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The Audio Version Of David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries Is Destined For A Mashup

admin — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 03:55:20 +0000

I’ve always felt a funny connection with David Byrne’s work. I have this mild delusion that I’m an alien anthropologist, sent here to observe the strange behavior of humans. It makes it easier to accept all the killing, abuse and neglect they engage in with each other. And as a musician, I’ve always leaned on technology and tend to “talk sing” because my voice has a rich timbre but I have no real skill musical or singing skill. If you’re at all familiar with Byrne’s music, alien-like demeanor, disturbing gaze, and unusual speech patterns, I think you can understand why I feel a certain simpatico. Which is why I’m looking forward to the release of the audio version of his book Bicycle Diaries. I haven’t read the actual book, and don’t know if I’ll get around to it. Managing one’s media consumption is a full time job these days, and I’m not that interested in cycling or the insights of genius IQ media stars. But I’m excited about the release of this audio version. I’d be less excited about it if it were simply Byrne reading his book; his strange diction and delivery might easily drive one insane or hypnotize them over the course of an hour. But Byrne has taken a slightly creative approach and added ambient sounds, walla, and occasional music to the recording. The intro is available for free on his site, and if the mixes don’t get any crazier than this, the book should actually be quite listenable. Kind of like those NPR programs that are lightly punctuated with “wild sound” as segment segues. And he’s using a clever marketing method; instead of having to purchase the whole thing for $19.95, you can buy individual chapters for $2.49 after reviewing 30 second clips. The full release is scheduled for September 28. Personally, I’m looking forward to the inevitable mashups. What a treasure trove of material for slicing and dicing into an audio/video collage!

David Byrne’s Bike Racks
Byrne designed some bike racks for an urban design contest. I imagine the racks are more likely to get stolen than the bikes attached to them.

You haven’t really lived until you’ve seen David Byrne in drag interviewing himself in a Big Suit

So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star – Part I

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:52:35 +0000

Are you sure you wanna
go down this road?

Music won’t leave me alone. Not that I mind; I’ve been in love with music since I was about four, when my mom managed a music store and would bring home demo models of pianos and dual-keyboard Hammonds with beatboxes built into them. As a teen, I had an Arp Axxe synthesizer before most people knew what a synthesizer was. In the early 80′s I had a good-looking but tragically Human League-like band, and in 1989 was convinced by a very savvy manager to turn down a major label deal. At that point I put music on the backburner as a career, doing occasional soundtrack drivel (well, maybe my stuff’s not that bad) through the nineties, until 2005 when I came close to jumping into the fray of on-line music distribution by expanding my web business. Recently, I’ve been hired to research and plan some marketing for a couple of artists (including Ann Arbor’s Khalid Hanifi), and among other things, was blown away by this 2007 article (which I somehow missed at the time) in which Columbia Records’ Rick Rubin actually says out loud that the traditional music business model is toast. More interestingly though, I’ve been impressed by the wealth of information shared by artists who’ve been very successful with the new business model, much of which can be distilled down to one simple idea: forget unit sales and make money on everything else. Here are a few interesting reads, if you’re an artist looking for some direction:

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails posted this informative piece in the NIN forums, in which he suggests using Amazon Fulfillment, TuneCore, TopSpin Media, and MySpace Music. More importantly though, he talks about giving music away to collect user info, because “music is free”, and it’s better to have the public getting it from you than from a Bittorrent.

Wired presented an interesting pair of articles a while back; in this one, David Byrne does a very thorough job of outlining six business models that range from what he calls the “360/Equity Deal” (the kind of deal Madonna makes) to the “Self-distribution Model”, including lots of real-world stats and some amusing interview streams with people like Brian Eno and Mac McCaughan from Merge Records along the way. In this one, Byrne and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke talk about the “real value of music”, and the results of Radiohead’s bold move to release In Rainbows as a “pay-what-you-will” digital download. In case you never heard the figures, roughly 40 percent of fans paid for it at an average of $6 each, netting the band nearly $3 million.

The links shared here are easy-to-find resources; in part 2 I’ll share some much more up-to-the-minute information about some of the specific approaches I’m applying to the projects I’m working on.

Brazilian Girls & David Byrne – I’m Losing Myself

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:45:40 +0000

While I’m enthused about the new single by David Byrne and Brazilian Girls that’s being released exclusively on iTunes today, I’m a little bit frustrated by it’s exclusivity (more on that in a minute). I’ve been a fan of Brazilian Girls since their first release in 2005; their unique amalgam of Latin dance music, hip club stylings, and jazz influences is irresistible, and singer Sabina Sciubba’s poly-lingual antics keep the tunes interesting on repeated listening. It was always a joy at parties when people failed to realize they were headnod-dancing to a tune in which the refrain was “Pussy Pussy Pussy Marijuana”. And David Byrne? Well, as the main mastermind and vocalist of Talking Heads and occasional collaborator with Brian Eno, like him or not, he holds a pretty unique place in contemporary pop. The new tune is pretty fun, it’s an English-language remix of Brazilian Girls’ 2008 tune Losing Myself that’s been David Byrne-ified so it sounds a little like Talking Heads’ old classic “Life During Wartime”. So here’s my frustration: The new single is being released exclusively on iTunes. I am not (and may never be) an iTunes user, thanks to their shoddy history of DRM issues and insistence that you install a 70MB piece of software before they “allow” you to give them money for the music they’re selling. On top of that, the exclusive preview being offered was via the once-hip (but now a little self-indulgent and steampunk-prone) BoingBoing.net, which linked to a file that was in .wax format. It might as well be in .WTF format, as far as most people are concerned; the linked file might play in Windows Media Player , but most people have told me they couldn’t get it to play at all. I personally found a workaround using the Firefox plugin “FlashGot”. But enough bellyaching, check out the tune, if you can, and here’s the label’s press release. By the way: if you like David Byrne, you might also want to check out the tune Money from the recent release by N.A.S.A.

N.A.S.A. – The Spirit Of Apollo

admin — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:25:53 +0000

Unless you’re paralyzed from the funk bone down, N.A.S.A. is going to take you to planet shake-your-booty. The video at left is for the song Money (featuring David Byrne, Chuck D, Ras Congo, Seu Jorge, & Z-Trip), from N.A.S.A.’s upcoming debut release Spirit of Apollo which hits the shelves February 17, 2009. N.A.S.A. stands for North America/South America, and is a production project by Squeak E. Clean (Sam Spiegel, director Spike Jonze brother) and DJ Zegon (DJ/skateboarder Ze Gonzales) which has been several years in the making, and features apearances by a lengthy list of their friends, associates, and inspirations, including Tom Waits, M.I.A., Santogold, Lykke Li, and many more (see track list below). The tracks I’ve heard make me want to move to Brazil and take a job in a nightclub, and I have to admit I hate myself for liking their remix of Girl From Ipanema (4.8MB, mp3). This has been one of my favorite songs since I was about six years old, and NO WAY was I going to like some DJ rehashing of it. Alas, I was won over on the second listen. Remember this is club music, not audiophile jazz. Check out more previews on N.A.S.A.’s MySpace page or on the Mexico City blog LeTouch .

N.A.S.A. – The Spirit Of Apollo Track Listing:

01. Intro
02. The People Tree (feat. David Byrne, Chali 2na, Gift of Gab, & Z-Trip)
03. Money (feat. David Byrne, Chuck D, Ras Congo, Seu Jorge, & Z-Trip)
04. NASA Music (feat. Method Man, E-40, & DJ Swamp)
05. Way Down (feat. RZA, Barbie Hatch, & John Frusciante)
06. Hip Hop (feat. KRS-One, Fatlip, & Slim Kid Tre)
07. Four Rooms, Earth View
08. Strange Enough (feat. Karen O, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, & Fatlip)
09. Spacious Thoughts (feat. Tom Waits & Kool Keith)
10. Gifted (feat. Kanye West, Santogold, & Lykke Li)
11. A Volta (feat. Sizzla, Amanda Blank, & Lovefoxxx)
12. There’s a Party (feat. George Clinton & Chali 2na)
13. Whachadoin? (feat. Spank Rock, M.I.A., Santogold, & Nick Zinner)
14. O Pato (feat. Kool Kojak & DJ Babão)
15. Samba Soul (feat. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien & DJ Qbert)
16. The Mayor (feat. The Cool Kids, Ghostface Killah, DJ AM, & Scarface)
17. N.A.S.A. Anthem

Label: ANTI-

Until The End of the World

admin — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 01:27:26 +0000

One of my favorite films of all time is also probably one of the most overlooked: Wim Wenders’ Until The End of the World. Released in 1991, and set in 1999, it tells a multi-layered tale about a novelist (Eugene Fitzpatrick, played by Sam Neill) who follows his dreamy and spontaneous wife (Claire Tourneur, played by Solveig Dommartin) around the world as she chases a mysterious man (Sam Farber, alias Trevor McPhee – William Hurt) from country to country, finally ending up in Australia, where she discovers that he is the son of an American scientist who has developed a special camera that will enable the blind to see. As a backdrop to all of this, the world is wondering if America will shoot down a failing Indian nuclear satellite. All of which gives the impression that this is a Sci-Fi film. Which it is, in part, utilizing some very well-executed realistic-future sets and props. But more importantly, it’s a poetic tale of pursuing your dreams, understanding the connectedness of things, and one of the quickest tours of multi-cultural quirks ever captured on film. So why am I writing about this film now? Because a friend just gave me their 3-Disc PAL format DVD version. Part of the reason for the film’s original weak performance in the states was the fact that it was 160 minutes long, which is ironic, because the actual complete version on this disc is 280 minutes, in three parts. The original release was beautiful, but this even more beautiful-er. The additional footage smooths some minor bumps in the rhythm of the original release, and the breaks are perfectly timed for the plot points. It’s almost like watching an epic mini-series. Even if you never check out this film, check out the soundtrack, which in typical Wim Wenders fashion is an incredibly diverse and listenable mix including Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Patti Smith, Jane Siberry with k.d. lang, T-Bone Burnett, Depeche Mode, U2, R.E.M., Can, Elvis Costello, David Byrne, and…Pygmies! Whenever I haven’t prepared a mix for a party I throw this on and people praise my genius.

Everything That Happens Finally Happened Today

admin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:56:28 +0000

David Byrne sent me an interesting e-mail today. He let me know that the The new Byrne/Eno collaboration Everything That Happens Will Happen Today was happening today. They’ve done some creative things with this release, one of them being the dirty trick of offering a Deluxe Package for $69.99 that includes four bonus songs, a short film about the album, a screensaver app (meh), an “Everything That Happens” miniature hardbound book, and immediate access to download all the songs in various formats. They’ve also cleverly offered the little embedded player seen here. A little advice David: you’re pretty tech savvy; your people could’ve made it resizeable, and they could’ve included a frigging volume control! I’m going to ponder spending the $69.99 after I stream the songs for a bit, a nice option.

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

admin — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:05:55 +0000

Except the release of Brian Eno & David Byrne’s album of the same name, which will happen on August 4th, 2008. The music will be available exclusively at everythingthathappens.com with free previews and a free song, and it actually goes on sale two weeks later. Can’t wait for some new Byrne & Eno? Then make your own by remixing studio quality tracks from the 1981 release Bush of Ghosts. They’ve generously provided all the necessary tools and files at the Bush of Ghosts remix site .