DELTRON 3030 RECOMMENDED: David Byrne & Fatboy Slim – ‘Here Lies Love’
I’ve said it in the past and I’ll say it again – I’m a sucker for David Byrne. I fell in love with The Talking Heads way back in high school when an art teacher gave me her beat up old copies of Fear of Music and Remain in Light. I listened to them non stop that night on my crappy stereo (that had a blown out speaker) and thought to myself that this teacher was the hippest woman alive. She turned me onto a cool NY sound that clearly meant she was spending some killer late nights down at CBGBs or The Elbow Room – no doubt searching out some new sounds that she’d surely share with her students the next day. It was the first time I ever thought of a school teacher having an interesting life outside of those cold lead painted walls and their “hang in there” posters. That hip facade soon faded away the next day when she asked for the tapes back. The one night parting clearly triggered some hardcore separation anxiety in her that I’d be foolish to fight. I would pretty much sleep during her class and she never seemed to care. Because of this I figured she had a lot more leverage than me when it came to negotiating for ownership. I needed my sleep. I dubbed them that day and continued sleeping during the rest of the year in her class. It was first period ceramics – we both had low expectations about what we’d be getting out of our time together. She was on the receiving end of some truly shoddy clay molding (“it’s a snake!”) and I took away a love for David Byrne and the Talking Heads.
Advantage: Del.
Since then I’ve been an avid listener of theirs. A few years later I would watch “True Stories” on a loop at the video store I worked at, much to the chagrin of all of my co-workers. I couldn’t help it. I thought (and still think) that the Talking Heads music was something special. After their break up the band toured as “the Heads” sans Byrne while he put out a handful of uneven records. It wasn’t till his last album, a collaboration with Brain Eno, Everything that Happens Will Happen Today that I came back to check out his sound. That album was a warm blend of folksy tracks, gospel tinges, and soaring Byrne vocals. It (along with his collaboration with the Dirty Projectors on Dark Was the Night) was everything I always loved about the Talking Heads..but yet oddly different. Obviously I became pretty giddy when today I realized that he would be releasing a new double disc album this April. I was hoping for more of the same sound from his collaboration with Eno. Big mistake. David Byrne likes to zig when you zag. Eno was gone. In his place was Norman Cook. You might know him better as FatBoy Slim. This didn’t scare me off. I know it’s not cool to say you like Fat Boy Slim…but I refuse to turn my back on the man who brought us “Praise You” and “GangsTa Trippin’.” Fatboy Slim, if anything, was a man of the people. He was just giving us what 1998 was asking for. Flash forward 12 years and ask David Byrne and FatBoy Slim what 2010 is asking for? You might be surprised with what the answer is. I know I was.
Q: What is the year 2010 asking to hear? (more…)