Long Beach
I’m in Long Beach, CA for meetings about next year’s TED Conference, which is moving to its new home here from Monterey next February. From my hotel window I can see the Queen Mary (memo to Steve Jobs: MacBook webcams don’t snap very good long distance shots!) Oh, and now I notice it’s reversed, isn’t it? Kathleen and I once stayed the night on board the QM, after playing a Lost Toy People gig at the Spruce Goose flying boat (its former domed hanger is pictured behind the QM). Tonight I’m going to meet up with my former video crew Johnny Dekam and Bree Edwards, just back after a year-long Dream Theater tour, and we’re going to sample the Observation Room bar on board the old steamer.
Behind that is the bay where I used to windsurf when I lived in LA. Given where I sail now on the North Sea it seems a bit cruddy that I used to sail here. But actually the water beyond the breakwater was relatively clean. I never caught anything, but I did once nearly hit a suitcase!
Tomorrow, I’m off to Toronto where there’s an event called NxNE going on, and they want me to do a days’ worth of interviews because The Sole Inhabitant is being released to retail in North America on Invisible Hands Music. I know it seems odd that this is coming out now when it’s been available on the Net for two years. But it was never in retail stores here, and now it seems a couple of chains want to pick it up, in a version called ‘Deluxe’—which means the CD and DVD are both in the same package.
Oh and more news: I recently agreed terms with EMI to re-release my first two albums! Looks like they will be in some sort of ‘enhanced’ format, possibly including alternative mixes and B-sides. This should happen early in 2009. But it’s not to take away from Job #1 which is my next album. I’m working away at that and have some nice new songs on the boil. It’ll get easier when I finish my lifeboat studio, which is going to be great but is coming along slowly—no big surprise for an old wooden boat.
Its great to hear from you Thomas, wherever in the world you are blogging from its always great to hear what you are up to and I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say how exciting it is to hear more mention of your ‘next album’.
I hope you have wonderful trip and that the weather along the shore of the North Sea doesn’t prevent its completetion in time for long summer evenings in that inspirational wheelhouse.
I came across this very intereting video of a sound installation by David Byrne that uses an old pump organ as a controller for one huge musical instrument; The Battery Maritime Building in New York: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1D30gS7Z8U
Cheers,
Andrew
Does this mean “Wreck of the Fairchild” on CD at last?
Be sure to tell Bree that Houston misses her.
Expanded releases of the first two albums sounds line exciting possibility. I’ve been wanting to hear the guitar version of Radio Silence again for years, but haven’t (re)bought a turn table just for that. And at this point, I can’t even remember how Wreck of the Fairchild goes.
Man, I Would love to be having drinks with you three….what a grand reunion.
That view looks very familiar. I think that I must have been through that building while in Long Beach for Anime Expo last year.
New releases and old remastered releases are all great news. Any word on the comprehensive music video DVD?
As I said out loud when I read this, “guitar version of ‘Radio Silence’, s’il vous plait.”
I miss Long Beach, I miss California, I’d love to be there where it’s warm as opposed to the Melbourne winter.
I saw ‘one’ of the Soul Inhabitant DVD/ CD in big chain music store for the first time last week.
Now with the imminent release of your ‘enhanced’ first two albums and ‘SI’ being released in the USA it looks like you are starting to catch the wave of momentum. So no need for distress flares just a steady hand on the lifeboat wheel should bring land on the horizon!
Hopefully the wider audience will eventually be looking eagerly for the new album.
“Looks like they will be in some sort of ‘enhanced’ format, possibly including alternative mixes and B-sides.”
Great news about both the enhanced re-release of GAOW and FE and the progress on new material! Sounds like 2009 will be a big year for you. If you could just set up a studio on the Queen Mary, you could have room service anytime the mood struck! Suppose that would provide too many distractions…
Beech
Enjoy your trip Thomas, looks like you have some nice weather there. Beacause it looks like its going to rain again here.
Good news on the EMI front then.
best
Lindon
Congratulations on the “new” release of Sole Inhabitant, and can’t wait to hear the “enhanced” material…as well as your truly new material. Very exciting!
Best,
Elliot
Wow!! Exciting news indeed…about the rereleases and the upcoming album!!
Best wishes for your travels, Thomas!
Monica
Sorry… that first smiley was supposed to be a
Dear Thomas,
As this seems to be the moment that rarities from the “Wireless” era will finally appear on CD, is it greedy for me to ask/beg/plead/demand(!) that the two original “Low Noise” recordings be included? The studio versions of “Jungle Line” & “Urban Tribal” are both excellent and would fit along so nicely with gems like Wreck of the Fairchild, Therapy/Growth and Radio Silence (guitar version).
With hope, respect, and gratitude,
–Jason
I know all too well the slowness of renovation projects. I’m still slogging through the sawdust here in my barbershop.
Last week I laid the laminate floor in the kitchen a hallway (so lonely, so very lonely).
Toronto you say? Damn! I should keep up on this blog more often.
Funny thing, I was in Long beach that same day!
(Of course, I live there, but who’s quibling)
Your picture is indeed reversed and in the distance you can see the cranes of the Hanjin terminal that was built on what used to be a Navy Base. For a couple of months, those cranes were the largest in the world.
Good to hear that your material is in demand. Most interested in the mention of new material. Stop by next time for a spot of tea, or, er a Marguerita or three…..
Greetings, some interesting developments, be sure to let us all know of the anticipated release dates and we can get our pre-orders placed! I spent an hour or so the other night watching some of your old videos and appearances on pop shows, that would be great material for the upcoming release.. HD versions – probably not an option… LOL. …and maybe.. just maybe.. .you could be the modern day Willie Wonka, with the release of your highly anticipated new album you could try offering the prize of a golden ticket to TED 2009.
Happy Blogging !
Great news! I’m looking forward to the ’09 re-releases and hoping for the U.S. album version of Radio Silence in the alternative mixes. For what it’s worth, there was an interview with Phil Taylor, the guy that runs David Gilmour’s “boat studio” (Astoria), in a Tape-Op article (No. 46 Mar/Apr 2005). The interview is all about getting the sound right in the studio space – might be worth a read if you can dig it up, but if nothing else you are in good company with the boat concept.
I can’t take any more teases about new tracks!
Argh!
Those US vinyl editions of Golden Age and Flat Earth sound fantastic, Any chance you can have Wally Traugott master the deluxe CDs?
Thomas, I’d be willing to wait a little longer for these deluxe editions if there’s any chance they’d let you include a surround mix of “The Flat Earth.” “TGAOW” would be interesting in surround sound, but “The Flat Earth” would really benefit from a surround sound mix.
J. D.
Grand stuff. I do hope the track sequencing of Wireless sticks to that of the original UK LP (until the new stuff, of course). I played that to death when it came out, and still find the CD jars when it doesn’t follow that order.
Thanks for sharing the exciting news about a potential new album and the re-release of your first two albums.
I know you’ve mentioned previously in your blog that you don’t care for surround mixes but I have to admit enjoying them when done properly as it allows me to better understand how the song is put together.
I would also be thrilled if any of your releases were to be made available in a “hi-res” lossless format; no matter SACD, DVD-A or DVD-V (a la Neil Young’s “because sound matters” releases). IMHO your music warrants the quality hi-res can lend to the recordings.
Ok – enough pie in the sky – no matter, I’m really looking forward to new and re-released TMDR material.
I just unearthed a cogent blog post on the various painful resequencings Wireless went through, and a suggested track list for any re-release, at Little Hits – http://www.littlehits.com/2006/12/thomas-dolby-wreck-of-fairchild.html
Here’s hoping that TMDR gets sign-off on the final product (and that he does rather better out of the royalties than he did the first time round. Regardless of the morality of filesharing, it really makes the gorge rise when the RIAA gets on its high horse that it’s ‘harming the artists’ – I don’t think that’s a moral argument, I think it’s professional jealousy.
Write me down as another one of your fans who would love you to get as close as possible to the Little Hits-suggested track listing, and who would also kill (a bit of his grocery money) to get the Low Noise single and other early material included as well (IIRC, “Samson and Delilah” got a studio recording and release, didn’t it?). If that makes it a double CD, great; More Classic Dolby.
As important as that is, this is also important as well: PLEASE do NOT let EMI master the re-releases in the currently “hip” Volume Wars style, in which music is compressed to bejesus and then cranked up to 11 to make the CD sound louder. They succeed…in making music sound like garbage crushed into breezeblocks. Wireless and TFE deserve better treatment than that. If they want to increase the volume, tell them that they can…but not to clip.
Thank you for your time, all the wonderful music throughout the years and the good news.