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?

Don't know, but I think Pareles was just trying to point out that Bonaroo this year had older headliners as well as younger ones. I've never been there or studied the bill of prior years, so I don't know whether this is a new thing or not.

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

Morbius, if you look upthread you will see a post where Byrne is quoted complaining about a Pareles Rolling Stone review from way back when. So this is an ongoing thing between the 2 of them.

The January, 1987 issue of OMNI Magazine included a cover story titled, "14 Great Minds Predict the Future." OMNI asked influential people from a variety of fields what was in store for humanity in the year 2007, twenty years into the future. There were predictions about everything from peace in the Middle East to 3D televisions.

David Byrne, lead singer and songwriter of the Talking Heads, gazed into his crystal ball to write about pop art, the future of television, and why computers will never help the creative process. With the benefit of hindsight it's a little hard to believe that Byrne was so pessimistic about the potential for computers as a creative tool, especially when futuristic designs for computers were getting so many others excited. An excerpt from the OMNI piece appears below.

David Byrne, Lead Singer, Talking Heads

I don't think computers will have any important effect on the arts in 2007. When it comes to the arts they're just big or small adding machines. And if they can't "think," that's all they'll ever be. They may help creative people with their bookkeeping, but they won't help in the creative process.

The video revolution, however, will have some real impact on the arts in the next 20 years. It already has. Because people's attention spans are getting shorter, more fiction and drama will be done by television, a perfect medium for them. But I don't think anything will be wiped out; books will always be there; everything will find its place.

Outlets for art, in the marketplace and on television, will multiply and spread. Even the three big TV networks will feature looser, more specialized programming to appeal to special-interest groups. The networks will be freed from the need to try to please everybody, which they do now and inevitably end up with a show so stupid nobody likes it. Obviously this multiplication of outlets will benefit the arts.

I don't think we'll see the participatory art that so many people predict. Some people will use new equipment to make art, but they will be the same people who would have been making art anyway. Still, I definitely think that the general public will be interested in art that was once considered avant-garde.

Hindsight....

He's still blogging on occasion I see:

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

LOL at Charlie Crist apology on that blog. Does EVERY Republican think it's okay to use music without clearance?

Whne OMNI interviewed me for that article, all I talked about was my condominium on the moon.

Not much blogging from him lately, but he's got an album with St. Vincent, "Love This Giant" coming out in September plus a North American tour. He's been doing some work with her since 2010 it seems. The song "Who" has a standard Byrne style melody.

Talking Heads were a massive band for me and probably the first band that I got all the studio albums of (I'm probably missing lots of odds and ends tho).

I like Catherine Wheel and Rei Momo.

I thought The Forest might have been a heavy metal album (judging from cover art, and that I thought Byrne might try something unpredictable as that) but it was a really odd theatrical album, very nice in places. The people he was working with on Catherine Wheel insisted on something more pop and I think that maybe this was an attempt to do something more avant garde that he originally had an itch for when doing something for theatre?

The "David Byrne" album is really patchy, but there are a few real standouts, some which seem unusually bleak for him, I'm sure there was lyrics about some miserable future. I found these parts really compelling.

But of all my teenage favorites, my Talking Heads/Byrne enthusiam seems to have diminished a lot in retrospect, I didnt think I'd bother with any new Byrne stuff but now I'm reconsidering. He doesnt have as big a back catalogue as I thought (unless you count soundtracks for film and theatre, I'm not sure how songlike most of them are)
I hate to say it but I still like the early nervous Talking Heads stuff better, although I love the idea of Byrne becoming serene as he appears today.

I've been reading around the various Byrne threads and seen the discussion of accusations of him being a cultural imperialist. Is this just a lazy attack that is bound to get people excited by this sort of controversy? Is there anything more to this? Can someone specifically tell me what he was supposed to have done wrong?
I've seen quite a lot of vague accusations of this sort in all sorts of instances; I sometimes get the impression that people think you cannot interact with another old foreign culture without doing something wrong (even if those older cultures had appropriated something from other cultures a long time ago, which you could endlessly speculate about).

"another old foreign culture"? I think you're over-simplifying the cultural appropriation arguments a bit

byrne's solo work has been diminishing returns for a long time but the album with St. Vincent is really good, but mostly because of her.

""another old foreign culture"? I think you're over-simplifying the cultural appropriation arguments a bit"

Probably. That's partly why I want to hear more about the arguments, I havent been able to find any real detailed criticism about this matter.

the David Byrne record is quite good, yes.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/color-guard-is-david-byrnes-new-project-yes-color-guard/

I guess he and the guards will be doing halftime appearances at US football games next

https://youtu.be/euEgyXoOonk
First song from upcoming album

working with OPN and Jam City has me interested at the very least

I like Byrne, but those vocals are pretty annoying

He was scheduled yesterday to have done a “Reasons to be Cheerful “ lecture in NYC, and his upcoming tour for his new American Utopia album is scheduled and on sale in some places

Apparently Airhead worked on it as well, so apparently this will be the art-pop Yeezus in terms of producers

It sounds pretty good, but I feel like the pop structure of it gets in the way of elaborating on that principal idea. It gets better after the two minute mark. I think the vocals are ok.

compression and eq on those vocals pretty grating imo

Satellite radio played a song from his new album, a cover of Whitney Houston I Want To Dance with Somebody.

Huh. I want to say he did that live a lot in, like, 2003? Late '90s? A while ago.

2007:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izx8J6U7xzo

He did it last time I saw him live, and that was way before 2007. Late 90s seems about right.

OK. Maybe it's not from the new album, although the DJ sort of made it seem that way.

http://mailchi.mp/davidbyrne/choir-choir-choir-how-do-they-do-it
http://www.youtube.com/user/CHOIRx3/videos

$75 to $150 to see him at tour date in my area. He apparently will have alll the musicians “mobile “ on this tour onstage— marching band percussion etc. plus special lighting http://davidbyrne.com/journal/ttt-testing-tour-tech

I'll see him at Roskilde Festival - discounted rate... will be great!

http://www.facebook.com/DBtodomundo/posts/790368547824795

This Must Be David Byrne, great long read about his new album and other stuff at GQ.

what's with the dramatic present/imperative in the style of DFW?

Before flying out to meet David Byrne, prepare. Over-prepare. Actually, if possible, begin preparation unknowingly, in 1989–90, around age 12, by listening to Rei Momo over and over again, in the apartment your dad rents when he and your mom first split up. Leave the CD on repeat, sit at your dad's computer building one SimCity after another, depriving them of vital infrastructural resources and watching them burn down. Form the kind of uncritical attachment to a former frontman's solo stuff that you can only really form as a late-to-the-party 12-year-old.

I like the new one - a little on the nose to say “the answer is one click away” tho lol

surely someone here has gone to his show…saw it last night at Kings theater… an utterly unique experience.

in the 1980s, after SMS, which was my introduction, I quickly tired of his multi-media antics and disliked TH music of the time. avoided anything involving him well into living in New York, starting in 89. yet I picked up Fear and Remain in the 90s, but didn't really fuck with them until mid 00s, and for sure he was tough to miss at various shows and events in town in the 90s and 00s. and so two weeks before I move away after 29 years here, I listen to those two records and The Name of… all the time (just can't seem to get with the first two and post SMS records), and I saw him for the first time. Fucking great to see such a singular show from a major NY artist I have come to love in my waning days here.

think it was discussed in some depth in another TH thread.

Yep discussed elsewhere and earlier. one of the best shows I've ever seen.

it was indeed a massive victory lap and truly original

hmm…well I'm sure that people other than me found his mid 80s naif act annoying as fukk…

I’m not sure what that means.

Like I’ve never found him “naive” if that’s what you mean

Thank you again to all who urged folks to see this tour. Fantastic show. I don't recall another performance as exciting to watch as it was to listen & groove along to.

Dude has not lost it.

He sounds as amazing as ever, jealous of anyone who saw the st Vincent tour

also yes I saw this show in SF, front-row, it was astounding. I'd seen him three times before, I guess on tour for Uh-Oh, the s/t album, and Feelings....this was definitely the best of the three. A legendary tour, I'm assuming some of it was filmed? THis would rival Stop making Sense.

Haven't seen the current tour (but saw Byrne w/ St. Vincent; and saw Talking Heads in early 80s), just some video clips. Do you folks love the way the musicians are marching band style with no drum set on floor? the use of shadows and dancing? The mix of Talking Heads old songs and new Byrne ones?

So the presentation makes this more than just a greatest hits tour? His latest album doesn't wow me.

Shadows and dancing is a good way to sum it up. Newest Byrne does nothing for me, but I was so entranced by said shadows and dancing it didn't matter.

He's coming at the end of September but tickets ain't cheap.

I'd say might be worth it! I didn't pay, but in retrospect I think I would have.

I saw the first of three shows, and even though I knew the other two would be identical had i been free I would have considered shelling out.

it's worth it. I paid way too much for my tickets and don't regret it.

I bought tix secondary market on saturday, show was last night. the venue is within 10 minutes walking distance of my apartment (as opposed to 1 hour on subway trip to Manhattan, such as what I will do tonight to see Wayne Kramer and the four younger dudes = MC50), beautiful recently renovated art deco theater. 2 tickets were 3x face value.

Worth every penny. "Crosseyed" "Born Under" and above all "I Zimbra," as well as many other songs. how he could afford to do this show with presumably little tour support from Nonesuch is barely fathomable. and the 11-12 musicians that do not stand around, concentrating on playing the tunes well, much less doing standard rock stances, instead doing coordinated dance routines, each completely different per song, and playijng the shit out of each, is astounding. the value that each of those musicians provide to him is priceless: i cannot imagine that he is paying them very much. He played a few solos! He said that somebody asked him if they generate samples, tiriggers: "I don't have anything against stuff like that, but every sound you hear is created by these folks."

i think the only thing missing was Psycho Killer, really.

xp hehe yeah I was imagining DB in the rehearsal room after finally nailing all the songs with his killer band and then he's like: all right, that's it! Now let's do it again but this time running around with your instruments doing complex dance routines!

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to thread!

would really love to see him on this tour but tickets here are extremely expensive unfortunately

http://prince.org/msg/7/194019?&pg=2
See post from AQUABOOGIE about 777-9311

haha, good one

I am very glad I listened to you lot and went to the show in London last night - I have never seen anything like it and I don't expect to anytime soon.

Thumbs up!

"I'll show you how to do it, and y'all can do it later"
https://youtu.be/gsunqofq27I?t=185

I love how Byrne always looks like he's struggling to recall the most rudimentary choreography moves he's been taught, and then that look becomes *his* look and it somehow works.

Apologies if this veers too close to self-promotion, but anyone in/around London might want to know that I'm promoting a screening of True Stories at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square next week (Weds March 8th).

Full details and tickets here: https://princecharlescinema.com/PrinceCharlesCinema.dll/Seasons?e=81
We've got a fanzine for every ticket-holder, plus an actual cassette mixtape for the first 50 people through the door and vinyl giveaways etc. Format junkies might be happy to hear that we're showing the film on 35mm!

Spam ends.

Byrne announces Broadway residency from October through January.

I think this is great. I thought the Springsteen show was OK, but I couldn't imagine seeing it more than once (not even on Netflix). But the Byrne show, as soon as I saw it my first thought was, man, I wish I could see this again.

<3 <3 <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga97sIZlr1c

I assume that's the one he references in the show?

yeah i think so. plays at the end of the DVD as well

it was great to rewatch this on DVD. I loved the live show but it was marred slightly by the man in front slowly walking backwards into me for the WHOLE SHOW despite me doing subtle elbow nudges into the small of his back.

(and before anyone asks, I'm referring to an audience member, not DB doing his Psycho Killer dance)

(and before anyone asks, I'm referring to an audience member, not DB doing his Psycho Killer dance)

Saw him in a doc recently; it was kind of startling how he's aged (not that he looks bad, just as a general "we're all heading there" reminder).

Yeah, we watched SMS not long before AU and it was a bit of a shock. That said, I hope I'm at least half that sprightly when I'm whatever years old

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/13/david-byrne-profile-interview/

DENVER — They have gathered for David Byrne’s funeral, sitting in a bright room facing a coffin that’s been customized to also serve as a piano. A childhood photo of the deceased rests on a stand nearby. A guest book, too. But before anyone can tear up, the coffin lid opens and up pops David Byrne. Except it’s not the wiry singer of “Psycho Killer” but a 6-foot-2 Black actor named donnie l. betts who peppers the assembled with questions: “Am I still dead? Am I still me? Am I alive again? Am I still David?”

A few rows back the real David Byrne, the white-haired singer who did indeed once front a rock band called Talking Heads, rolls into a chortle. He has seen this coffin thing many times. It still gets him.

“It’s just funny to have the actor come out of a coffin that looks like a piano,” he says. “I don’t think of it as being myself.”

Byrne is here in Denver putting the finishing touches on “Theater of the Mind,” a sprawling project that’s part installation, part performance piece.

hmmmm

More from that article--

He talks of making 1984’s “Stop Making Sense,” the Jonathan Demme concert film of the band’s carefully choreographed road show. The Byrne who oversaw the production, with its detailed lighting cues and the appearance of his iconic, oversize suit, was not the soft-spoken “DB” found in the “Theater of the Mind” rehearsals. He says he changed, in part, after working on 1986’s “True Stories” film. That production taught him to learn to trust others and delegate authority. That could also help relieve the intense pressure he felt to make everything perfect.

“Before that I thought, ‘Nobody understands what I want to do,’ ” he says today. “I have to be the boss guy. ‘No, don’t do it that way. You’ve got to do it this way. No, you f---ing idiot.’ And I might have been right but you don’t have to deal with people that way. You can sort of include people and make them part of your vision or idea.”

Does he long to make peace with Frantz and Weymouth and try one final farewell tour? No. Byrne talks of feeling physically ill from the tension while the band was recording their final album, 1988’s “Naked.” ...

Of the anger directed at him by Frantz, he remains perplexed.

“Like I said, I know that I wasn’t the easiest person to work with,” he says. “But I guess a part of me just says, that was a long time ago. Can you just move on? Surely you’ve got better things to do.”

I haven’t read Chris Frantz’ book where he criticized Byrne .

Surely you’ve got better things to do.

If ever there was a person with nothing better to do, it's Chris Franz.

According to Franz, Byrne said he wasn't going to read the book so that he wouldn't have to respond when asked about it.

Smart.

They really don't let it go. You'd think having a major hand in creating one of the most sampled songs -- a dance and hip-hop touchstone -- would make them reconsider giving such a damn about what Byrne did in the Heads.

Byrne acknowledges his flaws but I guess Frantz wants a direct apology and a Talking Heads reunion tour

Franz is so weird bc he never misses a chance to absolutely torch Byrne (the book is OTT brutal), and then in the next breath he'll be like "I don't know what David's problem is that he doesn't want to get back together with us and do a TH greatest hits world tour, he's such a weird alien."

It is weird — would Weymouth even want to do a reunion? I got the impression she hates Byrne even more!

Franz is so weird bc he never misses a chance to absolutely torch Byrne (the book is OTT brutal), and then in the next breath he'll be like "I don't know what David's problem is that he doesn't want to get back together with us and do a TH greatest hits world tour, he's such a weird alien."

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open),

Byrne said something similar a few years ago, something like, "Why would I want to hang out in a studio with people who were ripping me to shreds yesterday?"

Didn't Byrne ostensibly "fire" the rest of the band at some point? That doesn't exactly engender feelings of "band" at all.

Byrne talks of feeling physically ill from the tension while the band was recording their final album, 1988’s “Naked.” ...

This is funny bc I even remember a bit from the book where Frantz goes on abt what a romantic time he & Weymouth had recording & partying in Paris, and in an aside says something like "David said recording the album was a terrible experience for him, but who knows why, he's just a weird contrarian." Like if you a) can do a whole record with someone and not pick up on that and b) when they come to you and tell you, you roll your eyes and dismiss them bc you and your wife had fun, like yeah, maybe you all were not meant to be in a band together anymore?

Franz's view of Byrne in Remain in Love is less what Byrne may take it to be — about being a dictator — than that he took more credit than was his due and was/is profoundly avoidant. Byrne's claim of having been a dictator ca. Stop Making Sense and subsequently not reading Franz's book seem consistent with this view.

The relationships are so messed up, I imagine it's too complicated at this point to explain why some actions are illogically at odds with others. Obviously Byrne no longer has any issues revisiting the band's work - the Broadway show is based mostly on that music - but I'm sure any reunion would only lead to more uncomfortable conflicts and he doesn't want to go through that anymore. At the same time, I can see why Chris and Tina want to reunite the band - they're proud of that work, it continues to find many new fans, and they want to enjoy that in the best way possible while they're still physically able. Imagine wanting that and seeing everyone flock to Byrne's show with others playing the music that you helped create - you'd probably think "I should be up there!" But there's been too much bad blood and too many angry words exchanged. I can't imagine any history of that just evaporating at this point - they may reunite for another one-off if they get something like a Kennedy Center honor, but that's about it.

It is weird — would Weymouth even want to do a reunion? I got the impression she hates Byrne even more!

I saw a story somewhere--maybe on ILX?--about how when Rhino was prepping the Once In A Lifetime box, the label got everybody together in a conference room for a meeting (Byrne might have been on speakerphone), and one of the label people tells the band how hard a sell the box will be with no tie-in press or performances from the band. Weymouth responds that they understand the problem, and "...if we need to tour, we'll tour." Byrne then flatly responds, "There will be no tour."

End of discussion.

That might've been me, I've posted that story. Going as far back as 1999, Weymouth and Frantz have wanted to tour, but I think Byrne's constant and growing refusal may have just led to more resentment in response.

FWIW, try digging around their promotional appearances for the 15th anniversary restoration/reissue of Stop Making Sense. All four appeared together to promote it, and it left an impression because it was the first time I read anything about the band, they were completely new to me. During a joint press conference (I think in San Francisco?), someone asked if they would like to reunite, and both Weymouth and Frantz enthusiastically said YES while Byrne and Harrison awkwardly remained silent. Then there was a weird thing, I think on the same day, where Byrne did his own interview with some major publication (maybe EW or one of the trades?) and the same interviewer had to interview Weymouth, Frantz and Harrison as a group separately. It was during this interview that I remember Weymouth saying Byrne didn't understand or appreciate the value of friendship, and that kind of explains a lot.

Oh wow, the whole thing is on YouTube - I've only read reports from this, I've never actually seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFdvd62hSGI

Lmk if you find a specific timecode for the reunion question...!

Re: the interviews, it wasn't just one publication, it was apparently set up that way for everybody the following day:

From the San Francisco Examiner:

"...it was no surprise when interviews granted to herald the wide release of the film starting this Friday were given in two halves: Byrne in one hotel conference room, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison in another. It was an interesting succession of chats - one that left no doubt that this is one band that will never play together again."

I still don't know which publication got the quote I remember from Weymouth unfortunately.

As the description of the YouTube vid points out, this is *after* the whole lawsuit / "No Talking, Just Head" thing... which is kinda remarkable (and, like, no wonder!)

Oh man, long before they broke up, Weymouth was fulminating in the press about Eno and Byrne only having eyes and ears for each other, not caring what anybody else thought about the music, also something about Eno and royalties, and how Byrne was like "a janitor" in personal style, and I always heard that she was the one who ripped into him in band meetings---Rhino must have known about some of this, in Rolling Stone and so on, but hey why not try to squeeze more bucks out of this box set craze, and yeah Weymouth and Franz had Tom Tom Club and The Heads album with guest singers, not bad, but why try to do anything more like that when you see more TALKING HEADS REUNION TOUR bucks somewhere to be squeezed, and business is business but they never have wanted to understand that he doesn't need them the way they need him, or somebody else with more impetus than they have, past a few done deals. Whut fules.

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. Wish I could remember the publications where I read about what I posted but it's impossible to say, I could've been jumping through dozens of articles linked on Yahoo! or AOL that particular day.

The Heads album is one of the worst things I've ever heard -- it's air pollution.

Either way, same point, about facing their own limitations, hitching their old wagon to somebody besides Byrne.

other than him.

I view Weymouth and Franz not unlike Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, and Byrne as Fogerty. They were important to the band, while in the band, but really haven't done much of anything outside the band, despite complaining loudly about not getting enough credit for their creative input. And their constant complaints about Eno are just silly; compare his track record as producer to theirs, let alone that of Jerry "ugh" Harrison.

Most Surprising Album in Jerry Harrison's Production Discography

Ugh. I thought he had produced The Raw & the Cooked for Fine Young Cannibals, but I guess he only did the Buzzcocks cover.

Don't drag Harrison into this!! lol

Tim Lawrence's great Arthur Russell bio indicates that Harrison's fellow ex-Modern Lover Ernie Brooks brought Arthur into work on JH albs which I gather weren't so hot, but I'd still like to hear them.

One of the Casual Gods albums was a late '90s cutout bin perennial.

Early '90s!

Clifford and the other Fogerty didn't co-write "Genius of Love," though. Frantz-Weymouth have plenty to be thankful for.

XP Those same copies were still there in the late-Clinton era!

"but really haven't done much of anything outside the band, despite complaining loudly about not getting enough credit for their creative input."

Josh! C'mon! Frantz and Weymouth recorded a record during the peak of the main band that was then and has since been universally beloved in dance music, post-new wave and just about every other context, featuring a song that everyone in the U.S. and probly UK at least under the age of 60 has heard and most likely adores. That one song is better known the result of the combined impact of every single solo song Byrne ever did. Cook and Clifford have nothing anywhere near that to show for.

"relevant context"

yes, thank you! Why are we not talking about "Genius of Love"?

I interviewed Narada Michael Walden last month and he couldn't stop talking about the impact of "Genius of Love" if you lived in NYC in 1981-1982

Yeah, so why not give up on/shut up about Byrne, and do more on their own, or with whatever help is required.

For what it is worth, there are four credited songwriters on "Genius of Love." I am not a huge fan of that song and honestly find it kind of annoying, but fine, let's call it a good track. Hey, a great track! So? That's one song! The era as we all know is full of great tracks, one hit wonders, one offs, but no one would ascribe greatness to, like, Peter Schilling.

Cook and Clifford have nothing anywhere near that to show for.

They're not "Genius of Love", but Groover's Paradise and The Evil One are nothing to sneeze at.

They knew they needed Doug and Roky!

(True, they still did battle w Fogerty in court, though that may well be on him, and they slogged on for many a year with that substitute singer who barely lived to tell in recent Rolling Stone, but they got it right a couple of times.)

For what it is worth, there are four credited songwriters on "Genius of Love." I am not a huge fan of that song and honestly find it kind of annoying, but fine, let's call it a good track. Hey, a great track! So? That's one song! The era as we all know is full of great tracks, one hit wonders, one offs, but no one would ascribe greatness to, like, Peter Schilling.

― Josh in Chicago

Josh, with respect, you're being...willful here. Who cares how many songwriters? "Genius" was an epochal track, sampled within months (weeks?) by Grandmaster Flash, blatantly plagiarized by Narada Michael Walden for Stacy Lattisaw, and, more than a decade later, became the basis for a ferocious Mariah Carey single...and popped up AGAIN when Carey's "Heartbreaker" sampled the Lattisaw track.

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

Anyway, my Cook and Clifford comparison was in the context of them in the Talking Heads. No one, not even Franz and Weymouth, are making any real claims their post TH stuff has somehow been overlooked, and few would go to bat for much of anything in Byrne's solo catalog, either, give or take "The Catherine Wheel" or his (other) collaborations with Eno. Franz and Weymouth's grievances are about their tenure in the Talking Heads, but that ship sailed decades ago. There'd be more merit to their grousing if they had managed much of anything in the past 30 years, good *or* bad. Though it doesn't help that what little they did was bad.

under the age of 60 has heard and most likely adores. That one song is better known the result of the combined impact of every single solo song Byrne ever did.

― veronica moser, Tuesday, September 20, 2022 5:40 PM

truth bomb. byrne's solo career is a snoozefest.

"Genius of Love" >>>>>> True Stories

and i mean maybe a bit more niche,
but "wordy rappinghood" is also a very solid jam.

byrne's catalogue otoh has nothing that even resembles someone having any fun whatsoever.

oh for sure it does. still mediocre at best, forgettable at worse.

I will speculate wildly that, even though in 1981 and 1982 Byrne would deny giving a solitary shit about chart success, given his dictatorial tendencies and pass/ag grandiosity (both accelerated by primo cocaine available to NYers in his position), he had to have been envious of their success at the time. That one song that Josh has the perfect right to be dismissive of at that time had greater cultural penetration than My life in the bush of Ghosts and, again, has had far greater legacy since than the combined impact of every single solo song David Byrne has ever done.

I live about a mile from Frantz and Weymouth. In 2019 I was seated next to them at a Mott the Hoople show and made some small talk with them re: the town we live in. 6 months beforehand, and two days before I moved out of NYC after 30 years, I saw the Byrne show, which while unmatched as live performance, I was not gonna discuss with them

i won't stand for this catherine wheel erasure! it's proof that byrne didn't necessarily need frantz & weymouth, but also that they really helped - just compare the studio versions of tracks to the live versions with talking heads. the studio versions are good but the live versions are fantastic

Good album!

Tina and Chris at a Mott the Hoople show seems like such an odd conjunction.

I'm not sure how trustworthy the David Bowman bio is, but it records a moment when Byrne frozen on hearing the news that the Tom Tom Club album had gone gold faster than any Heads.

the studio versions are good but the live versions are fantastic

"What a Day That Was" is one of the highlights of "Stop Making Sense."

i still am not sure where it all shakes out. genius of love is brilliant, and there are some other excellent songs on that first tom tom club LP as well. i've always been a big fan of "Lorelei". and then, yeah, the other three never caught traction after that. i think part of that was they were missing a compelling singer.

harrison managed to be a modern lover and also produce some of the very worst albums of all time, so i give him a bit more credit for being able to adapt himself to the situation. frantz and weymouth, they seem like the perfect bandmates for talking heads, like a key that only fits that particular keyhole

https://i.imgur.com/GHUylCh.png

xxxp (re The Catherine Wheel) Yeah, and Twyla Tharp's choreography was inspired, when I saw it. He should have taken more dance commissions. In How Music Works, he describes the tour where his dancers taught the musos how to dance, and they got the dancers playing instruments too, while dancing. And about all the busking he did in college towns, going back to the 60s. Considering also Stop Making Sense, The Name of This Band, as well as American Utopia, maybe he should always think and be live.

A weird conjunction for me was when Roddy Frame came into Tower Records on 4th and Broadway, where I was working the floor at the time, and asked if we had any "David Birrrne" albums.

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

New song with Eno, "T-Shirt!"

I got as far as "My beliefs are on this..." before closing the window and noping away.