Quote Of The Day

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Thomas Dolby...
Last night Ben and I went to see Thomas Dolby at the Carling Islington Academy. Ben had organised the tickets and it was great to spend the time with him.

Dolby was promoting his new live CD/DVD The Sole Inhabitant which is sort of a greatest hits live.

Like Roger Hodgson the night before Thomas Dolby a true musician and a gifted song writer. His medium happen to be synthesisers and samples but some of his songs are really very beautiful. We were treated to all the hits including The Flat Earth, Airwaves, the fabulously titled (and witty) Your Karma Hit My Dogma, Europa And The Pirate Twins, She Blinded Me With Science, One Of Our Submarines and Hyperactive!

He had some interesting anecdotes too. Like when Trevor Horn had finished touring about South Africa with Malcolm McLaren and recording riffs for the Duck Rock project he had some riffs left over. So over a spliff one day Horn, in his big scientist-from-Blade-Runner glasses, says to Dolby, "want this riff?" And Dolby took it. Spliff riff.

As a surprise at the end of the gig we were treated to a guest appearance by Lene Lovich. She and Dolby sang Sway as a duet. Great fun.

My stand out track of the night: I Scare Myself

Funniest bit of the night: when Lene Lovich came on stage and after the initial applause had died away Ben shouted out from the gallery, "Are you still mad?" The place fell about. As did she.

6 comments:

  1. Hey Jon. I'm so jealous!

    Weirdly I spent Tuesday night with Muz going through YouTube listening to Thomas Dolby and Lene Lovich tracks (as for an Aussie Muz knows a surprising amount about early 80s electro pop. I then searched online for stuff yesterday and saw TMDR was playing Islington and wondered if you'd go. Sometimes Oz is too far away! Hope all's good with you ;o)

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  2. And weirdly I was thinking of you last night too while we were at the gig. Had to mentioned that you like TD to me before and I had a trace memory?



    Yes, all good here. Autumnal... but good.

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  3. Hi, just for the sake of clarity -- the riff was Dolby's own, not one of Trevor's. Dolby had written it for a song called, I believe, "Soweto." But in the end Trevor didn't use it. So, Dolby asked Horn to send him back just his piece, so he could reuse it. Thus came The Flat Earth. :)

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  4. You're welcome. :) You have no idea how much I envy you getting to see him at the Islington gig. Not only was Lene there, but his bandmates from the old days, Kevin Armstrong and Matthew Seligman, too! Man, what a night that must have been!

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  5. Yes, both Armstrong and Seligman were there. We chatted to them afterwards. My mate Ben helped look after (Armstrong's?) 6 year old who had fallen asleep on one of the sofas up in the balcony where we were. Bless.

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