Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/24995
David Byrne. Cherubs For Sa le, Mexico City, 1986. . David Byrne. Tokyo Amex Lobby, 1986. WHAT'S IN THE DAVID BYRNE TRAVEL KIT? I usually take a walkman with speakers . . . simila rity between the Balinese take on ritual and dance and traditional Japanese ways. these things are done. But Japan is so modern, and Bali is still primarily a rural farming country, and it 1 never had much luck with recording anything. Also I take along 35 mm and 6x7 format cameras. I UNDERSTAND YOU AI.:SO BRING A FOLD-UP BIKE ON TOUR. Yeah. A lot of times, it's the best way to get around. And you get a vibe, a sense of the layout of things that you wouldn't get in a car. Of course, it can be kinda hairy too, with traffic the way it is in most cities. WHERE WAS YOUR WORST BIKING EXPERIENCE? Probably Milan. Everyone is on Vespas and scooters, sure, but it was like they had never seen a bicycle before! Byrne recalls the Indonesian island of Bali, where he ventured after a Talking Heads tour of Japan in the mid-eighties, as one of the first places he came to face-to-face with an alien musical culture. WHAT WAS IT THAT IMPRESSED YOU ABOUT BAW Every few days there would be another ritua l, people would prepare beautiful. elaborate offerings of fruit and flowers, and you knew 'that these things were just going to be destroyed. These incredible works of art were going to be eaten or knocked over or left to rot, and then there would be a dance with people in costume, wearing makeup and dance outfits. Other people would be hanging out, watching, drinking juice or coffee, chewing betel nut. I knew a little about Eastern theater in Japan and Eastern religions, as far as Buddhism and Hinduism, so it wasn't like I was going in cold. There was a kind of blew my mind how everything is so integrated. BALI IS HAS BEEN THIS GROOVY HIPPIE DESTINATION FOREVER. I think that's one thing that attracted people to that place-the way music was a soundtrack to everything. It was played for processions, for shadow-puppet plays ... it wasn't something apart from people's lives. It wasn't spmething that you bought, it wasn't something that you consumed, something made by strangers, by far-off anonymous people whom you could never see or touch ... it wasn't this product. The man, working less and less frequently with the rock band, immerses himself in other projects. He writes music for ballet, he scores for theater. He has studied Japanese theater-the floating 'world of bunraku, of ka buki and noh drama-and seeks to incorporate it into a Western work. Trusting the universal language of music to guide him, he travels to Japan. Behind a rice-paper screen, he finds the univ�rsal language garbled, the locutions jumbled ... WHEN WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU TRIED TO WORK WITH MUSICIANS FROM ANOTHER CULTURE? I was working on a theater piece, and I decided I wanted to work with guys who do music for Japanese kabuki. So I went to Japan and set up a recording session. Then I realized, after watch ing from backstage and from the audience, that although there are strict melodies and rhythms and things that they play, it's kind of a repertoire of effects rather than a groove or a tune that's supposed to go behind a scene. WAS THAT YOUR FIRST TIME IN JAPAN? No. That was my second trip there. The fi rst time I WqS just knocked over by the culture clash: would just walk around in a daze, which is what I think happens to most people as soon as they hit Tokyo. It's like the city of the. future, and nothing is exactly what it appears to be. Everything looks modern and Western and electronic and super high tech, but they carry a fair amount of their tra'ditional attitudes to this modern Western stuff. They don't see it the same way. WAS THERE SOMETHING IN PARTICULAR THAT STRUCK YOU? This is not the best example, but fax machines had just come in at that point. In Tokyo, every body had them. And what you would do, if you were going to go over to someone's house, or meet someone, you'd fax them a map, because there are no street numbers in Tokyo. Most of