The Wall Street Journal-20080130-Byrne Is More Than a Former Talking Head

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Byrne Is More Than a Former Talking Head

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New York -- Although David Byrne's reputation as a great musician rests mostly on songs that he created as frontman for the Talking Heads -- a group that, before it disbanded in 1991, played a searing amalgam of rock, funk, West African and Afro-Cuban music -- he has continued to produce ambitious projects and pursue a solo career.

Mr. Byrne was notoriously stiff for many years, an awkward stage presence and seemingly uncomfortable speaking in public. But he's become much more of a people person with the onset of middle age. He's often seen at rock shows, movies and gallery openings. He's taken to being a man about town -- without proper introductions, I've had several casual conversations with Mr. Byrne in different venues. Recently we spoke for 30 minutes on the phone in a cordial interview.

This season, Mr. Byrne has released "The Knee Plays" (Nonesuch), a CD collection of interludes he wrote for Robert Wilson's 1984 opera "Civil warS," and "Live in Austin" (New West), a concert DVD and CD of a Texas stop on his 2001 tour, which was one of his best. In addition, "Upholstering the Self," an exhibition of chairs that he designed was on exhibit at the Hemphill Fine Arts Gallery in November and December. And back in October he hosted "How New Yorkers Ride Bikes," an evening of spoken word, comedy skits and musical performances at Town Hall about urban cycling.

Are there any threads that connect these activities? "There probably are, but I'm not really aware of them," said Mr. Byrne.

His latest release, "The Knee Plays," was rooted in a trip to New Orleans that he took in 1983. He visited the bars and social clubs where well-known local groups like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Rebirth Brass Band played. He was impressed by their wide repertoire, which included jazz classics, New Orleans funk and even vintage TV scores.

"It was inspiring to hear great music that people were dancing to," he said. Outside of New Orleans, "it was like all jazz had been removed from the dance hall" and become "concert-hall music," he explained. "It's as if you were being scolded and told not to dance, and I thought that's betraying part of what music is all about."

When he was approached by Mr. Wilson about the opera project, Mr. Byrne immediately thought of the brass bands, since the musicians playing the interludes needed to be able to get on and off stage without much difficulty.

Although "Civil warS" was never actually staged, a concert version of Byrne's music toured and was released on LP. It was out of print until last year, when Mr. Byrne thought of performing the interludes at a benefit for victims of Hurricane Katrina. He was pleased with the music, and he was excited by the prospect of reissuing it with additional tracks and a DVD of a slide show that illustrates the original staging that had been planned for the music.

The music has aged gracefully, and many of its touchstones will be familiar to fans of the Talking Heads or Mr. Byrne's other solo effort from the early '80s -- the score to choreographer Twyla Tharp's piece "The Catherine Wheel." The rhythms are familiar but gently abstracted. Mr Byrne's vocals are more spoken than sung, and his subject matter runs toward the mundane -- people going to the movies, or shopping malls, or deciding what to wear to work -- rather than the spectacular, which is one thread he's noticed in his work.

"I thought it was more realistic than the overblown, heroic, romantic stuff that is all around," said Mr. Byrne. "Most of our lives aren't that exciting, but the drama is still going on in the small details."

The live release highlights two especially fertile phases of Mr. Byrne's diverse career. Recorded during the stellar 2001 tour, it includes five Talking Heads songs, and four more from Mr. Byrne's exceptional solo disc "Look Into the Eyeball" (Virgin). Although the material is strong, the release duplicates what's found on Mr. Byrne's 2004 DVD, "Live from Union Chapel" (Nonesuch). Either document makes an excellent companion to the Talking Heads' classic concert DVD "Stop Making Sense" (Warner Bros).

The Washington gallery show is a reflection of Mr. Byrnes's longtime interest in chairs. "They hold you, support you, elevate you, and humble you -- they're people," he writes in the notes to the exhibition. "Chairs have arms and legs and vaguely human scale." He writes that he has been sketching chairs for nearly 20 years, and for this show several of his designs were turned into actual pieces of furniture.

And what led to Mr. Byrne's "How New Yorkers Ride Bikes"? He has been riding a bicycle that can be folded for easy storage ever since he moved to New York in the mid-1970s. The Town Hall show was motivated in part by his observation that cycling around New York was becoming more accessible and more people were doing it. "It's part of a general cultural change that comes along with people becoming foodies and valuing the quality of life over the quantity of life," he said.

He acknowledges that the rise in bicycle transportation ties in nicely to environmental issues like congestion and global warming, but he's reluctant to get on a soapbox: "I'm loath to advocate something because it's good for you or because it's morally or politically correct," he said. "I'd rather advocate something on the basis that it's fun and feels good."

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Mr. Johnson writes about jazz and popular music for the Journal.