Fresh from his recent success with the Xpress-2 collaboration 'Lazy', David Byrne reflects on a musical journey that began in 1977 with the legendary Talking Heads
David Byrne
‘Like Humans Do’ [Virgin]
Claiming to hate the condescending catch-all entity that is known as world music, ‘Like Humans Do’ sees Byrne back on a similar observational pop tip to what informed all the best Talking Heads records.
LIAM FAY gets a hot line to DAVID BYRNE on the eve of his Dublin concerts and found a pretty talkative head, discussing everything from Brazlian merengue music to Tommy Cooper.
Time magazine dubbed him The Renaissance Man Of Rock . With and without Talking Heads, he s made some of the most innovative music of the last two decades, as well as being an author, photographer, director, sound-track scorer, Academy Award winner, and all-round friendly neighbourhood psycho-killer. David Byrne allowed Hot Press to put him on the couch for thirty minutes when he arrived in Dublin for his recent Olympia Theatre show.
Peter Murphy was there to hear the Head man
talking.
American comic Rich Hall explains why he prefers the Irish to 'whiny' Brits and talks about working with Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David back in the day.
Acclaimed music writer Simon Reynolds has revisited the post-punk era with a fascinating set of interview transcripts. He talks about prising choice quotes from Phil Oakey, David Byrne and, after a tense stand-off, Pere Ubu’s David Thomas - and explains why the internet has taken some of the fun out of music
And you can dance to them too, they said way back, and it was the truth. Talking Heads are one of the perfect marriages of modern rock'n'roll. They don't just sound of angles, perspectives and prisms of thought, they actually mean something! And dey got riddim too!! Ah yes, David Byrne is a fellow who knows what it is to be ridden by an angst, and to make it jumpy and funky and fun!
“And now we havf ze results of ze ‘elseekni jooury” … burble, squeal, zeekzrrzzsngtum … oops, we’re sorry, we’ll write that again … the result of the Hot Press jury, who wish to profusely thank David Byrne for all those pints he bought us in the International Bar last week – even if he did rather endanger his chances with all those neo-structuralist musings about The Bogmen.
Since releasing her self-titled debut album in 1997, Susana Baca has built a formidable worldwide audience for her intense take on Afro-Peruvian traditional music. Touted by former Talking Head David Byrne, she first sprang to prominence when he included one of her songs on his The Soul Of Black Peru compilation.
"Vampire Weekend certainly have one of the best band names I’ve heard in ages, although their music unfortunately proves less exciting than one might have hoped."
Let those who never thought culture stopped at the first world's borders, who never thought it was only happening in English, cast the first stone at Paul Simon and mock his work as patronising. To do so is to miss the point. Western music will die on its feet unless it learns to assimilate outside influences rather than repel them and if people like Simon or David Byrne or any of the other World Music daytrippers can offer a handrail to the nervous then so be it.
In the words of visionary film-maker David Cronenberg, "There are records you listen to when you want diversion, and there are records you go to when you're in spiritual trouble." We asked an array of today's brightest stars to tell us about the artists they feel provide the greatest sustenance in time of turmoil and upheaval.
New York quartet Vampire Weekend are set to be one of the breakthrough bands of ‘08 thanks to their inspired brand of Afro-beat tinged rock. Just don’t mention Paul Simon.
A joint Irish Presidency/European Commission Conference on the Future of Tobacco Control in Europe opened today at the Radisson SAS Hotel, Limerick, Ireland. The conference runs over two days, from 17-18 June 2004.
Difficult second album syndrome has no place in the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah vocabulary. Not that the blogger faves are exactly busting a gut to have a hit.
A full 17 years after their acclaimed eponymous debut exploded onto the American alt-rock landscape, Milwaukee malcontents The Violent Femmes are back with a new album (Freak MAgnet) and the same old typically off-kilter worldview. Interview: PETER MURPHY.
Get your dancing shoes on. Electro newcomers Magistrates are here to rock your blocks off. They talk about hanging out with Damon Albarn, worshipping Michael Jackson and living up to the legacy of heroes like Bowie and Talking Heads
JOHN WALSHE talks to JIM WHITE about his amazing life – from dropping acid and modelling for Vogue to surfing for Jesus – and his amazing album No Such Place
Thanks to internet fueled word-of-mouth, Brooklyn’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are indie-rock’s latest sensation. But they’d much rather you compared them to Hall & Oates.
Roisin Dwyer catches up with electropop duo MGMT to discuss their greatest rock 'n' roll moment, Jools Holland and their growing reputation as popular music's new trouble-makers.
DUBLIN'S OLYMPIA is one of the city's great venues for late night rock gigs that roll the music right back to its base on the streets, and among the community.
It’s time for the tobacco industry to pay the price for the damage caused by cigarette smoking. Solicitor PETER McDONNELL explains why he’s leading the campaign in Ireland and why the Government “needs to push the button now”.
Report: COLM O'HARE
Crack houses, stripping, underwear parties, hate mail from Pink Floyd fans and Elton John’s dog – are you ready for a tasty slice of camp pop history as told by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters?
A new album, an exclusive gig and opinions on Velvet Goldmine, the Internet and life, love and happiness. STUART CLARK meets the legendary DAVID BOWIE.
Although dissatisfied with mainstream media and wary of having his own work pigeonholed, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr revels in his role as elder statesman to a generation of maverick musicians and is no less proud of his new album, Boomslang.
Frank McBrearty Jnr. is the victim of what may well be the greatest miscarriage of justice ever in the Irish State. However, having been exonerated by the Morris Tribunal, he has more on his mind than mere compensation.
As the Creamfields dance juggernaut heads towards Punchestown we catch up with the carnvial at Prague in the Czech Republic and offer a preview of what’s to come
RICHARD THOMPSON s new album Mock Tudor consolidates his position as one
of the most articulate and influential songwriters around. GEORGE BYRNE met him.
Moby Comes Out To Play
IT S NOT often a Grammy nominee saunters into the Hot Press offices in the midst of the controlled explosion that is production weekend. But then, Moby s one of those freaks of nature a pop star who seems interested in what goes on around him rather than employing people to block it out.
Belfast, then Glasgow and NEXT STOP – the cover of the Radio Times?
Stuart Clark joins fast-rising Snow Patrol on Scottish manoeuvres. PICS: IAN McMURRAY
He revolutionised contemporary fiction with Fight Club. But, with more than one brutal murder lurking in the family undergrowth, Chuck Palahniuk's own life has been as troubled and disturbing as any of his books
When the offer came to produce the new Rolling Stones album in Dublin what answer could Don Was give but a resounding ‘Yes’. Mick, Keef & Co. are the latest in a long and impressive list of the man’s studio credits which includes Bob Dylan, The B-52’s, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt and Paula Abdu. But throw in the small matter of the career of Was (Not Was) and the musical rehabilitation of errant Beach Boys’ genius Brian Wilson and we’re talking major industry player here. Bill Graham takes up the story . . .
It’s all about broken down tour buses, Alan Partridge, high speed collisions, Moby, broken ribs, Mina Suvari, MTV stars and David Bowie as Ash launch a sonic assault on America. So riddle me this: can Ireland’s hardest-working rock’n’roll outfit crack the big one?
They love Ireland and Ireland loves them. As the Arcade Fire ramp up for world domination, the band talk about love, death, war and making music in churches.
Primed to attract and repel in equal measure, Alec Ounsworth’s disaffected drawl is pure vocal Bovril and, for many, the CYHSY maker/breaker. An acquired taste, it will either have you clutching that CYHSY record to your chest in fevered, heart palpitating devotion or reaching for the nearest scalpel to perform a Van Gogh ear double.
WITH HIS boyish looks remarkably preserved (despite the fact that he's approaching fifty) and his adenoidal vocals still intact, Jonathan Richman is still every bit the wide-eyed innocent who brought us the infectious garage punk of 'Road Runner' and 'Egyptian Reggae' over twenty years ago.
Brian Eno sums up his musical philosophy as an attempt to balance the intellect and the emotions. From Life is about the simplest aesthetics: beauty, pleasure, pure sensation
Brian Eno sums up his musical philosophy as an attempt to balance the intellect and the emotions. From Life is about the simplest aesthetics: beauty, pleasure, pure sensation
There’s no stairway to heaven for major chords on Belasco’s debut album Simplicity. There are no major chords at all, in fact.
Opener ‘Mask’ and second track ‘Car’ are models of the British trio’s miserablist form. Fantastically gloomy intros stroll across the aural landscape before heightening into unexpected loveliness – albeit of a minor chord kind.
How cool are Clap Your Hands Say Yeah? Well, cool enough to shift forty thousand units from cardboard boxes before anyone had heard of them. Ice cold enough to make the universally knee-trembling reviews this album received stateside seem far too understated. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, Alec Ounsworth’s Brooklyn five piece has it all going on.
ven before they take the stage Cold War Kids and Elvis Perkins have insured the joint will hop and then some. Nothing, however, could adequately prepare one for the maniacal surge when Brooklyn’s finest appear.
Funeral is a diverse collection of absorbing songs, each rich in both its thematic and sonic content. Colours of death, love, life, youth and family are splashed across a lush soundscape that seamlessly blends searing violin and subdued cello with indie riffs and disco beats.
As ever with this maverick talent, Gemstones is predictable only in its sheer unpredictability. Whilst his musical style remains at least moderately categorizable (those ragged folk rhythms are still present and correct), lyrically, his approach is more laissez faire than the economic policies of Reagan and Thatcher combined.
Somebody is onto something, that's for certain. To begin with the name has a touch of magic. Dexy's Midnight Runners suggests something illicit, even apart from the drug reference. It's both strong and open, pointed and evocative. And in the end it's accurate because it registers the desired connection – Dexy's Midnight Runners are a soul band.
In '92 we celebrated 15 years of existence, with cover appearances by The Cure, Jim Morrison, The Pale, REM and David Byrne, as well a special edition on sex, and cover features on the X case and Oliver Stone's JFK.
Following in the footsteps of such luminaries as W.B. Yeats, Ray McSharry and Tommie Gorman, western folk heroes Dervish have recently been honoured as Free Men of Sligo.
Continuing his occasional Bum Notes series of reminiscences on life as a musician, Peter Murphy fondly casts a nostalgic eye over the birth of his daughter and the, eh, interesting rock ’n’ roll circumstances that surrounded it.
