David Byrne: Last News

Here Lies Love (★★★★★) works so well. Patrons expecting the ambiance of a standard theater will be shocked to see the major transformation that has occurred at the Broadway Theater, which for 10 years was home to both the original production and revival of Miss Saigon.Gone are the plush crimson-red orchestra seats.

Rufus Wainwright has celebrated his 50th birthday by performing a cover of Neil Young‘s ‘Harvest Moon’ live – see the performance below.To celebrate his milestone, Wainwright held a party titled “Rufus & Friends 50 isn’t the end” at the Montauk Lighthouse in New York.During the set, he covered ‘Harvest Moon’ with Chris Stills, a song which he covered on recent covers album ‘Folkocracy’.Watch the performance of the cover below.‘Folkocracy’ came out last month and features guest contributions from David Byrne, ANOHNI, John Legend and more.The album of folk music reinventions marks the artist’s 50th birthday and also features special guests Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan, Andrew Bird, Nicole Scherzinger, Susanna Hoffs, Van Dyke Parks and Madison Cunningham.“This album is almost like a recorded birthday party and birthday present to myself. I just invited all the singers that I greatly admire and always wanted to sing with,” Wainwright said in a press statement.Wainwright also embarked on a ‘Folkocracy’ world tour, which will also mark the 25th anniversary of his 1998 self-titled debut album and the 20th anniversary of 2003’s ‘Want One’, along with 2004 companion, ‘Want Two’.“The older I get, the more I appreciate how valuable my folk knowledge is, to have had it ingrained in me as a child,” Wainwright said.

Naveen Kumar Imelda Marcos demands to know, near the end of “Here Lies Love,” why we don’t love her. The unlikely belle of this propulsive and glittering ball, from musicians David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, is perched in the front mezzanine of the radically transformed Broadway Theatre, where the immersive musical opened on Thursday night. The answer to her question seems all too obvious.  In the world of “Here Lies Love” — a title that refers to the convicted former first lady’s desired epitaph — Marcos is addressing the Filipino people, over whom she ruled alongside president-turned-dictator Ferdinand Marcos until they were airlifted out of the country in 1986, after two decades of corruption, scandal and human rights abuses. 

West Side Story” and “Fiddler on the Roof” in is totally unrecognizable.Once we’re acclimated to the changed space, however, we start to ask more of the story. Broadway, after all, is a vastly different place than the Public Theater where I first saw the musical in the smaller LuEsther Hall 10 years ago and liked it a hair more.

Disco despotism isn’t exactly a new genre – Cabaret hinted the way, Evita made it clear, American Psycho, in its fashion, added a variation, all in service of social horrors offset by catchy tunes – but Here Lies Love, the rambunctious new immersive musical from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, pushes the concept to an extreme that likely won’t be matched until someone has the bright idea to transform Party Monster into The Michael Alig Musical.

Jon Burlingame Despite all the musical superstars who entered this year’s Emmy competition, only one – Ed Sheeran – managed to score when the 75th annual Emmy Award nominations were announced Wednesday. Sheeran was nominated (along with co-writers Max Martin and Foy Vance) for the song “A Beautiful Game” for the season 3 finale of “Ted Lasso,” one of two songs from the popular Apple TV+ series that made it into the music-and-lyrics category. Emmy’s 550-member music peer group ignored the original songs entered by Dolly Parton, David Byrne, Steve Martin, Kid Cudi, Donald Glover and Lainey Wilson, as well as those from such Oscar-winning tunesmiths as Alan Menken, Steven Schwartz, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

Emmy-nominated Yvette Nicole Brown and Television Academy Chair Frank Scherma have been tapped to announce the nominees for the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards. The live virtual ceremony is slated for Wednesday, July 12 at 8:30 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. ET. It will stream live on Emmys.com/nominations.

The Weeknd has shared two new songs from The Idol ahead of this Sunday's season one finale. "Like A God" and Lil Baby collaboration "False Idols" are streaming below.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is expanding its membership.

It’s that time of year again. The time when Academy membership dreams are met or (in some cases) crushed.

It’s that time of year again — the break between Cannes and the fall festivals, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences makes its membership invitations. The Oscars group said today that it has extended offers to 398 artists and execs — one more than last year — who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to motion pictures.

Jon Burlingame Three months from now, the Weeknd might just have an Emmy to place alongside his four Grammys and his Oscar nomination. That’s because he joins a dozen other music superstars — including Dolly Parton, Common, Ryan Tedder, “Weird Al” Yankovic and Meshell Ndegeocello — who have entered work in this year’s Emmy competition. Voting began yesterday in the seven music categories. Approximately 550 members of the Academy’s music branch (composers, songwriters, music directors, orchestrators or music supervisors) will cast ballots, although viewing the hundreds of entries before voting ends on June 26 is an impossible task, Academy officials privately concede.

In hindsight, it’s quite amazing that anyone could watch Adrienne Shelly’s final film as a director and see it as anything but a movie. It was a good one, a simple story about a small-town woman who falls pregnant by her abusive lover and complicates matters by having an affair with her gynecologist. Starring Keri Russell, the film was funny, romantic, frankly feminist and pulled no punches when it needed to, and its modest success of the box office made it all the more tragic that Shelly, murdered in her own apartment by a construction worker in 2006, would never make another.

David Byrne has reached an agreement with a musicians union over his Here Lies Love Broadway musical.The musical is based Byrne and Fatboy Slim‘s double album of the same name, which was released in 2010 and documents the life of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.It was previously held at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012, New York’s Public Theater in 2013, London’s National Theater in 2014, and the Seattle Repertory Theater in 2017.But a new Broadway production, which is set to premiere on July 20 with previews beginning next weekend, received an objection from the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 802 last month over the show’s plan to use pre-recorded music.The union claimed that it violated a contract clause requiring that at least 19 musicians are hired for all musicals staged at the Broadway Theater. Responding to criticism in The New York Times, a spokesperson for the production claimed that the decision to use pre-recorded music was “part of the karaoke genre inherent to the musical and the production concept.”At the time, Byrne issued a statement of his own defending the production choices, explaining the “dance club track-act immersion” as part of the show’s nontraditional staging.But it has now been agreed that the production will go ahead with 12 musicians, all of whom are union members.We are proud to announce that “Here Lies Love” will have live music in the form of 12 musicians.

Thania Garcia “Here Lies Love,” the new David Byrne musical that’s set to begin previews on Broadway starting June 17, and the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 802 have reached an agreement over the inclusion of live musicians in the production. The show will be continuing with 12 musicians, according to a statement from Local 802 shared with Variety. “Broadway is a very special place with the best musicians and performances in the world, and we are glad this agreement honors that tradition,” commented Tino Gagliardi, Local 802’s president and executive director in the announcement. Producers of the musical also issued a statement: “On behalf of our entire cast, company and creative team, we have reached an agreement with Musicians Union Local 802, per the collective bargaining agreement. We look forward to welcoming audiences to experience the revolutionary musical experience that is Here Lies Love at the Broadway Theatre beginning on Saturday, June 17.”

Twelve musicians will be included in the upcoming Broadway production of the David Byrne-Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love, an agreement reached today in a labor dispute over the use of pre-recorded music tracks.

Here Lies Love,” advertising a score by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and direction by the ground-breaking Tony winner Alex Timbers. The show’s logo is superimposed over a mirror ball, literally reflecting the production’s highly unusual immersive nightclub setting, a semi-ironic counterpoint to a sobering story about the rise and fall of fascistic Filipino power couple Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. The tag line above that disco totem: “The Revolutionary Music Experience.” It’s a revolution that the union representing Broadway musicians would like to stop in its tracks, at least in its current form. And with the show set to open for previews in less than two weeks, the production and the Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians remain at loggerheads about how “Here Lies Love” will, or should, proceed.

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St Vincent and David Byrne have performed a cover of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Chemical Love’ together live – watch the moment below.The pair, who have collaborated together frequently in the past, performed the rendition of Wonder’s song at the Brooklyn Academy of Music earlier this week (May 10). The event was held to honour Byrne, filmmaker Spike Lee and real estate lawyer, Claire Wood.St Vincent, aka Annie Clark, performed a short set of songs at the event including ‘New York’, ‘Los Ageless’ and ‘Dancing With A Ghost’ from her 2018 album ‘Masseduction‘ before joining forces on stage with Byrne to cover ‘Chemical Love’ from the Jungle Fever soundtrack – a film directed by Lee.Speaking about their decision to cover the song, Byrne said: “We kind of wanted to tie Spike into this somehow, so this is a song from Jungle Fever, specifically ‘Chemical Love’ by Stevie Wonder,” he explained.“It takes a little bit of nerve for us to do it,” Byrne added.

The day has arrived and all the celebs are making their arrivals on the red carpet at the 2023 Met Gala

Chris Frantz Sire Records co-founder Seymour Stein was indisputably one of the greatest music executives of all time, with a career that spanned six decades and a rare ear for talent that led Madonna, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, Ice-T, Depeche Mode, the Pretenders, the Smiths, and many others to his label. Stein, who died on April 2 at the age of 80, is remembered here by Chris Frantz, drummer of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, who, with Tina Weymouth (now his wife), Jerry Harrison and of course David Byrne, signed with the label late in 1976.  Seymour told this story many times. His first visit to CBGB’s on the Bowery was to see the Ramones. His wife Linda insisted that he see them because they were something new and fabulous and she thought he should sign them, which he did. He was standing outside the club on the sidewalk speaking with [Patti Smith’s longtime guitarist] Lenny Kaye, waiting for Ramones to go on when he heard the support band begin to play. “When my love stands next to your love….”