solo David Byrne - S/D

I also really like the one with the brown/black cover (I think it may be self-titled) with songs like "Lillies of the Valley", "Back in the Box", and "Buck Naked". I had it for years before I realized that it has one of my favorite keyboardists on it...Mr. John Medeski.

Also, he did an orchestral score for a Robert Wilson play called "The Forest" that is totally gorgeous and pretty heavy...not heavy like "chugga-chugga bark bark woof woof METAL!!"-type "heavy", but emotionally "heavy".

To be honest, I think all his solo stuff is quite worth listening to.

what other projects has he been involved in? off the top of my head i can only think about his track with Fripp which kicks ass.

Yes! I just heard Fripp's "Under Heavy Manners" with Byrne's crazy vocals and it made me wonder what other guest vocal appearances he made that are worth hearing.

he hasn't updated his live journal blog since January

The Catherine Wheel is so excellent. It's like a more ethereal Remain in Light.

Agreed! After ignoring it for years I gave it a spin recently and was smitten. But I feel the CD with the incidental music obscures the excellence of the LP version. Less is more.

Found a cheap vinyl copy of this a few weeks ago and it is indeed great!

Byrne did an AMA on reddit, new album on the way (quotes taken from his anwers here):

I'm making tour plans (and a new record) for next year

early next year

Brian helped me a LOT on a record I'm finishing up now.

...that Brian being Eno

There's a collab with Oneothrix Point Never on there, too http://www.factmag.com/2017/05/11/david-byrne-working-with-oneohtrix-point-never-promises-new-album-next-year/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adUtlz0GcCg

So many David Byrne threads. Reasons to be Cheerful talk also mentioned on another one

David Byrne

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/589142182/first-listen-david-byrne-american-utopia

This is good! And pretty strange!

it's pretty safe and way too slickly produced! but his voice is comforting.

it's good but it's all a bit samey isn't it? these songs don't really stand out from each other.

Live show is pretty fun, just got back from seeing it.

yeah just saw some little video clips, really excited for this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/arts/music/david-byrne-american-utopia.html

He heard some drum tracks created by the British producer Brian Eno, .....Then he played it for Mattis With, a producer and musician who also is an executive at Young Turks, the taste-making British label whose artists include the xx, Sampha and FKA twigs. Mr. With, 28, is a Norwegian living in London. ...

It takes no small amount of chutzpah for a 28-year-old to say that Brian Eno’s tracks aren’t good enough, but that’s what Mr. With gently did. “I thought they were maybe a starting point rather than a finished record,” he explained in an email. He proposed that Mr. Byrne revamp the tracks, using a new set of young collaborators.

Mr. With enlisted his pal Rodaidh McDonald, who produced the record with Mr. Byrne and Patrick Dillett. A 36-year-old Scotsman who’s worked with the xx, King Krule and Adele, and fell in love with Talking Heads while he was in art college, Mr. McDonald set up a kind of audition process, sending the songs electronically to different musicians, and instructing them to keep the structure, tempo and key, but “send me back a reimagined version of the song.” Then he and Mr. Byrne evaluated the competing tracks, decided which they liked best, deleted existing music they no longer loved (including, often, Mr. Eno’s), and sent the songs back to the collaborators who’d done the best job, with directions for further refinements.

“It felt like we were collaging the record back together,” Mr. McDonald said.

Sometimes it works, but the 1980 expanded Talking Heads collaborative in the studio and live process worked better

I really love "gasoline and dark sheets" and "it's not dark up here" is also nice. Both are quite danceable and the electronics work. There is a lightness of being about them. The other 3 or 4 songs i listened to were superfluous.

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today > My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

wtf that is crazy talk

pretty radically different albums, not even sure they're comparable

My life in the bush of ghosts is by far the most interesting album david byrne or the talking heads have ever released.

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today > My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

Tempted to agree, one of the most open-hearted, joyful, full-sounding records in my collection (no slight on Ghosts, apples to oranges and maybe I like oranges more)

The Catherine Wheel > My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

Keep coming back to this album. So good.

The full band arrangement of My Big Hands that TH performed from '82 is so damn great.

My Big Hands is a big fave of mine. I saw him when he did that Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno tour back whenever that was and was thrilled when that one found its way into the set list.

American Utopia on HBO Max is enjoyable, but I can't get into Byrne's solo stuff at all. It all lacks personality. I particularly enjoyed the performance of 'Blind,' a song I've never really rated.

I will watch this but yeah, i never like the solo stuff as much as i want to. Its cool that he seems to be having more success now than he has in a long time, but I always wish he would be a little weirder and take more chances than he does with his music. For example, the only song that I really liked off the Everything that Happens record was "I Feel My Stuff", the only one that stood out as what I imagined a 21stC Byrne/Eno collab would sound like rather than his comfort zone of easygoing secular-gospel.

Then again I havent kept up with the last couple albums so I'm hoping for a surprise, but in general the positivity-guru/Ted talk/Jobs energy that he rides these days is not really what I'm looking for.

you probably won't be crazy about this then. I would say "secular gospel" and "guru energy" are words that might flow through your head, though to the degree that it's infused with positivity, I think he comes by it honestly.

otoh if you have a special place in your heart for the choreography of Stop Making Sense, it can be evocative of that in some very cool ways/

Yeah, I saw the show when he was touring it and loved every second of it and I can't even tell you what solo songs he played, let alone hum a single one of them.

I kicked myself for months for missing it when it was touring, and then ponied up the dough to see it on Broadway so I wouldn't always have the regret. It was worth it. I do enjoy several of his solo albums, but like Josh said, you don't need to have a connection to those songs to dig this show.

No Like Humans Do. The solo material is heavily weighted towards the new(est) album, for which this was originally the tour. And those songs are pretty musically eh but they fit the format well and Byrne's love for them results in them just being done well.

Totally agree about Blind - forgot to mention that earlier -- it was never a song that had registered with me at all but I was humming it after this show.

Hmm, looked it up and he definitely did Like Humans Do when I saw him.

I'm a big fan of side 1 of Naked so thats cool to hear. Im always interested to hear him do stuff from Naked since it never got a live airing by TH.

The only solo song I remember/know, "Lazy' aside, is 'Glass, Concrete and Stone,' which is also pretty good.

Btw, I know Spike Lee directed this, but is there any character to how he directed it? That is, is it at all identifiable as a Spike Lee joint? He's a much more visually eccentric director than Demme, though of course even Demme made some strong choices in Stop Making Sense (like not showing the audience, or some extreme close-ups).

those of you who don't dig the solo stuff - have you heard the s/t he released in '94? it's head and shoulders above any of his other solo stuff afaict.

The black and white cover one? Yeah, guitars on that are cool. Less whimsy overall.

yeah there are some good rockers on that one

'lazy' was also a club hit ftr

#2 pop hit in the UK as well

Lazy by X-Press 2 was famously held off #1 in the UK by the loser of the first series of Pop Idol

speaking of his collaborations with middle-aged house acts, Toe Jam is also in the show, and like Lazy, stands out for its rhythmic engagement

I lived in NYC for 30 years until 2 years ago…two days before I moved (moving day was Brett Kavanaugh/Blasey ford day) I went to see the show in question at the Kings Theater, a 10 minute walk from where I lived.

During those 30 years, every time I attended a broadway show, I strongly disliked the experience: this includes Hedwig and Hamilton, both of which are theatrical treatments of rock and hip-hop culture which would prompt my parent's peers to say "oh yr a music journalist, don't you you think these shows are marvelous?" No I did not (although while I dislike Hamilton, it is clearly a formal breakthrough and step forward for theatre if not popular music way way beyond any other suck-ass musical theatre rapprochment with pop/rock/hip-hop/whatever)…

But I am grateful that American Utopia was on Broadway. This is because I was and am struck dumb by how much those musicians give David Byrne: whether or not they're as good as Dolette McDonald, Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell in 1980, they play the shit out of the those fucking songs, every member sings, AND! AND! AND! they have to remember choreography that is completely unique to each tune and in many cases to each musician. Quite different to standing on stage, playing your parts well and gently swaying back and forth, or high-kicking or what have you…

When that show was on the road for what? a year and a half? it had to be hugely hugely expensive, and I doubt that Byrne had anything like extravagant tour support from Nonesuch (I have to think he got investors to help with this on his own, which one would think he could do). He has to pay the choreographer, lighting designer and shit tons of production upfront, and then he has to keep that HUGE production on the road, crew and musicians, providing basic needs. laundering the suits that they all wear…and what kind of wage do the musicians earn? I reckon not much, and in the current climate, they can't bloody well go to other bandleaders and say "Check me out, I was in the American Utopia band, I did all that insane training for it so I could put it on my resume, so pay me a premium to play with Selena Gomez."

So he put the show on Broadway: the production stays put, and by god, no matter whether Chris Frantz sez that his Mr Rogers bit is an act and he's as much of asshole as he always was in the gacked out 70s/80s, I have to think he finally was able to pay those musicians, whose efforts on his behalf were indeed priceless, a whole hell of a lot better than he could when they had to keep that show on the road across the country and the world.

my fave part was the very end, when the band gets offstage after knockin' the fucker out the park, they're each high on the achievement, and one of the ladies exclaims "WORLD STAR!"

yes I lolled at "worldstar!"

I thought Spike Lee did a great job with the movie, finding some (literally) new perspectives on a lot of the performance. I particularly appreciated the occasional overhead shot, which revealed elements of the choreography that wasn't apparent facing the stage. There were a couple of other nice tricks he threw in, like tilting the camera for effect and having a mounted camera on the balcony show the effect of everyone dancing and bouncing around up there. Mostly the movie did a great job at capturing the sheer joy of the band/show, and for that alone I'm glad it was documented.

I liked it more than Stop Making Sense possibly, though the shows are doing pretty different things. Really opens your eyes to what bands can do. Byrne is still in great voice too, though I think I heard a little correction on it now and then?

Hard to say. I do think he's singing better than he ever has.

I'm still watching this (an hour in), but I'm surprised that it's kind of disappointing. I had high expectations based on some of the comments here, but there hasn't been a moment where it felt like it hit it out of the park. Spike Lee's direction is solid so I think it's just the show. Some choices like the dramatic pauses feel corny, at one point the marching cymbals on "Once in a Lifetime" feel like a complete misfire, and as mentioned, the post-Talking Heads songs are really underwhelming compared to the Talking Heads material. I'm still waiting for Byrne to tie it all together in a meaningful way. I was really skeptical about the Springsteen show but without barely anything except a guitar and a piano, he gave really, really familiar songs a context that led to some miraculous alchemy. I was hoping context would save the day, but so far the show feels kind of shallow, covering quite a few bases in an insubstantial way. (Yes, not enough people vote...I need more than a visual aid for the stats.) Even the Kaepernick tribute didn't have anything like the impact I really would have liked...maybe this all comes off better in-person?

*but with barely anything

Forgot to mention, upthread there were a few comparisons to Stop Making Sense. The show works best when it doesn't try to compete with that tour/film or when it simply makes a playful reference (like the one to Byrne's chopping hands at the beginning of the show). But when they choreograph a move from it, it suffers in comparison. The one where everyone leans back and slowly rises up has nothing like the dramatic or visual impact Demme got when he filmed it.

Kind of sadly ironic considering that his best albums that I've heard are Songs From the Broadway Production of "The Catherine Wheel" and Music for The Knee Plays, based on his work with/for Twyla Tharp and Robert Wilson respectively: maybe he was born to stage, but with launchpad provided by people who really know what they're doing.

But also, I greatly enjoyed How Music Works, and still get his enewsletter---'ow about another book next, Mr. B.?

Just finished, and there is a good climax. "Burning Down the House" is excellent, and the cover of "Hell You Talmbout" may be the highlight - I want to credit that to Spike Lee because it looks exactly like the kind of thing he's done in many films (especially recently), from the camera moving in on the subjects, the subjects being relatives holding up the photos of those killed by police brutality, the direct info of the text (name, date of birth, date of death) and even the rhythm of the editing (which builds up to each of those moments in similar fashion). He seems to take over the film from there, partly because there's more opportunities to display his personality rather than filming a meticulously designed show. (This is especially true in the credits, where he even manages to simulate his favorite tracking shot on the individual bikes.)

"One Fine Day" was pretty nice, and it's a fine lead-in to the similar (and even better) gospel-influenced opening of "Road to Nowhere."

Overall, I thought this was too uneven to be a great show. It feels too much like a collection of performances - some really good, some not so great, and a lot in between. As a result of the uneven quality, until I got to the last 15 or 20 minutes, there didn't seem to be any sustained momentum. But "Road to Nowhere" kind of drives home why this is worth seeing - the Talking Heads songs are classics, and we at least still have Byrne in good health performing them well with a very talented group of performers. It's not the same as the band in its heyday, but when Byrne's gone, this will be sorely missed. (Granted, it's churlish the way Byrne's torched his bridges with his bandmates, but that's old news.)

I was going through some old bootlegs and I found one I never got around to listening - an acoustic show with Byrne and Richard Thompson from March 24, 1992 at St. Ann and the Holy trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights. A clean soundboard recording (probably a DAT) that must've leaked out, it seems to have been bootlegged many times over. Some video footage actually exists, mainly when Thompson joins Byrne on a few numbers. (There's some professionally shot video of the two that comes from a different show from around the same time, but it's part of a promo or news piece of some kind.)

Some nice surprises like Byrne covering Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." A couple of Talking Heads covers are excellent, but most of the set comes from Uh-oh which doesn't do much for me. The one exception is "Dirty Old Town" which sounds great in this rendition - I popped on the album version with the full band and horns and was a bit disappointed because it kind of sounds like a Talking Heads simulation. Even better was "Buck Naked," one of the few numbers he played from his other solo albums. Again, liked it better than the album version, and apparently he performed it solo in that concert film he made in 1992 as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMoqcUAH2K0

I finished up a new album recently called “Who Is The Sky?”. It's produced by Kid Harpoon, joined by Ghost Train Orchestra and, on a couple of songs, my friends St. Vincent and Haley Williams. It comes out Sept. 5th under Matador—a new label for me.

I will start rehearsing soon for a tour that begins in September. The tour concept is unlike anything I’ve done before. We’ll keep the mobility that was a key element of the American Utopia tour and Broadway show— but instead of the chain… we will have locations. You’ll just have to come and experience what that involves.

As much as I enjoyed the live show and the Byrne celebration that it seemed to kick off, American Utopia the album was blah.

Not expecting much out of the new one but it would be nice to be pleasantly surprised.

I'm not expecting much from the music (Kid Harpoon is a hit maker, right?), but the tour should be dope.

yea kid harpoon produced the harry styles album

And that ubiquitous Miley Cyrus song "Flowers"!

pre-sale Thursday for DC

Saturday, September 27, 2025

Live Nation Presents...

An Evening with David Byrne

$79.50, $89.50, $109.50, $139.50, $159.50, $209. 50, $259.50

6:30PM Doors

This is a seated show.

Sunday, September 28, 2025

Live Nation Presents...

An Evening with David Byrne

$79.50, $89.50, $109.50, $139.50, $159.50, $209. 50, $259.50

6:30PM Doors

This is a seated show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM-BTJKIz0Q

Byrne and Ghost Train Orchestra doing "Everybody Laughs" . It's ok

It's fine. Pretty much what I expect from Byrne nowadays.

At a certain point his lyrics got so direct that they're just clunky and shallow. I'm glad he's out there doing his thing but I've tried enough of his solo stuff to know that this is not for me.

I look at Byrne and his focus and his subjects have gotten bigger and more obvious. Contrast that with someone like Laurie Anderson who has narrowed and focused on very particular things. I find Anderson's approach much more interesting.

i was surprised to see he's playing arenas here, i'll probably to try to go. he's apparently iterating on the last tour and is going to have the whole band walking around again - is it going to be a whole chamber ensemble this time given the sound of the single?

the single's fine, very much what you'd expect a byrne solo single to sound like for better or worse but the arrangement's really lush at least.

I agree w/ Cow Art's critique of the lyrics, and musically yeah it's current David Byrne

https://archive.is/2025.09.22-155140/https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/24/arts/david-byrne-ghost-train-orchestra/?fbclid=PARlRTSANBoYZleHRuA2FlbQExAAGn6W7DWUfvhAvbM0sUyMcPoMy1glzjzEDjzgQwtRcgmy-hVgsOHoL-jJobg50_aem_gnbjNbbpUYgS-sXcTZ_qAA

Article on the Ghost Train Orchestra who are backing Byrne on the new album

the album is just ok but it's a bit frustrating because it feels like it almost manages to escape that? the tunes are alright, the arrangements are very lush and regularly hint at doing something more interesting but never quite get there.

a big weakness is the lyrics, which are far too on the nose, pretty much in self-parody territory

Haven’t listened to the album yet. Saw IG clips of him in concert with Ghost Train Orchestra and all of em onstage like he did his broadway show ( no drumset on stage ; musicians all like they’re in a marching band). He is doing a very friendly set of Talking Heads greatest hits. Well , those are the ones people were sharing in their IG stories. I have not looked at setlist fm to see full set.

David Byrne occupies that rare role also played by Robbie Robertson or, I dunno, Jimmy Page, the ostensible auteur oft cited as the creative visionary behind their former band that nonetheless managed next to nothing particularly compelling in the ensuing decades of their post-band solo career (further collaborations aside).

the catherine wheel soundtrack is fantastic and super underrated at least. no one ever talks about it but it's right up there with those first five talking heads albums

i like all his solo albums up through the self titled one, and have been progressively less interested in each one since. none of them are 'bad' but none of them measure up to the TH or early solo stuff. Even the 2nd Eno collab is dull to me. However, I did see that last tour and it was exceptional. I didn't get tix this time, they just seemed too pricey, but he's playing three nights, so hoping second hand prices start to drop. Videos I've seen look cool.

Last tour ruled, and I couldn't hum a single one of the new songs he played.

I like his first couple of solo records fine, and several of the others have their moments ("Like Humans Do" from "Look into the Eyeball" has stuck around in setlists over the years), but they're just so inessential, especially coming from such a creative guy. Always curious to me that "The Catherine Wheel," which is indeed awesome, is credited as a solo project even though it feels like a collaboration, with lots of the usual contemporaneous suspects present (Eno, Belew, Worrell, etc. ).

there's a lot of talking heads collaborators (and even harrison himself) on it but most are only playing a few parts on a few tracks, byrne's playing like 2/3rds of the instruments. if anything it's probably the most solo of his albums?

he released as many Talking Heads albums in the seven years after Catherine Wheel as the four years before so it’s hard to count it as post-Talking Heads imo

no one has been counting it as post-talking heads, but the last few talking heads albums are similarly inessential to the rest of byrne's solo career

post: managed next to nothing particularly compelling in the ensuing decades of their post-band solo career

reply: the catherine wheel soundtrack is fantastic and super underrated at least

that was agreeing with josh and adding a further opinion - the solo album he released during the band's peak was great (in contrast to the later ones)

also Speaking In Tongues is one of those first five imo

(I like the subsequent Heads and TTC albums plenty to varying degrees but have no problem with anyone personally writing them off completely) (and think it would have benefited everyone creatively to keep playing on each others solo projects occasionally or consistently, unconnected to the commercial concerns of the band name. Boom Boom in 88 / Rei Momo in 89 is the last time either faction made a satisfyingly coherent LP, but the 1992-completed “new” Heads songs still speak to how complete they sound playing together.)

xp

also I like Just Head better than Little Creatures or Naked and wish they’d done that second album with Johnette as primary lead singer :)

I think Rei Momo is one of the best albums he ever made