By Kai Flanders

David Byrne and St. Vincent
Williamsburg Park
9/29/12

Better than: ... hoping against hope that a Talking Heads reunion tour will happen.

Criticizing David Byrne is difficult. It's not just that he's such a seminal artist to a lot of people, nor that he's prolific and brainy: publishing the book How Music Works through McSweeney's and giving TED talks in addition to consistently releasing music, never mind this little thing called Talking Heads. It's the fact that he's so completely earnest. In a time when irony is more common than reverb, it's hugely refreshing that Byrne isn't frivolous about what he does, that he is constantly attempting instead of snickering. Even when he misfires, you never feel slighted.

See Also:
- David Byrne and St. Vincent Get Together At The Beacon
- David Byrne Puts The Whole World Under The Highline
- Live: St. Vincent

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David Byrne's Tight Spot
The Pace Gallery/The High Line
Thursday, September 15

Better than: A designer pop-up shop.

In just about any other context, David Byrne's Tight Spot would be breathtaking. Installed under the High Line tracks on 25th Street, just west of 10th Avenue, it is hard to imagine a more universal and malleable symbol than Byrne's giant inflatable globe. Squashed and straining between train-track support beams in a space recently taken over by the Pace Gallery empire, Byrne's exaggerated Earth is rather impressive and elegant as is. But during its unveiling last night, its reach seemed slightly less than global, despite the subject matter, and almost devoid of emotion.

On the first notably autumnal evening of the year, Tight Spot seemed to play with the idea that every last space of the city must be filled with people and galleries and pop-up shops and faux-speakeasies masquerading as taco stands where noise-pop bands might play acoustically during fashion industry events and, like, global culture. And with a table of Pellegrino at the ready and the Chelsea art world circus spilling out onto the sidewalk amid just another Thursday splattered with openings, conceptual food trucks lining the block, Byrne's piece and the gallery crowd seemed to do more than simply symbolize the overcrowding and info-noise. Less than a hundred yards away, Pace opened a group show, Social Media, featuring a few of Byrne's fake iPhone apps. A giant Twitter feed scrolled up the gallery wall nearest the street. And a few feet beyond that, another gallery and another opening, this one showing contemporary abstract expressionist Melissa Meyer. The space under the High Line seemed more suited for art openings than art.

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MTV turns 30 today. To celebrate, we're running a bunch of pieces on the channel, its legacy, and its future.

Earlier today, we counted down the best music videos directed by people who took home (or, more likely, left at the podium) the Razzies' "Golden Raspberry" award for worst director. Now we're counting down the best music videos by those directors' raised-brow, Oscar-winning counterparts. Let's get right to it.

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David Byrne and Yo La Tengo care. All photos by Jesse Jarnow.

Yo La Tengo
Maxwell's
Wednesday, March 23

Better than: Sitting home alone fretting about cataclysmic awfulness.

It's been 26 years since Yo La Tengo played every Wednesday at Maxwell's, and a last-minute benefit for Peace Winds Japan had the trio sounding very much like a neighborhood band again. Not that they don't normally anyway, but the familial mellowness was so palpable that it was easy to forget their other life as heavy cultural touchstones. Maybe it was because they left the vintage Acetone and Farfisa at home. But even the appearance of David Byrne in pinstriped overalls (and a bright white wristwatch) singing a new ballad about Imelda Marcos didn't read as too far out of the ordinary. Every neighborhood needs an eccentric.

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With Seth Rogen on drums! Dave almost wipes out on a water bottle right at the onset, and there's like a Super Mario Bros. power-up mushroom onstage for some reason, but otherwise this is a totally normal evening at the Bowery Ballroom. They also rumbled through "Road to Nowhere" as per below, though maybe fast-forward through the janky a capella part. (And don't tell Charlie Crist.)

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We've been here before.

So yesterday former Talking Heads frontman and current omni-artistic silver fox David Byrne dropped a $1 million dollar lawsuit on Florida Governor and embattled Senatorial candidate Charlie Crist, who'd used the Heads' 1985 romp "Road to Nowhere" in a campaign ad without asking. Byrne is in the right here, but let's take a moment to congratulate Charlie on his excellent taste, which beats the hell outta John Cougar Mellencamp, and shows markedly less "actual meaning of song vs. politician-implied meaning of song" cluelessness than, say, the Reagan-era heralding of "Born in the U.S.A."

Crist, a Republican lately turned Independent, apparently used "Road to Nowhere" in an attack ad lambasting his far more conservative opponent, the Tea Party-ish Marco Rubio, as leading Florida on the, well, you know. Problem is, "Nowhere" in the song actually sounds pretty attractive--"We're on the road to paradise/Here we go/Here we go," Byrne declares. Could be confusing. Crist should just pick a better Talking Heads song. Here are a few suggestions, for those across the political spectrum.

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Per Billboard comes the latest "politician swipes a pop song for a campaign ad; pop star recoils in horror" tale -- these are always a delight, even though the epic John McCain/Jackson Browne battle of 2008/9 was supposed to settle this question once and for all in the artists' favor. But no, Charlie Crist, former Republican and newly minted Independent, sassed his senatorial-race opponent, Marco Rubio (who himself prefers Steve Miller), with an ad making liberal use of Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere" (great song!), and Dave is having none of it:

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I will admit to severe trepidation regarding Here Lies Love, Mr. Byrne's star-studded full-album tribute to Imelda Marcos (preorder here; $35 for the deluxe package), but this first tune/video, sung by Santigold and consisting entirely of vintage footage of Imelda dancing with various world leaders, is heartening in its oddly buoyant oddness. You get the track free right now if you do any pre-ordering; whole thing's out April 6.

You get one guess which Pitchfork writer. Fascinating post on DB's journal/blog on songwriting alchemy, how much everyone hates writing words, his own personal workspace ("Serial numbers and security codes for software are pinned to the wall, along with a Tammy Wynette poster"), and so forth. Evidently that tune he sang with St. Vincent back in January is one of eight (!) they've been working on; he also discusses his imminent Imelda Marcos/Fatboy Slim project Here Lies Love, and reaches back to confirm the suspicion that he was often (at first, at least) just making shit up back in his Talking Heads days:

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Good audio, lousy video, though it does seem as though she's floating in midair.

St. Vincent
Allen Room
Friday, January 29

"Well this is just dreadfully pleasant," deadpans Annie Clark, summing it all up expertly, as usual. St. Vincent is holding court in the prettiest venue in NYC, vista-wise, the wall behind her composed entirely of windows looking out on Central Park and the apartment windows across the street. "Did you see the couple arguing?" jokes David Byrne, when he (somewhat inevitably) shows up for a tune. "Did you see the little boy watching porno on the wide-screen?"

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