He was enigmatic, he was quirky, he was a squeaky voiced paranoid comic book character and he was one of the biggest rock stars in the world in the 80s. David Byrne was so uncool he was actually cool. It was like he'd pulled off some kind of physics experiment where he'd managed to travel in a straight line so far that he actually met up with himself again in a parallel universe where he was a happenin' guy. And then he recreated that universe around the rest of us.

Albums like 1980's "Remain in Light", 1983's "Speaking in Tongues" and 1985's "Little Creatures" were albums that helped define the decade and record the passing of it's participants from club-going hipsters to next generation moms and dads.

So what's David Byrne up to these days anyway? Has he returned to the parallel universe from whence he came? Was he caught in the event horizon of a black hole and sucked in, never to remain in light again? Did he buy a condo and go to sleep for 30-odd years? Well, frankly, yes.

He's been up to all the things you'd expect someone with time and money to be up to; photographing his chairs, dabbling in theater, lending his name to the occassional charity album. He doesn't record much original music anymore, maybe because he's pessemistic about the future of the music industry:

"...the big 4 or 5 (record companies)...sure don't know how to sell music anymore. (I have Talking Heads stuff on the shelf that I can't get Warner to release.) The "industry" had a nice 50-year ride, but it's time to move on."

Easy to move on if you made your killing before the rot set in. Not so easy if you're a struggling musician trying to get noticed in todays cannabalistic environment. But maybe Dave will have some kind of epipheny and realize that he could actually leverage his considerable legacy to affect some positive change himself, you know; cause things to "move on" in a productive direction, give back a little. Or maybe he'll just stay seated in one of his big comfy armchairs, a glass of ice-cold lemonade in hand, and watch it all with bemused detachment.

David Byrne then and now. Pass the lemonade!