Howard Jones dream
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.
But was there fruit juice everywhere?
Hilarious!! Did you look the same as you did in ’83, too? Were you in your Grammy wig?
This makes it official…Thomas Dolby is no longer the distant and inscrutable artiste I worshipped as a high-schooler.
Dammit! Merujo beat me to the fruit punch.
That is hilarious. I hope you didn’t wake up with your undies around your ankles again!
So why did the “juicers” have to arrive before Howard? Did he require prior juicing setup?
I went to see Howard Jones in around 1984 in London during a pretty major terrorist campaign and he came bounding on stage saying “Thanks for braving the bombs guys”.
It was then it sank in properly that I had really had sadly risked my life to see him and that little guy in chains that did the mime dancing.
Just think, if it had been Keith Richards, the first guys to show up would be the paramedics. “Excuse, me, Thomas, Keith’s medics are here, where should they put the life support systems…”
When was the last time you fired up the Fairlight? Does it still work?
Afternoon. Popbitch has just run a little story about your Howard Jones dream, and linked to this entry of your blog (which may be because I sent them the link a couple of days ago, as it seemed so perfect for them:), so it’ll be interesting to see if your hit rate goes up a bit today…
Hey it worked for me!
[...] we’re in the realm of revealing dreams I had a dream the other night in which someone referred to the P.S.N.I. as being the R.U.Kea. Which [...]
Interesting. I had a dream too, where TMDR was supposed to appear but never showed up because his synth *accidentally* fell down an elevator shaft. Looking forward to the new record!
Perhaps the ‘moral’ is that the more things change, the more things stay the same? I wish I had people to make me fruit juice
Hi. What a lovely post. I haven’t checked in for a while — perhaps tapering off since The Great Dolby Return of ’06 (needed to do some work) — but it’s truly great to see the recent posts! Including this one! In the day, I had always favoured Dolby to Jones — not disliking the latter, but HoJo was so radio-ubiquitous that somehow (amongst plenty of other reasons) Dolby held more appeal for me. (Remember those EMI Thomas Dolby cassettes with the little ‘XDR’ sting fore and aft? Yes, right here on the corner of my desk, like lucky talismans from a bygone age!) But this year something interesting happened: I attended a reunion screening, with live commentary from director and actors, of Better Off Dead — one of my all-time-fave ’80s movies. And that fantasy of the French girl who shows up and makes you feel like a million bucks (and rebuilds your car) — well, it’s always been set to HoJo’s “Like to Get to Know You Well” — so I finally relented/succumbed, and bought the HoJo disc, and did all that digital-transfer stuff the kids are into these days — and walked around through the late winter and early spring, with my eensy mp3 player, bopping to HoJo. No love lost for Dolby, mind, but it was satisfying to appreciate, at long last, “that other British synth guy whose songs are easier to understand and stuff.” And here you both are, united in the Beauty of a Dream. Nice. Merci.
Wow, I am amazed, I would have expected a fight to the death between you two…or at least a good arm-wrestle, perhaps a “dueling pianos” type showdown! I also agree with the above, TD was more “Intellectual” whereas HJ was more “Pop”. Now if Ryuichi Sakamoto had burst in fighting and TD had his “Field Work” combat gear on…..