Synthpop pioneer Thomas Dolby had been all but forgotten by the music industry after retiring in the early 1990's to make his fortune in Silicon Valley with Beatnik, the technology that brought polyphonic ringtones to millions of mobile phones. But to a devoted subset of hardcore Dolby fans, his legacy lived on. In an interview we conducted with Thomas Dolby in June, he explained it this way:
"...it ended up being 15 years before I really got back into music. During that time, I had this hardcore following who started to use newsgroups, CompuServe, and eventually the World Wide Web and chat rooms. Because I was never around making music, I was a bit like one of those guys that died! So I read with interest analyses of my songs, interpretations of my lyrics, and even people assuming roles and writing collaborative fiction kind of like fan fiction around the places and characters and themes in my songs. And it’s eventually what got me back into music again because there was this terrific following that had just gone stronger."
Now Thomas Dolby is back with a new album, A Map of the Floating City, his first since 1992's Astronauts and Heretics. In addition to getting good reviews for the album, Dolby also took social media marketing to new levels by creating an entire social game around the concept of his album.
Along with a new album, Dolby has announced he is also embarking on a rare 26 date tour of North America in March and April, starting off with a performance at Austin, Texas' South by Southwest Festival.
Dubbed the "Time Capsule" tour, each tour stop will feature a trailer outside the venue that looks to be out of an HG Wells novel but actually features a video recording studio where fans or guest artists can record 30 second messages for the future, which will be uploaded to a special Youtube channel, with the most watched videos winning prizes.
Says Dolby about the Time Capsule: "If you had 30 seconds to explain to an alien visitor what went wrong with our civilization, what would you say? Our species may not be around on this planet much longer, so you might as well leave a welcome message for the next guys!”
Tickets for many of the Thomas Dolby Time Capsule shows are already on sale at his website, where you can also find the full list of tour dates.
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