David Byrne was in town recently for a show at The Pabst Theater. While he was here, he hooked up with local musician and man about town Paul Finger. The story is all in Byrne's recent blog entry.
During what must have been a hectic day of touring around town, Finger -- you may remember him as frontman of bands like Wild Kingdom and Her Majesty's Secret Service -- took Byrne to the Milwaukee Art Museum, Satin Doll's Lounge on Fond du Lac Avenue, the East Side boat house in which he lives, and to the Tripoli Shrine west of Marquette on Wisconsin Avenue.
Of course, Byrne's former Talking Heads bandmate Jerry Harrison is a Milwaukee-area native. A trip to Harrison's boyhood home (and gift shop) was apparently not on the itinerary.
Read it all in Byrne's blog entry -- illustrated with his own photos -- at the link below.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
