This is good.

I just hope he sings. Back in ‘04, something about Miami made Byrne think dark thoughts about fakery …

Down by the lounge and pool, it’s a meat market. Artificially enhanced specimens of both sexes stroll the grounds. Even the hostess has enormous breasts. The staff speak in sweet, breathy high-pitched tones — like they’re all little girls. Nothing is real. It’s a shocking change from Mexico, even though I realize many of these folks might have come from south of the border.

…

The venue, the Gusman theater — one of the over-the-top movie/theater palaces that John Eberson built across the country and around the world — is in the center of town. The State Theater in Sydney and the Majestic in San Antonio are other examples. As in some of the others, there is a vaulted, deep blue sky with little stars that twinkle. Fake classical pavilions create a kind of skyline and serve as outposts for spot operators.

… and this extends to music:

I think if a show has enough spectacle, pre-recorded vocals are permissible. Then the show is not about the emotive and personal power of the singer, but about the flash, the sets, the dancing boys and girls, the cool effects and sight gags. One could also say that the singer might be more easily replaced in these kinds of shows. The singer is a just another modular part, like any of the technicians or dancers.

Despite this, I love reading Byrne’s online journal. Miami seems to be the last US stop on the tour, and then there’s a significant hiatus until Hong Kong. Perhaps he’s staying in town a while?

Hey David, if by some miracle you ever read this, I would love to buy you lunch or dinner — or you can come over for a drink. Who knows, I might not even bore you. If nothing else, I’m probably a little different from the people you usually meet.

(Then again, the guy has obviously thought carefully about online music distribution. So maybe I would be boring…)

Later in the comments section he says,

It was on 16 Mar 2008 at the Cabbage Patch pub, I went to see Bill Evans and Megan Lynch and this lady was on before them. She was very good, although a bit miserable!

Indeed, try as I might, somehow I don’t see Wendy singing lots of sappy happy songs….

For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.

We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we’ve figured a better way to get our own back: We’ve launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.

No more of those crap quality videos you’ve been posting. We’re giving you the real thing - HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.

What’s more, we’re taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what’s even more, we’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!

I think this should be a fertile source of ringtones….

I’ve been enjoying Brian Eno’s music since high school, and Byrne probably almost as long. In interviews, both men also seem like particularly interesting people. (It would be nice to live a life where one got to hang out with people like that!)

I’m going to have listen to Everything That Happens Will Happen Today a few times before I decide what I think of it. On first listen, I like it, but I’m not sure it meets my insanely high expectations.

Who am I to argue?

(Via The Stumblng Tumblr, who calls it “strange, but good”)

(Found via Seth’s Blog. His comment is “My suggestion is that you spend thirty seconds watching this video. … You were going to spend how much to distract me from what I was doing?)