David Byrne (musician)

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David Byrne (born May 14, 1952, in Dumbarton, Scotland) is an American musician who has won the Grammy Award, Academy Award and Golden Globe, and is best known as a founding member and the principal songwriter of the new wave band Talking Heads. He lives in New York City.

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[edit] Early years

Byrne was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, on May 14, 1952. Two years later, his parents moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and then to Arbutus, Maryland, when he was 8 or 9 years old. He graduated from Lansdowne High School in southwest Baltimore County. He then attended the Rhode Island School of Design for one year before dropping out and forming Talking Heads in 1974 with fellow RISD students Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, later joined by Jerry Harrison. He also attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, for one year.

During his time in the band, Byrne took on outside projects, collaborating with Brian Eno in 1981 on the album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which attracted considerable critical acclaim and featured a groundbreaking use of sampling.

[edit] Varied work

In 1981, Byrne partnered with choreographer Twyla Tharp, scoring "The Catherine Wheel," a ballet prominently featuring unusual rhythms and lyrics. Productions of "The Catherine Wheel" appeared on Broadway that same year. In Spite of Wishing and Wanting is a soundscape David Byrne produced for the Belgian dance company Ultima Vez.

His work has been extensively used in movie soundtracks, most notably in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won an Oscar for Best Original Score. In 2004, Lead Us Not Into Temptation (music from the film "Young Adam") included tracks and musical experiments from his score to Young Adam. Byrne also directed and starred in True Stories, a musical collage of quirky Americana released in 1986, as well as directing the documentary Île Aiye and the concert film of his 1992 Latin-tinged tour titled Between the Teeth. He was chiefly responsible for the stage design and choreography of Stop Making Sense in 1984.

Byrne wrote the Dirty Dozen Brass Band-inspired score for Robert Wilson's Opera The Knee Plays from The CIVIL warS. Some of the music from Byrne's orchestral album The Forest was originally used in a Wilson-directed theatre piece with the same name. The Forest premiered at the Theater der Freien Volksbuhne, Berlin in 1988. It received its New York premiere in December 1988 at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Forestry Maxi-single contained dance and industrial remixes of pieces from The Forest by Jack Dangers, Rudy Tambala, and Anthony Capel.

Byrne also appeared as a guest vocalist/guitarist for 10,000 Maniacs during their MTV Unplugged concert, though the songs in which he is featured were cut from its album. One of them, "Let the Mystery Be", appeared as the fourth track on 10,000 Maniacs' cd single "Few and Far Between".

Byrne was the host of "Sessions at West 54th" during its second of three seasons.

Byrne founded Luaka Bop, a world music record label which releases the work of artists Cornershop, Os Mutantes, Los De Abajo, Jim White, Zap Mama, Tom Zé and others.

Byrne is also a visual artist, and has shown his work in contemporary art galleries and museums around the world since the 1990s. He has also created a number of public art installations, many of them anonymous. He is represented by Pace/MacGill Gallery, NYC.

[edit] Recent activity

In 2001 a censored version of Byrne's single "Like Humans Do" was selected by Microsoft as the sample music for Windows XP to demonstrate Windows Media Player. [1][2]. The next year, he provided vocals for a track, "Lazy" by X-Press 2, which reached number 2 in the United Kingdom and number 1 on the U.S. Dance Charts.

In late 2003, Byrne released a book with a companion DVD called Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information (ISBN 3-88243-907-6). The work included artwork composed entirely in Microsoft PowerPoint. It includes one image that depicts, according to Byrne, "Dan Rather's profile. Expanded to the nth degree. Taken to infinity. Overlaid on the back of Patrick Stewart's head." [3]

Byrne's latest solo album, Grown Backwards, was released on March 16th, 2004 by Nonesuch. This album used orchestral string arrangements, and includes two operatic arias. He also launched a North American and Australian tour with the Tosca Strings. This tour ended with Los Angeles, San Diego and New York shows in August 2005. The following year, his singing was featured on "The Heart's a Lonely Hunter" on The Cosmic Game by Thievery Corporation.

Returning to this work in the theatre, in late 2005 Byrne and Fatboy Slim began work on Here Lies Love, a disco opera or song cycle about the life of Imelda Marcos, the controversial former First Lady of the Philippines. Some music from this piece was debuted at Carnegie Hall on February 3rd, 2007.

Byrne and Eno's influential 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was re-released for its 25th anniversary in early 2006, with new bonus tracks. In keeping with the spirit of the original album, two of the songs' component tracks were released under Creative Commons licenses and a remix contest site was launched. Later that same year, Byrne released Arboretum, a sketchbook facsimile of his Tree Drawings, published by McSweeney's. He also had an exhibition of his chairs — drawings, photographs, sculptures, and embroideries — at Pace/MacGill Gallery, NYC.

Byrne was profiled in the New York Times in January, 2007.[4] The article refers to his April 15, 2006 journal entry, in which he wrote: “I was a peculiar young man — borderline Asperger's, I would guess.”[5]

It was recently announced that David Byrne is working with Brian Eno on new music.

[edit] David Byrne in popular culture

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  • In 1996, Phish chose to mimic the Talking Heads album Remain In Light during their Halloween performance. They performed the album for a sellout crowd at The Omni in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The second set of this four-hour performance featured the entire album, note for note. Each ticketholder received a Playbill announcing the choice, prior to the show.
  • The comedy TV series Mystery Science Theatre 3000 often referenced David Byrne in a number of riffs and skits. Some MST3K Digital Archive DVDs had an easter egg involving David Byrne, playing himself and his interviewers.
  • In the 309th episode of The Simpsons, "Dude, Where's My Ranch?", first-aired April 27, 2003, Byrne makes an appearance as himself. In the episode, he is a researcher of indigenous folk music of Springfield who co-sings and produces Homer Simpson's hate-song of Ned Flanders, and at the end of the episode also produces The Moe Szyslak Connection. In the episode, Byrne also claims to be a former wrestler, called "El Diablo."
  • The Crash Test Dummies song "When You Go Out With Artists" mentions David Byrne.
  • During an early scene in the adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road, Max utters the phrase "'Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.' -David Byrne.
  • In the 2003 Halloween episode of the web cartoon Homestar Runner, the character of Strong Sad dresses up as David Byrne.
  • Byrne appeared on the Cartoon talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast on the episode titled Fire Drill. This is considered by fans to be one of the earliest truly classic episodes of the series. Space Ghost makes repeated homo-erotic comments towards Byrne in an attempt to make him uncomfortable, and succeeds. Zorak quotes The Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime by Finishing one of Byrne's sentences for him with "Living in a shotgun shack." The other guest was Donny Osmond.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio & Live Albums

[edit] Collaborations and soundtracks

  • Featured on the Baby Elephant single "How Does the Brainwave?" (2007)
  • Featured on the Paul Van Dyk track "Fall With Me" (2007)
  • Jim White & David Byrne, Talk and Talk and Talk (2001)
  • Forro in the Dark, Bonfires of Sao Jao: vocals on two songs, "Asa Branca" and "I Wish (Bundle of Contradictions) (2006)"
  • "Sing" co-writing and backing vocals, song on Bernie Worrell's album Funk of Ages (1990)
  • "Heart is a Lonely Hunter" lyrics and vocal, Thievery Corporation, The Cosmic Game (2004)
  • "Lazy" lyrics & vocal, X-Press 2 (2002)
  • "Rio" lyrics & vocal, Vinicus Cantuaria, Vinicius (2001)
  • "No Controles" vocals, Café Tacuba, Avalanche de Exitos (1996)
  • Forestry, with Jack Dangers and Rudy Tambala (1992)
  • "Liquid Days" and "Open the Kingdom;" lyrics by David Byrne, music by Phillip Glass (1986)
  • "Let The Mystery Be," "Dallas," and "Jolene" duet with Natalie Merchant on MTV Unplugged, 10,000 Maniacs (1993)
  • "God's Child" (Baila Conmigo) duet with Selena (1995)
  • "Hoy no le temo a la muerte" lyrics & vocal, La Portuaria (2006)
  • Score to Dead End Kids: A Story of Nuclear Power, film by Joanne Akalaitis
  • Main title theme for Alive From Off Center, Season 1 (1984)
  • Something Wild, directed by Jonathan Demme: "Loco de Amor" song co-written with Johnny Pacheco; sung with Celia Cruz backed by Ray Barretto's band (1986)
  • Married to the Mob, directed by Jonathan Demme (1988)
  • A Young Man's Dream and a Woman's Secret, film by Philip Haas (1990)
  • The Giant Woman and The Lightening Man, film by Philip Haas (1990)
  • Producer: Mesopotamia, B-52's
  • Producer: Waiting, Fun Boy 3
  • Producer: Elegibo, Margareth Menezes, tracks "Canto pra Subir" and "Abra a Boca", Mango/Island Records, 1990
  • Appears as himself in Fabricando Tom Zé (Fabricating Tom Zé), a Brazilian documentary about Tom Zé, directed by Decio Matos Jr. (2006)
  • Score to second season of Big Love, an HBO original series (2007)

[edit] Contributions

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/aug01/08-01DavidByrnePR.mspx
  2. ^ http://www.forbes.com/2001/08/21/0821byrne.html
  3. ^ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt1.html
  4. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/arts/music/14herm.html?ex=1169528400&en=bdbe3ac1c29c2b77&ei=5070&emc=eta1
  5. ^ http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2006/04/41506_military_.html

[edit] External links

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