David Byrne: How architecture helped music evolve [TED.com]
As his career grew, David Byrne went from playing CBGB to Carnegie Hall. He asks: Does the venue make the music? From outdoor drumming to Wagnerian operas to arena rock, he explores how context has pushed musical innovation
This video comes highly recommended as a proper and intelligent use of the next 16 minutes of your life. David Byrne being genius (as usual)…
I half-avoided this story just because I don’t want to perpetuate some notion that U2 didn’t wish this upon themselves, but it is quite interesting to read how extravagant the current U2 live tour is. They still haven’t made money and they kinda pissed off David Byrne, so I can’t see this ending well for the band.
Don’t forget about their YouTube webcast from the Rose Bowl on Sunday night.
If you haven’t seen the full interviews that David Byrne did with Phish back when they taped an episode of Sessions at West 54th, head over to Coventry today to watch the videos.
I recently finalized plans to make a big move up to New York City later on in 2009 and I couldn’t be more excited. I have a ton of reasons to be stoked, of course, but for music blogging purposes, this means I will suddenly have a huge set of options for great live music (probably too many). Over the next few months, as I start my NYC research to figure out where to live, I also plan to explore many of the great live music options that will present themselves to me in the Big Apple.
Since we’re strongly considering Brooklyn as an option, I thought I’d start my NYC focus on the “Celebrate Brooklyn! Concert Series” at the Prospect Park Bandshell, which just announced its 2009 schedule. Although I definitely won’t be there in time to catch most of these shows, I hope to check out a few of them; that Animal Collective two-night run looks especially promising.
Overall, it’s awesome to see so many solid live music options just in this one spot when I know there are so many other festivals, concert series, and venues to explore. Although time and money will definitely help to hold me back, let’s just say it’s going to be hard to behave in NYC. I can’t wait…
A few weeks back I went to go see David Byrne at the Davis Symphony Center for the first of two nights here in San Francisco and I’m surprised I never got around to writing something up on it. It was an absolutely incredible show for a Monday night affair, and it was my first time getting to see David Byrne perform musically (I saw him speak at SXSW 2007 about the death of record labels; that was pretty cool). On this tour, he’s performing new music from his recent album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today along with some of the classics while being surrounded by a largely nondescript set of session musicians and three performance dancers that improvise ballet pieces around the stage set to the music piping out of the PA. It was kinda weird, to be honest. But then again, it was also incredible. Seeing “I Zimbra” live was straight-up powerful, and they even played a few real bonuses that I never thought I’d hear like “The Great Curve” off Remain in Light. The new stuff sounded pretty good, too.
For the encore, the Extra Action Marching Band came out by playing down the aisles and bringing the crazy drumline / burlesque show to the stage, which culminated into an epic performance of “Burning Down the House” with the full Byrne band. It was a seriously awesome time. Check out this clip from that encore:
David Byrne Burning Down the House [YouTube]
I was so pleased to see Byrne has continued to play with the same boyish enthusiasm that made him such a magnetic figure in the first place. Go catch him on this tour if you’re a fan at all. Great stuff this time around. I need to pick up that new album once and for all.
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