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David Byrne’s talking You remember David Byrne, right? The front guy from Talking Heads with that weird Norman Bates vibe around him, singing in a strangled, quavering voice. The art-school New York band hit it big in 1976 with "Psycho Killer" ("Qu'est que çe? Fa-fa-fa-fa ..."), then with that chilly white-boy funk rendition of Al Green's "Take Me to the River."
Latin rhythms,
global pop
The former 'Talking Head' is on
tour for his latest and best albumBy Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comCut to the Honolulu Airport bar-club Gussie L'Amour's 21 years ago. The Talking Heads are touring in support of their third album, "Fear of Music." The "this ain't no disco" song, "Life During Wartime," has made them popular. I see both of the shows and love how the group's four distinct personalities -- Byrne, Jerry Harrison and the husband-and-wife rhythm team of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz -- click in such a quirky, affecting way.
One visual memory of Byrne sticks out from the first night: He leans out into the club from the back-room dressing area before the set begins, his silhouette bathed by the room's yellowish light, looking both slightly fearful and anticipatory.
Byrne has his own image blip from that concert.
Where: World Cafe, 1130 N. Nimitz Highway An Evening with David Byrne
When: 8 p.m. today, doors open at 7
Admission: $20
Information: www.goldenvoice.com
"I remember going into the men's room, and there were servicemen who were tripping their brains out (on) acid," he said in an e-mail interview late last week. "Not what I expected. Booze, maybe, and maybe speed or some uppers ... but LSD in, at that time, it must have seemed, well, a surprise. And what a place to trip -- in the men's room!!!"
Between that first trip to Hawaii and Byrne's return for tonight's concert at World Cafe, a lot has happened. Talking Heads would disband in 1988 over creative differences. And even though Byrne had steadfastly refused to rejoin his former band mates on a reunion tour (he unsuccessfully sued them in 1996 to prevent them touring with the Talking Heads name; the suit was settled out of court, and the rest of the band toured and recorded as the Heads with guest singers), it's been reported that the reluctant front man will be a Head again, if only briefly, for a two-song performance during their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York in mid-March.
Byrne hasn't needed the legacy of Talking Heads to keep busy. He juggles his solo musical and artistic projects with collaborations that date to the latter years of the band's existence (e.g., his dance and theatrical scores for Twyla Tharp's "The Catherine Wheel" and Robert Wilson's "The Knee Plays," the genre-bending "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts," an album he did with Brian Eno that incorporated "found sound" with Arabic and funk grooves, and he won an Oscar with Ryuichi Sakamoto for their music for Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor").
Since the Talking Heads breakup, Byrne has woven Cuban and South American rhythms into his work, and championed other global pop acts on the Luaka Bop label, which he runs with partner Yale Evelev. (Check out the "Listen Up" page in today's features section for an overview of the label and a review of the label's upcoming release from the Mexico City band Los De Abajo.)
This time around, Byrne is touring in support of his latest and best album to date, "Look Into the Eyeball." Besides his plain-stated, humanist lyrics, there are the additional little touches -- a string quartet, exotic percussion and a couple of tracks arranged by Philadelphia soul legend Thom Bell -- that show that Byrne is still very much the inquisitive, restless soul.
Byrne was particularly glad to respond to a query about upcoming Luaka Bop projects. "Thank you for asking," he said. "It's unseemly to be talking only about myself.
"Zap Mama (Belgian-African singer Marie Daulne) is completing a new CD produced entirely by the Roots, featuring Erykah Badu, Common (and) Bilal. There are some new compilations in the works: one of electronica, the genre I refer to as blip-hop -- also known as IDM, intelligent dance music, but I hate that term -- and there's a collection of recent French stuff due out soon, too, not Daft Punk and Air; there's a lot more bubbling over there besides just those two."
While Byrne's art still has a sting of social commentary and quiet indignation, it is tempered by a wholehearted spirituality that never becomes dogmatic.
"I think my work is less ironic than it used to be," he replied. "But there is still plenty of humor. Sometimes irony doesn't work and sometimes it does. I was thinking about it the other day. 'Born in the USA' was, I suppose, an ironic song -- an anthemic rouser that was lyrically about exactly the opposite, self-doubt and confusion. But the driving, pounding music dominated in the end, and the subtle irony got lost, it seemed to me. So much is in the way the music and the words join, not just the words alone.
"Of course, with the strings added to the driving grooves of this band, it just plain sounds beautiful sometimes ... which is where the wholehearted part comes in. Whew."
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