David Byrne

That's why The Hunger is so great, because you get to see what he would look like if he actually aged.

Mr. Byrne doesn’t seem to think there’s anything particularly remarkable about it. “Sure, I go out a lot,” he said. “I’m in New York, and I’m a music fan. But sometimes I go out to these shows and I go ‘Where are my peers?,’ you know? Where are the musicians from my generation, or the generation after mine? Don’t they go out to hear music? Do they just stay home? Are they doing drugs? What’s going on?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Or maybe they’re just not interested anymore. They’re watching ‘Desperate Housewives.’ ”

From Will Hermes January 14, 2007 NY Times article "Indie Rock’s Patron Saint Inspires a New Flock" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/arts/music/14herm.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

I haven't liked Byrne's music in ages, and his blog writing alternates between being a tad pretentious and naive, but I like his curiousity and enthusiasm about music and art. I wonder how his upcoming Carnegie Hall Series will be?

“He’s just kind of pursued what he finds interesting and hasn’t been specifically chasing after an audience, and I have a lot of respect for that,” said Win Butler of the Arcade Fire. That band has performed with Mr. Byrne on various occasions, and its cover of Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” is a blogosphere favorite. “I don’t think of him as a pop star, really. He’s like a scientist, or a professor.”

David Byrne and his band perform selections from his new multimedia song cycle written in collaboration with DJ Fatboy Slim—Here Lies Love. The songs invoke the life of Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, and the servant who raised her.

Hmmmmmmm. Fatboy Slim, the percussionist from Forro in the Dark, and songs about Imelda Marcos.....

February 3, 2007
New York Times Music Review | 'David Byrne'
David Byrne Honors Joints That Connect the Limbs
By ANNE MIDGETTE
....

.....

Thursday’s concert was the retrospective segment: the music that Mr. Byrne wrote in 1984 for the entr’actes to Robert Wilson’s projected 12-hour theater project “the CIVIL warS,” which was never realized in its entirety for lack of funds. Mr. Wilson calls them “knee plays,” small segments that form the joints between a work’s larger limbs. Since all the limbs were never assembled, Mr. Byrne joined 12 knee plays together to create an album and a show that toured in the mid-1980s and was recreated, without scenic elements but with many of the original players (Les Misérables Brass Band, led by Frank London), at Zankel Hall.

Gospel oomph with a keening saxophone (Matt Darriau); the splintered, icy chords of “Winter,” morphing into a tolling like that of bells; an intended homage to the Italian film composer Nino Rota in “Admiral Perry” (“I missed by a long shot,” Mr. Byrne said), with a sleepy melody from muted trumpets supported by a bass beat. New Orleans, rather than the Talking Heads, was the musical reference point for a varied evening of fine brass playing.

This was music experimenting as theater, trying on different roles — a primal beat in “Jungle Book,” a Bulgarian folk song in “Theadora Is Dozing” — to which Mr. Byrne’s spoken texts acted now as gloss (in “The Sound of Business,” exploring the question of what it sounds like to work at given moments), now as counterpoint. But like much incidental music, the evening as an aggregate suffered from a sense of abridgement, passing quickly and offering small tastes of things you would have liked to hear more of.

One loud fan did his best to shout the event into the realm of a rock concert; the rest of the audience appeared delighted to receive whatever Mr. Byrne was willing to offer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/arts/music/05byrn.html

"...Actually the work needed more imagination and analysis to lift it from flat biopic into statement-making art. (Presumably that will come later. The finished “Here Lies Love” will include dramatic scenes and historical video.) It purports to explore the relationship between Mrs. Marcos and Estrella Cumpas, her longsuffering nanny-maid. Joan Almedilla (Mrs. Marcos) and Ganda Suthivarakom (Ms. Cumpas) sweetly harmonized on many numbers, underscoring a symbiotic bond. But the lyrics didn’t delve much deeper into a potentially fascinating power dynamic.
Or maybe they did. For the first half of the show a bad sound mix meant the drums drowned out the vocals." "...an hour in, things jelled. Earlier the production felt static and cold: the songs, while pretty, struck a similar tempo and melodic range and the band members stayed far apart on the huge stage. “Please Don’t,” a catchy song about Mr. Marcos’s alleged affair with a star of dune-buggy flicks, had a punchy techno beat that bore the stamp of the British D.J. Fatboy Slim, Mr. Byrne’s musical collaborator. The euphoric “Dancing Together” added rave-style whistle sounds; “Society People” pulsated with funk. Mr. Byrne has imagined staging “Here Lies Love” in a club, to compare dance-floor ecstasy to the feeling of dictatorial bullying. (But where will he stuff the orchestra, which joined him on the string-heavy trip-hop of “Solano Avenue” and closed the show?)

He seemed aware that the libretto has a long way to go in terms of finessing his larger themes. “Well, I’ll point it out,” he said, after describing the martial-law era of the Marcos reign. “There are some common resonances today.”

So, later, when people gave the show several standing ovations, were they applauding the enticing performances, the obvious potential of “Here Lies Love” or the fact that Mr. Byrne is an immensely charming artist who loves to take anticommercial risks? Like staging a rough work at Carnegie Hall."

Man I already feel this way and I'm only 33. That's one thing I've noticed that I admire about the classical world that is severely lacking in the world of underground rock/indie music whatever - cross-generational integration of musicians and music fans.

I am jealous of all the cool musicians he just saw in Brazil and the places he went and the food he ate...His x-mas through January posts

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

yeah his journal's a pretty fun read... i remember a really OTM post about the financial meltdown back in October of whatever..

still need to check out the new album w/brian eno as i really like that "strange overtones" song that's getting good radio play at one station over here..

the Songs Of Byrne & Eno tour is AWESOME

That's good news! I'll be seeing that in March. How are the My Life in the Bush of Ghosts songs delivered in this setting, I'm v. curious to know.

there's only one Bush Of Ghosts song sadly, but it is remarkable. he does a hesitant intro trying to explain [I saw it at the Sydney Opera House, perhaps in other venues he trusts the audience better] that they made this record, but neither of them sing on it, and they took the voices from "found sounds", and it took a year to, what you would now call, "clear" the "samples," and it was a terrible pain, erm, well but anyway -- and then takes a deep breath and ROARS in full sung melody the radio preacher's words as the band swells in behind him.

That's "Help Me Somebody" I think... He sings the preacher's words!? Woah.

ha, yeah, those journals ... I want to go to parties at Caetano Veloso's house, too! Take me with you, Dave!

Jon Pareles of the NY Times makes David mad:

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2009/03/030209-nyc.html

excerpt from Byrne's blog and Pareles' review below that. I think the review of the current tour seems fair (I haven't seen the tour but if Pareles thinks it's too cute, that's his opinion. I have mixed views on Pareles' review from way back of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts) :

C warned me that there was a not so complimentary review in the NY Times this morning, and advised me against reading it. I don’t read all the press and reviews we get, but as I do read that paper regularly, I would have inevitably stumbled upon it. Apparently the reviewer, Jon Pareles, loves the Bush Of Ghosts album and has some kind of nostalgia for those days. We all know music snobs who like to remind everyone that they heard so and so back when they were really good. This, however, is the same reviewer who leveled charges of “cultural imperialism” against Bush Of Ghosts in his Rolling Stone review back in the early 80’s. For years afterwards, almost every interviewer asked me to respond to his charge, and many press articles quoted it. It was like the joke about “When did you stop beating your wife?” — the charge was silly and ill-informed, but one was constantly put on the defensive, and even assumed to be guilty, simply by the question being raised. It was annoying, it lasted for years, and it hurt.

Given that track record, I guess 30 years from now he’ll figure out what this show was about.

I still haven’t read the review, and don’t intend to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/arts/music/02byrn.html

So if I want to go with David to the parties in Brazil I just can't mention Jon Pareles or cultural imperialism I guess

"So, David, when did you stop robbing other cultures' musical heritage?"

it's cool if pareles wasn't feeling the show -- i had a good time when I saw it a couple months back. thought the band was good, dancers were fun and Byrne was engaging. Who knows, I might've reacted differently if I'd seen the big band Talking Heads play those songs back in the day. But it worked for me.

Saw the show in Belfast last night - it was fantastic. The big surprises were only one song from Bush Of Ghosts (wouldn't have been a surprise if I'd read this thread) and Burning Down The House, which Eno wasn't involved in. We got a full five songs from Remain In Light too, which was just incredible. I loved the choreography and the showiness of it all - it is a proper show, but the band is incredibly tight and funky as well so one is not at the expense of the other. Byrne doing both rhythm and lead guitar (great versions of Adrian Belew's solos from the Remain In Light songs especially) was very impressive. It was my girlfriend's birthday too and we are both massive Talking Heads fans so pretty much a perfect night out.

Looking forward to seeing what he writes about our fair city on his blog! He mentioned on stage that he and some of the band/dancers had gone cycling and got caught in the (torrential) rain so I'm sure it was a bit of a let-down.

sounds like the same show he did for free last night in prospect park. except for the final song, the new eno/byrne album songs pretty much blew compared to the peak era talking heads stuff. but the whole spectacle was so much better than i expected. dude has aged amazingly well. his dance moves and vocal hiccups could make up a master class in compelling frontman-ness

yeah, a couple months later, i think the live show was waaaay better than the new album. there are 3 or 4 tracks i love on it, but a good deal of it feels a little soggy. i actually like Byrne's last few solo records better, I think. but i agree -- dude is a wonderful performer, and there is something weirdly touching about him being so comfortable and relaxed onstage these days, compared to the super uptight Talking Heads days.

i thought the new stuff was alright. he and the dancers were fun. but it wasn't like a super-scintillating show.

i guess i wanted some harder funk

I thought about going but just couldn't bring myself to hear those new song live

songs, even, allegedly

he did the title track of the new one last as his third and final encore. it was the only one from that album i enjoyed. otherwise they were letdowns made interesting only by the choreography. same with "heaven," which sounds like a precursor to this latest album. but that is a minor complaint about a great free show. where i was sitting everyone was up and dancing during "i zimbra" and the biggies like "life during wartime." the crowd went nuts when our incredulity that he'd do "once in a lifetime" turned out wrong. total class act

The newly arranged "Born Under Punches" with killer bassline is the highlight of the current tour for me, dissapointed that he didn't include it on the live ep (prob. due to copyright/royalties issues since all the songs are byrne/eno on that one).

Is 'Born Under Punches' not being played the same way it was in the early 80s? It sounded very similar to the version on The Name Of This Band Is... anyway. Also that Rome show that's on Youtube.

i thought it was great but i might have been disappointed if i had paid money for it

as we were leaving we got approached by a guy who asked, "do you know where the david brian concert is?" we were standing like 100 yards from the bandshell and we sort of motioned behind us at the incredibly loud music, as in, the concert is right there, where all the music, and lights are coming from, and he gave us a confused look and goes, "but isnt that the talking heads?" <shrug emoticon>

that guy woulda been disappointed anyway - Byrne didn't play "Drugs"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bryan

Jon Pareles of the NY Times goes after Mr. Byrne again in his review of Bonaroo:

Mr. Byrne, performing songs he wrote with Brian Eno, last year and decades ago, in musically emaciated new arrangements and surrounded by Broadwayish dancers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/arts/music/15bonnaroo.html

Emaciated!

didnt go to Brooklyn show. He & entourage popped into my friend's bar after.

i mean, it's David Byrne in '09 fer chrissakes

too bad that old geezer popped into your friend's bar, huh

Emaciated!

"Broadwayish"

"white hair doesn’t disqualify a headliner." - I have no idea what Pareles looks like, but I'm pretty sure Byrne is better-looking, rite?

Scot recognize Scot.

Byrne's had commendable collaborations outside of Talking Heads - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, The Catherine Wheel and I'll even add The Knee Plays and The Last Emperor, all but the first done for projects that were much more than a recorded album - but otherwise I agree, his solo career has been massively disappointing.

I should say basically every album he's done after Talking Heads split has been disappointing - I wasn't a fan of the last one with Eno or the one he did with St. Vincent.

morrisp, it doesn't appear to happen in this press conference - at 29:36 they're asked whether they thought about reuniting after seeing the film and Weymouth wryly says "When we saw it in the studio ... we said, 'Wow! What a great band...'" Harrison jokes he hasn't seen the film yet and Byrne avoids the question altogether.

weymouth's comment is a bit more than that:

Q: has this reinspired you, seeing it again, to do something together again musically?

Weymouth: yes. when we saw it in the studio with Erik Thorngren (sp?0, who was remixing it, he said "wow, what a great band...._too bad_"

and she kind of gave a deadpan stare during the "too bad" part. i don't know though, it's hard to read her. they have a very complicated situation and, like most humans, they are incredibly ambiguous and there are a lot of different ways one could understand what she said and her intentions

There have been flashes of greatness--"Strange Overtones" comes immediately to mind--but in general he's just underscored the importance of the other three.

catherine wheel a very good album, indeed. not tons of fun by any measuring stick though.

xxxp Oh yeah, Music for The Knee Plays , also for a stage production--with horn players, and "inspired by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band," also, The Last Emperor was a soundtrack, so those continue w the live and/or collaborative stimuli of his best DB albs. (I need to get back to the ones with Eno.)

El alma del Perú negro is an outstanding collection.

The Catherine Wheel was fun to try to dance to, or so my younger self would say.

Yeah, Luaka Bop released tons of great stuff.

Byrne also wrote lyrics for good album version of Philip Glass's The Photographer, based on his multimedia production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN7VRbnOm1U

Yeah, Byrne's has had a commendable career outside of making music himself. Luaka Bop is a good label - didn't they introduce Cornershop to the U.S.?

(didn't need that apostrophe s)

Tom Tom Club were only good for one album, but pop music is filled with one-album wonders. Don't hold it against them.

Third album is pretty good too. You can get a totally fun, solid Best Of out of the five C20th albums and b-side/soundtrack cuts.

(Haven't heard the later records.)

(throw Damage I've Done from the The Heads album in too. sucks that they didn't get to go on and try that second album with Johnette as full-time frontwoman.)

David Byrne got a song into Windows XP he's the most listened to artist on the planet

Hey, I'm also fond of the Franz-Weymouth-produced Ziggy Marley album

I like that record.

everybody's just doing great

xxxp Thanks for the tips, sic---"the five C20th": you mean they did five albums in the 20th Century?

I wrote a Voice piece (yes, one for every thread) about Luaka Bop's 15-track celebratory retrospective,
Twenty First Century Twenty First Year---archived here with comments about a few more later LB releases:
https://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/2009/07/luaka-being-and-boppingness.html

Adrian Belew was on Maron yesterday and mentions picking up a yet another sampling check for "Genius" (Latto - Big Energy).

Belew was on Tom Tom Club and Jerry solo records but never on a Byrne solo record, I think?

belew was on the catherine wheel

Ah of course. In the interview, Belew jumps from Remain to Tom Tom Club to solo Jerry.

tbh there are too many albums to discuss in this interview and some of the best and most detailed bits are about his cincinnati beatles cover band.

definitely give byrne props for luaka bop stuff.

Belew also talked about his good relationship with Jerry and playing on the Crash Test Dummies record, which I missed in the Jerry thread.

Thanks for the tips, sic---"the five C20th": you mean they did five albums in the 20th Century?

That’s right. I might try and relisten this week to see if I really can throw together a good C80 and YSI to Leo. Have never heard the unreleased new EP that got added to the US version of the third album!

has it been mentioned that belew and jerry harrison are playing together at hardly strictly bluegrass? https://www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com/artist/jerry-harrison-adrian-belew-remain-in-light/

Speaking of former punk guys showing up as producers on '90s albums: Belew produced Jars of Clay.

The band is promoting a new website "with music, videos, photos, merch and bios written personally by David, Chris, Tina and Jerry."

Byrne's peronally written bio is brief, but mentions Frantz several times (Providence: "I believe Chris suggested we put a band together to play at school dances"; Manhattan: "Seeing bands playing original music at our local bar (CBGB) I believe Chris suggested we form a new band and audition once we had enough material.")

Frantz's bio is longer, but his recollections square with Byrne's ("I invited some of my friends to form a band to play at school parties and dances. One of those guys was David Byrne. [...] Tina and I graduated from RISD in 1974 and moved to New York City where we reunited with David and moved into a raw loft at 195 Christie Street. I asked David to form a new band").

So fwiw, Byrne seems to be giving credit where due there.

Harrison's bio lists his production credits! ("Crash Test Dummies, Live, The Violent Femmes, The Bodeans, Poi Dog Pondering, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, The Verve Pipe, Rusted Root, O.A.R, The String Cheese Incident, Stroke 9, Josh Joplin, The Von Bondies...")

They all seem determined to play nice. Tina credits David for teaching her "the basics of rock song structures."

btw - that site has tons of rapidly flashing images, if you're sensitive to / irritated by those (as I am)

seen and not seen

A more hooked nose

Website seems pretty nice. Despite their feud, they've all been good at maintaining their back catalog and doing whatever needs to be done to keep their legacy visible (short of reuniting and touring). IIRC all four are always involved in their reissues, whether it's Stop Making Sense or the two box sets they've put out.

I wonder how they share profits. Cheap Trick, for example, Bun E. is no longer in the band, but he's essentially a co-owner of the band that still gets a cut. Same with the members of Journey, many of whom are long gone but still make money from Journey tours, iirc.

Jerry was interviewed by Maron a couple months ago too. Very good interview - especially for the Jonathan Richman stories. Byrne remains an enigma. Also, I had no idea Harrison had worked with Stephen Jay Gould at Harvard?
https://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1351-jerry-harrison

after my startup is funded, we'll all own a share or two of the next Journey tour.

and Talking Heads Reunion Tour contracts. We could write and sell them to naive young fans that don't understand -- David does not value friendship.

Excellent interview. Harrison involved in a start-up for antivenom!

but will it work on Chris' words?

You can get a totally fun, solid Best Of out of the five C20th albums and b-side/soundtrack cuts.

Tom Tom Club track for the Party Girl soundtrack was discussed on its own thread years ago but it deserves a re-up here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbfPBPu0mSk

Today I learned about the CD+G Museum, which collects the video files of graphics-enhanced CDs that were around for a heartbeat in the late 80s and early 90s. Always wondered what was going on in my copy of Talking Heads' "Naked." https://t.co/YiQFrOG9te

— Mark Athitakis (@mathitak) September 23, 2022