David Byrne is all about connectedness these days. “Everybody’s coming to my house/And I’m never gonna be alone,” he sings on Broadway in “American Utopia,” half joyful, half fretful, still open. His online magazine, “Reasons to Be Cheerful” — which bills itself as “a tonic for tumultuous times” — catalogs all the ways in which people are pulling together to make sure the world does not in fact go to hell in a handbasket. And on Feb. 2, he reprises this theme of connectedness at Pace Gallery in Chelsea with a show of 48 whimsical line drawings that span 20 years of art making, from his “tree” series of the early ’00s to the “dingbats” he made in lockdown in 2020-2021.
Category: David Byrne
David Byrne Is Embracing His Mister Rogers Connection
If there’s been one constant over David Byrne’s four-decade career, it’s his perpetual evolution. That, and others comparing him to the beloved children’s-show host Mister Rogers.
“When I was younger, during my Talking Heads days, that was not meant as a compliment,” Byrne says. “It was meant as ‘You are a weird, geeky, creepy guy. You are in your own little world.’”
Read the story here.
All Digital Aspen Ideas Festival Announces 2020 Agenda, Free From June 28-July 2
Lineup Includes Stacey Abrams, Bill Gates, Madeleine Albright, Anthony Fauci, David Byrne, and Anna Deavere Smit.
Aspen, CO & Washington, DC, June 24, 2020––The Aspen Institute has announced the agenda for the Aspen Ideas Festival, which will take place online in 2020. Offered free to everyone for the first time in its 16-year history, the five-day Festival will take place from June 28 – July 2, with daily 90-minute episodes streaming from 7:00pm ET.
Read the entire press release here.
Q&A with David Byrne: How the musician is passing the time during the pandemic
Like so many, national arts reporter Geoff Edgers has been grounded by the coronavirus. So he decided to launch an Instagram Live show from his barn in Concord, Mass. Every Tuesday and Friday afternoon, Edgers hosts an hour-long interview show he calls “Stuck With Geoff,” with whoever will take his calls. So far, that has included comedian Tiffany Haddish, television journalist Katie Couric, sportscaster Joe Buck and Bill Nye “The Science Guy.” Recently, Edgers chatted with musician, writer and biking enthusiast David Byrne.
Read the whole story on The Washington Post.
David Byrne Is a Textbook Renaissance Man
Throughout his long and colorful career, David Byrne has done a lot of things. He revolutionized popular music as the leader of one of the 20th century’s most innovative bands, Talking Heads. He redefined what a live performance could be, only to redefine it again and again. He pushed the boundaries of film with his concert documentary Stop Making Sense and his Americana slice-of-life musical True Stories. He has made successful forays into theater, literature, acting, visual art and more. In short, Byrne is a textbook Renaissance man whose innovative spirit has only sharpened with age.
Read the full story on American Songwriter here.
