The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology: A Memoir

by Thomas Dolby

Overview

The remarkable story of rising to the top of the music charts, a second act as a tech pioneer, and the sustaining power of creativity and art.

Thomas Dolby’s hit songs “She Blinded Me with Science” and “Hyperactive!” catapulted him to international fame in the early 80’s. A pioneer of New Wave and Electronica, Thomas combined a love for invention with a passion for music, and the result was a new sound that defined an era of revolutionary music. But as record company politics overshadow the joy of performing, Thomas finds a surprising second act.

Starting out in a rat-infested London bedsit, a teenage Thomas Dolby stacks boxes by day at the grocery and tinkers with a homemade synthesizer at night while catching the Police at a local dive bar, swinging by the pub to see the unknown Elvis Costello and starting the weekend with a Clash show at a small night club. London on the eve of the 1980s is a hotbed for music and culture, and a new sound is beginning to take shape, merging technology with the musical energy of punk rock. Thomas plays keyboards in other bands’ shows, and with a bit of luck finds his own style, quickly establishing himself on the scene and recording break out hits that take radio, MTV and dance clubs by storm. The world is now his oyster, and sold out arenas, world tours, even a friendship with Michael Jackson become the fabric of his life.

But as the record industry flounders and disillusionment sets in, Thomas turns his attention to Hollywood. Scoring films and computer games eventually leads him to Silicon Valley and a software startup that turns up the volume on the digital music revolution. His company barely survives the dotcom bubble but finally even the mavericks at Apple, Microsoft, Netscape and Nokia see the light. By 2005, two-thirds of the world’s mobile phones embed his Beatnik software. Life at the zenith of a tech empire proves to be just as full of big personalities, battling egos and roller-coaster success as his days spent at the top of the charts.

THE SPEED OF SOUND is the story of an extraordinary man living an extraordinary life, a single-handed quest to make peace between art and the digital world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250138767
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	11/28/2017
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Thomas Dolby has spent his career at the intersection of music and technology. He was an early star on MTV, and then moved to Silicon Valley, where he has had an extraordinary career as an entrepreneur. He has been named Johns Hopkins University's first Homewood Professor of the Arts, where he will help create a new center that will serve as an incubator for technology in the arts. He lives in England with his family.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Part 1 7

Chapter 1 The Winter of Discontent 9

Chapter 2 Skin Tension Under Leatherette 23

Chapter 3 Needle Drop 35

Chapter 4 Poetry in Motion 61

Chapter 5 Wonderland 73

Chapter 6 Like Dolphins Can Swim 91

Chapter 7 Living in a Suitcase 109

Chapter 8 Stars Explode, Fireworks Don't 135

Part 2 153

Chapter 9 Ride the Bullet Train 153

Chapter 10 Housequake 155

Chapter 11 The Untouchables 179

Chapter 12 Step Up to the Plate 195

Chapter 13 The Apple Mafia 213

Chapter 14 Bowie Does Beatnik 227

Chapter 15 Dark Fiber 239

Chapter 16 The Nokia Waltz 249

Chapter 17 Wind Across the Tundra 261

Chapter 18 The Crocuses Are Still in Bloom 267

Epilogue 275

Acknowledgments 277

Editorial Reviews

"He rose during the advent of the British New Wave. But what was he, exactly? A singer-songwriter? Performance artist? Programmer? Engineer, poet, actor, inventor? And if we couldn't be sure, how possibly could he? This is the engaging, emotional, funny and surprising tale of Thomas Dolby — a brilliant multi-hyphenate on his journey of discovery and self-discovery."
— JJ Abrams, Director, Writer, Producer


"Whatever technology does to musicians will also be done to the rest of us — but to Thomas Dolby first. Professor Dolby's candid memoir is fascinating. Its significance will grow."
— Bruce Sterling, author of The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things and The Mirrorshade anthology

"Thomas Dolby has had at least four notable lives. The chart topping musician and ubiquitous MTV presence, the Silicon Valley innovator, the music director for TED and then, astonishingly, a professor at Johns Hopkins. His journey is as amazing as the book is well written. From start to finish, I thoroughly enjoyed every page of The Speed Of Sound. Brilliant."
- Henry Rollins, bestselling author, journalist and musician

"Musician Thomas Dolby debuts with an absorbing account of his pioneering work merging digital music with film, technology, and science. In this story-filled memoir, Dolby draws deeply on his experiences as a synthesized music guru and early internet geek, offering wonderful scenes involving such notables as Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Steve Jobs, and George Lucas. His innovative accomplishments, rendered in fascinating detail here, are legendary."
- Kirkus, Starred Review

“In his engaging memoir, British New Wave icon Dolby retraces his journey from London stock clerk to pop star to unlikely success as a Silicon Valley pioneer…Dolby’s style—understated but acute—and wealth of anecdotes make for an enjoyable narrative… the bespectacled Brit is more Renaissance man than one-hit wonder.”
- Publishers Weekly

"Wildly entertaining"
— Salon.com

From the Publisher

07/25/2016
In his engaging memoir, British New Wave icon Dolby retraces his journey from London stock clerk to pop star to unlikely success as a Silicon Valley pioneer. A tech savant, Dolby ditched school at 16 and tried for a career in punk-rock London. In short order, he was cowriting, playing, and producing for groups such as Whodini, Prefab Sprout, and Foreigner. He then became a celebrity when “She Blinded Me with Science” flew up the charts in the U.S. Disillusioned with the music business after the commercial failures of his following albums, Dolby turned to an odd new phenomenon known as the Internet and relocated to the Bay Area. Intuition informed him that consumers wanted more than bleeps and blats on their cell phones, and after a decade-long struggle piloting a startup, he hit the jackpot with his RetroFolio ringtone software. Soon afterward, he returned to England and composing. Dolby’s style—understated but acute—and wealth of anecdotes make for an enjoyable narrative, even if he soft-pedals the ambition and talent that drove his success. His winding career crosses the paths of a celebrity ensemble—including Eddie Van Halen, Bill Gates, David Bowie, and George Clinton—under very odd circumstances, including close encounters of the disturbing kind with Michael Jackson. To those who know Dolby only from his 1980s bug-eyed mad-scientist persona, his punk roots and windsurfing chops will come as shock, but the bespectacled Brit is more Renaissance man than one-hit wonder. Agents: Merrilee Heifetz and Lisa DiMona, Writers House. (Oct.)This review has been edited to reflect the correct agent information for the book.

Publishers Weekly

★ 2016-08-03
Musician Dolby (Arts/Johns Hopkins Univ.) debuts with an absorbing account of his pioneering work merging digital music with film, technology, and science.Born in 1958 to a Cambridge archaeologist, the author dropped out of school to pursue musical interests after finding a synthesizer in a dumpster. Often mixing sound for bands, he worked as a solo singer/songwriter, with such quirky hits as “She Blinded Me with Science” (1982) and “Hyperactive!” (1984), and began producing short silent film–like music videos as well as soundtracks for computer games and computer-generated animation. By the 1990s, Dolby’s unusual tinkering with computer software bridged the worlds of the music business and Silicon Valley, where his companies developed mobile-phone ringtones and other products. In this story-filled memoir, the author draws deeply on his experiences as a synthesized music guru and early internet geek, offering wonderful scenes involving such notables as Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Steve Jobs, and George Lucas and revealing his battles for artistic control with major record companies. With little interest in the business side (“What’s a business model?” he replies to a venture capitalist interested in a Dolby company), he has always regarded himself as “a perfectionist who will choose great art over a pile of cash every time.” As a result, he struggled unhappily in the music and technology industries, both of which he deems “random and unjust.” Yet his innovative accomplishments, rendered in fascinating detail here, are legendary: “Synthesis, music videos, software, the Web, DIY filmmaking, mobile devices, online games…I just dived in and taught myself by trial and error.” The former TED Conference music director now composes on a restored 33-foot lifeboat in the garden of his home in Suffolk and teaches film and media at Hopkins. This stellar book will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers interested in modern technology’s startling effects on music and popular culture.

Kirkus Review