David Byrne has always been pretentious; that’s part of his charm. From the Talking Heads’ first single in 1977, “Love—Building on Fire,” to his debut as screenwriter and director with True Stories, and to myriad other projects—including, of all things, an opera about Imelda Marcos—Mr. Byrne has proved that faux naïveté, arty self-consciousness and adroitly Read More
Hey, New Yorkers, where is your revolutionary spirit? Lou Reed, David Byrne and Blonde Redhead are wondering why our city of "visionaries" isn’t rallying against the war in Iraq. Well they’ve got a solution: a SPEAK UP! concert in DUMBO.
"New Yorkers have always been visionaries," claims the release for SPEAK UP!, which Read More
In honor of the 1,000th issue of Reader’s Digest, the self-proclaimed world’s most widely read magazine threw an oh-so-futuristic “interactive party” last week. According to Laura McEwen, one of the magazine’s VPs, the magazine is so “awesome and hip that the emphasis on the future was so right.” Grandparents across the country are high-fiving.
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The title of Peruvian singer Susana Baca’s excellent new album, Eco de Sombras ( Echo of Shadows ), suggests that she’s singing about something that somehow doesn’t really exist. That would be the music and culture of black Peru. African slaves followed hard upon the heels of Peru’s Spanish conquerors in the 1500′s, but, contrary Read More
For the last 10 years, David Byrne has run Luaka Bop, the Manhattan-based record label that specializes in international pop, with Yale Evelev, formerly of the Icon world music imprint, which is now defunct. The label, a Warner Brothers affiliate, has felt some buzz and heat, as with the 1989 release of Brazil Classics 1: Read More
On stage, Duke Ellington used to introduce “The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse” by quoting the Marshall McLuhan dictum, “The whole world is going Oriental.” Today, if Ellington weren’t celebrating his 100th birthday from the grave, he might say that the whole world is going Brazilian. The secret knowledge that obsessive record collectors and eagle-eyed deejays have guarded Read More
