Friday, April 07, 2006

the power of the web, indeed. . .



Even though I challenged a fifth-grade classmate to a bit of a misguided "break-off" in 1983, the roots of electronic music run even a little bit deeper through my veins in terms of early impact. And so, after the last few wonderful years of focusing heavily on hip-hop, it was a delight to interview one of my favorite electronic producers of all time, Thomas Dolby, for an upcoming article in Seattle alt-weekly paper The Stranger (helmed by the inimitible and most awesome Dan Savage).

I didn't know that Dolby lived in the Bay Area (though I suspected he might, because I had heard about his work in Silicon Valley). I especially didn't know he lived in my favorite coastal town near here, the place I escape for good food and good air. Despite some recent opportunities, my location in SF means that so many of the interviews I do for work are not in-person, so this was something I was looking forward to doing.

I have been wanting to write something about the interview in advance of the story dropping in a few weeks, but before I could do so, I happened to check Dolby's Web site for the first time in probably about eight or nine years. He's got a new blog, and this was his entry from the end of the day on Wednesday:

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Journalists

I did a bunch of interviews today for the tour, and for the most part the writers were very enthusiastic. I ended up at a protracted afternoon-tea-becomes-early-dinner session at a local inn with first The Stranger, a cool edgy Seattle music mag, segueing into the Chicago Tribune. Both surprised me with well-informed questions that indicated they had a genuine interest in my music, as well as respecting my reasons for taking 15 years “off”. Thankfully they all steered clear of, or were unaware of, the K-Fed saga and focused instead on why I chose now to come back, and what my plans are for the tour and for new music releases. One exception was MTV News who called for a quote about my favorite toy boy rapper. They published the article this afternoon and called the K-fed camp as well, who announced his song has been taken down from MySpace. Success! That’s the power of the Web. Hopefully it will now simmer down and I can get back to rehearsal.

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I knew about K-Fed, but he didn't seem too happy about it, so I didn't talk about it. It's not worth giving up any of the column space to discuss it.

Writers often wonder if their interview subjects enjoyed our conversations with them. What a treat to find out for sure that someone did!

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