We’re prepping to shoot one of my favorite singers at work today and in a manner of related excitement, was taking note of some moving musical moments I’ve had in the past 2 weeks:

1. David Byrne at Town Hall: David Byrne is one of those cultural figures and New Yorkers whose name seems to come up everywhere–not just in the musical sphere, but in the art world, blogging, writing, activism, biking; I hardly think of him just as “that guy from Talking Heads.” I spent June in various parts of California, and one weekend we drove through Big Sur along Highway 1, and through the fog in Pebble Beach blasting his 1989 Latin dance mambo-inspired album, Rei Momo, which officially became the album of summer after forty-seven subsequent listens while driving around San Francisco. [Watch Dirty Old Town on youtube.]

Two weekends ago, Byrne hosted the New Yorker event, How New Yorkers Ride Bikes, at Town Hall with a host of other bike-related guests including the Danish urban planner Jan Gehl, the Department of Transportation, and the Young at Heart Chorus, a group of twenty-five or so spirited septuagenarians (and older) from western Massachusetts. My expectation was that Byrne would be a natural host, having decades worth of stage experience including this old-but-raging performance of Once in a Lifetime.

It turned out that Byrne was charmingly awkward, though still entertaining–not necessarily the natural conversationalist one might envision him to be based on his writing. But, let’s not discount rockstar factor and stage presence. The show carried on with supremely entertaining presentations by Gehl (just hired by NYC DOT to help redesign bike-ways) and the choir, a man who broke locks, and much more. The entire audience, of course, was crossing their fingers that Bryne would actually s-i-n-g, and in the end, he did, to everyone’s joy. The choir staged a cover of Road to Nowhere, which Bryne claims made him tear up backstage, then he joined them for an arm-swinging heart-wrenching rendition of a song I’ll call “One Fine Day,” (either a cover or off of his new album?) Either way, kind of like giving a photographer a camera with which to see, or a painter his brush with which to paint; give David Byrne his singing voice, and out comes something beautiful.

Conclusion: Bikes are great, but David Byrne singing is even better

2. The National/The Forms at Music Hall of Williamsburg: Got asked to photograph The Forms, the opener for The National at last Friday’s show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. I hadn’t done much listening to either band, but spent the 48-hours preceding the show pounding Secret Meeting and Slow Show into my brain. I’d heard The National was the Best.Band.Ever, but I went without expectations. I was hanging out with The Forms prior to the show and got to hear The National do their sound check, the stunning and suddenly deep vocals of lead singer Matt exploding out of the microphone. The drummer, Brian, no less spectacular, and this, even before they were playing together.

The show was nothing less than the best I’ve been to in ages. Great energy, Matt’s Leonard Cohen/Walkmen/Interpol reminiscent voice, Padma’s viola-keyboard-dancing-playing, and those drums! Oh, those drums. I returned to their album, The Boxer at 4 a.m. after the show with ears fully attune to their intricate detail and have had them on replay ever since.

3. Baroque organ, horn, and clarinet playing Brahms & Bach at Grace Chapel: After a frantic anxiety-inducing walk down the crowded sidewalks of Broadway just below Union Square last Sunday, noticed that Grace Chapel (Broadway between 10th & 11) was having a 4 o’clock baroque organ-horn-clarinet concert of Brahms & Bach pieces. I’ve walked past that chapel at least five-hundred times, but never gone in, usually en route to the farmers’ market, Strand, or breezing down Broadway to the R/W trains. As soon as the doors closed behind me in the chapel, the hullabaloo of the sidewalk and outside world disappeared, silence trapped within the stained class and velvety cushions covering the pews. A few older couples were inside, a few came and went during the thirty minutes I stayed, decompressing to the melodic hum of oboe and a muted organ

On heavy rotation:
Marry Me, St. Vincent
69 Love Songs, Magnetic Fields
In Rainbows, Radiohead
Uh-Oh, David Byrne
Night Falls Over Kortadela, Jens Lekman [love the album art]
Saltbreakers, Laura Veirs
Boxer, The National

Any music recommendations?

Published Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 11:33 am. Filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.