THE CASE FOR THOMAS DOLBY

THE CASE FOR THOMAS DOLBY

FEATURES

David Keeps

SUBJECT: Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson, age 25, white male Caucasian of English extraction. Taller than average height; average medium body weight. Dirty blond hair. Shortsighted, uses corrective lenses. Complexion pinkish (a result of "air condition and jet lag" he claims).

PERSONAL HISTORY: Born in Cairo, the youngest child of six. Traveled throughout Europe extensively with archaeologist father and attended 'cheap boarding schools.' Self-taught guitarist and pianist. Labored at various jobs including a stint making flea collars for cats. Began playing jazz in bars and restaurants almost 10 years ago. Played keyboards with obscure British groups and mixed live sound or the Members, the Passions and the Fall.

In 1979 he joined Bruce Wooley and his Camera Club, then joined forces with Transylvanian songstress Lene Lovich, acquiring authorship credit on her mini-smash 'New Toy' and touring across America. By 1981, Mr. Dolby was recording independently, asserting himself as both a musician and businessman with the formation of his interestingly titled Venice In Peril Records. He also found time to record with rock stalwarts like Foreigner and Joan Armatrading before starting work on a longplaying record entitled The Golden Age. Of Wireless, which was released to an unsuspecting public in 1982. In 1983 he pierced the Top Five with a song that debunked the ideas of rational thought, 'She Blinded Me With Science.' Produced by Cleveland chanteuse Adele Bertei on the cult disco 12" "Build Me A Bridge' before sequestering for the production of TOO latest vinyl opus, The Flat Earth.

It is at this point that Mr. Dolby's possibly perilous state of mind first became noticeable, although it could be earlier evidenced in his depiction of psychiatric procedure in the music video of 'Science.' Now he has cleanly confessed to being 'Hyperactive,' as well as indulging the delusion that 'the earth can be any shape you want' in the deviously lovely and soulful title track. His obsessive fantasy also takes him on a harrowingly haunting journey to some mythic rain forest in order to meet an imaginary friend he calls "Mulu.'

BIA6NOSIS t Subject seems initially resistant to analysis, offering varying signals and somewhat contradictory noises. 'I've never been analyzed,' he confesses. 'I think it's important for people to explain things, and I would say that psychiatry is a form of rationalizing those things that frighten us or intimidate us or whose meaning escapes us.

'Those videos are suggesting that there's something seriously wrong with the state of my mental health. That's very possibly true, but not in a malignant way. It's not something I feel I need to get help with, but it's something that fascinates me all the same.'

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SUBJECT'S INTERVIEW

LONELINESS: 'i m a loner and very self-sufficient. I discovered quite early m life an incredible talent for amusing myself. By the time I was old enough to see where I was walking, my brothers and sisters were 11 or 12. I had to be creative or I'd be bored. I fictionalized everything. To me there was no line between fact and fiction.

'I'd listen to the radio in my bed at night. I had earphones and I would just fall in love with things. I'm ashamed to tell you that there's some songs that I know every word to. One of them is 'The Last Waltz' by Engelbert Humperdinck.'

ANGER: 'Self-delusion makes me angry. In common with everyone, I think the things that make me angry are the ones I become aware of in myself. 'Screen Kiss' is a song I wrote about an English girl in Los Angeles,! and the whole L.A. syndrome, which leaves me really cold.'

SUCCESS: 'I can't comprehend the difference between a million people and a thousand. So, OK, I sold 10,000 In Cleveland yesterday. I may have seen Cleveland's railway station and Holiday Inn and the Agora dressing room, but I still don't know any of those people. So it doesn't parI ticularly gratify me.'

GRATIFICATION: Pro ducing someone very often has its drawbacks, because you're being hired as a jobsworth for the record company. In my own work, the thing I like best is that no one dares to contradict me. No one is even really in a position to exert any pressure on me to conform to the plans they've laid out for me.

'My record company would've lov ed for this album to be She Blinded Me With Science, Farts 2-10. Nothing better, the easiest thing in the world to market. But they know that my cooperation with them is a very tenative thing.

'Not that I'm what they would call a 'temperamental artist,' ala locked in his dressing room with his makeup for hours on end, or out on the town when he should be getting his beauty sleep for a TV show the next morning. I'm not that kind of artist. But they do know that I'm quite able to function on my §own, without their help particularly-—there are no individuals that I depend entirely upon.''

SOCIAL SKILLS: what i look for in a collaborator is complete submission to my every whim. (Laughs) I like collaborating with people who really need me in particular. Foreigner treated me very well. They were very kind. I expected some over the top rock 'n' rollers and they were just regular family men. But I think that they were probably very aware that every move they made could make them or lose them another 110,000. That's big pressure.'

PRESSURE: 'If I repeated 'Science' it wouldn't be 'out there' any more. I'd be slitting my own wrist by identifying a formula and sticking to it. And the 'young scientist' thing, I'm not quite pulling my hair out yet,.but I am very bored with it. I think it's very inappropriate, certainly in the light of the new album.'

IDENTITY: 'I think The Flat Earth is still Dolby. More Dolby, in fact, than the first album. There's no flexing of musical muscles just for the sake of it. I don't have 'roots' in music that I have to stay true to. I'm not Madness who grew up in the East End of London, or Eddy Grant for that matter.'

DOMESTICITY: i have a house in the country and a place in London, but I always have to keep moving—because of this complete paranoia that I'm missing out on something. I like living away from home, in hotels. Not because of the luxury, but because it relieves you of the responsibilities of a home, it makes life easier to organize.'

ORGANIZATION: when I'm working I'm irrational, completely ruled by the baser instincts. In the studio I rush around pressing buttons and jotting down lyrics and figuring out progressions and hiring and firing roadies—-and then, after a couple of hours, it all falls flat and I have to go out for a walk.

'But I don't think I'd change anything about myself, not because there's not things I don't like, but because I very much believe in making do. I don't have a capacity for planning as much as I have a capacity for reflecting on what's 'gone down,' as you chaps would say.'

PERSONAL CODES:

'Only one—never to use the same code twice. Morality has trouble dealing with the fact of human excrement, but it's a fact of life. The same is true of technology—it's just there. The way to come to terms with it is to get it working for you.'

PROGNOSIS: subject responded well to questioning, with thoughtful answers that hinted of greater personal insights than are immediately obvious. Sense of humor, though highly developed, is more parched than the standard English variety. Besults of creativity tests are among the highest of his age category. Most importantly, subject exhibits a self-awareness that augurs well for his future personal-interactional development.

To wit, he concludes, 'If people can overcome their suspicion and take to their hearts a musician who does make use of technology, that's a positive thing. I think society has judged me as someone who uses technology positively—and not somebody who abuses it.'