Interview with David Byrne

David Byrne with ETHEL and Thomas Dolby at TED2010, Friday, February 12, 2010, in Long Beach, California. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson

I enjoyed David Byrne's presentation at TED2010. He spoke about the way artists create their music and other works to look and sound their best in the venue they appear in. After his presentation, I asked him about his research, his upcoming projects, R. Crumb's Illustrated Book of Genesis, and his run-in with the City of New York regarding the bike stands he designed.

Here's the 10-minute audio interview:

I'm sorry that the first part of the interview has some background chatter. The interview took place in the press room, and it was kind of noisy.

The audio file is available in other formats here at Archive.org and I gave it a Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works Creative Commons license.

• [Anonymous]

  Transcript, please. What you say in ten minutes can be read in two.

• [Anonymous]

  Fantastic, but any chance there’s a version without compression artifacts?

• [scruss]

  and there’s Thomas Dolby’s wee heid in the background.

• [Blue]

  And some tea and cake would be nice while I read the transcript or listen to the cleaned-up audio.

  Pop the kettle on. Go on, be a love.

  • [bmcraec]

    Victoria sponge, if you’ve got it – not too dry! Oooh, and a shrubbery, yes, something in a boxwood… It is loose leaf, tea, I hope?

    • [dculberson]

      I’d prefer some scones, raisin, buttered with organic butter only please. Make my tea Earl Grey, lots of cream, a little sugar.

      More seriously, this is awesome and now I have something to look forward to hearing either at lunch time or when I get home.

      Anon1, if you want a transcript, type one out and post it here.

• [pstarr]

  goodness i adore him. thank you, david!

• [Utopiana]

  Har, har! A very dignified thrashing. Make mine Earl Grey, hot.

  Thank you for the interview, seriously. DB is amazing.