his position as CEO to pursue other technologically innovative interests, such as founding Retro Ringtones LLC in 2002, which produces the RetroFolio ringtone asset management software suite for companies involved in the mobile phone ringtone business. At the second annual Mobile Music Awards, Miami, Florida, in 2004 RetroFolio won "Best of Show" and "Best New Technology" awards.[3]
Dolby's musical talents have also been put to use creating hundreds of digital polyphonic ringtones on mobile phones, including the polyphonic version of the infamous Nokia signature theme. He is often a major speaker at technology conferences such as Comdex, Websphere, and Nokia.[3]
TED Conference[edit]
Since 2001 Dolby has acted as Musical Director of The TED Conference, an annual event held first in Monterey, California, and subsequently in Long Beach, California. In this capacity he provides live musical introductions to sessions, sometimes with a TED House Band, as well as helping secure guest musicians and entertainers for the event.
In March 2012, Dolby spoke at the DESIGN West conference in San Jose, California at the McEnery Convention Center, produced by UBM Electronics.[34]
Academic career[edit]
In March 2014, Dolby was named Homewood Professor of the Arts at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University.[35]
Awards[edit]
In July 1998, Thomas received a "Lifetime Achievement in Internet Music" award from Yahoo! Internet Life.
In 2012 he performed at Moogfest and was the recipient of The Moog Innovation Award, which celebrates "pioneering artists whose genre-defying work exemplifies the bold, innovative spirit of Bob Moog".[36]
Thomas Dolby
Electronic music pioneer
Website: Thomas Dolby's homepage Wikipedia: Thomas Dolby
TED Speaker
TEDx Organizer
Thomas Dolby has spent his career at the intersection of music and technology. He was an early star on MTV, then moved to Silicon Valley, then went back on the road with his album, "A Map of the Floating City."
Why you should listen
Perhaps best known for blinding us with science, Thomas Dolby has always blurred the lines between composition and invention. As a London teenager, Tom Robertson was fascinated with the convergence of music and technology. His experiments with an assortment of keyboards, synthesizers and cassette players led his friends to dub him “Dolby.” That same fascination later drove him to become an electronic musician and multimedia artist whose groundbreaking work fused music with computer technology and video. Two decades, several film scores, five Grammy nominations and countless live-layered sound loops later, it's clear Dolby's innovations have changed the sound of popular music.
In the 1990s, Dolby re-created himself as a digital-musical entrepreneur, founding Beatnik, which developed the polyphonic ringtone software used in more than half a billion cell phones. From 2001 to 2012, Dolby served as TED's Music Director, programming great music for the TED stage, assembling a wide variety of house bands and collaborations to play between speakers. At TED2010, backed by the string quarter Ethel, he premiered the song "Love Is a Loaded Pistol," from his sweeping, A Map of the Floating City. The album marked his return to recording and touring after a 15-year hiatus, and used seriously retro technology -- '40s-era oscilloscopes and Royal Navy field-test equipment -- to control modern synthesizers, in shows at once nostalgic and cutting edge.
In 2014, Dolby took on a new name: professor. He was named the Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University, teaching the course "Sound on Film."
What others say
“Dolby enjoys the enviable position of not having to make music for a living, and that allows him to give serious consideration to what's important to him about being a pop artist.” — San Francisco Chronicle
THURSDAY, OCT 13, 2016 04:58 AM +0200
Thomas Dolby’s “Speed of Sound”: From “She Blinded Me With Science” to Silicon Valley and academia
Salon talks to the '80s synthpop star about his new memoir, the music industry and working in digital start-ups VIDEO
ANNIE ZALESKI
To many people, Thomas Dolby is best known for his kinetic 1982 synthpop hit “She Blinded Me With Science,” which hit No. 5 on the Billboard singles charts. That song only scratches the surface of what the musician, composer, technologist, music industry expert, startup founder and now professor has achieved during his career, however — as uncovered via his new (and wildly entertaining) “The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology: A Memoir.”
The first half of the book details Dolby’s music career, which began with him discovering punk rock and early synthesizer technology, and then turning his focus to increasingly futuristic and ambitious music compositions as the ’80s progressed. Simultaneously, he had a series of rather incredible (and memorable) industry encounters: visiting Michael Jackson’s mansion; working with Mutt Lange on Foreigner’s “4”; hanging out with Eddie Van Halen and George Clinton; and playing at Live Aid with David Bowie. The second half of the book focuses on Dolby’s time in the tech trenches, courtesy of his tenure as the founder of Headspace (which evolved into Beatnik), which was trying to convince early internet companies how necessary sound was to web pages.
During this time, Dolby got a crash course in what it was like to work in Silicon Valley during the ’90s dot-com boom — and then collapse — but found an unexpected success by licensing Beatnik’s synthesizer to cell phone companies, starting with Nokia, which allowed for polyphonic ringtones. (The “Waltz” ringtone? That’s all Dolby.) Currently, he’s a Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches students about film music and technology.
On a recent weekday, Dolby finished up lunch and chatted to Salon about writing “Speed Of Sound,” which is out this week.
Why and how did you end up writing “Speed of Sound?”
I was approached by different publishers to write a sort of music-business-tech-guru type book. I was unsure about it, and didn’t really want to cast myself as that. But I did go back and look at some of my diaries and journal entries going right back to the beginning of the ’80s. I had them in old notebooks, and on yellow pads, and in old Filofaxes, and an Apple Newton, and a Palm Pilot and a Danger Hiptop, and then eventually my iPhone. It was interesting musicology because partly of the devices that they existed on, but partly because I was in all of these strange situations without really any context around them. It’s like I didn’t really know the big picture. And I thought, okay, if I wrote a retrospective book from the 2016 point of view, it would be very different from reading these rather over enthusiastic and sort of rather naïve journal entries written by a guy who was in the thick of things and couldn’t really see the wood for the trees.
And so I came up with the idea of writing a memoir in journal format. I had maybe a third to a half of the important stuff in original journals, but I thought I could fill in the blanks in sort of the same voice. And based on that, I found myself an agent, and based on that, the agent found me a publishing deal, and based on that I got my contract and had my first couple of meetings with the publisher. And in about the third discussion with the publisher, they said, “Well, we’re loving this project, wondering when you’re gonna do away with the journal format and start writing in first person past tense narrative.” [Laughs.] I was worried that that would take away from the charm of the journals. But they said, “Well, look, just write it in the moment. Remain in the moment and resist the temptation to editorialize. And do it stream of consciousness, just get it down, and we can verify facts and dates later in our revision and if we see the need.”
So I did that with the first draft, and then they came back and every now and then the editor would say, “Perhaps a paragraph in here just to set this in context?” It worked very well and I found that I was able to sort of rethink myself into the moment and write it without too much benefit of hindsight, and then, every now and then, just put some context around it.
That’s difficult to sit there and not want to go back and edit yourself. I completely empathize with what a difficult job that might be to do, especially because it’s your own life you’re trying to chronicle.
It was hard. The first draft, the stream of consciousness thing, writers that I knew said, “Just do it. Just lock yourself away, do a certain amount per day, and just get it down.” And I loved that part, absolutely loved that part. And if I needed a date between, you know, May 1984 and September 1984 I would just say, you know, “on July 22nd, 1984″, I would just fill it in. And then in the second draft we did go back and fact-check everything, and I sent it around to the various people that were also there to get their input and so on. And the first thing I noticed was that everybody wants to fix themselves in your book. [Laughs.]
[Laughs.] Unsurprising. You want to look your best.
Yeah, unsurprising. [But] you can’t do that with everybody in the book.
What did you say then? Did you have to put the hammer down and say, “I can’t do it — this is exactly what happened?” How did you handle those situations?
Some of it I was grateful for. I mean, that was the fact checking, really — they would come back with their notes, and there wasn’t much that I disagreed with. Of course, everybody’s got a selective memory, and there were some things where I could’ve sworn it was green and they said it was red. But there were other things where it was just sort of their point of view. I mean, for example, there was somebody in the music industry that I checked with. They took a music industry position and felt very slighted by the fact that I was so critical of the music industry, when in fact I was one of the lucky ones. That was his point of view, that I was given a lot of freedom, I was allowed to do my own thing [and] get self-indulgent, and that I resisted the pressure to follow commercial formula and instead went off and did esoteric, atmospheric, quirky stuff. That I was biting the hand that fed, and so on.
And I didn’t change my attitude to the music industry, but it did make me re-examine it from that point of view and say, “Well, am I being unfair to anybody here?” I mean, you can’t pin the blame on individuals. There was a whole industry that was going off the rails. They were just employees of large corporations, and so let’s not sort of tar them all with the same brush.
Especially the section where you were talking about the single, “Hyperactive,” that basically fell victim to the backdoor label maneuvers. It was things that as an artist you have no control over.
“Hyperactive,” which was a follow-up to “She Blinded Me With Science,” on paper should have done just as well and, in fact, it fell victim to the industry wranglings. But I think from the book, you’ll see also that that made me realize that when “She Blinded Me With Science” was out, there was still all of the dark stuff going on — I just wasn’t ever made aware of it. So you assume it’s because you put out a great record and the public loved it and it was a hit, but in fact, there was all sorts of stuff going on behind the scenes that happened to go right. The stars were aligned for it — and the next time around, they weren’t.
It is so much luck and timing and being in the right place at the right time. You see that with so many different things in life.
I think that’s right. And part of the reason [the industry] was so formulaic was that you thank your lucky stars when they’re aligned, and you try and replicate as much of that winning formula as you can. And if you’re mentoring an artist, then you try and encourage them to just milk it for all it’s worth so that you can have a string of hits, you know. [Laughs.] And I wasn’t willing to play that game, really.
How was sitting down and writing this book different and/or similar from the way you’ve approached music in the past?
There were some similarities. When I was writing every day, it felt like the creative process. It was sort of like working on an album, to a degree, and very satisfying. So far, the experience of working with a publisher and doing the design and getting it out in the streets and going out and promoting it offers a lot of parallels. There’s more parallels, really, to putting out an album in the ‘80s than there is to making music in 2016, where it’s this very broad landscape with no obvious single formula for success. It’s sort of a level playing field in a lot of ways. There’s so many different ways to go. But it’s just a bit of an unknown territory, really, if you’re putting out music today. Because there is no formula anymore.
I don’t even know what to tell up-and-coming musicians — as a journalist, I don’t know if anything I say helps, you know? It is a Wild West. It’s very strange.
The other thing is, commercially, what’s the prize at the end of the day? Well, it’s probably not record sales, you know. Probably the most you can strive for is that you up your fee for summer festivals. [Laughs.] And that’s how you get rewarded. So, yeah, it’s hard. But you can’t say it’s wrong, or that the old way was right. There was lots of hideousness about the old way of doing things, and I think, again, if you’re talking to an up-and-coming musician, at least now their chances of success, the gating factors are mainly about, “Well, do you make great music, and does the public really want to hear it?” vs “Can you get a cassette to an A&R man?” [Laughs.]
That’s true. Who maybe might listen to it among the stack on his desk.
Yeah, and if he doesn’t hear a hook by, you know, 20 seconds in, then he’ll just switch it off and chuck it in the bin.
Reading the second half of the book, when you enter the fray of Silicon Valley’s early days, it really struck me how many parallels there were between that time and then your music career start, when you were sort of winging it and figuring out everything — from running the sound to tinkering with early synth technology.
There were definite parallels. I think the tinkering is what attracted me to Silicon Valley. Making software, programming, figuring out ways to use the new technologies in original and inspiring ways — I felt the same hunger and excitement when I first went to Silicon Valley as the early days of synths and New Wave and so on. I think that the difference was that I had an easy in to the corridors of power because I had a calling card from my first career. So, you know, the reason I was able to get in at the high level with tech companies would often be because they were after Rolling Stones tickets or something. [Laughs.] Or because they remembered, you know, that girl they were dating when they were at MIT when my record was on the radio. [Laughs.] So it was different from that point of view — that felt like a shortcut, which is a good thing.
I’ve done a little bit of work in the entrepreneurship and startup space. I have to say the whole second half of the book really captured the volatile nature of running and working at a startup, and how much pivoting goes on. There was lot of anxiety around that part of the book. And I think people don’t realize, it’s not just, “Oh, I’m working at Facebook and we’re valued at X billion dollars.” It’s a very fraught experience.
The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music
and Technology
Publishers Weekly.
263.30 (July 25, 2016): p61.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology
Thomas Dolby. Flatiron, $27.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-250-07184-2
In his engaging memoir, British New Wave icon Dolby retraces his journey from London stock clerk to pop star to unlikely success as a Silicon
Valley pioneer. A tech savant, Dolby ditched school at 16 and tried for a career in punk-rock London. In short order, he was cowriting, playing,
and producing for groups such as Whodini, Prefab Sprout, and Foreigner. He then became a celebrity when "She Blinded Me with Science" flew
up the charts in the U.S. Disillusioned with the music business after the commercial failures of his following albums, Dolby turned to an odd new
phenomenon known as the Internet and relocated to the Bay Area. Intuition informed him that consumers wanted more than bleeps and blats on
their cell phones, and after a decade-long struggle piloting a startup, he hit the jackpot with his RetroFolio ringtone software. Soon afterward, he
returned to England and composing. Dolby's style--understated but acute--and wealth of anecdotes make for an enjoyable narrative, even if he
soft-pedals the ambition and' talent that drove his success. His winding career crosses the paths of a celebrity ensemble---including Eddie Van
Halen, Bill Gates, David Bowie, and George Clinton--under very odd circumstances, including close encounters of the disturbing kind with
Michael Jackson. To those who know Dolby only from his 1980s bug-eyed mad-scientist persona, his punk roots and windsurfing chops will
come as shock, but the bespectacled Brit is more Renaissance man than one-hit wonder. Agent: Merilee Heifeitz, Writers House. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology." Publishers Weekly, 25 July 2016, p. 61. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460285529&it=r&asid=1e38c31260a4d0bc2c8dc2a6d216175e. Accessed 25 Apr.
2017.
4/25/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1493173065314 2/2
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460285529
6 Questions with Thomas Dolby
Phil Gallo
123.39 (Oct. 29, 2011): p39.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 e5 Global Media, LLC
Nearly 20 years ago, British synth-pop artist Thomas Dolby walked away from a music career largely defined by his 1983 hit "She Blinded Me With Science." The song, which originally appeared on the Blinded Me With Science EP and was later included on a repressing of Dolby's debut album, The Golden Age of Wireless (released on Venice in Pearl in the United Kingdom and Capitol in the United States), showcased Dolby's masterful command of synthesizers, beats and pop music and peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the interim, he spent a fair amount of time working in computer science, developing ringtone technology and, more recently, an online videogame called "The Floating City," a reference to his studio on a houseboat in the North Sea.
Dolby has served as music director of the annual TED Conference since 2001. Now he's gearing up for the release of A Map of the Floating City, his first album of new material since his 1992 release, Astronauts & Heretics. A Map of the Floating City arrives Oct. 25 on Lost Toy People Records/Redeye, with a U.S. tour planned for early next year.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
(1) The number of different styles on the new album suggests that you've listened to a lot of different music since Astronauts & Heretics. Why go all over the map?
I like to use different musical idioms to tell a story and these stories are so diverse. I find it stimulating to work in genres that are unfamiliar to me.
(2) While a song like "Simone" connects sonically with your '80s work, A Map of the Floating City has some pseudo bossa nova, mid-'60s pop horns and even some banjo.
I'm trying to create something I would like to hear, but [in the last two decades] I've absorbed rather than listened. It's quite rare that I buy a download of an album--I just seem to pick it up. I feel I have a fondness for American roots music and I remember hearing a Dolly Patton album where she was going back to her roots. It was really sweet.
(3) The album is full of fictional stories, but you mention places like Cuba, New York and the "spice trail." Why is geography so important to you?
I'm strongly affected by geography--that's why there are three distinct sections set on fictional continents [Urbanoia, Amerikana and Oceanea]. For "Amerikana," I very fondly look back at my years in California and I felt comfortable enough to return there [musically]. "Urbanoia"--I'm not a city person, but I do like going in for a few days. I prefer the country and I've returned to the environment I grew up in, the coast of England facing the North Sea, to give my kids the experience I had as a child. It's very gratifying. When I did "Oceanea," Eddi [Reader] came in and her performance broke my heart.
(4) Rather than return with a concert tour, you're doing shows that are similar to two you did in late July in England. It's an hourlong solo show. I play a half-dozen songs, a couple of old favorites and I tell the story of the lifeboat and how in setting up the album it turned into an online game that proved popular. I saw [talking about the game] as a way to express myself in a different medium, attract a new audience and gain a crowd through social networking. It's a different audience than the Dolby nuts.
(5) Obviously, technology has made huge leaps since you entered that field. How does that affect your music? To be able to interact with fans is a joy. In chapter one of my career I would look at the charts and I'd say, "I don't know who these people are [buying my albums and singles]." I hope they'll continue to come out of the woodwork and support me. I finally feel like I am making music for an audience rather than an A&R executive. For kids starting today, that approach will be healthy.
(6) Regina Spektor, Eddi Reader, Imogen Heap, Mark Knopfler and Natalie MacMaster--how did those collaborations come about?
I have been working for a decade as the music director of the TED conferences and have had to bring in musical acts. I bought in Imogen, Natalie MacMaster the fiddler, all except Mark. Having made those connections, I then asked if they would do a cameo. In Mark's case, somebody heard the track and said it sounded like [Knopfler's 2000 song] "Sailing to Philadelphia." I always loved his guitar playing so I sent him a demo and he invited me to his studio in London. After a few hours he gave me a few tapes of his part.
Gallo, Phil
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Gallo, Phil. "6 Questions with Thomas Dolby." Billboard, 29 Oct. 2011, p. 39. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA270895449&it=r&asid=2b4a777715385399bd13720faf16483e. Accessed 7 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A270895449
Thomas Dolby Robertson: Beatnik. (Cutting Edge)
Jason Ankeny
19.3 (Mar. 2002): p70.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2002 Penton Media, Inc., Penton Business Media, Inc. and their subsidiaries
http://www.wirelessreview.com
In 1982, Thomas Dolby Robertson climbed the pop charts with his album The Golden Age of Wireless, scoring a major hit with his new wave classic "She Blinded Me With Science." Two decades later, he's spearheading a different kind of wireless renaissance as the founder of San Mateo, Calif.-based music content firm Beatnik.
With its Beatnik Audio Engine software, the outfit is pioneering the delivery of sound and music clips via wireless technology by enabling wireless phones and PDAs to play back and mix a variety of audio file formats to create a truly enhanced user experience.
"Given that a small hand-held device will always have a limitation on screen size, there's only so much you can do with graphics," Robertson said, "Sound is one way to make it a lot better."
Robertson founded Beatnik (formerly Headspace) in 1993. "There was a great opportunity for sound to play a major part in the Internet's evolution," he said, "As a musician, I could see the potential benefits to breaking the cycle of manufacturer and retail, but that wasn't something I wanted to tackle. I was only interested in one area: creating new types of experiences."
Those experiences extended to wireless in early 2001, and by the end of the year Beatnik was licensing its technology to Nokia and Danger Inc. to enhance the companies' respective smartphones.
At last month's 3GSM World Congress, Beatnik introduced its next-gen software, an XMF-enabled solution that lets handset manufacturers add customized audio samples, multimedia messaging, gaming sound effects and even ringtones. "The ringtone could be a line from a movie, a sound effect from 'Star Wars' -- even your mother-in-law screaming at you," Dolby said, "Whatever floats your boat."
All things considered, a few bars of "She Blinded Me With Science" seem far more appropriate.
Ankeny, Jason
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Ankeny, Jason. "Thomas Dolby Robertson: Beatnik. (Cutting Edge)." Wireless Review, Mar. 2002, p. 70. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA84237143&it=r&asid=51cbb7bdcf459e145d61c4d859b002c0. Accessed 7 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A84237143
Pop Icon Joins Johns Hopkins
Andy Thomason
60.29 (Apr. 4, 2014):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc.
http://chronicle.com/section/About-the-Chronicle/83
Byline: Andy Thomason
The Johns Hopkins University wants the world to see more than its science.
That's one reason it hired Thomas Dolby, a digital-audio entrepreneur and the pop icon behind the 1980s hit "She Blinded Me With Science." Mr. Dolby, the university's first professor of the arts, will be involved in the creation of a center to foster filmmaking and the arts in Baltimore's entertainment district.
Even aside from his role as a pop star, Mr. Dolby, 55, is an unusual choice for any professorship, having never attended college. After graduating from high school, Mr. Dolby-"pretty much the black sheep" in a family of academics, he says-jumped straight into the music business. As he gained experience in that industry, he began to wish he "had somebody like me to help me when I started out." That thought motivated him to get into academe.
At Johns Hopkins, Mr. Dolby will teach a yearlong "Sound on Film" course, in which students will learn how to create film soundtracks. He will also serve as artistic director of the university's Sound on Film program at its new center, which is meant to serve as an experimental base benefiting all of the university's endeavors in the arts.
A drop in the cost of production technology has made it more important for all aspiring filmmakers, not just those interested in audio, to study his subject, Mr. Dolby says. A film studio's budget is no longer needed to produce a professional film, and independent films are proliferating. That means those breaking into the film industry need to be able to handle more aspects of production.
For a dozen years, until 2012, Mr. Dolby was musical director of the TED conferences, which feature speeches on technology, entertainment, design, and other subjects. In the 1990s, he founded a company that developed the polyphonic ringtone software widely used in cellphones.
He has also written music for feature films throughout his career, in recent years for movies like Mission: Impossible III and the television show Breaking Bad.
His appointment is a 75-percent-time position, which is meant to allow him time to perform.
The breadth of Mr. Dolby's experience appealed to Katherine S. Newman, dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Ms. Newman says the school was contacting people in the film industry to seek candidates for the position when Mr. Dolby got in touch after seeing an advertisement on the university's website. "We were in orbit when we found out," she says.
Mr. Dolby's stature should bring more attention to the university's effort to revitalize the Baltimore neighborhood a mile south of its campus, known as the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, Ms. Newman says. In partnership with the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Maryland Film Festival, the university is renovating an abandoned theater to serve as a kind of arts incubator, which provides space and resources for artists to showcase their work.
The goal, she says, is to make the area "both the epicenter of our academic and film-arts-related programs and industry-friendly to the independent film industry, to television production, and to the electronic-gaming community."
Mr. Dolby says that the position will be a challenge, but that it will also provide a few years of stability in his varied career. He says he can't remember a point in his career when he knew what he would be doing for the next several years.
He expects that any questions about his days in the pop-music limelight would be more likely to come from his fellow professors who are old enough to remember the 1980s than from students. His students, he says, should be prepared to work.
"I'm serious about this," he says. "I'm going to be a tough prof."
CAPTION(S):
Thomas Dolby
By Andy Thomason
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Thomason, Andy. "Pop Icon Joins Johns Hopkins." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 Apr. 2014. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA364442656&it=r&asid=ae7674880739d77580d2ebeb11b73d31. Accessed 7 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A364442656
KIRKUS REVIEW
Musician Dolby (Arts/Johns Hopkins Univ.) debuts with an absorbing account of his pioneering work merging digital music with film, technology, and science.
Born in 1958 to a Cambridge archaeologist, the author dropped out of school to pursue musical interests after finding a synthesizer in a dumpster. Often mixing sound for bands, he worked as a solo singer/songwriter, with such quirky hits as “She Blinded Me with Science” (1982) and “Hyperactive!” (1984), and began producing short silent film–like music videos as well as soundtracks for computer games and computer-generated animation. By the 1990s, Dolby’s unusual tinkering with computer software bridged the worlds of the music business and Silicon Valley, where his companies developed mobile-phone ringtones and other products. In this story-filled memoir, the author draws deeply on his experiences as a synthesized music guru and early internet geek, offering wonderful scenes involving such notables as Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Steve Jobs, and George Lucas and revealing his battles for artistic control with major record companies. With little interest in the business side (“What’s a business model?” he replies to a venture capitalist interested in a Dolby company), he has always regarded himself as “a perfectionist who will choose great art over a pile of cash every time.” As a result, he struggled unhappily in the music and technology industries, both of which he deems “random and unjust.” Yet his innovative accomplishments, rendered in fascinating detail here, are legendary: “Synthesis, music videos, software, the Web, DIY filmmaking, mobile devices, online games…I just dived in and taught myself by trial and error.” The former TED Conference music director now composes on a restored 33-foot lifeboat in the garden of his home in Suffolk and teaches film and media at Hopkins.
This stellar book will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers interested in modern technology’s startling effects on music and popular culture.
Pub Date: Oct. 11th, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-07184-2
Page count: 288pp
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3rd, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15th, 2016
The Speed of Sound, by Thomas Dolby
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Title: The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers between Music and Technology
Author: Thomas Dolby
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: November 11, 2016
http://us.macmillan.com/publishers/Flatiron-books
dolby
The Upshot: The blinded with science guy recounts his multi-varied career, including an extended stint at the proverbial tech wizard, fittingly enough.
BY TIM HINELY
Thomas Dolby…who knew? Upon reading his new memoir I realized that Dolby has led one hell of a life. Oh sure, we all know him from his early ‘80s new wave days and “She Blinded Me with Science” (I bought the 12” in ’82, and back then it wasn’t unusual to hear new wave geeks, like me, walk down the street and randomly yell out the word “Science!”). He was a hero for all geeks the world over (his next single, “Hyperactive”, too). In addition to his own work I hadn’t realized that Dolby also worked with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell (not a good experience for him), David Bowie, George Clinton and plenty of others (Lene Lovich, Prefab Sprout, etc.).
After tiring of the music industry—and getting screwed over as well—Dolby up and moved to first Los Angeles and then the Bay Area and started up Beatnik Inc. which helped add audio to websites, and, later, cell phones. At Beatnik, Dolby had his ups and downs (mostly downs, from his perspective) but in the end made good, thanks to the world of ringtones (and Nokia). Dolby and his family then had had enough of California and moved back to England in the mid ‘00s, but alas, America was still calling. As of 2014 Dolby is now a professor at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, adding yet another feather in his already full cap.
The Speed of Sound is told in a real off-the-cuff style and is very entertaining and highly readable —that Michael Jackson story was superb!. Judging from his words, it seems like Dolby took his wins almost as relaxed as he took his losses. Despite really trying to be a Bay Area tech wizard, he realized that he’s a musician through and through, and in the end he went back to that first love. It’s all told from the perspective of a guy who I’d enjoy sitting down with and chatting over lunch sometime.
Special Book Review: Thomas Dolby’s Memoir “The Speed of Sound”
OCTOBER 12, 2016 BY RANDY FAIRMAN 2 COMMENTS
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When a music fan thinks of Thomas Dolby, the first thing that springs to mind is probably “She Blinded Me With Science,” his classic 1982 new wave hit. He has been labeled as a “one-hit wonder” by several music trade publications and programs. (He actually charted three Hot 100 hits in the United States and sixteen Pop hits in the United Kingdom.) However, as is usually the case in real life, there is much more to his story…and that story is told in Dolby’s just-released autobiography, The Speed of Sound.
As the sub-title Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology indicates, Dolby has been interested in forging new connections between these two passions for almost his whole life. The book is split into two parts, the first concentrating on the London-born singer-songwriter’s work in the music industry and the second on his journey to become an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.
The first part is of the most interest to fans of his musical works. If you have read many music-related autobiographies, you’ll recognize his familiar, early arc. Striking out on his own after deciding to not follow the rest of his family into a career in academia, Dolby was living in a low-rent apartment while working at a grocery store and checking out the punk scene in late-seventies London. After getting fired from the store, he found a synthesizer in the garbage, which leads him to his eventual career. He took a job hauling equipment from shows and then became a mixer for live venues. From there he would join with Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club. Dolby moved to Paris in depression after back-room dealings he still doesn’t understand scuttled his first stab at solo stardom. But he would soon be on the right track again after he was hired to play synth for Foreigner on the band’s 1981 album 4. The money he earned from that gig would allow him to record his first LP, The Golden Age of Wireless, and get signed to EMI. His leap into big fame came with the release of “She Blinded Me With Science,” which was eventually added to pressings of Wireless.
The Speed of Sound enters one of its best phases when Dolby reflects on his efforts and collaborations in the music industry. He worked with such luminaries as David Bowie, Jerry Garcia, George Clinton, Roger Waters and Stevie Wonder, and became a producer for the group Prefab Sprout. The most colorful and entertaining stories come from his interactions with Michael Jackson and Eddie Van Halen. Of course, Dolby continued to produce his own music during this period and he writes candidly about his work on his three subsequent solo albums and as a contributor to the infamous Howard The Duck film. An undercurrent to all of this (and a theme revisited numerous times in the book) is Dolby’s dissatisfaction with record companies and their executives. He describes extricating himself from his EMI contract – only to sign with Virgin Records who was then bought by EMI. After his fourth solo album failed to ignite the charts, Dolby left the music biz.
This is where the second part of the book begins. Dolby’s interests in technology and music would lead him to form a company called Headspace, Inc. which would develop a file format for transmitting music over the Internet. He also writes of his interest in composing music for non-linear formats such as video games. Eventually the company would morph into Beatnik, Inc. which would have its greatest success with ringtone synthesizers for Nokia phones in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The transition to this part of this life proves a little jarring for a fan of Dolby’s pop-rock work. While still engaging, the cast of characters becomes more familiar to readers of Wired than Billboard. The book becomes begins to focus on corporate dealings as Dolby’s companies navigate the tech boom and bust around the millennium. After a decade as the head of a company, Dolby realizes it is just not for him and leaves Beatnik to focus more on ringtone management and the TED conference. He eventually returns to music and becomes a college professor.
Perhaps befitting Dolby’s recent role as a teacher, The Speed of Sound has a very matter-of-fact tone and is a relatively quick read. There are no salacious details and not much time is spent on his early life. Unlike many rock biographies, there are no wild tales of drugs and sex. He does talk some about his relationships and of course spends the most time on his wife, Dynasty’s Kathleen Beller (whom he married in 1988) and their children. Dolby does reveal specifics about the various synths and instruments he has used and the various technologies he helped develop in the tech sector. He also goes into detail frequently about how he feels about the current state of the music business (once again not having much use at all for record companies) and music on the Internet. The only thing slightly lacking is more of the “why” behind all of Dolby’s musings, either in his beliefs or musical lyrics. The straightforward tone of the book does not give the audience much insight into Dolby’s inner rationales. However, that is a small quibble and certainly not one uncommon to some autobiographical works. Also, the last 15 years or so are barely covered; a little more detail on Dolby’s current undertakings would have been welcome.
If you only know Thomas Dolby from “She Blinded Me With Science,” there is much more of his story to experience. The biggest hurdle for music fans might be the second part of the book which largely eschews talk of that world and focuses on Silicon Valley. However, that story still fascinates with a brief look into the early days of the tech industry and Internet boom. And of course real-life tales usually don’t conform to what we expect. But, while a bit disjointed, Professor Dolby’s story is one worth reading.