Speaker 1: Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
Speaker 1: My name's Jordan Runtug. Thanks so much for listening. The
Speaker 1: climax of our last chapter is David Bowie said it
Speaker 1: live Aid in the summer of one of the most
Speaker 1: iconic performances he ever gave. My guest today was alongside
Speaker 1: him on the Live Aid stage and in the helicopter
Speaker 1: on the nerve racking ride out to Wembley Stadium. His
Speaker 1: name is Thomas Dolby and his time with Bowie is
Speaker 1: just one entry on his extremely lengthy resume. On his
Speaker 1: Twitter bio, he describes himself as a recovering synth enthusiast,
Speaker 1: but even that barely scratches the surface. He's best known
Speaker 1: as a technopop pioneer who helped defind the sound of
Speaker 1: new wave with albums like The Golden Age of Wireless
Speaker 1: and The Flat Earth the Ladder, which contains my favorite
Speaker 1: song of his screen kiss. His immortal smash he Blinded
Speaker 1: Me with Science, seemed to predict his move into the
Speaker 1: burgeoning Silicon Valley text fere of the early nineties. His
Speaker 1: company beat Nick developed innovative audio software for websites and
Speaker 1: cell phone ring tones. In fact, at one point, beat
Speaker 1: Nick technology was used in two thirds of the world's
Speaker 1: cell phones. Between two thousand two and two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: he served as the musical director for TED conferences, and
Speaker 1: since then he's moved into teaching. Coming from a line
Speaker 1: of Oxbridge professors, he considers this the family business. He's
Speaker 1: presently on faculty at Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute, where he
Speaker 1: heads up the Music for New Media program. Thomas or
Speaker 1: Professor Dolby, I should say, was kind enough to share
Speaker 1: his vast musical insights about David Bowie's work, and also
Speaker 1: is truly mind blowing memories performing with Bowie at this
Speaker 1: historic concert before nearly a billion people and they barely
Speaker 1: even rehearsed. Well, I guess just to start as a
Speaker 1: music fan growing up, especially one interested in sort of
Speaker 1: technologically innovative sounds, what kind of impact did Bowie have
Speaker 1: on you, even back starting with something like space artity
Speaker 1: when he had the style phone. What were your first
Speaker 1: musical impressions of him? I think probably you know the
Speaker 1: age that I was. We were aware of glitter rock
Speaker 1: before we really understood you know how how Bowie related
Speaker 1: to it. Um. I mean, in fact, I think that
Speaker 1: probably All the Young Dudes was the first Bowie song
Speaker 1: that I heard, and What the Hoople was sort of
Speaker 1: just another glitter rock band, you know at the time. Um,
Speaker 1: but glitter was sort of was quite controversial. You know.
Speaker 1: I would have been, you know, thirteen, fourteen fifteen at
Speaker 1: the time, and it was quite controversial because some of
Speaker 1: my crowd sort of thought we took music more seriously
Speaker 1: than that, you know. I mean there was also progressive
Speaker 1: rock back then, you know, and we were a bit
Speaker 1: dubious that somebody that will make up and had sort
Speaker 1: of glittery clothes and high heels and stuff could make
Speaker 1: serious music as well. So it was, you know, it
Speaker 1: was more that the first impression was more the visual one,
Speaker 1: the outrage, etcetera. And I think from there, I think
Speaker 1: Space Oddity might have been the next thing that I
Speaker 1: got into. But I only really, I think probably when
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardus first came out and his popular popularity suddenly skyrocketed.
Speaker 1: It's only then that I went back and got into
Speaker 1: Manage Sold the World and Hunky Dorry, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not quite sure of the Steepers. I
Speaker 1: might have been aware of of, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the you know more the hit songs of Hunky Dorry
Speaker 1: like changes in life on Mars and things. I might
Speaker 1: have been aware of them before Ziggy came out. But
Speaker 1: you know, at that point it was it wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't a genre to me. You know, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: lumped him in with you know, Mark Boland and Sweet
Speaker 1: Wizards and of those people. You know, I realized that
Speaker 1: that he was somebody very special. And you know, the
Speaker 1: first concerts that I saw of his were round about
Speaker 1: that time, and I was in a crowd. You know,
Speaker 1: I went to quite high end English schools and there
Speaker 1: was a real music intelligentsia who would sit around in
Speaker 1: coffee bars, smoking cigarettes and talking about music, you know,
Speaker 1: for hours. And in those days, you would every time
Speaker 1: a new album came out, you didn't know about it
Speaker 1: a couple of months in advance, and you read interviews,
Speaker 1: and the day it came out, you'd run out and
Speaker 1: spend all your pocket money on it, and you listen
Speaker 1: to it back to back, you know, several times while
Speaker 1: pouring over the lyrics and the credits and the album
Speaker 1: cover and music was such a rare five thing in
Speaker 1: those days compared to the way it is now that
Speaker 1: it was really very special. When you know an artist
Speaker 1: that you that you followed put out a new record,
Speaker 1: it was a whole event. It's funny. My friends and
Speaker 1: I were just talking about this why I'm thirty three,
Speaker 1: and we were saying, we're probably the last age group
Speaker 1: that remembers. And I grew up in a small town
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts where there was one record store and not
Speaker 1: a great selection, and it was it was so you
Speaker 1: would just would kind of desperate for for anything. If
Speaker 1: you couldn't find the record you wanted, you know, you
Speaker 1: would get sort of the adjacent sound just because it was.
Speaker 1: It was sort of all there was. And it's and
Speaker 1: I as much as I envy um people who are
Speaker 1: a little younger that kind of have access to a
Speaker 1: whole recorded history out there at their fingertips, I you know,
Speaker 1: I sort of I'm sad that they don't get to
Speaker 1: feel that sense of the excitement, the building up, the
Speaker 1: saving your money, you're going out there and you're bringing
Speaker 1: it home, having a physical thing to hold and having
Speaker 1: it be kind a funny way a full body experienced. Sure, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the other thing. So I went
Speaker 1: to school in London and the other big deal for
Speaker 1: us was that Virgin Records on Oxford Street was the first.
Speaker 1: So so before there, I remember record stores where there
Speaker 1: were little booths that you could go into. So you
Speaker 1: request a certain record and they say Booth four and
Speaker 1: you go in there and it's like a little booth
Speaker 1: the size of a phone box, you know, surrounded by
Speaker 1: sort of egg boxes and it would pipe it in
Speaker 1: in the speakers and I remember that growing up. But
Speaker 1: Virgin Records came out with so they were initially a
Speaker 1: cut price mail order record store. Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: you'd see a listing in the back of the magazine
Speaker 1: you'd ordered something mail order from them, cut price. But
Speaker 1: they opened their first door on Oxford Street in London,
Speaker 1: and what was special about it was that they had
Speaker 1: a row of aircraft seats, ironically considering where they a
Speaker 1: row of aircraft seats and headphones and there they'd say,
Speaker 1: you know, go to number four and you put on
Speaker 1: headphones and listen and the you know, the I do
Speaker 1: I remember spending a pound and a half on an album.
Speaker 1: I think probably by the time, you know, by the
Speaker 1: time we got to Zegn Stardust, it would have been
Speaker 1: seven or eight pounds or something like that was the
Speaker 1: price of an album. But that was a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot of money. And you know, you've listened to
Speaker 1: two or three albums, decide which one of them to
Speaker 1: buy based on those listenings, and and you would you
Speaker 1: would have the record sleeve in your lap while you're
Speaker 1: listening to it, you know, and then you go home
Speaker 1: with it in a plastic bag and you couldn't wait
Speaker 1: to get it home and put it on your own
Speaker 1: record player and then usually listen to side one, side two,
Speaker 1: so one, you know, etcetera. And yeah, I mean a
Speaker 1: group group of friends of mine, and you know, we
Speaker 1: we would really study Bowie and each new phase that
Speaker 1: he went through, and we would religiously read articles about
Speaker 1: him and stuff, and you know, I mean he to
Speaker 1: be a follower of Bowie back then was it was
Speaker 1: a very stimulating but also a challenge thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, he went through some phases that he didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily agree with, you know, like when he came came
Speaker 1: back from Berlin and he was like one of the
Speaker 1: blood and stations in an open top car giving what
Speaker 1: looked like a Nazi salute, and you know, there are
Speaker 1: moments like that that were slightly sort of toe curling moments.
Speaker 1: And then again, you know when when there was a
Speaker 1: BBC documentary called Cracked Actor I don't know if he
Speaker 1: came across that, and it was about the Thin White
Speaker 1: Duke Tour, and he was such I mean, he was
Speaker 1: a skeleton, you know at that point, and it was
Speaker 1: very clear that there was sort of psychotic behavior going on,
Speaker 1: which we thought was wonderful, of course, but you know
Speaker 1: that there's this this one iconic shop where he's in
Speaker 1: the back of a limo and he's got a carton
Speaker 1: if I can't know if it's milk or orange juice,
Speaker 1: and they said it, how does it feel to be
Speaker 1: so successful in America? And he said, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a fly in this carton of milk, and unlike that fly.
Speaker 1: I mean, it must have been difficult to me. Again,
Speaker 1: even just you mentioned earlier about how initially he wasn't
Speaker 1: somebody that you viewed as making, you know, in inverted
Speaker 1: karmas serious music. Was there a moment when that shift occurred,
Speaker 1: Like what did something like low do for you? Was
Speaker 1: it was it powerful to see someone of his notoriety
Speaker 1: using you know, electronic instruments in a in a meaningful
Speaker 1: way in in part music. But I'd already made the shift,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, thinking back before that, I remember
Speaker 1: seeing Starman on Top of the Pops um which am
Speaker 1: I right in thinking that was the first single off
Speaker 1: of Z Stardusta. I mean you could, you could look
Speaker 1: it up. I mean that, I think that was probably
Speaker 1: the first single. And so he was in full glitter gear,
Speaker 1: you know, with his his his glitter suit undone to
Speaker 1: his navel and he sort of draped himself around Mick
Speaker 1: Ronson in a rather homo erotic way. And in those days,
Speaker 1: you know Top of the Pops the whole country watched it,
Speaker 1: and something like three quarters of the adult population of
Speaker 1: the UK watch Top of the Pops every Thursday night.
Speaker 1: So if something dramatic happens, if there was a moment
Speaker 1: on Top of the Pops, you knew that the whole
Speaker 1: country was experiencing it almost simultaneously. And that was one
Speaker 1: such moment. I mean, there'd never been anything as avert
Speaker 1: as that, and it was just deeply shocking really, but
Speaker 1: I think there were there were you know, there are
Speaker 1: certain among the younger generations who were just you know,
Speaker 1: whatever their own inclination was, they knew this was incredibly
Speaker 1: rebellious and outrageous for men to be behaving like this.
Speaker 1: And if you were a follower, if you're a disciple,
Speaker 1: you felt like this was your people, you know, making
Speaker 1: a stand. So to get from that to listening to
Speaker 1: a musical artist from more of a sort of musicological standpoint,
Speaker 1: you know. So so I went from that to listening
Speaker 1: to listen to his records and you know, Vision records
Speaker 1: in Oxford Street and pouring over the lyrics and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, I went from being a
Speaker 1: sort of shops individual to being a student and disciple
Speaker 1: really relatively quickly and through you know. So Ziggy was
Speaker 1: really a watershed Aladdinsane was kind of Ziggy Part two,
Speaker 1: but with a bit of a psychotic twist to it,
Speaker 1: and had some amazing sort of dystopian futuristic bent to it,
Speaker 1: as did Diamond Dogs, you know, songs like Sweet Thing
Speaker 1: was just seemed to be a whole like sci fi
Speaker 1: movie sort of set in some dark, distant future. And
Speaker 1: then I guess Young Americans was a bit of was
Speaker 1: a bit puzzling because it was very clean cut by comparison,
Speaker 1: and seemed to merge British pop. You know that all
Speaker 1: has been a strong sort of soul flavor to British pop,
Speaker 1: especially from the north, northern souls we would call it um.
Speaker 1: But the idea of an artist sort of crossing over
Speaker 1: color barriers like that and yet being clearly accepted and respected,
Speaker 1: you know, by by the by American black musicians, M
Speaker 1: was pretty mind blowing again, and I think for my
Speaker 1: generation sort of opened up for us an interest in
Speaker 1: in soul music, in in early funk and so on,
Speaker 1: and then in Rapids. I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the distance was between these albums, but less than a year,
Speaker 1: I would imagine. And suddenly now we hear that he's
Speaker 1: gone to Berlin with Brian Eno and he's championing craft
Speaker 1: Work and Kurt Vile, and it just you know that
Speaker 1: the rate of x fluration and adventure, you know that
Speaker 1: that he was going through personally as an artist at
Speaker 1: that point, while being under intense pressure as a focus
Speaker 1: of attention, you know, as a celebrity, was was just extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I can't really think of another example of an artist
Speaker 1: who was so much in the limelight, so much in
Speaker 1: the thick of the celebrity thing, who still managed to
Speaker 1: go on such a sort of artistic voyage with you know,
Speaker 1: with his output and the way he was studying and
Speaker 1: absorbing and sponging up these multicultural influences. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: easier to do nowadays that you fly anywhere in the
Speaker 1: world just by clicking a few buttons. But back in
Speaker 1: those days, and he didn't even fly, right, he had
Speaker 1: to get in the ship to go do this stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, you've had the supremely rare and special
Speaker 1: experience of being someone who who was was a fan
Speaker 1: and did follow him so closely to actually you know,
Speaker 1: working with him and performing with him. How did meeting
Speaker 1: him in the flesh meet with your expectations? They always say,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't you don't meet your heroes. Was
Speaker 1: that was that true in your kids? Um? Not? Actually
Speaker 1: the contrary, I was. There was a side of me
Speaker 1: that was slightly dreading it for that very reason, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, he'd been so important to me, and I
Speaker 1: was slightly worried that the you know, it would burst
Speaker 1: my bubble to actually meet him. But he says supremely rare.
Speaker 1: I would think that most of the people you would
Speaker 1: talk to that played with him or whatever had been fans.
Speaker 1: You know, you might find something. You might talk to
Speaker 1: Gail and she'd say, I've never heard of the guy,
Speaker 1: but you know, but for the most part, you know,
Speaker 1: we would have been fans. And so meeting somebody sort
Speaker 1: of larger than life like that, it is a big
Speaker 1: step in your in your personal voyage, and people respond
Speaker 1: to it in different ways. But the surprising thing to
Speaker 1: me was that, you know, I was expecting the cracked actor,
Speaker 1: you the guy in the back of the limo, but
Speaker 1: the carton of milk, Yeah, in the carton of milk.
Speaker 1: And in fact, he was a total gentleman. You know,
Speaker 1: he's very sort of generous, effervescent, warmhearted, made you feel
Speaker 1: like you were special, you know, that that you were
Speaker 1: sort of you know, without making you feel like you
Speaker 1: were being scrutinized or under a microscope. He just seemed
Speaker 1: like somebody that appreciated talent, was interested in people. Um
Speaker 1: you know, he was a seducer and he seduced me
Speaker 1: along along with with countless others. Um. But I do remember,
Speaker 1: I mean, I had really very few interactions with him,
Speaker 1: to the extent that I could probably list them, you know,
Speaker 1: if push Camebishops, like a couple of dozen interactions basically
Speaker 1: would start to finish. And so I do remember them
Speaker 1: very clearly individually, and I was amazed at the beginning,
Speaker 1: how you know. The first conversation I ever had with
Speaker 1: him was along these lines. It was, look, you know, Tom,
Speaker 1: if I may call you Tom, I've been asked to
Speaker 1: do this gig. It's in a couple of weeks. It's
Speaker 1: a charity thing. It's it's going to be a big one.
Speaker 1: It's that Wembley Bob Geldof's organizing it. My band, my
Speaker 1: regular touring bands are off doing other things in the States,
Speaker 1: people like else Click and so on. I haven't got them,
Speaker 1: and I haven't got much time either, because I'm shooting
Speaker 1: this movie with George Lucas called Labyrinth, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if you could help me put a band together out
Speaker 1: of people that you know. So here Bowie had worked
Speaker 1: with Kevin Armstrong and Matthew Seligman, who were sort of
Speaker 1: two musicians that I worked with a lot, and I've
Speaker 1: been friends with the years on Dancing in the Street
Speaker 1: and absolute beginners. And it was then that it recommended
Speaker 1: to Bowie, why don't you talk to Thomas because he's
Speaker 1: a producer and he's got nose a lot of musicians
Speaker 1: and he'd be a good person to to help pull
Speaker 1: this together. So it's a boat. Had called them on
Speaker 1: my recommendation. He was he was aware of my music
Speaker 1: and seemed to like it, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: we haven't got very much time. I'd like Matthew and
Speaker 1: Kevin to be involved, but can you help me, you know,
Speaker 1: put together the rest of the musicians and if you
Speaker 1: could sort of be, you know, in charge of rehearsing
Speaker 1: them for me, because I'm only going to have a
Speaker 1: few hours, you know, to rehearse with you. So I
Speaker 1: sort of along those lines and I said, well, that's
Speaker 1: an absolute dream. I'd love to do that, so would you. Oh,
Speaker 1: that would be just wonderful, would be just great. And
Speaker 1: of course that there's no money or anything. It's a
Speaker 1: charity thing. But he seemed to be genuinely bowled over
Speaker 1: that a young generation of musicians would be willing to
Speaker 1: drop whatever they're doing to play with him, put the
Speaker 1: work in, do this charity gig for a good cause.
Speaker 1: And and so on. You know, he see he seems
Speaker 1: to be genuinely delighted with that. And I remember hanging
Speaker 1: up the phone and thinking, you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: I just talked to John Gielgood or some sort of
Speaker 1: classic you know, some classic English actor, not not the
Speaker 1: cracked actor. At it sounds like David gave you an
Speaker 1: awful lot of trust and freedom just in letting you
Speaker 1: be the band leader. What was he like when you
Speaker 1: were actually in the room and performing altogether? It sounds
Speaker 1: like he was really generous and letting everyone be themselves
Speaker 1: and not micromanaging everyone. Yeah, I mean that was very interesting.
Speaker 1: And his his musicianship was very interesting because he always
Speaker 1: played it down, you know, you would he wasn't a
Speaker 1: muso in terms of talking about why he played a
Speaker 1: Martin versus Gibson, and why he liked this tuning on
Speaker 1: his strings and you know how he was influenced by
Speaker 1: you know, he totally played that down, both his guitar
Speaker 1: playing playing and slats playing as well. And he was
Speaker 1: a capable musician, but he seemed to feel that it
Speaker 1: would diminish his stature as a front man if if
Speaker 1: he was viewed as as a sort of multi instrumentalist
Speaker 1: or somebody that cared a lot about the music. You know,
Speaker 1: he I think wanted to give the impression the music
Speaker 1: just flowed out of him. It was just an intuitive thing,
Speaker 1: not something he ever studied. And I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: very much he ever practice scales, you know, but I
Speaker 1: mean he was he as capable musician, and certainly you know,
Speaker 1: he could arrange for any instrument. But I think his
Speaker 1: his gift really when working with a band was that
Speaker 1: he would stand in the middle of the room and
Speaker 1: just sort of exude, you know, sunshine and wonderfulness, and
Speaker 1: he would you'd look at him and you'd want to
Speaker 1: please him. You know, you'd want to play a part
Speaker 1: that he would like that he would enjoy um. And
Speaker 1: you know, he never got behind the keyboard with me
Speaker 1: and showed me something that he was hearing. He would all,
Speaker 1: you know, he would give you little hints and push
Speaker 1: just prod you in a certain direction. But then there
Speaker 1: was it would be my idea that came out and
Speaker 1: he goes yes, you know, and then he would just
Speaker 1: he sort of moved the band forward like that, and
Speaker 1: he would occasionally say I'm not sure about that intro
Speaker 1: and he'd leave it at that, and then you know,
Speaker 1: the drummer would say, well what if I just started
Speaker 1: with this film? All the guitarists would say, okay, I could,
Speaker 1: I could play this chord to bring it in, and
Speaker 1: the go yeah, that's much better. Um. So he was
Speaker 1: the opposite of micromanager. Really. He was somebody that just
Speaker 1: inspired you to be at your best. And you mentioned
Speaker 1: he was only available to practice a handful of times.
Speaker 1: Was that a concern at all for him? Was there
Speaker 1: a sense of nervousness leading up to this? At what
Speaker 1: point did it become a parent that this wasn't just
Speaker 1: a charity show, This was something that was, you know,
Speaker 1: a very much bigger deal than that. Yeah. It was
Speaker 1: actually three afternoons on consecutive weekdays for about three hours
Speaker 1: each in a in a rehearsal room in West London.
Speaker 1: Plus we we hadn't really had. That was those the
Speaker 1: band rehearsals, and then he wanted to do some vocal rehearsals,
Speaker 1: so we went to where he was shooting Labyrinth and
Speaker 1: he had a trailer and that the people that were
Speaker 1: going to be singing in the live thing. We just
Speaker 1: sort of routine some backing vocals in his trailer and
Speaker 1: that was it. And yes, it was a concern because
Speaker 1: he kept changing his mind about what songs he wants
Speaker 1: to do. In fact, at the beginning, when when we
Speaker 1: first set up, he said, well, I I need to
Speaker 1: promote my current single, which was Loving the Alien, and
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's not a terrible song, but
Speaker 1: it's not you know, wouldn't make his top twenty list
Speaker 1: of all time classics. As we got closer to live aid,
Speaker 1: I think he realized the magnitude of the show that
Speaker 1: it wasn't just you know, some charity festival thing. It
Speaker 1: was going to be a global event and it would
Speaker 1: be sort of you know, I'm not sure if he
Speaker 1: knew then that it would be sort of immortalized, you know,
Speaker 1: that it would take on this sort of iconic status
Speaker 1: like a woodstock or something like that. But I think
Speaker 1: he realized after a while that it wasn't about promoting
Speaker 1: your current single. It was it was about just pure
Speaker 1: pleasure for the audience, both the live audience and the
Speaker 1: TV audience. And he was back to seduce. He was
Speaker 1: back in seduction mode again, you know, and he realized
Speaker 1: that he had to pull out some sing along feel
Speaker 1: good classics from sort of you know, from different eras,
Speaker 1: and we had to knock him dead. You know, we
Speaker 1: were playing after Queen, who are a great live band,
Speaker 1: and he, like you said, he was putting a lot
Speaker 1: of trust in us because we were you know, we've
Speaker 1: probably had an average age of about twenty four and
Speaker 1: we could easily have been overwhelmed by the moment. Now.
Speaker 1: He never asked any of us if we'd ever played
Speaker 1: a stadium before. The answer was no. I think any
Speaker 1: of us have ever played bigger than about two thousand seater.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I'd ever done an open air
Speaker 1: gig at that point. And you know, he sort of
Speaker 1: he sort of didn't need to. I think he just
Speaker 1: sort of felt it. And I think probably if he'd
Speaker 1: walked in the rehearsal room and we'd suck, he would
Speaker 1: have thought of a plan be get get Earl and
Speaker 1: you carlost On on a plane pronto. Yeah, but no,
Speaker 1: I think I think he was feeling it, and I
Speaker 1: think he felt that it was appropriate that it being
Speaker 1: a UK show, he didn't show up with his professional
Speaker 1: American touring band. He had a bunch of local kids.
Speaker 1: I think I've read that you share a helicopter ride
Speaker 1: with him over to to the Wembley site. What was
Speaker 1: that ride like? What was he was? He? Was he nervous?
Speaker 1: Was he chatty? What was? What was that? So Live
Speaker 1: Aid was was a huge deal in London that day,
Speaker 1: to the extent that police were diverting traffic. And you
Speaker 1: know that the remember that morning is very very nice day,
Speaker 1: and we're going for a walk that morning, and every
Speaker 1: upstairs window that was open, you'd hear the radio going
Speaker 1: with the preamble to Live Aid. And you know, if
Speaker 1: you if you crossed the street the car stopped to
Speaker 1: the traffic light, you'd hear that. You'd hear it coming
Speaker 1: out of the car. And I was instructed that I
Speaker 1: had to fly in the helicopter from central London to
Speaker 1: Wembley Stadium, which is about you to drive would be
Speaker 1: maybe an hour, but was twelve minutes in the helicopter.
Speaker 1: And so we went from Battersea Heliport, which is just
Speaker 1: as helicopter pad by the River Thames. And I went
Speaker 1: down there at the appointed time, which I think would
Speaker 1: have been sort of noon or something like that. And
Speaker 1: the word had leaked out that some of the Live aids.
Speaker 1: The labs were leaving from there. So there's a gaggle
Speaker 1: of autograph hunters at the heliport and there wasn't really security,
Speaker 1: so they were just sort of wandering around, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to get autographs and things. And we met in
Speaker 1: the lounge and he was already dressed for the gig,
Speaker 1: as was I, and he was very nervous because he
Speaker 1: still wasn't flying at that point, and he'd never been
Speaker 1: in a helicopter no, and so he was rather nervous
Speaker 1: in the lounge. And we went outside onto the pad
Speaker 1: and he had to sign some more scrafts and a
Speaker 1: handful of fans were sort of following him with a camera.
Speaker 1: I gotta snap myself and I had a little brownie
Speaker 1: camera myself. And he was looking nervously at this helicopter
Speaker 1: and as soon as we got in, he turned into
Speaker 1: the thin white to you know, he had a he
Speaker 1: had a Homburg hat and he plumped it on his
Speaker 1: head and pulled it down and started chain smoking, and
Speaker 1: the pilot was going could he extinguished? Ceare actually saying that,
Speaker 1: he went, suck you. And we sort of took off
Speaker 1: and he was like basically had his face pressed to
Speaker 1: the window, and he kept saying to the pilot, how
Speaker 1: long is this flight? And he said about twelve minutes?
Speaker 1: Are there any skyscrapers or pilot, what do you do
Speaker 1: about pylons and electrical lines and things like that. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, he was an absolute diva for for twelve minutes.
Speaker 1: And you know, I remember, I've been the how he
Speaker 1: got to before. But I remember banking over Wembley Stadium,
Speaker 1: which had those sort of two gold towers, so it's
Speaker 1: very recognizable from the air, little wisps of cloud, and
Speaker 1: we banked over the stadium and I could see the
Speaker 1: crowd and the stage. The crowd were all out of
Speaker 1: the field, and I could see on the screens at
Speaker 1: the side, like a close up of Freddie Mercury sort
Speaker 1: of crooning to the heavens in the middle of we
Speaker 1: are the Champions or something like that. And and I mean,
Speaker 1: and they in the years later when I saw Bohemian Rhapsody,
Speaker 1: if you remember that movie, they recreated my bird's eye
Speaker 1: view of Wembley Stadium, you know, with a with a
Speaker 1: sort of like a drone shot which they created in
Speaker 1: c G I with this sort of drone shot into
Speaker 1: the stadium and up to the stage with Queen on stage.
Speaker 1: So Sobo was a complete bitch for twelve minutes. But
Speaker 1: the moment we touched down in like a parking lot
Speaker 1: behind Wembley, his face brightened up and he turned into
Speaker 1: he turned back into John Gielgud and out on the
Speaker 1: tarmac there are about a hundred photographers and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: I like this bit, Tom, and he pushed open the
Speaker 1: door and he went outside and immediately started posing for
Speaker 1: the photographers. And there were some police sort of led
Speaker 1: us through the crowd of paparazzi. I was bringing up
Speaker 1: the rear and we're taken straight to a green room
Speaker 1: at the side of the stage and cool just finishing
Speaker 1: up the set, and they said, you'll be on in
Speaker 1: about five minutes. No time to get your bearings. You're
Speaker 1: just there and you're on. Yeah, just there and on.
Speaker 1: And he'd only decided, like the night before, which four
Speaker 1: songs he wanted us to do, and we played we
Speaker 1: practiced them, but we've never played them back to back,
Speaker 1: you know. And when you're rehearsing as a band, you
Speaker 1: go through these phases, and one is that you can
Speaker 1: you can make a sum sound decent about the third
Speaker 1: or fourth time you player, and then eventually you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you can play the sums in
Speaker 1: any order and they always sound good, you know, but
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's after weeks of rehearsal and a
Speaker 1: few gigs usually. So he decided the night before what
Speaker 1: the set was going to be, and his plan was
Speaker 1: to start, as I recall had been to start with
Speaker 1: Rebel Rebel. We sat at the side of the stage
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, let's start with TVC
Speaker 1: one five And that meant honky Tonk piano solo by
Speaker 1: yours true not not universally applauded for my honky Tonk
Speaker 1: piano playing um. And and that was that next thing
Speaker 1: I knew we were on stage, But I mean that
Speaker 1: once once we were on stage, any nerves completely dissipated
Speaker 1: and you were just sort of watch it along by
Speaker 1: the atmosphere of the crowd. Are there any snapshot moments
Speaker 1: that stick out from when you're on the stage There
Speaker 1: is at all, really just a blur and electric blur.
Speaker 1: Memory is interesting because I mean I've seen I've seen
Speaker 1: footage which was almost from my point of view on
Speaker 1: the stage of the whole performance. So when when I
Speaker 1: think of it, I'm not quite sure whether I'm recalling
Speaker 1: it from memory or or whether I'm replaying replaying the video.
Speaker 1: I was certainly, I mean it was, it was certainly
Speaker 1: quite transcendent, partly because it took a lot of concentration
Speaker 1: to play songs that, you know, we were massively under rehearsed.
Speaker 1: But the flip side was we've lived in these songs
Speaker 1: since we were fifteen, you know. So Heroes, for example,
Speaker 1: which is deceptively simple. It's only got a couple of sections, really,
Speaker 1: but they vary in length. And sometimes the simple songs
Speaker 1: are easy to screw up because you lose track of
Speaker 1: where you are. You know, if you're playing a complicated
Speaker 1: Stevie Dan chord sequence, then then it's easier to keep
Speaker 1: track of where you are than than something that's just
Speaker 1: a guitar riff, you know. So I was terrified I
Speaker 1: was going to screw it up, but I mean I
Speaker 1: just let go and I just sort of I regressed
Speaker 1: to my teen fan boy self, you know, as a
Speaker 1: as as a Bowie fan, and my fingers basically played
Speaker 1: the notes on their own. So you finished the Senate
Speaker 1: live the crowd goes wild you walk up the stage.
Speaker 1: What was the moment like stepping off? How do you
Speaker 1: come down from a moment like that playing in front
Speaker 1: of I guess including the television audien it's almost a
Speaker 1: billion people. Was it just a massive exhale or did
Speaker 1: did Bowie turn to you and say something? What was that? Like?
Speaker 1: He was very pleased with the way it has gone.
Speaker 1: You know, there wasn't actually a huge sort of backstage scene,
Speaker 1: and there weren't a lot of liggers as we call.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a party going on backstage. It was mostly
Speaker 1: people associated with the bands and their crew and their
Speaker 1: management stuff like that. You know. I remember him chatting
Speaker 1: with Freddie Mercury and being hustled into an MTV interview,
Speaker 1: which I think you can see on YouTube. Already had
Speaker 1: two or three beers in me by then, and for
Speaker 1: some reason that they asked me if I would if
Speaker 1: I would be in the interview with Bowie, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's funny. It's actually sickening when you look at
Speaker 1: the interview because they asked Bowie a question that he's
Speaker 1: very he's very cool and controlled and put together, and
Speaker 1: they turned turned the mic to me and I might
Speaker 1: as well just said you know who that is by
Speaker 1: you know. But and then they asked him again a
Speaker 1: question about the day, about the cause, and the smile
Speaker 1: went off his face and he turned to the camera
Speaker 1: and he basically said, this is this is an important moment.
Speaker 1: You really need to find a way to donate to
Speaker 1: this cause. It's a worthwhile cause. And you know, there
Speaker 1: are kids starving, and you know, he was like very
Speaker 1: sincere and really doing the job for Bob called off
Speaker 1: that he was needed to do. And the level of
Speaker 1: professionalism was amazing to me that he could he could
Speaker 1: sort of switch modes like that. Very very mature, I suppose,
Speaker 1: you know, seemed very mature to me. Did you see
Speaker 1: him again after that? When was the next time that
Speaker 1: that you saw David after after? I've yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I saw him a fume of times. I did another
Speaker 1: gig with him in New York at the Beacon Theater.
Speaker 1: Um would have been around about two thousand. I would
Speaker 1: think there's also a record of that online. It was
Speaker 1: filmed by his son for a movie, and it was
Speaker 1: it was like a private gig for his web subscribers.
Speaker 1: And I had my tech company beat back at the time,
Speaker 1: and we've been working with him, who's sort of a
Speaker 1: spokesman for my company here. They adopted our technology on
Speaker 1: his website and he did an ad campaign for us
Speaker 1: and stuff, which was great. And he did this gig
Speaker 1: in in New York and I had a V I
Speaker 1: P table with a few of my in laws who
Speaker 1: are from New York, and halfway through the set, he
Speaker 1: just put his hand to his forehead and he said,
Speaker 1: is Tom Tolby out there somewhere? Come on, come on
Speaker 1: up here, I mean literally, So so I wandered up
Speaker 1: on stage and Mike Garson was playing, was playing keyboards,
Speaker 1: so they gave me a remote keyboard. I just joined
Speaker 1: him for the last few songs and hung out a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, we we talked on and off over
Speaker 1: the years. He was very interested in technology, you know,
Speaker 1: at the height of the Internet boom, and you know,
Speaker 1: he always seemed to view me as somebody that sort
Speaker 1: of plugged into that world, and he had a lot
Speaker 1: of questions for me. You were obviously a great fan
Speaker 1: of David's music for years before you met him. By
Speaker 1: performing alongside him and sort of being inside his music
Speaker 1: with him, did that give you a new perspective, and
Speaker 1: there was work or new inside into what he does.
Speaker 1: I think I was. I was surprised that you know,
Speaker 1: you asked the question did he micro manage you? I
Speaker 1: assumed that he had such a level of control over
Speaker 1: his music and his arrangements and production that he would
Speaker 1: have a hand in all of that. You know, I
Speaker 1: mean that there are a number of comparisons to Prince
Speaker 1: that I think are quite interesting that you know, we
Speaker 1: weren't going to here, but you know, by comparison, Prince
Speaker 1: was somebody that absolutely you know, control every note and
Speaker 1: every step and every lighting camera angle, and you know,
Speaker 1: had had total control over everything. Roger Waters, who I
Speaker 1: worked with, the same deal. The other end of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: George Clinton as well, like David Bowie. You know, I
Speaker 1: never saw I worked with George a lot, and I
Speaker 1: never saw him tell a musician what notes to play
Speaker 1: or a singer what knowes to sing. He would just
Speaker 1: like you know, you either got him smiling and got
Speaker 1: his ass wiggling or you didn't, and so he just
Speaker 1: sort of drew it out of you. You know, he
Speaker 1: was just a lightning conductor. And Bowie really was like that,
Speaker 1: and so it surprised me that that somebody could put
Speaker 1: such a strong stamp on every aspect of their performance
Speaker 1: without being hands on. And I mean personally, I'm more
Speaker 1: in the Roger Waters camp. You know, I'm so sort
Speaker 1: of insecure that I have to have total control over everything.
Speaker 1: So many things I want to talking about. I really
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about your position at Johns Hopkins.
Speaker 1: For the past I think five or six years now,
Speaker 1: you've been teaching an undergraduate degree course in music composition
Speaker 1: for Film and Games at the Peabody Conservatory. What has
Speaker 1: that experience been like for you can talk a little
Speaker 1: more about that. That's that's so fascinating to me as
Speaker 1: someone who who loves music and the evolution of how
Speaker 1: it's made. Yeah, well, you know, during my career, I've
Speaker 1: always been very drawn to things that are sort of
Speaker 1: uncharted and undiscovered. Really, I mean in the early day,
Speaker 1: early days of d I Y synth music making, when
Speaker 1: for the first time technology has became available that would
Speaker 1: enable somebody to go into a back room and make
Speaker 1: a record without the benefit of a whole recording studio,
Speaker 1: just using machines and try and get machines to sound
Speaker 1: human and so on. And there were only a handful
Speaker 1: of people doing that, you know, in the UK and
Speaker 1: nineteen and you know, I think that we were I think,
Speaker 1: you know, my generations, probably the first sort of underground
Speaker 1: synthpop slash electronic music generation in the UK were all
Speaker 1: Bowie fan boys. Basically I was talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the Human Lea soft Sell Orchestra Maneuvers, depeche Mode, people
Speaker 1: like Gary Human. We've all grown up with Bowie and
Speaker 1: we sort of took the the d i y ethic
Speaker 1: that was suggested by by a sort of a vision
Speaker 1: that we had of you know, Bowie and in Berlin
Speaker 1: somewhere playing with a bunch of machines, and we sort
Speaker 1: of turned that into a whole movement of electronic pop.
Speaker 1: Five years later, that was no longer appealing in the
Speaker 1: same way I mean, And part of that was because
Speaker 1: it had all sort of trickled down the street level.
Speaker 1: By the end of the eighties, all of that technology
Speaker 1: was available, It was affordable, that was reliable, there were
Speaker 1: more to put different brands and choices to choose between.
Speaker 1: You can get tuition, you could get software, you can
Speaker 1: get additional sound libraries, and you had like ten fifteen
Speaker 1: years of music to listen to that would sort of
Speaker 1: point you in the right direction. So at that point,
Speaker 1: that's not a genre or a place to be that
Speaker 1: appealed to me anymore. Does that make sense? So because
Speaker 1: it has had lost its rarity, it had lost the
Speaker 1: I no longer had the sense of being a pioneer
Speaker 1: in that world because there were ten thousand other guys
Speaker 1: also able to be in the same space. Conversely, in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley there was technology and software and engineering that
Speaker 1: offered a whole new range of possibilities from video games
Speaker 1: and CD runs and laser discs and installations and you know,
Speaker 1: also computer generated images and and all sorts of different
Speaker 1: possibilities there and again that that was uncharted. You know,
Speaker 1: it was being done in very expensive, high end studios
Speaker 1: and laboratories. But to use to take the d I
Speaker 1: y epic into those areas and make my own software
Speaker 1: and things like that, that was the new frontier, if
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So fast forwards another ten years, the
Speaker 1: Webers sort of come, Bubbler's grown and propped. But what
Speaker 1: was emerging then there were young kids getting their hands
Speaker 1: on phones that had never even known the computer, you know,
Speaker 1: the first time they've ever been on the internet, was
Speaker 1: on a smartphone, and again, you know, this was the
Speaker 1: new frontier again, and so that's where I went with
Speaker 1: my company Beaten. It spelled forward a few more years
Speaker 1: and in filment, digital filmmaking, the same thing was happening.
Speaker 1: You know. Film filmmaking used to be something you had
Speaker 1: to have a crew, You're to pay union members, you
Speaker 1: had to go owned by seleu Lloyd's dock, you had
Speaker 1: to rent cameras and lights. And now suddenly, you know,
Speaker 1: with a digital camera, you could make a film that
Speaker 1: was technically just as good. You could edit it yourself
Speaker 1: on your personal computer. You could go to a festival
Speaker 1: like sun Dance and show it and maybe you know,
Speaker 1: get a big distribution deal. So that was the new frontier.
Speaker 1: So so I've always gone to the new frontier. You know,
Speaker 1: that's that's where I feel most alive, you know, most stimulated,
Speaker 1: most creative, working in an area where nobody's written the
Speaker 1: rule book. Yet you know, there is no rule book,
Speaker 1: there's no user manual, and so you know, I've popped
Speaker 1: from one place to another over the decades, and I
Speaker 1: got to a point in my life, you know, in
Speaker 1: the early twenty teens where I just I didn't see
Speaker 1: where I was going to go next. There was nothing
Speaker 1: in particular that appealed to me as the next place
Speaker 1: to go and be creative. And but conversely, I thought
Speaker 1: back to when I was younger, and you know, now
Speaker 1: I had teenage like college age kids myself, and I
Speaker 1: realized that when I was, when I was college age,
Speaker 1: there was no university course that I could have done
Speaker 1: that would have been interesting to me. Danny, you couldn't
Speaker 1: go and do a course in experimental filmmaking or electronic
Speaker 1: music or synthesis or anything like that. Probably was offering
Speaker 1: that in the UK at the time. So I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I left school at sixteen and worked in
Speaker 1: a fruit and veg shop, And and yeah, I'm from
Speaker 1: a family that is very highly academic. My dad was
Speaker 1: not spend professor, my mom taught algebra. I have siblings
Speaker 1: that are very distinguished in their fields academically, And it
Speaker 1: suddenly occurred to me, I'd like to maybe see if
Speaker 1: I can take a shot at teaching what I know
Speaker 1: you know too the next generation, um, and see if
Speaker 1: if I have in fact accrued any any wisdom and
Speaker 1: experience that I could maybe pass on and I was
Speaker 1: given that opportunity by John's Hopkins UM, who I only
Speaker 1: really knew about as a medical and research institution, but
Speaker 1: it turned out that they had an arts whole arts
Speaker 1: side as well, and they were looking for somebody to
Speaker 1: help them open a film center in a poor part
Speaker 1: of Baltimore. I vaguely knew Baltimore. I've been through here
Speaker 1: on tour. Like the city very much. Even though some
Speaker 1: shocking poverty here, there's some really gorgeous neighborhoods and really
Speaker 1: interesting artistic musical history. And I came here and really
Speaker 1: liked it, and I liked the atmosphere at Johns Hopkins,
Speaker 1: and I liked this opportunity they had to open this
Speaker 1: new center, so they gave me a three year gig
Speaker 1: doing that. So I got to the end of it.
Speaker 1: You know, my wife is here with me, and she's
Speaker 1: from New Yorker family and from there, just up the road,
Speaker 1: and we said, we're not ready to leave here yet.
Speaker 1: And so I talked to various different departments at Johns Hopkins,
Speaker 1: and I taught a little bit at the Peopley Institute,
Speaker 1: which is their music conservatory, and they said, well, do
Speaker 1: you want to come up with an idea for a
Speaker 1: degree program. I told them the same thing as I
Speaker 1: told you. It's like there was no course I could
Speaker 1: have done, you know that would have taught me. You know,
Speaker 1: I had to teach myself. And they said, well, can
Speaker 1: you devise a course? So I spent a few months
Speaker 1: looking around at what else was out there, and I
Speaker 1: realized that there was really no undergraduate course where you
Speaker 1: could learn how to do music for picture, whether it
Speaker 1: was games or film or whatever. Typical thing to do
Speaker 1: would be you do an undergraduate music course and then
Speaker 1: he go to a master's at n y U or
Speaker 1: U c l A or whatever in film music or
Speaker 1: game music, maybe Berkeley School of Music in Boston. But
Speaker 1: they were master's programs, not really undergraduate programs. So I said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys are sort of late to the game.
Speaker 1: There are people who was a conventional conservatory. I said,
Speaker 1: let's leap frog these other schools and offer an undergra
Speaker 1: I do a program in music composition for media, and
Speaker 1: that was five years ago, and I've been doing that
Speaker 1: aver since. It's funny. My my girlfriend and I met
Speaker 1: at film school at n y U undergrad and uh,
Speaker 1: and this would have been two thousand and six, two
Speaker 1: thou seven eight, when we were still cutting film on
Speaker 1: Steambeck machines with you know, actual film, and we were
Speaker 1: just saying the other day, you know, I would love
Speaker 1: to meet students there now, because they're probably starting on
Speaker 1: day one as ten times the filmmaker we could have
Speaker 1: ever hoped to be, because they've had just years of
Speaker 1: learning to manipulate visuals just on their phone, and there's
Speaker 1: such better, more innate visual storytellers just because they've they've
Speaker 1: they've grown up with these technologies. Have have you experienced
Speaker 1: anything like that with with with your students, where it's
Speaker 1: almost like they just grasped these these concepts innately because
Speaker 1: it's just been something that they've had the tools since,
Speaker 1: you know, in birth. Almost in some ways, well, I
Speaker 1: think you'd be surprised actually that that you know, current
Speaker 1: ny you film students probably make all the same mistakes
Speaker 1: that you guys did us, just don't just stroll them
Speaker 1: more cheaply, you know. Um. And part of the reason
Speaker 1: for that actually is this, and that is that if
Speaker 1: you're eighteen nineteen years old today and you hit the problem,
Speaker 1: you you you come across something that you don't understand
Speaker 1: or you don't know how to do it, find a
Speaker 1: way around it. You're a few key presses away from
Speaker 1: a solution because somebody on YouTube will have done a
Speaker 1: tutorial on how to solve that problem. You can download
Speaker 1: or use a manual. You can post a message on
Speaker 1: a forum, and you know, tomorrow morning you'll have a
Speaker 1: dozen different answers. You can put your bad film up
Speaker 1: on you know, social media, and people were critique it,
Speaker 1: get some haters, but you also get some very constructive criticism,
Speaker 1: and so you go through this cycle very quickly. But
Speaker 1: what you don't need to do is ever really solve,
Speaker 1: you know, creatively problem solve yourself, because the solution is
Speaker 1: just around the corner, and there are problems with that.
Speaker 1: One is that that solution is going to be in
Speaker 1: the search results for thousands of other guys that you
Speaker 1: ask the same question, so you're all gonna apply the
Speaker 1: same solution to it, which tends to homogenize things and
Speaker 1: funnel them all into a certain sort of mediocrity. And
Speaker 1: the second thing is that you know your brain chemistry
Speaker 1: when you're eighteen years old. You're not done learning by
Speaker 1: by a lot while, because we're never done learning but
Speaker 1: especially at that age, you're still a sponge and if
Speaker 1: you're never if you on your journey, you never hit
Speaker 1: a hurdle that you have to figure out how to
Speaker 1: circumnavigate it using just the tools in front of you,
Speaker 1: the limited tools in front of you. You know, a
Speaker 1: certain area of your brain never needs to develop. And
Speaker 1: I believe that it's in that creative problem solving that
Speaker 1: artists established their original voice, and I think if you
Speaker 1: take that away, it's very hard for people to develop
Speaker 1: a voice that will enable them to rise above the
Speaker 1: white noise floor. You know, of all of the people
Speaker 1: out there doing attempted to do the same thing. So
Speaker 1: you know, one of the folks is really of my course,
Speaker 1: is how do you sort of disable some of those
Speaker 1: you know that that that how do you that safety
Speaker 1: net that that they have of being able to just
Speaker 1: google something? Um, how do you take that away and
Speaker 1: force them to use their use their mind and their
Speaker 1: creative creativity. You think back on some of the Beatles
Speaker 1: studio explorations that were mistakes, I mean putting the backwards
Speaker 1: guitar solos and the you know, the feedback and I
Speaker 1: feel fine, or things like that, the accidents that that
Speaker 1: don't happen if you're if you just sort of handed
Speaker 1: the correct answer without really working for it. Now, that's
Speaker 1: a really be fascinating to think of what what David
Speaker 1: David Bowie's music would have been like had he grown
Speaker 1: up with Google. Really, yes, uh, And I think I
Speaker 1: think he was more about people, really, I think he
Speaker 1: was he was more about the popular consciousness, you know
Speaker 1: that the way people follow trends and fashions and so on.
Speaker 1: I think he and he wanted to be a manipulator
Speaker 1: of all of those things, and he was extremely good
Speaker 1: at it. Off the Record is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe
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Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
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