PYRAMIDS

When I was in college (yeah, you know you like to drop that line every now and then too), I did a semester-long project where my professors compiled for us a list of several contemporary individuals and groups that they felt were innovators and leaders in their respective fields. The project was to take the artists, create a fake event or happening or concert or whatever, as long as it included a poster, a ticket, and a direct mailer/postcard. It was extremely open-ended which forced us to do a MASSIVE amount of research to find something that was unique, and true to that artist. We dug deep, son… so deep… deep as the abyss…

The list included such beasts as:

• film director Michel Gondry, 
• designer/art director Tibor Kalman, 
• dance troupe Project Bandaloop (youtube them…bananas), 
• fashion designers Victor + Rolf, 
• architect Zaha Hadid, 
• film director Pedro Almodovar, 
• designer/art director Stephan Sagmeister, 
• writer Paul Auster, 
• fashion designer Walter Von Beirendonck, 
• designer/thinker Bruce Mau, 
• and a few more… 

I can’t believe I remember them all. Well maybe because I had to hear and see their names every single day for 4 months… and at the end of the semester, everyone did a 10-15 minute presentation or whatever on their artist or group… Eventually I had gone back and done my own research in my spare time on most of them. It was really a good look on my Professors’ parts because they definitely schooled us to some new shit that most of us weren’t hip to at the time. If you have a couple of days, look these artists up, they’re really amazing. Sorry, but I was too lazy to make links, plus…no one made links for me back then!!! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeett…….

Back to my point…

So the artist who’s number I drew out of a hat was the legendary David Byrne…. Well, at the time, he wasn’t the LDB to me, he was just that guy that sang in the Talking Heads. I actually had no idea why the hell he was on the list, minus the band… I had a whole semester to find out.

Long story short…

Started my research as most would…online. Found out about his music-Talking Heads (that’s all I listened to for like 3 months straight on my ipod), Brian Eno collabos, solo joints,  ’world music’ ventures, etc… I bought some cds, downloaded some hot traxxx, found out he started the label Luaka Bop Records, etc… Learned about his fine art projects and gallery showings… He did all of this while being photographer-slash-writer-slash-video director-slash-everything else on the side… Dude had his plate full-and was hungry at that. 

Anyway so that was that… the project lead me to a new favorite band, a bunch of books on David Byrne, a new way of appreciating an artist’s body of work, a not-so-awesome-anymore project, and something to blog about 4 years later…

But really, I’m still a HUGE fan (NPI/NH) of Mr. David Byrne… big enough to revisit him here. 

Originally, the whole point of this post was just to post a couple of images and talk about his book The New Sins, but it’s late. I’ll just hit y’all off with some links…

LiNk bLaSt!!!

1. www.davidbyrne.com – The New Sins, suggested reading 1 & 2

2. www.davidbyrne.com/radio/index.php  <- Doesn’t matter what kind of music you’re into… he covers almost all of it except for hip-hop, but that would be corny anyway if he did. His current playlist called “Avant-Pop” includes James Pants, Lykke Li, Bat for Lashes, SantoGold, Chromeo, CocoRosie, MGMT, etc…

3. www.luakabop.com <– Os Mutantes, Nouvelle Vague, etc…

4. MORE LINKS!! <– My easy way out of thinkin’ n’ linkin’….

I’ll stop here because at this point I feel that I’m sharing too much.

Gotta keep some for myself!

Peace!

BV