On Saturday July 3rd at 7pm I’ll be playing a fun gig at the Maverick Music Festival in Easton, Suffolk, UK. I’ve formed a temporary band called The Toad Lickers and we’ll be playing a short ~1/2 hour set to celebrate the release of the ‘Amerikana’ EP. It’s quite appropriate as this is an Americana music festival. It’s a relaxed and upbeat affair that takes place on a working farm, with several stages featuring great roots American and ‘Country And Eastern’ bands and singer songwriters. It’s in its third year and is run by my friend and neighbour Paul Spencer, long time music video documentary producer (and former drummer with the Alex Harvey Band!) On the surface I’m an unlikely person to play a barn dance with linedancing picnickers in cowboy hats, but actually if you’ve read the lyrics to ‘Toad Lickers’ from the EP you’ll know it’s not quite such a stretch! In fact, I’m going to be shooting a video earlier that day, so if you do make it and would like to be an extra, make yourself known.

You can get a one-day ticket to the event for £25 – either online via ticketweb.co.uk (probably not ready till next week) or by phone from NAC on 01603 660352.

I mentioned Maverick in an interview with the Bob Harris show on BBC Radio 2 which will air in the early hours of this Sunday morning (June 26th) around 12.15am. We’ll be rehearsing at Kevin’s later that day, taking a 2-hour break to watch England v Germany. We’ll try to put together another rehearsal on July 2nd, but that’s it. So it’ll be somewhat less spontaneous than the Union Chapel gig in February, but not a lot! I won’t have a big synth rig, so don’t expect pyrotechnics. It’s an organic, low-budget affair, with a tight stage, but the band lineup should be as follows:

drums: Justin Hildreth
bass: Matthew Seligman
guitar: Kevin Armstrong
fiddle/banjo: Aaron Jonah Lewis
pedal steel: BJ Cole
backing vocals: Barbara Ann Spencer (Paul’s wife!)

Nick Sinclair took some really nice pics to help publicise the event. I got to pose with this gorgeous 1930s Indian motorcycle:

Just so you know, I don’t make musical decisions by committee. I believe ultimately as an artist you have to be selfish and please yourself, rather than trying to second-guess your audience.

However, one of the songs from my upcoming EP ‘Amerikana’ has two different vocal takes. The first went down live in the studio along with bass, drums, guitar and grand piano. The second I did several months later as an overdub. I’ve worked a lot on the song over the interim and I’m very close to it at this point, probably too close, and I was finding it hard to judge which was the best vocal.

So as an experiment I sent 16 friends two mixes each, just piano and vocal, A (live) and B (overdub.) Same piano track on both. Some of them are musicians, some are just friends I trust. I will paste their reactions below:

————–

generally, prefer B….
it’s more english, and the words are clearer
which is important in this one..

————

B gets my vote. You’re telling the story more clearly without mawkishness..
A is a wee bit too melancholy for me though there is a section of A which is better.

————–

B. Love and warm vibes

————

It is clearly vocal B that I feel is the stronger one. In vocal A, I don’t feel that you are really hearing the words and telling the story that you are singing. For example, the beginning of the first bridge. In vocal A, it sounds like part of the song. In vocal B, you stop to tell us that story. You make a change.

————-

B. It’s the one which makes me want sing along. It’s the one which makes me really listen to the words. It’s the one that makes me tear-up.

————

I vote “B”. IMO “A” is not a confident, committed telling of the tale like “B”. “B” is a
unified piece, angrier in the right place, more vocally dynamic and far more
confident where the melody takes an unexpected turn and challenges the ear.
I would delete “A” and feel excited and positive about “B”.

———-

my vote is for version B. It sounds lived in.

———–

There is something in your voice on A that is impossible to repeat, and as music is a moment, the
moment is captured there so beuatifully. Not that the other vocal isn’t good. But A is the one. Trust me!
And thanks for asking my opinion.

—————

I’m going to say vocal B! More personal and earnest, sounds like you “mean it” more, and reminds me of your Flat Earth era vocals.

—————

B is very much the thomas that we know…..english, slightly more introverted
deeply soulful….closer to the airwaves thomas …and very
importantly I can hear all the words…

————

“A” makes more sense to me. “A” would be my choice if I were in your shoes.

————-

B is the most engaging of the vocals by far – I understand you’re going for a world weary approach with A, but it’s a bit of a whinge to be honest – B is Best  – good tone and I actually want to listen to his story whereas the A fellow, well I’d happily pull the switch!

———–

Vocal B sounds more decisive to me esp at the beginning.
————-

Listening to the recent version I hear that it DOES sound like you’ve lived with this tune a long time… and I think that’s a good thing. So I’m not sure how much of a “gut decision” it represents, but I would be inclined to go with version B.

—————-

I vote for this one… Vocal B. I love your connection to the lyric on this one!

—————

we prefer B.  Both are gorgeous, Version B seems to have more clarity

—————

I have not filtered these comments. They were 16:2 in favor of B, with two lone souls preferring A.

Most of the criteria I felt were important—the storytelling and the emotion—I suspected A had the edge, but people actually got more of those same qualities from B. Funny how people perceive things differently! The aggregate of comments about A was ‘indecisive, worldweary, whingey,’… the story was not as well told and the words were not as clear.

I read the responses as they came in, feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of going with vocal B. The two lone detractors twinged something in my heartstrings, but I brushed over that. I was relieved they were almost unanimously in favour of B, because A is a technical nightmare—the vocal mic has piano all over it, making it virtually impossible to tweak for tuning and timing, or to get rid of lip smacks and asthmatic breaths.

Yet I am genuinely torn because my heart says in A I was feeling it more; plus wouldn’t life be great if I could do one-take vocals and never have to worry about them again!

Then I got this email from the guy that’s going to engineer/mix it with me next week, a man with a long an distinguished track record who did a great job mixing one of my previous albums. Yikes.

—————–

Thomas
There is no comparison, as I suspect you knew, but just needed affirmation.  The live vocal (A) is perfect.  well..  it’s hard to understand “cell block E”, “cell block A”, and what exactly the crooked lawyer did, but please, you know its right.  There’s loads we can do in protools, as long as we lock in the mix on fresh ears, before the tweezing.
It’s fucking gorgeous.

—————–

The plot thickens…..

A bizarre character called The Lost Airman dropped in on a London gig Saturday night by Evelyn Evelyn, Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley.

And who was that masked man? The audience gasped as he tore off his false ‘tache and eyebrows, popped out the zombie contact lenses, and shed the Galliano coat; then Amanda said “It’s Thomas Fucking Dolby!” And the audience (mostly under 40) didn’t know who the hell Thomas Dolby was either. Never mind, I thought, and launched into an impromptu ‘New Toy’, which I wrote for the original, seldom-credited punk cabaret diva Lene Lovich. Amanda took a good long sniff of her armpit and blasted out a great version of the song, as Jason strummed.

Here’s a fan video clip of the song, which we managed to pull off without bass and drums.

Many thanks to @karohemd for the pics!

Today’s blog will be of little interest to you unless you’re actively involved in pro audio, computer music, studio production and so on. I posted these notes to the Celemony online forum earlier today.

It concerns a new software program called Melodyne Editor. Even laypeople have probably heard of ‘Autotune’, a rival program and also these days a generic term for the digital retuning of vocals and some instruments. Well, the it’s not hard to understand that a computer could be used to speed up and slow down the pitch of a note or series of notes at a microscopic level. But it’s completely counter-intuitive to imagine being able to select a single note from within a chord or cluster of notes, and retune that independently of what’s going on around it.

After a couple of days working with Melodyne Editor, I’d like to post some comments for others pro audio users considering making the purchase, and/or for existing users who want to share tips on how to get the best out of it. I should state that I paid full price (£359 in the UK) for this product and have no affiliation or sponsorship deal with Celemony. I think this is a fabulous, magical piece of software. I always thought of pitch/time shifting tools as something you could apply to monophonic content, but that complex or polyphonic content was strictly out of bounds. After using Melodyne’s DNA (Direct Note Access) technology I’ve had a revelation: an audio recording is just a bunch of fundamentals and harmonics represented as digital data, that can be analysed, segmented and manipulated, all non-destructively. Here are some detailed comments:

-ME worked great for my brass section, but also for guitar parts–I was quite amazed when I transferred a comp’d guitar track (acoustic arpeggios, chunky electric chords, and electric lead all on a single track) to find that I was able to access and retune individual notes. A very helpful feature for guitars is the ability to click on a note on the left hand margin (eg high E) and effectively retune just that string, throughout the piece.

-I also used it on an out of tune bass guitar track. I feel it does this better than a monophonic retuning tool, because sometimes the ends of notes overlap or have overtones. Interstingly, with bass it doesn’t always sound ‘correct’ to have it perfectly in tune. But I like that ME lets you ‘eyeball’ the tuning on a passage and see what’s going on, even if you choose to leave it alone.

-As you do lots of work in ME you have to keep an ear out for unwanted artefacts as you go. Sometimes you can introduce clicks at the begining of notes. But if you make a mistake you can always go back and reset the changes you made to that particular note. This is an improvement over ProTools, where sometimes you’re performing destructive edits on the source material, and if you screw up you have to go fishing around folders for the raw source.

-When dealing with vocals, I’m pleased that Melodyne doesn’t seem to have such a recognisable ‘sound’ to it the way Autotune does.

-Being a pretty innacurate singer, when I record vocal tracks, in the past I have typically sung 3 or 4 good takes, then comp’d them together line by line, even borrowing words, syllables and breaths. What I will probably do now do is a secondary comp, choosing between the ‘untuned’ and ‘retuned’ vocal. Sometimes a line is more expressive when left alone. Other times a word that was in tune to begin with, actually sounds better sonically after ME because of what it does the to internal modulation of the note.

-My vocal tracks in ProTools LE often end up with dozens of fades and crossfades, to avoid the clicks it introduces when waveforms have to make a jump at an edit point. ProTools HD doesn’t have this problem (one reason they stick you up for a lot of extra dough!) yet ME seems to get around this by cleverly negotiating all its edit points. I can’t tell you what a time saver this is. Now a few small gripes:

-When dealing with multitrack data, and tuning tracks individually, it’s very easy to end up with a ‘chorus’ type effect, which spoils the sonic integrity of the source. For example, with my brass section tracks (3 individual plus a pair of room mics) I retuned each track seperately, and the result no longer sounded out of tune but there was a strong chorus/ensemble effect which took away from the personality of the horns. It would be great if you could retune one track, then apply those settings to an adjecent or other track, so that all tracks get tuned the same way. I understand that the standalone version may be able to do this?

-In ProTools, if I transfer more than about 30 seconds of audio, PT’s transport refuses to stop playing, and all functions are frozen. Last night I aborted it after about 20 minutes. I had to stop and start the transfer in chunks.

-I find the Tuning Drift tool very unhelpful. I assumed this would work well on a note that started off in tune then drifted sharp or flat. It doesn’t seem to work as advertised, and I end up using the Modulation tool instead.

-I wish the standard Apple key commands worked within ME, such as Command-Z for Undo. After 25 years working with a Mac I hit this like a nervous twitch, and it’s annoying to have to keep remembering that it only exists as an ME menu command.

-I’d like a single command to render the ME-affected audio back to a track of ProTools as a new audio file. Bouncing and importing are too disruptive. Of course everybody uses their tools and workstation differently, but I hope my $0.02 is helpful. I have no regrets about shelling out for Melodyne Editor. Congratulations Celemony on a fabulous piece of kit!

Last night I dreamed I hired Howard Jones for a keyboard session at a big studio (Abbey Rd? Real World?) We were getting ready for him and setting up all my old keyboards—the Fairlight, the PPG. I was worried because they had been in storage for so long. Someone came in and said ‘Howard’s juicers are here–where should be put them?’ (For some reason I knew his ‘juicers’ were not electric blenders, they were people to make his fruit juice.) I hooked up the PPG Wave 2.2 and played a chord. It was a long backwards sample that I could not make out. Then I looked at its little LED screen and all the text was back to front. At first I thought this was because its patches were garbled after all this time. Then I realised it does that when you play a backwards sample—it’s a little German in-joke.

Eventually Howard arrived. He was very friendly and looked great, in fact just like 1983. But we were both wearing identical green corduroy jackets. This was embarassing but being English neither of us felt able to mention it. Then I woke up.

Pic: Richard Skidmore

1. Sun is out, steady gentle breeze.
2. The Nutmeg is generating LOTS of power, feel I could run the whole village off it.
3. Sitting in my wheelhouse editing 10 takes of Natalie MacMaster‘s delightful fiddle playing.
4. Engraver called to tell me some tiny brass plaques I ordered for my wooden sailboat are ready to pick up. ‘Jib’/'spi’/'cunn’/'kick’ etc. Will row out and do some drilling before this evening’s Loch Long race.
5. A sand artist I contacted in Isreal may be interested in working with me.
6. Booked an Eddi Reader vocal session in Glasgow next month.
7. Limbs aching satisfyingly after windsurfing and tennis yesterday.
8. Pot of Earl Grey just brewed.
9. My Wired Playlist Podcast is up on iTunes, featuring 2 1/2 brand new songs!
10. Reading enthusiastic feedback to 9, to my new singles album Singular, and to the track listing on the upcoming GAOW and TFE re-releases.

BUY NOW

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thomas Dolby
The Singular Thomas Dolby
EMI Marketing UK – May 18th

This 2-disc CD and DVD (PAL) collection features all Thomas Dolby’s singles and videos. It is released in the UK on May 18th 2009 and is available worldwide as an import.

Thomas Dolby became one of the most recognizable figures of the synth-pop movement of early-’80s new wave. Dolby successfully harnessed the power of synthesizers and samplers, to make catchy pop and light electro-funk. Following the (1984) single “Hyperactive,” he put his own career on hold to some extent, as he began producing more frequently, including albums by Prefab Sprout and Joni Mitchell, working with funk maestro George Clinton, as well as exploring new synthesizer and computer technology but continuing to record into the ’90s.

There could be little to suggest this transatlantic future in debut single “Urges”, which along with flipside “Leipzig” was co-produced by that most peculiarly English of gents, XTC mainstay Andy Partridge. With the latter song still part of Thomas’s live shows today, even at this stage (1981), his song-writing prowess was well advanced.

Having broken away from touring with Lene Lovich, for whom he had written hit single “New Toy”, and with some money behind him from playing synthesiser for Foreigner and Def Leppard, Dolby set about turning some of his crackly demos into full recordings which became “The Golden Age of Wireless”. From here, of course, we meet “Europa and The Pirate Twins”, a semi-autobiographical romp about a French love affair; as well as “Airwaves” (presented here in its edited single form) and “Radio Silence” (which features Lovich); songs which fit the Dolby Modus Operandi perfectly. By this point, he had carved a niche for himself as a quintessentially British mad professor type – preoccupied with diodes and oscilloscopes – but also continuing (particularly in his videos) the themes of cold-war oppression and paranoia. Dolby’s own Uncle had been the subject of “One of Our Submarines”.

“Windpower” gave Thomas his first UK Top 40 hit, and consequent Top of the Pops appearance, with a song that pre-empts our need and preoccupation with Tipping Points and alternative energy sources, and lyrics that resonate even more today than they did then. Incidentally, the video included here is a rare treat for fans – a seldom seen cut from his 1983 concert, “Live Wireless”. But it was a song that didn’t even appear on original pressings of the album that both summed up Dolby’s personification in this era, and captured the hearts of the notoriously fickle American market. “She Blinded Me With Science” captured a Zeitgeist with its warm yet spooky synthesisers and intervention from eccentric pop-scientist Magnus Pyke. The single went Top 5 on the Billboard charts. Following on from this success was going to be no mean feat, and when “The Flat Earth” was released in 1984, its sophisticated sound was a battle cry to any doubters, combining Dolby’s signature keyboards into a more organic, layered sound. “Hyperactive!” –the result of a bizarre evening spent at Michael Jackson’s house — bore the most fruit, repeating the success of “….Science” in Britain, scoring Thomas his first UK Top 20 hit.

Whilst the epic “Dissidents” felt most at home as a 12”, the edit included here captures the spirit of the track – revisiting Dolby’s love of cold war espionage, and at the other end of the spectrum, the haunting Dan Hicks’ ballad “I Scare Myself” is turned into a piano-led affair with a sexy, sultry video. The latter is a solo embodiment of the shimmering, breathy sound that would form the heart of the Prefab Sprout sound he was integral to creating – production values which he has said he ranks amongst his personal career highs.

A year later, Thomas can be seen at the Grammys performing alongside Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder and Howard Jones – showing him not only to be at the height of his powers, but integrating perfectly into the Americas. However, at the same time, a very different collaboration was released. “Fieldwork”, was recorded with Yellow Magic Orchestra founder Ryuchi Sakamoto and accompanied by a high-concept short film, included on the (PAL) DVD in its single, and long-form versions.

In between working on several successful movie soundtracks, providing keyboards for Malcolm McClaren and Joan Armatrading, playing synth for Bowie at Live Aid, and producing albums for luminaries such as Prefab Sprout and Joni Mitchell, Dolby finally moved to America, where amongst his first endeavours was “Dolby’s Cube”, a project alongside funk legend George Clinton. This sci-fi saga of an alien peddling designer drugs is a pop masterpiece – complete with suitably silly visual version.

It was to be 2 years before another TD-LP – 1988’s “Aliens Ate My Buick”. It represented a huge departure. With his new backing band, the Bay Area based “Lost Toy People”, and a brand new sound, influenced in no small part by his work with Clinton, lead single “Airhead” was a funk-fuelled tribute to…. well, it kind of explains itself. “Hot Sauce” and “My Brain Is Like A Sieve” bring in elements of Salsa and Reggae respectively, the latter presented here in its radically different single mix.

Four years passed. Dolby was now heavily involved with the high tech industry, and was already becoming a renowned executive. His company Beatnik Inc. invented the first polyphonic synthesiser that could run natively on a mobile phone, and would go on to play a huge part in the advent of the multi-billion dollar ringtone industry. But he hadn’t turned his back on his music. And, despite his increased involvement in computer music during his day job, “Astronauts & Heretics” was his most organic to date. Lead single “Close But No Cigar” included guitars from Eddie Van Halen, featured soccer in the video, and became a Top 30 hit in his home country after being championed by an up-and-coming DJ named Chris Evans; perhaps the ultimate testament to his twin identities as an Englishman in America. “I Love You Goodbye” and “Silk Pyjamas” revealed heavy Cajun influences. Both videos, hitherto hard to find, and untouched even by the hand of You Tube, are included on this compilation, a treat for fans who haven’t seen them for years, if at all.

As Thomas’s involvement with internet music increased, the conventional music scene was left behind, save for a bit of soundtrack work from time to time. Though he has said on more than one occasion, the musical drought was not intended, it was a full 15 years before any suggestions of a new artist album began to surface. In the meantime, the music industry had changed beyond recognition, with ever more ways to access music in a variety of contexts and formats, a change that he had himself been in no small part responsible for, during his self-imposed exile. But that’s another story. Thomas is now back in Britain, with a wife and family who were mere twinkles in the Dolby eye at the time of “Urges”, and is hard at work in his own studio with many of his original collaborators. He’s back behind his synthesiser, and is playing live again, with a new album on the way. This return to his roots marks the end of a symbolic chapter of a remarkable music journey. What better time then, to sit back and listen as it unfolds before our ears, and for the first time in many years, our eyes – a living history of one of the great, but often unsung heroes of British (and American) music.

MICK HOUGHTON/BRASSNECK PUBLICITY
+44 020 7254 1112/Brassneckpr@aol.com

CD
1-Urges (3.41)
2-Leipzig (3.52)
3-Europa And The Pirate Twins (3.19)
4-Airwaves (3.45)
5-Radio Silence (3.50)
6-Windpower (3.53)
7-She Blinded Me With Science (3.40)
8-One Of Our Submarines Is Missing (5.12)
9-Hyperactive (4.12)
10-Dissidents (edit) (3.52)
11-I Scare Myself (edit) (4.59)
12-Fieldwork (London Mix) (4.04) with Ryuichi Sakamoto
13-May The Cube Be With You (3.50)
14-Airhead (3.43)
15-Hot Sauce (3.18)
16-My Brain Is Like A Sieve (3.58) (Bill Bottrell single remix)
17-Close But No Cigar (4.08)
18-Silk Pyjamas (3.04)
19-I Love You Goodbye (4.34)

DVD
1- Europa & the Pirate Twins
2-Airwaves
3-Radio Silence
4-Windpower (Live)
5-She Blinded Me With Science (3.43)
6-One of Our Submarines Is Missing (Live)
7-Hyperactive
8-Dissidents
9-I Scare Myself
10-Fieldwork (with Ryuichi Sakamoto) with Ryuichi Sakamoto
11-May The Cube Be With You
12-Airhead
13-Hot Sauce
14-Close But No Cigar
15-Silk Pyjamas
16-I Love You Goodbye
Bonus tracks
17-Hyperactive (12” version)
18-Fieldwork (12” version) with Ryuichi Sakamoto
19-Hot Sauce (saucy version)

Back in October, I posted some notes on a new song for a pedal steel guitarist in the US, Bruce Kaphan, that was about to play on a song of mine called 17 Hills. I mentioned to him that in addition to adding touches all through the song, he could take a crack at the solo section; but I warned him that I was trying to locate Mark Knopfler, who I thought would be perfect for a lead guitar part for that solo. Well, six months later my wish came true: I was invited to Mark’s studio in London where he took some time out of mixing his own album to play on my song.

I’ve been lucky to work with some of the world’s most iconic guitarists—including Jerry Garcia and Eddie Van Halen, two guys that were possibly past their sell-by date… but Mark’s playing is a gorgeous as ever, and he’s matured as a storyteller and songwriter, which made him the perfect choice for 17 Hills. He really grokked to the fact that his guitar helps propel my story. The song is nearly eight minutes long and has an epic, road movie type feel; it’s very dreamy at times, but his guitar brings it sharply into focus. I think very cinematically, and Mark’s entrance is like a jump-cut. One minute we’re in a wide shot of a car kicking up the dust on a distant desert road; suddenly we cut to a closeup of to the radio in the car’s dashboard.

British Grove studios ars a perfect blend of old and new. He has a couple of EMI desks with levers instead of faders; an ATC board beloved of guitarists (Steve Vai also has one, and swears by the mic preamps); a more modern Neve board, and of course a ton of Avalons, Fairchilds and LA1076s, all going to classic 1″ and 2″ analog machines or state of the art hard drive recorders, as the project requires. Presumably has has more guitars than God lurking behind closed doors, though only two or three emerged for our session, and the chosen one was a custom Don Grosch. Its tone was somewhere between a Strat and a Les Paul, though of course in Mark’s hands it could sound however he wanted. At one point while transitioning between sections I asked him if he’d changed his tone–no, of course not, it was all in the fingertips!

I was relieved that my song sounded pretty accurate on the big monitors, as it was the first set of tracks I’ve worked on in the Nutmeg and brought elsewhere. It was a pleasant, relaxed session. I always skirt the line between letting a musician like that just do his thing, versus giving too much direction and cramping his style. And I’m a keyboard player after all so I don’t really have the vocabulary to explain what I’m looking for. But our communication was good, and I think we got something great. Mark gave me upwards of 12 takes, and we did a fairly hasty comp while I was there, though such is my reluctance to let anything great slip away, I think I’ll give the rest of his takes a good going over tomorrow and make sure no sweetness slips through the cracks.

As there was no TED House Band this year, and many people told me they missed us, I decided to post a single MP3 of the pieces we played in 2008. Thanks to all who enjoyed it while it was posted!

Here’s the running order:

Mocha Swing (originally performed by Quadro Nuevo)
Tubas In The Moonlight (originally performed by The Bonzos)
Hello Cruel World (sung by Rachelle Garniez)
War Games (originally performed by Special AKA)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
I’ve See That Face Before (originally performed by Grace Jones)
Hell I’d Go (originally performed by Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks)
Pre-Post Apocalypse (sung by Rachelle Garniez and others)
The Canyons Of Your Mind (originally performed by The Bonzos)
La Bombe D’Amour (Cajun cover of Whole Lotta Love feat. Kaki King))
We’ll Meet again (feat. Vusi Mahlasela, Nellie MacKay)

TED House Band 2008 (L>R Mark Stewart, Rachelle Garniez, Rufus Capadocia, Thomas Dolby)

One of this year’s TED Prize winners is José Antonio Arbreu. What an astonishing story. In the seventies Arbreu, a symphonic musician, started a program in his native Venezuela to get empoverished kids off the streets and transform their lives through classical music. He called this program El Sistema. Thirty years later his youth orchestras are considered some of the finest in the world. And last night we found out why: When a satellite link took us to Caracas for Arbreu’s very poetic acceptance speech, we were treated to a live performance by an orchestra of world-class teenage musicians, conducted by his protegé Gustavo Dudamel, now famous as the music director of the LA Philharmonic.

To describe this orchestra as spirited is an understatement. They are magnificent. They play music the way the Brazillians play football: it’s like a lifeline to them. And, as Chris Anderson pointed out, for a country like Venezuela to have a world class orchestra is good incentive to learn how to do a world class orchestral TV production—the camerawork and editing were exemplary. It’s usually pretty hard to get a talking head to work over a satellite link, let alone a live orchestral performance. It was simply breathtaking, and everybody around me was in tears, myself included.

(Pic: Larry Johnson)