Tag Results
15 posts tagged David Byrne
Back in January, we learned that Will Oldham and Talking Heads icon David Byrne have teamed up to compose music for an unusual forthcoming film starring Sean Penn as a Nazi-hunting, Robert Smith-esque aging rock star. Now tracklist details and a few previews of the OST have arrived. Taking its title from the 1983 Talking Heads classic, This Must Be the Place features five new songs with lyrics by Oldham, music by Byrne, and lead vocals provided by Irish singer-songwriter Michael Brunnock, who also covers Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “Lay & Love” for the film.
The 17-track set is rounded out with a few soundtrack staples (Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger,” a previously released Jónsi song, etc.), a live version of Byrne performing the titular song, and the tune Penn can be seen lip-syncing in the trailer, “Every Single Moment In My Life Is a Weary Wait.” While I’m still not sure if the film will be any good, the songs that have popped up on YouTube are intriguing — particularly Brunnock’s take on “Lay & Love.” You can check out some clips with the tracklist below:
Trailer: This Must Be the Place
Will Oldham penned lyrics while David Byrne provided music and a cameo performance for Paolo Sorrentino’s new film, This Must Be the Place, starring Sean Penn as a Robert Smith-esque aging rock star seeking to avenge his father’s persecution at the hands of an ex-Nazi. An unusual teaser reel surfaced in April, but now a more representative, official preview of the odd dramedy has arrived. Check out the trailer above (via the Playlist), which includes Irish songwriter Michael Brunnock — who recorded vocals for the Byrne/Oldham songs on the soundtrack — covering Bonnie “Prince” Billy track “Lay & Love,” Iggy Pop classic “The Passenger,” a frame from Byrne’s performance of the titular Talking Heads tune, and a funny bit in which Penn’s character, Cheyenne, corrects a kid who thinks “This Must Be the Place” is an Arcade Fire song.
Listen: Arcade Fire, David Byrne: “Speaking in Tongues”
As promised, one of the bonus tracks for Arcade Fire’s forthcoming The Suburbs deluxe edition boasts a brief cameo on vocals by the great Talking Heads frontman/solo artist David Byrne. Their collaboration, “Speaking in Tongues,” premiered on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show today alongside another new song, “Culture War.” You can stream the former tune, a bouncy, mid-tempo jam (Byrne’s contribution is prominent only during the outro) above or give both radio rips a spin over at Listen Before You Buy.
Update: We now have non-radio streams (H/T My Poproks) — above and below — via Merge Records for both songs.
“Culture War”
Some intriguing news from Merge Records just arrived: Arcade Fire’s forthcoming DVD/CD re-release of Grammy AOTY winner The Suburbs not only includes two previously unreleased tracks, as previously reported, but a new cut featuring vocals by the great David Byrne as well. In addition to an extended take on “Wasted Hours (A Life That We Can Live),” the full Spike Jonze-directed film Scenes from the Suburbs, and new tune “Culture War,” Arcade Fire will unveil “Speaking In Tongues” with “additional vocals” provided by Byrne.
The former Talking Heads leader has been a strong supporter of the Montreal indie rockers for many years, even sharing the stage with them for a cover of “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” back in 2005. For pre-order info and more details on the August 2 release of The Suburbs (Deluxe Edition) go here. Meanwhile, I’ll be revisiting their live performance of the aforementioned Byrne-penned tune below:
Video: Sean Penn in David Byrne, Will Oldham-Soundtracked Film
Back in January, David Byrne revealed that he had begun working with Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, to write songs for director Paolo Sorrentino’s forthcoming film, This Must Be The Place, which stars Sean Penn as a Robert Smith-esque “retired rock star [who] sets out to find his father’s executioner, an ex-Nazi war criminal.” Now our first glimpse (and musical taste) of this intriguing drama is here (via The Playlist). Watch the teaser clip above, which includes a song and music video performed by Penn’s character, Cheyenne, starting around the 1-minute mark.
Also of note, Byrne acts in the film, performing the Talking Heads song its named after and possibly in other scenes. This Must Be The Place, which co-stars Frances McDormand, Harry Dean Stanton, and Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson, is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month.
St. Vincent Covers Brian Eno - “Some of Them Are Old”
According to a recent interview with the WSJ, St. Vincent’s Annie Clark will begin recording her follow-up to 2009’s Actor next month with hopes to release an LP later this year. In addition to her solo work, however, Clark and David Byrne are “about four songs” in to the collaborative project that the ex-Talking Heads leader blogged about last year. With those two releases on the horizon, now’s a perfect opportunity to check out a cover that Clark unveiled at two recent events: “Some of Them Are Old,” a cut off Byrne pal Brian Eno’s classic solo debut, Here Come the Warm Jets. Hear a piano-backed take from last month’s Burgundy Stain Sessions alongside Sam Amidon, Doveman, and others below (via Sonic Smörgåsbord), and enjoy Clark’s stunning solo rendition from SLC’s Sundance Film Festival in January above (via YouTube).
The Burgundy Stain Sessions
Given that director Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must Be the Place takes its name from an oft-covered Talking Heads hit while starring Sean Penn as, ostensibly, Robert Smith, we were hoping the film would boast an intriguing soundtrack. Enter ex-Talking Head David Byrne himself and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, aka Will Oldham. As The Playlist points out, Byrne revealed to Time Out London recently that he has teamed up with Oldham to write songs for the film about an aging, retired rock star seeking to track down an ex-Nazi war criminal who persecuted his father at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Though David Byrne’s online journal often takes on daunting subjects, such as Czech Republic steel foundry/coal mine complexes, “The Kindle Experience,” Bono, and the “Internet Antichrist,” that doesn’t mean he’s short on words about music. In fact, his latest entry consists of over 2,000 words discussing his ongoing collaboration with St. Vincent, past work with Brian Eno, how the suggestion that he would “collaborate for a bag of Doritos” isn’t too far off, and more. (A few photos of his recording studio are also included, which bear a striking resemblance to TwentyFourBit HQ.)
As for the headline above, Byrne mentions his performance with St. Vincent at the Lincoln Center’s Allen Room in New York City earlier this year, adding:
At [Annie Clark’s] suggestion, we did a song we’d been writing together, one of about 8 or so. Our collaboration was partly inspired by the Dirty Projectors/Björk thing at Housing Works many months ago that we both attended. We agreed to do something similar there, though there is no timetable. Annie (her real name) has been on tour, on and off, for quite a while, so the collaboration proceeds in fits and starts.
The most intriguing part of this excellent pairing is that Clark and Byrne are attempting to use a brass ensemble as their core backing band.
The annual South by Southwest Music, Film, and Interactive Festival will descend upon Austin, Texas in almost exactly one month from tonight, but aside from a few über-hyped projects, the full film screening list wasn’t fully known until yesterday’s announcement.
Though our recent rummaging through the Sundance Film Fest roster proved notably fruitful, SXSW’s lineups kind of pwned it in a way, offering quite the competitive array of music and/or musician-related films for us to ogle.
Now we could spit out a whole post for every single one of these, but that’s not how I roll, so let’s just throw the hand on the table, kids:
In case you haven’t heard, David Byrne takes his blogging very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that past entries to his official journal have taken on Czech Republic steel foundry/coal mine complexes, “The Kindle Experience,” and Bono. But in his latest rant/essay, Byrne goes a bit more apocalyptic. Check out “Internet Antichrist” here.
Whereas Fake Tom Waits joined Twitter in the early days, the real Tom Waits didn’t start tweeting until today. (It’s probably just an intern, but at least it’s an official ghost Twitterer or something.) Anti Records pointed their followers at the new page today with: “All the Wit and Wisdom of Tom Waits is now on Twitter! Follow @anti_tomwaits.”
So what’s he tweeting in there?