Wednesday, July 05, 2017

You been grooving out to that iPhone 7 commercial too? Thank David Byrne

You know that commercial. The one with the barber shop. But you may not know the back story of the song.

Well, I don't know it either. But I know that the song rocks. A direct link to it, sung by Nigerian funk musician, can be found here (go to the 35 second mark if you have a short attention span).

But if there's a cover version that can rightfully pay tribute to the eclectic funk savant that William Onyeabor was, it is David Byrne. So here is David Byrne singing that song for Jimmy Fallon:



In case you're wondering, David Byrne has been blowing minds for smaller crowds for over twenty years since the Talking Heads broke up. I was lucky enough to catch him a couple times in NYC, at both the Apollo Theater and Irving Plaza, and since I'm eleventeen scotches deep, I'm gonna hopefully seduce you down the rabbit hole to fully appreciate Mr. Byrne.

Here is a song from Shuggie Otis, an artist David brought out from irrelevance almost 20 years ago on his Luaka Bop label. I bought this CD way back in the day when living with Juan Carlos in the West Village, given its strong review and its ties to Byrne. I think both Juan and I made sweet love to ones of women while playing this song:



Let's move on. Here is David Byrne's video to the song Miss America, from his late 90's solo album Feelings. This song is as eclectic as it is brilliant, and the biting lyrics add a bit of punch.




While we're at it, let's fully show the magic Byrne has an arranger and composer. Here he is covering Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," accompanied by a bunch of string players. He played this when I saw him at one of the shows in the early aughts.



I strenuously urge you all to play these tunes in your car/office/cubicle/house/pool club, often and with great relish.

10 comments:

zman said...

You and Juan Carlos had a threesome? The nineties were crazy.

TR put on a hell of a spread yesterday in honor of America's birthday and his new grill. He cooked all that meat and drank all that booze and wrote all that post in one afternoon/evening?! Most productive I've ever seen him.

TR said...

I had twice as many drinks y/day as I did hours of sleep last night. Apparently, simply ignoring the fact that I had to work today was a suboptimal strategy.

Whitney said...

Good stuff, TR. Byrne is something of a genius. And someone with Asperger Syndrome, according to him and some of those who know him. Stop Making Sense is probably my favorite concert film of all time.

Whitney said...

And Shuggie Otis, "Strawberry Letter 23," and all timer.

Danimal said...

in very rare fashion, the wives took it pretty deep with the drinking last night at a neighbor's house while the husbands kept it in check. for some, I won't name names (my wife), it resulted in multiple episodes of reverse peristalsis through this morning. tried to get her out of there on multiple occasions but she just wasn't having it. amateur.

zman said...

The tone and tenor of Danimal's comment changed quite a bit between the twelfth and thirteenth words of the first sentence. Oofah.

In other news a massive mud dauber decided to daub mud between the inner and outer panes of my family room window. It is amazing and terrifying to watch her work. I've read that their stings don't hurt but I don't want to find out.

rob said...

on a sobering note, we visited the flight 93 memorial in rural pennsylvania today on our drive home from ohio. it's an immensely moving and powerful place. sixteen years on and how different the world feels.

Whitney said...

Ummm... gheorgies?

zman said...

The new LCD Soundsystem single is fantastic dadrock. You should immediately add it to your BBQ party jam playlist and be ahead of the curve this summer.

zman said...

And it's "Call The Police."