You lookin' at me, Frodo? Rumors swirl. We report.

By Fred Mills

If you're Tom Waits, it ain't enough to celebrate your 60^th birthday; the musical legend was born on this day in 1949, and we at BLURT would like say, "Happy birthday, Tom!" (You can read our review of his recent album Glitter and Doom Live here.) And for most folks, just blowing out the candles would suffice. But not Tom.

Waits is easing into his 60^th year to the rumors that he's under serious consideration for a major role in Peter Jackson's upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit. The director's apparently already holding auditions for various parts, and while no specifics have emerged from the Jackson camp, other actors reportedly in the possible mix include Daniel Radcliffe, Martin Freeman, James McAvoy and David Tennant. The only confirmed roles thus far have ben for Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis.

Waits, of course, has appeared in many films over the years, sometimes in main roles and sometimes more cameo-based. They include Down By Law, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mystery Men, Short Cuts, Myster Train and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Filming for The Hobbit  scheduled to begin sometime in the middle of 2010. Tom, drop us a line and keep us posted...

Let's take a look at what we know about those ace remasters, shall we?

By Fred Mills

Beatles completists have begun to queue in anticipation of tomorrow's (Dec. 8) release of the remastered Beatles back catalog in digital format, as an Apple-shaped USB device, although there's a good chance that if you didn't preorder it you're out of luck for now: the limited edition (30,000 units worldwide) is currently showing as being on back order at most online retailers, such as Amazon, which indicates customers can "sign up to be notified" when it becomes available.

So we thought this was a good opportunity to revisit those remasters via Blurt editor A.D. Amorosi's September overview, which is republished below. Happy holiday shopping!

Meanwhile, it was reported late last week that a small, maverick minded website called BlueBeat.com has been selling Beatles MP3s despite the fact that Apple has not licensed individual tracks for sale on iTunes, Amazon or other digital music portals. As a result, EMI has filed for copyright infringement against BlueBeat's partent company, Media Rights Technologies. Read the background story here.

**

THE BEATLES REMASTERS

BY A.D. AMOROSI

The Beatles thing is a lot to get through if you let it; the televised network interviews you knew would come (who knew Mary Hart was so close to them in the day?); the utter creepiness of the The Beatles: Rock Band video game (what happened to Ringo's nose?) and its ad campaign (a digitally enhanced furriness added to Lennon's beard that you'd never expect); the rush of good feelings warranted and unwarranted.

There's the technology of engineers at EMI's Abbey Road Studios sitting down for four years with vintage studio equipment, 24 bit 192 kHz resolution via a Prism A-D converters and the ideas behind what would stay (bum notes, microphone vocal pops) and what would be cleaned up (bad edits) so to keep the original dynamics of the original analog recordings.  

After that though, the 12 Beatles albums in stereo, the Magical Mystery Tour LP and the Past Masters Vol. I and II combined as one title (along with each CD's enhanced content (save on Past Masters) featuring documentaries, photos and related album art; all compiled onto a single DVD if you purchase the stereo box), is what I sat down with.

Before that, though, is where the process starts- remembering as much of the music as you could before THE BOX.

The crackle and pop of vinyl albums and singles, the din of lousily mastered first pressing CDs: I checked these things for myself. At that point in the listening (months ago, when THE BOX became, finally, THE REALITY) is where the joy started: this is how we know these songs for however long we've been here. And radio - don't forget AM (if you're over 30) and FM. And television. It keeps going. It does. You can't avoid that you know "Norwegian Wood," "Every Little Thing," or "Helter Skelter" beyond the past week or so.

These songs were the personal soundtrack to sex, violence, laughs and so many more occurrences, you'd had to have felt them a first time (or hundred) to feel them anew now.

That said, there's not one aspect - save for the real time memories connected with the originals - of hearing every new track from every new CD from the heavy kinda-Velcro-ed BOX that isn't a more dubious, depth defying sonic experience.

From Please Please Me, not only does Lennon's infamous first-take-last take on "Twist and Shout" reveal every polyp scratching breath; the entirety of the production now feels as urgent and teen-incendiary as it was in 1963 (not that I'd know), from the kick of "I Saw Her Standing There" to the bossa's bounce of "P.S. I Love You." The same can be said of the covers-laden With The Beatles for sure, but the punch-and-rush away of a re-mastered "I Wanna Be Your Man" and it descending chords' crunch can't be overstated.

A Hard Day's Night, truly my first fave of the Fab Four, pulled me in in a fashion I can't quite comprehend. "I Should Have Known Better"'s newly heard Lennon seems more pulsating than the past, his voice more yearning for me to get to him.  Meanwhile, the folk-ish "I'll Cry Instead" portrays a rougher past (musically, personally) than Merseybeat might have and the heavy blues in McCartney's voice on "Can't Buy Me Love" isn't so far away anymore; not something you knew would happen because you have the later albums in hands.

The transition and sophistication of songwriting, singing and playing - to say nothing of arranging - can be more richly realized in re-hearing Help and Rubber Soul. Though the previous effort pops while Paul does "The Night Before" and "Another Girl," - a deepness in his voice that rumbles more at present - the latter CD reveals the leaping harmonies of "You Won't See Me," the rhythmic heft of "Drive My Car" and Harrison's Byrds-ian jangle for if "If I Needed Someone" finally to its fullest effect. "Taxman" sounds greasier and more galling. Starr's sticks on "Good Day Sunshine" seem to tap dance. There's a riff-and-rhythm roughness to "I Want To Tell You" only vaguely hinted at on the original. The brass on "Got to Get You into My Life" has balls and "Tomorrow Never Knows" is as succulent a stoner symphony as you knew it could be.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour?

You can sense the Mellotron-tracked whistle and innovation that went into "Strawberry Fields Forever" - the jazz of its drumming, the lope of its bass. It's sexier than I remember it. So is the ballad-that-bloops "The Fool on the Hill." Though its carnival environ comes first, this hilly goofball has needs and a plaintive Paul's yearning ache comes across greater with this master. Even the nasty "I Am The Walrus" sounds more kitten-ish than nasty now.

Is THE BOX getting me horny after this many hours listening?

Sgt. Pepper, for all its magic, always sounded as if had thudded on CD; flat-lined in its hope for the grandeur. Yet, from the slap of its title song to the bludgeoning slam and echoing hollow of "A Day in the Life" and all the sinewy orchestration in between: I could write as much as I have already on the innovation of this remaster. Leave it at this: Sgt. Pepper sounds fresh, new, now. If Justin Timberlake or MGMT or King of Leon or Maxwell or Calvin Harris did these songs it wouldn't sound newer.

The Beatles - or rather The White Album - was my true test. Would one of my five favorite rock albums of all time prove better than the vinyl version (the CDs are trebly, terrible and thin, so...)? The answer is yes. But not as effortlessly as Sgt. Pepper. Every voice sounds realer here - the high squeaking Lennon on "Dear Prudence" and his more ruminatively insular "Julia"; the playful yodel-y Paul of "I Will" and his screechy deep "Back in the U.S.S.R"; the glistening nasal Harrison of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." This master shows and sounds off the Beatles' solo vocal prowess like nothing else. No wonder these guys went off on their own. They could make a goldmine.

The same can be heard within the silken degrees of Abbey Road and the more natural parts of Let It Be. The shunt-dun-din-delin-din of "Come Together"'s guitar is the glue that binds its bass line to the voice. You may think the Lennon-McCartney vocal teaming is great. But it's here that you feel the harmony, get what being a band is all about without having to see it in a video game. "Here Comes The Sun" is fresh and airy, as is the rush of harmonies of "You Never Give Me Your Money." Let It Be? Paul's hopeful haunted vocals throughout and his interplay with the piano is rich and effortless. This is the blues I mentioned earlier - "I've Got a Feeling" - with a crushing guitar ascension that could've made these guys into Cream before Cream barely got of the ground if they'd bothered. You finally hear the progression from 1963 to 1969. You get why he pushed for this recording even if bringing in Spector (not his idea) made these songs unnecessarily sweeter.

The Past Masters' mish-mash finally, in this realm, sounds connected with the background voices on the dear and playful "Love Me Do" - it's nearly worth buying the entire box for, were these CDs not sold separately. 

Worth every penny just for re-lightening the memory banks.

Worth double for making bright the darkness cast upon the reed-thin original CDs.

Worth triple for anyone who never got what the Beatles meant to their generation and every one that followed.

Exclusive photos from the Cat's Cradle, Carrboro NC, November 30, 2009.

By Blurt Staff

Having read Blurt editor Andy Tennille's in-depth interview with David Rawlings - go here - you'll no doubt be wanting your visual fix as well. Tennille also photographed  the Dave Rawlings Machine last week at the Cat's Cradle, and below we present some of his choice images. Yes, that is the lovely Gillian Welch appearing in several of them. Enjoy!

Hotly tipped indie band to drop new album next March on FatCat.

By Blurt Staff

From the insistent synth buzz that rings throughout album opener, "Things," to the mechanical onslaught that introduces the six-minute centerpiece, "Skip The Youth," Frightened Rabbit's The Winter Of Mixed Drinks, due March 9 on FatCat Records, is the band's exploration into new sonic and thematic terrain. Recorded by Scott Hutchison (vocals/guitar), brother Grant Hutchison (drums), Billy Kennedy (guitar) and Andy Monaghan (guitar/bass/keys), the Scottish lads are now bolstered by fifth member Gordon Skene (formerly of Make Model), who has joined the band to facilitate this new material and flesh out the older tunes live.

The fivesome, who are currently breaking in their new member as they crisscross Scotland on tour, will conclude the year with a hometown headlining show in Glasgow following a handful of dates opening for Modest Mouse in the UK and Ireland. They will return to the U.S. for SXSW in March followed by a headline tour and festival appearances.

The follow-up to their sophomore album, The Midnight Organ Fight, The Winter Of Mixed Drinks comes after nearly two years of incessant touring of both Europe and the States. In April of 2009, frontman Scott Hutchison sought isolation and decamped to the beautiful seaside town of Crail on Scotland's Fife coastline to decompress and write the new record. There, he conjured up lead single, "Swim Until You Can't See Land" which set the course for the theme of the album and inspires the nautical imagery that permeates the album. "'Swim Until You Can't See Land'  takes up where we left off and is central to the new record," reveals Scott.

Produced and mixed once again by Peter Katis at Tarquin Studios in Connecticut, and recorded by Stuart Hamilton at Castlesound Studios in Scotland, The Winter Of Mixed Drinks sees the band transistioning from jangly indie-folk to a more expansive sound. The 11-song collection, filled with stunning string arrangements (courtesy of labelmate Hauschka), majestic keys and glitchy electronics, is a more ambitious and confident album than its predecessor.

"Most importantly, I'm happier with this record," proclaims Scott. "Sonically, it's closer than ever to the way I've always wanted Frightened Rabbit to sound."

Whereas the heartbreaking dissolution of Scott's longstanding relationship was detailed on the previous album, he took a different approach to the song writing for the follow-up. "I guess there's still a main protagonist in there but I feel like I'm telling a story this time, as opposed to exposing my innards to the listener," says Scott. Thoughout the album he ruminates on mortality, celebrates recpatured freedom and explores the idea conveyed in "Swim Until You Can't See Land: "It's all about losing your mind in order to reset the mind and the body - forget what's gone before and wash it out."

Track Listing:

1. Things
2. Swim Until You Can't See Land
3. The Loneliness And The Scream
4. The Wrestle
5. Skip The Youth
6. Nothing Like You
7. Man/Bag of Sand
8. Foot Shooter
9. Not Miserable
10. Living In Colour
11. Yes, I Would

Postal Service effectively brings the hammer down on the producer's annual program to distribute gifs to the needy.

By Fred Mills

The lights of Christmas dimmed just a bit over the last few days as word got out that due to a shift in policy by the US Postal Service regarding kids' letters to Santa, famed Chicago producer (and Shellac frontman) Steve Albini might not be able to distribute gifts to needy children as he's done in the past.

According to a Chicago Tribune report Albini, along with his wife, had in years previous taken clothing, cash and toys around the Chicago area at Christmastime, having tapped funds raised through a charity. The figure cited in the report was "more than $100,000" - that's not just reindeer food. Albini would obtain letters to Santa - not specifically children's, but from families asking for help - from the USPS and determine which families were the neediest.

Albini told a reporter, "There's so much money that it can literally save a family's entire year." He and his wife would personally deliver the items on Christmas day, surprising the recipients "with no strings attached."

What's now happened, however, is that the USPS has changed its policy as regards issues of privacy, meaning that they black out names and addresses on the Santa-bound letters, and although Albini stressed that he had "only used letters written by adults" and not children "looking for computer games or a new scooter," the policy will be enforced despite his protestations.

"Try to imagine how desperate you'd have to be to write a letter to an anonymous Santa asking for help. That's how desperate people are," Albini said. "I hope the post office can be made to see how much damage they're doing and change their policy."

Just the same, the postal service decided to "err on the side of caution" in the wake of a sex offender in Maryland obtaining a letter written to Santa by a young girl last year. Albini subsequently contacted his U.S. Representative Danny Davis but Davis opted to side with the postal officials, saying "Better to be safe than sorry, that what my momma used to tell us. You can't be too protective."

As a result, the Albinis are exploring other options, including working with the local Jane Addams Hull House Association about determining who some of the neediest families are. The JAHHA is reportedly soliciting letters starting today and will work with the Albinis so that they will "have the same experience they used to have with the post office."

Read the entire, disappointing storey here.

(Thanks to Pitchfork and the Daily Swarm for the news tip.)

75 minutes and home in bed before the 11:00 news: Mozzer keeps it short and sweet before and adoring audience November 30 at the Roseland, Portland, OR.

By Tim Hinely

On the video screen before Mozzer's start time the venue played some vintage - and appropriate - video clips: New York Dolls, Lou Reed, Alain Delon. Then the singer and his crew burst onstage at exactly 9 PM.

Morrissey made quite a splash for his first Portland concert in 7 years. He and the band arrived in matching outfits and immediately ripped into the Smiths' first album classic "This Charming Man." It definitely lacked the nuance of the original, a bit more rawk, but still a pleasant surprise nonetheless. (As for other Smiths songs they played "Cemetery Gates,"  "Ask" and "How Soon is Now," the latter of which found the singer ripping his shirt off at the end and running offstage.) The solo material sounded just as good as Morrissey launched into razor-sharp versions of "Ganglord," "If You Don't Like Me, Don't Look at Me," "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" and the classic "The World is Full of Crashing Bores."  The band was especially tight (although the bass player really didn't need to grimace after every note), with guitarists Jesse Tobias, who has played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Boz Boorer, Morrissey's longtime sideman, engaging the crowd with tasty licks. Mozzer himself interacted with the sold-out crowd quite a bit, responding to one girl's plea of I love you! with "Oh...it'll pass - trust me," and taking a small gift bag from another female, smiling and appearing to listen to it before looking inside. (Is there a bomb in there?)

The adulation for Morrissey hasn't waned a bit over the years, and in fact has gotten much stronger. This was proven over and over again tonight with the fans' over-the-top reactions to nearly every move he made. The band ended the set with a ripping version of "First of the Gang to Die" (from 2004's You Are the Quarry) and then left the stage a mere 75 minutes after they came on. The entire crowd was hoping, stomping for an encore, but there would be none. Morrissey & Co. came, saw and conquered, leaving us all wanting more.

Eagerly awaited EP due in stores on December 15. Meanwhile, the group is going to Sundance next January.

By Meryl Trussler

In its first many moments ‘Graze' tips tinny synth chord into tinny synth chord, back and forth like one of those executive toy see-saws full of strange immiscible liquids, and you get to worrying that maybe the new Animal Collective EP, Fall Be Kind (Domino), will be about as affecting/relevant to your fervent hipster lifestyle as said little see-saw - because maybe you've seen Animal Collective on the Merriweather Post Pavilion tour, and maybe in between tweet-worthy crescendos of awesomeness you've had to check your watch to see how long they've been faffing around with white noise, fading out of one song and not, perceptibly, into another - and maybe you're sort of unnerved at this seeming return from the pop beats to the unending, groggy experimentalism, experimentalism without the batshit crazy folk stuff that made the early albums so good - and maybe you're thinking that's what AC are now, they're all about the drone and delaying the pleasure and never playing goddamn ‘For Reverend Green', and that's seeped onto record for good and you have to give them up and they have to be one of those bands you get really heartrendingly mournful about, like a dead dog but then -

But then halfway through ‘Graze' and the lazy chant of  "let me begin..." it kicks in. Cymbals! Bass stripes! Pan flutes! "Why do you have to go? / WHY DO YOU HAVE TO GOOO-ooo?"  Back to that Strawberry Jam ecstasy that crawls over you like kittens. But, but -

But then they present this turd called ‘What Do I Want? Sky' which relentlessly slobbers out the title over this sunny California one-hit-wonder pop melody that sounds simultaneously like Len (remember ‘Still My Sunshine'?), the New Radicals (‘You've Got the Music in You'?) and Sugar Ray (‘Every Morning' there's a halo hanging something something?) except far less enjoyable. But and yet and bloody however -

But there's this gem called ‘On a Highway', that starts off slow with the same three-chord, Fuck Buttons-kinda pulsations they dig, that grows to a happy, hippy drumbeat and rising harmonies, and Avey talks about being, yeah, on a highway, jealous of Noah's dreaming. And ‘I Think I Can' comes in with another queer, quacking, thundercracking synth riff, and demonstrates their abilities to make any old mutant made of notes catchy as hell, and culminates in a jubilant "I think I can I think I can I think I..."

I think they can too. But on this EP they don't. They can't achieve whatever it is. Unity, perhaps. The constant inconstancy, the tugging about between good and bad and mediocre like a failing marriage, is taxing to listen to. That said, with albums as near-unanimously adored as the last three looming behind them, one patchy EP is naturally going to stick out so sorely and so ten-thumbed. Not one to have on a ten-lap repeat, but worth its half-hour's attention, and not in the least worth throwing in the towel over (you know, the tea towel embroidered with Noah Lennox's face - I saw it). It is nice to not be hit over the head with AC's talent every now and then.

And damn, those are some tasty pan flutes.

***

More Animal Collective News:

Fall Be Kind is released December 15 and was recorded by Ben Allen at Sweet Tea in Oxford, MS in February 2008 and at Mission Sound in Brooklyn, NY August 2009. From the band: "It includes recent live favorites Graze and What Would I Want? Sky (featuring the first ever licensed Grateful Dead sample). Fall Be Kind will be available worldwide on CD, 12" vinyl and via digital download."

Track Listing
1 - Graze
2 - What Would I Want? Sky
3 - Bleed
4 - On a Highway
5 - I Think I Can

Animal Collective kicks off a short tour next week; details and dates at their MySpace page: www.myspace.com/animalcollective.

Meanwhile, the upcoming Sundance Film Festival will be showcasing an Animal Collective film titled ODDSAC, directed by collaborator Danny Perez. Speaking to NME.com, bandmember Avey Tare commented, "We tried to make the music go along with the visuals as much as possible.  We didn't want it to sound just like a soundtrack, but then we didn't want it to be like a music video either. It's kinda like a psychedelic film, it's not like a narrative film or anything. There are more cohesive moments in it, but then there are some that are a little more abstract."

[Photo Credit: Adriano Fegundes]

Things apparently are "better." Oh, and something about live dates, too.

By Fred Mills

Yesterday both Billboard and the BBC broke the news that the Arcade fire is just about done with its next album and is eyeing a May release. It will be the followup to 2007's Neon Bible and features, as with that album, the engineering talents of Markus Dravs (Bjork, Coldplay, Maccabees, Mumford and Sons).

While the Arcade Fire has been notoriously close-mouthed about the sessions, the BBC was able to pry some details out of the latter group's Marcus Mumford, who apparently got his news directly from Dravs.

"I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but yeah, he's working on the next Arcade Fire record at the moment," said Mumford. "I'm sure that's public knowledge, because he's been there for about six months. I keep asking Markus how it's going and he's like, 'Yeah, it's okay', and I'm like, 'What are the songs like?' And he goes, 'Better'."

Well there you go. That's what we in the biz call "really specific and detailed information"...

Billboard wasn't able to supply much more, only adding that their "sources" say a single will precede the album, and that the group is "weighing multiple offers" for live dates, including summer festivals.

"The classic-album-in-sequence trend is a lamentable one": Alt-rock godfathers perform their classic album in sequence at DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, Dec. 1.

By Chris Klimek

So, what can we learn from watching the no-longer-newly-reunited Pixies march professionally through their major-label debut, Doolittle, 20 years later?

The album, with its surreal lyrics and volume-seesawing dynamics and abrupt finishes, is aging just fine.  This we know because on Dec. 1, at the second of two nights at DAR Constitution Hall, the band - after a subdued opening of four Doolittle-era B-sides that sounded like the sketches they were - conjured it up faithfully, with plenty of muscle but sans interpretation or elaboration.  It was as it was.

Also, frontman Black Francis (a.k.a. Frank Black, nee Charles Thompson) remains the owner of a nonverbal war cry to rival any in the arty-indie genre his band did so much to shape during its first go-round, circa 1986-1993 - you know, back when they made new music together.  He's been more forthcoming than most nostalgia merchants about the purely fiscal motive for the Pixies 2004 reunion and for this latest outing, ostensibly celebrating 20th anniversary of their quintessential disc.  Back in '04, he even claimed that a new album was in the works, but none has materialized in the half-decade since.  Where's the money in new tunes?  You're better off selling a $25 official bootleg of each Doolittle redux tour performance on a "collectible" USB drive bracelet.  (The encore set of Tuesday's show replaced "Caribou" and "Nimrod's Son" from the prior night with "Vamos" and "Broken Face," so maybe each show on the tour isn't entirely identical -- just 92 percent.)

It's perfectly honorable for the Francis and company to pay some tuition bills this way, of course, especially given the quality of the product.  On stage Tuesday night, his old band sounded committed and even feral at times, biting into Doolittle's deeper cuts ("There Goes My Gun," "Silver") with as much firepower as they brought to "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and the epileptic "Into the White" that closed the first encore set, after Doolittle had done finished.  The 2007 Police tour happened sans the usual, nominal raison of new music, too, but in that case the band couldn't have sounded more bored, or boring.

Doolittle's unimpeachable standing aside, the classic-album-in-sequence trend is a lamentable one, wherein the artist abdicates an opportunity to recontextualize the songs for us.  (Bruce Springsteen is the shining, eternal exception, if only because he's been playing Born to Run with an additional 18 or 22-song grab-bag on top of that.)  You can still see why it's caught on:  In a sluggish concert market, it lets a performer satiate fans' thirst for hits and deep cuts alike, and without having to think about it too much.  It also addresses the near-impossibility of surprising a live audience in the 21st century.  Most acts play the same setlist every night, and if the song selection and sequence can't be delivered fresh to any audience with an Internet connection, well, here's a sequence the audience already knows they love.

As at other dates this tour, The Pixies left what little talking there was to loveable bassist/singer/Breeder Kim Deal, whose incandescent smile - perceptible from the nosebleeds - said more than her superfluous banter.  "We're gonna do B-sides," she said at the top of the show, as if apologizing that we'd have to wait another 10 minutes for them to rip into "Debaser."  (Totally worth it.)  "This is the last song on Side One," she announced later.   "These songs aren't on the record," she explained before the final sprint, comprising bloody readings of "Broken Face," "Vamos" and "Where Is My Mind" and "Gigantic," all performed with house lights up, possibly thanks to the intruder who'd managed to shimmy his way across the stage during "Into the White" before leaping back into the crowd.

If Deal's vapid chitchat at least come off as friendly, Francis's attitude toward the whole enterprise seemed captured in the film that accompanied their biggest hit, "Here Comes Your Man," featuring four continuous close-ups of each band member listening, presumably, to the recording of the song.  Deal played air bass and cracked up at regular intervals.  But Francis wore an irritable expression, rolling his eyes, bobbing his head, and clapping out of time to the virulent melody he pretends to be mad that he wrote.  The truth hurts, but the tune kills.

***

Veteran Danish (would-be) stadium-rockists Mew opened the show with dizzying 45-minute space odyssey through their best-loved tunes, drawing heavily from 2006's "And the Glass-Handed Kites" and dipping a toe into this year's "No More Stories."  Swirling, widescreen daydreamers like "The Zookeepers Boy" found their natural habitat in the (kinda) cavernous hall.  If anything, the venue might have been too small for a group that dreams, and sounds, this big.

--

Photographer - http://www.photokyle.com
Writer -  http://www.informationleafblower.com
Twitterer - @kgustafson

In which the erstwhile Talking Heads frontman gets in the van, er, make that, gets on the wheel....

BY JAKE CLINE

"I don't think my personal life is very interesting or unique," David Byrne admits by way of explaining that Bicycle Diaries (Penguin Books) will offer no juicy details about what went on backstage, behind closed doors or underneath those infamous oversize suits during the performer's days with the Talking Heads and beyond, as if anyone would want to read about such things, anyway.  Providing a welcome antidote to the ever-present glut of celebrity tell-alls and self-aggrandizing autobiographies, Byrne focuses on the external in his book, namely the artists, thinkers, musicians and other interesting people he's met while pedaling his fold-up bicycle through and around some of the world's greatest cities. Along the way, he makes a convincing argument that there may be no better way to get to know a place, its people and its culture than while seeing it from two wheels.

Armed with a wide-open mind and a seemingly boundless curiosity about all manner of subjects, Byrne makes for an ideal traveling companion. He largely eschews familiar landmarks and tourist attractions in favor of small art galleries in Berlin; nightclubs at which indigenous musicians perform in Buenos Aires; solitary detours (by car) to the Australian Interior; and, in Manila, a karaoke bar where he is surprised to find a "guy who looks like an '80s Bon Jovi" singing "Burning Down the House." Nearly every encounter with a resident or visit to a local institution sets Byrne to musing about a more-universal  topic. A dinner with a gallery owner in Berlin leads to a discussion about the meaning of beauty. A bike ride through the outskirts of Istanbul  causes him to consider the "religious, ideological, and emotional element inherent" in the cheaply made new buildings that are crowding out old and historic ones. A visit to a museum in London, where everyday objects such as plastic combs and toothpaste dispensers are on display, prompts a brief discourse on the act of creation, a topic he revisits after attending a wild, impromptu party in San Francisco complete with a marching band and guests dressed in "Victorian hats and fake mustaches on some of the men, wigs on some of the women, and some folks [wearing] not much at all." Try finding any of that in a book by Rick Steves.

Byrne closes Bicycle Diaries with an essay about the benefits for cities that adopt bike-friendly attitudes and policies. In large metropolitan areas such as New York, he argues, bicycle transportation can provide a cheap and clean way to minimize congestion, pollution and other traffic-related problems. But he's also pragmatic enough to realize the world would not suddenly become a more peaceful and beautiful place if everyone were to toss their car keys into the deep, blue sea and begin exclusively riding bicycles. In the end, he admits, "I don't ride my bike all over the place because it's ecological or worthy. I mainly do it for the sense of freedom and exhilaration."