David Byrne

By David Byrne. Viking. 304 pages. $25.95.

Part travelogue, part social commentary, part blog collection, David Byrne's wryly written book is fit to burst with facts and opinions about the world from a cyclist's point of view.

Byrne is best known for leading the alternative band Talking Heads through the '70s and '80s. He's the first to admit that bicycling doesn't exactly fit a rock star lifestyle, but he's determined to experience major cities from a saddle, taking a folding bike with him in a suitcase on most trips no matter how uncool he may look.

"Bicycle Diaries" doesn't whitewash the dangers inherent in cycling through a car-centric city. No roadway is completely safe for Byrne as he navigates Berlin, Istanbul, Buenos Aires and other sites his work takes him to.

But he also has an unquenchable passion for pedals, his ride raising him just above the heads of less enlightened citizens. He sees things that might not be spotted from a rushing automobile: strange, shrine-like store front decorations; signs of crime and religious fervor; the sounds and smells of karaoke-mad Manila.

Unhampered by traffic jams and pile-ups, Byrne goes where he wants, stopping to note quirks of architecture, cultural history or politics.

David Byrne
...
LIVE REVIEW | David Byrne
...
David Byrne handles his Fender Stratocaster with the band and dancers get down

David Byrne handles his Fender Stratocaster with the band and dancers get down ALSO IN LIVE REVIEWS LIVE REVIEW | David Byrne
...
David Byrne
...
It was billed as An Evening with David Byrne: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno, but the eclectic former Talking Heads frontman led a loudly appreciative audience at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center on a groove-heavy musical trip that journeyed beyond his songwriting collaborations with Eno.
...
Confident, wide-eyed, and clad all in white, Byrne's nearly two-hour set (including three encores) jumped from his latest recordings to his earliest material on which Eno worked as a studio producer.
...
The three backing singers and four core musicians — killer left-handed bassist Paul Frazier, drummer Graham Hawthorne, keyboardist Mark De Gli Antoni, and percussionist Mauro Refosco — assembled behind Byrne, who spent most of his time tapping his feet, strumming an acoustic guitar, and picking a Fender Strat at the mic stand at the stagefront.
...
A trio of young modern dancers — Steven Reker, Lily Baldwin, and Natalie Kuhn — suddenly ran on stage with a burst of Broadway energy, singing along with the lyrics and zig-zagging between Byrne, backing singers, and the band.
...
The repetition in the groove allowed for some deeply funky moments, and Byrne sounded almost godly with harmonies from his singers during the "I'm walkin' a line!" chorus.
...
At 56, Byrne's vocal abilities haven't diminished at all. He sounded strong and vigorous. He obviously hasn't lost a step, herking, jerking, walking backwards, and wiggling around with his youthful ensemble. Altogether, Byrne and his crew delivered a spirited and unique audio/visual experience. —T. Ballard Lesemann

Share this article:

David Byrne

DAVID BYRNEDavid Byrne's impact and contributions range from music to film and photography.In terms of pop influence, his lengthy stint with Taking Heads, which ran from 1974-1991, was the most fruitful.
...
This year, Byrne has participated in the Paul Simon retrospective series at hte Brooklyn Academy of Music, turned a 99-year-old ferry terminal in Manhattan into a concert facility, and reunited with Eno for a new CD Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.
...
Byrne comes to Nashville Monday at the Ryman Auditorium (7:30 p.m., 116 Fifth Ave. N., 458-8700, $39.50-$49.50) in a program billed as "Davis Byrne performs the songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno."

David Byrne
...
LIVE REVIEW | David Byrne
...
David Byrne
...
It was billed as An Evening with David Byrne: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno, but the eclectic former Talking Heads frontman led a loudly appreciative audience at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center on a groove-heavy musical trip that journeyed beyond his songwriting collaborations with Eno.
...
Confident, wide-eyed, and clad all in whte, Byrne's nearly two-hour set (including three encores) jumped from his latest recordings to his earliest work on which Eno worked as a studio producer.
...
The three backing singers and four core musicians — killer left-handed bassist Paul Frazier, drummer Graham Hawthorne, keyboardist Mark De Gli Antoni, and percussionist Mauro Refosco — assembled behind Byrne, who spent most of his time tapping his feet, strumming an acoustic guitar, and picking a Fender Strat at the mic stand at the stagefront.
...
A trio of young modern dancers — Steven Reker, Lily Baldwin, and Natalie Kuhn — suddenly ran on stage with a burst of Broadway energy, singing along with the lyrics and zig-zagging between Byrne, backing singers, and the band.
...
The repetition in the groove allowed for some deeply funky moments, and Byrne sounded almost godly with harmonies from his singers during the "I'm walkin' a line!" chorus.
...
At 56, Byrne's vocal abilities haven't diminished at all. He sounded strong and vigorous. He obviously hasn't lost a step, herking, jerking, walking backwards, and wiggling around with his youthful ensemble. Altogether, Byrne and his crew delivered a spirited and unique audio/visual experience.

Share this article:

New Albums From David Byrne and Sondre Lerche Find Room for the Violin in Pop's Percussion
...
David Byrne
...
Byrne, the Arbutus boy who grew up to be a Talking Head, is just one of a growing number of rock 'n' rollers trying to transform strings from a liability into an asset.Sure, heavy-handed classical music can be stiff, overbearing, and feudal, but if you strip it of its imperial pretensions and allow it to become personal, its emotional core is in tune with rock 'n' roll.

Byrne proves this point by including two opera selections on Backwards, one from Georges Bizet's The Pearlfishers and one from Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata.
...
By reducing the usual orchestra to a small chamber ensemble, and by reducing the vocal from rafter-rattling bombast to conversational understatement, Byrne reveals that these pieces are not all that different from singer/songwriter pop written by Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, or Byrne himself.
...
On "The Other Side of This Life," for example, Byrne declares, "All my worries are gone [because] corporate sponsors will act as my guide," but the backing string sextet's sonic reverie hints that he's living in a dangerous dream, that his worries may be just beginning.A dream state is described explicitly on "Pirates"; Byrne tries to sleep in his Manhattan bed and between the thuds and flushes of the nearby apartments imagines an invasion of Caribbean buccaneers.

On "Empire," Byrne assumes the persona of a right-wing talk-radio host, assuring his listeners that "what's good for business is good for us all [because] the weak among us perish/ the strong alone survive."
...
Rufus Wainwright, Byrne's duet partner on the Bizet aria, has used strings quite effectively on his own records.
...
Without these examples, the chamber pop of Byrne, Lerche, Wainwright, Clem Snide, and the rest would have been impossible.
...
David Byrne and the Tosca Strings perform at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis on May 22.