Here are the UK dates!
I’m about to board a Large Ocean Liner for a six day trip, so it’s time to publish info about the UK dates! Here’s the current state of affairs:
*edit* These dates are updated as of September 6, 2007
10/3 – ICA, LONDON
10/4 – CONCORDE, BRIGHTON
10/5 – ACADEMY, BRISTOL
10/6 – PICTUREDROME, HOLMFIRTH, YORKSHIRE
10/7 – ACADEMY, MANCHESTER
10/8 – ACADEMY, BIRMINGHAM
10/9 – BARFLY, CAMBRIDGE
10/10 – ACADEMY, ISLINGTON
10/11 – WHELAN’S, DUBLIN, IRELAND
At the ICA (as I blogged previously) I’ll be doing a special performance to mark the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. I have a special place in my heart for this event as Sputnik was so evocative to me as a kid. I’ve checked with some of my friends and contemporaries and we all share this feeling. So I will be inviting some of them to join me onstage, in the guise of The Radio Science Orchestra. This is the ensemble formed by Bruce Woolley, to whom I owe a great deal because he hired me to play keyboards in his first band The Camera Club in about 1978. He is now a very accomplished Theremin player, and has a motley assortment of oddball musicians who variously comprise RSO.
Another friend, David Hoffman, has produced a feature-length documentary about Sputnik, entitled The Fever of ’57. It debuted at the Seattle Film Festival a few weeks ago and got rave reviews. David collected rare footage of Sputnik as well as the reaction to its launch around the world. The film is fantastic and I hope it makes it into theatres this Autumn. To my delight, David offered me the footage to project as part of my stage show. This is too good to be true, so over the next couple of months Bruce and I are going to try and compile our own edit of the footage, and compose an original soundtrack that we will perform live at the ICA as the first part of the show, which I have entitled Sputnik And Beyond. The rest of the performance (and the rest of the UK tour) will be my own one-man show, drawing on The Sole Inhabitant material, plus a couple of brand new songs.
Well, know those “across the Pond” will be excited to see an official announcement of the dates.
Wish I could be there for one (or more!)
Love the graphic posted above of the “Thomas Dolby + The Radio Science Orchestra”, with the Soviet-inflected graphics & type.
And really like the promise of brand new songs. Can’t wait for them to be beamed in.
cheers!
Dr. W
.
Oh, Man! You’ve got me thinking about making the trip from Texas for the Sputnik show. It sounds simply fantastic… And playing again with some of your old gang? And sharing a stage with a Theremin?Wow, what a year for you…
Beech
Yo, Dolby!
Firstly, enjoy your cruise, buddy!
[Boy am I in a good mood.]
Secondly, how awesome of David Hoffman to loan you the
“Fever of ’57″ footage! You have totally awesome friends! But
you know that.
Thirdly, I was just over at CDBaby, listening to the samples of
the tracks on the “Live at SxSW” EP, and they all sound GREAT
to say the least! Absolutely delicious in places. Please don’t
anyone mention (curry)! Oh I just did. Drat.
Speaking of (curry), “YKHMD” is marvellous, absolutely
Hmm, maybe I should send the CDBaby link to my beloved ‘adopted’ sister,
note-perfect, especially the beginning, with that sitar-in-the-
distance atmosphere…and I’m saying that as a white woman
who grew up with Indian music, and I love it.
Param. She’s Punjabi, and I grew up listening to artists like
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan at her place. She speaks five languages,
and she’s the lady who inspired me to become vegetarian. She’s
always inspired me, period! She’s brown, I’m white–we’re like
two eggs.
Love that reggae/dance beat in “MTCBWY”–I half expected
Shabba Ranks to show up. “Shabba!”
*Gorgeous* saxophone in “MBILAS”. The whole song is nice
and melancholy, as it should be. Very evocative and wistful.
And ooooooooooh, that smooth horn-arrangement in “Hot Sauce”.
Man, *that* is something!!! The Jazz Mafia Horns, plus one
Thomas Dolby, RULE!!!
Peace and chai tea,
]
Kara [my 'sister' Param spells it 'Cara', which is fine by me.
p.s. my bagful of emoticons had a big hole in it, and they ended
Oh darn, there’s
up strewn all over the place! I’ll get the broom…
another one! Hee hee!
–Kooky Kara
50 yrs ago I was almost 5 yrs old & I remember being actually quite terrified by Sputinik and the science that had created it….
the adults were all talking about the fact that on this one particular night, this inhuman device, devised & sent into space by this EVIL EMPIRE known as “Commies” was going to be passing directly over our city & there was NOTHING anyone could do about it…
I feared the worst imaginable deathrays from the sky & complete destruction… I remember lying in bed looking out the window…waiting to die in a flash of heat… & hoping that it wouldn’t hurt too much & most of all that I wouldn’t be the sole survivor of my family… forced to fend for myself in a destroyed world…
the joy of waking up the next morning to find that I was not only still alive, but that “my wolrd” was all still intact was indescribable… it left me with the knowledge that “the unknown” is always much scarier than the known…
Good luck with the shows… would that I could be there for the Sputnik show… don’t think I’d be AS frightened, but those Theramins CAN sound very evil …
Love the promise of “new songs”… I can hardly wait…
Sj
Speaking of brand new songs, any word on when that CD of all new material will hit the streets? As I recall, it was mentioned that it’s release would occur “sometime in ’07″.
slyguy
Hi thomas,
we are still in confusion over the date for islington gig but hopefuly this will be sorted soon.
Enjoy your trip & we look forward to seeing you in october.
Thomas please make it to Dublin for a gig! I got to know your music through my brother’s vinyl “Golden age of wireless” and have been waiting and waiting to get the chance to see a gig! Any other TD fans in Ireland help me out here!
Tix for the Carling in Islington all bought and paid for. TMDR – prepare for another Scala-esque reception when you come back to London. See ya there. I echo Slyguys question – got at ETA for the new material? Heard the on-air NPR performance of YKHMD and by comparison the “Live at SxSW†mix is far superior vocally and has a lot more weight to it. Can’t wait to hear a properly mixed studio version. Throw us a bone regarding a date for the new stuff? Thanks.
Islington date is now sorted out…….
Bring on the curry & lager.
Thanks team dolby.
Awsome news about the possible Irish dates.
I enjoyed the Scala gig and the meet and greet, but to have the man himself in the new ‘peace time’ Belfast would be fantastic.
If your people want a place like ‘Scala’ in Belfast, let me know and I can make the arrangements.
Many thanks
Oh… a Belfast gig would be grand indeed. And I know friends who would be up for the night out. That said I’d travel to Dublin too, but Belfast doesn’t get enough good acts. It deserves more bands to come here on tour. I’m fed up with seeing uk tour date lists of artists I like that seem to be restricted mainly to England. What should be a good night out becomes an expensive travel nightmare needing days off work and prayers to deities re: Public Transport Reliability, not to mention the amount of times I’ve missed the end of a concert because I’ve had to leave early to catch a train, bus, plane etc.
If you play Belfast I can get a 20 minute taxi journey afterwards that will virtually take me into my bed afterwards.
Selfish plea, but you have to give me points for honesty.
“Come to Belfast. We won’t try and blow you up anymore. Honest.”
Hi, Thomas, just got my fix (the first in years!) from CDBaby, and while there, picked up another disk from my buddy penston. No, that’s not a typo, that’s how he spells his name. Contact me and I’ll tell you more about who he is. You may already know him from your past life.
ANYWAY, as a proud owner of ’40′, I was tres choked to learn you were just down the road in Whistler, and I MISSED IT!!!
If you are able, could you please find some time to either hit Whistler again (possibly during snowboarding season, before Olympicmania gets any worse) or Vancouver (my personal preference,) maybe at Richards on Richards (which some wags here call Dicks on Dicks because of…well, better left unsaid.) or the Commodore Ballroom. ‘Divine Comedy’ had a great set in Vancouver, and I know it was an incredibly long distance for Neil to travel. Toronto is one hell of a long way away for us left-coasties !
I hope the boat didn’t sink as you’ve been gone since the 16th for your 6 day cruise. Sort of reminds me of Gilligan’s Island.
Thomas,
I was born in 1957, and wrote a song about our generation. Of course, Sputnik has a place in the narrative. I recently turned 50, and posted on 1957 in my WordPress blog, theWheel.
Can I pass along a link? Here goes…
http://behindthisworld.com/theWheel/?p=106
Best regards,
theOwl
1957
I was born in 1957
I’ve been told I’m much too young
And I know I’m not the only child to wonder
Just when this long rehearsal will be done
So for all those born round ‘57
Or ‘64 or ‘53
If it’s true that yesterday was our rehearsal
Imagine what a show it’s gonna be
Sometimes I can see us youngsters
Born round ‘57
On a night train
And lots of us are sleeping
But some of us are staring straight ahead
And no one seems to know just where we’re going
And no one wants to be the first to speak
But every now and then I see the shadow of a stranger
Looking sideways with a question
Backwards to a promise
Forward to a future rushing dark along the tracks
Foolish in my silence
I roll on
Sputnik flew in 1957
Blazed a trail across the sky
And the mommas and the daddies told their babies
Someday if you want to you can fly
So we gazed into the future
Through a crystal ball of cathode painted daydreams
And the images in crystal
Promised lots of entertainment down the tracks
And maybe I’m the brother who’s been sleeping
But right now I’m aware and I’m awake
And surely we will fly the day we dare to break our silence
Lift our fellow travelers with a shout of recognition
For a magic generation
Soaring high above the tracks
I was born in 1957
I’ve been told I’m much too young
But if it’s true that yesterday was our rehearsal
I guess that means the show has just begun
>>
I hope the boat didn’t sink as you’ve been gone since the 16th for your 6 day cruise. Sort of reminds me of Gilligan’s Island.
Hey, theOwl, great lyrics! I appreciate your perspective. It seems
like ‘the space age’ held such promise, but just when is the
‘show’ gonna start? It’s all just smoke and mirrors. Yeah, yeah, go to the Moon “again”, ha ha. :p When too many of the Earth’s
inhabitants don’t have access to clean drinking water.
I guess humanity has always dreamed of space travel as an
‘escape hatch’, so that, once we’ve polluted Earth to the point
where she’s uninhabitable, we can all just *leave*. Or maybe only the people with enough money to afford passage on the ‘escape ships’ will leave. The rest of us would have to stay behind, which
is to say, *most* of us.
In terms of terraforming the new planet, maybe prison inmates
would be given a choice of remaining in prison, or being sent to
the new planet to terraform it, before the rich people went over.
And the rich people would eventually pollute the new planet to
death, too. So it would be just a string of dead planets left behind
by humanity, one after another after another. Some future. And
humanity has yet to find another planet capaple of supporting
human life, anyway.
So shoot me, I’m not a naive dreamer. I’m a realist. I cannot
live in denial. Reality is very stark. I don’t mean to depress
anyone, but I have this head-splittingly wide overview of just
what’s wrong with the human race. In short, most people don’t
bother trying to fix something, they just ‘throw it away’. “Away”,
where it’s out of sight, and out of mind. And probably leaching
toxic chemicals into the groundwater….
Will this show be filmed for DVD?
A haiku for the absent blogger:
Well, Mr. Dolby
We will see you in a month
Is there new music?
Wonder what entree the Rams Head will name for you this time…
Good grief man, how can you investigate the possibility of Scottish and Irish dates but no Welsh dates?
Come on, get it sorted! We’ve got some nice intimate little venues in Cardiff, and we’d make you very welcome.
I was one of those at the Scala gig – a great night. I thought “One of our Submarines” was cracking, even though you managed to switch off all your gear in the middle of it.
Many moons ago I managed to catch your Astronauts & Heretics tour at the Mean Fiddler in Harlseden. It was so packed, I had to go upstairs, stand on a table, with one hand on the ceiling leaning over the balcony to see you. I got a great view but I’ve had a problem with heights ever since…..! Another great gig though.
Earth to Dolby…
A 6 day cruise started 8 weeks ago. Where are you man?
One can only hope that you are holed-up in a studio somewhere!
Anticipation! That’s the word!
Cheers,
Jon
I had the song stuck in my head yesterday, but, of course I didnt know then all the facts about Caroline 452. In any case thought i’d share it. Thomas when are you gonna come to San Francisco !
ok sorry it didnt work… heres the link
http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a95/konsyjes/?action=view¤t=O_CarolineS.jpg
Please please please come and play in Ireland. If you do decide to play in Dublin and Belfast, I will travel to both concerts. This is probably the only time that I will be able to go to your concerts. Oh erm try not come on 6th October, I have a Police concert booked ; )
Saw you at the CA London last night. The 1st time I saw you in concert was in Hammersmith on the Flat Earth Tour 1984 – 23 years! It’s been a long time! I still have the BBC recording of this concert and it sounds just a fresh now as then.
Loved the show and the set, especially the Hot Souce Horns and Lena Lovich! But why nothing from A & H? – I Love You Goodbye and The Beauty Of A Dream are just so good!
Looking forward to the new material.