Talking Heads

There’s been plenty of amazing albums coming out in the past years from bands that had been paused for decades. A new Talking Heads album with them reunited would’ve a dream come true, even if it sucked which I doubt it would.

It wouldn’t be worse than Little Creatures

Yes it would.

American Utopia tour was pretty good.

American Utopia the album was solid meh.

This Bandsplain episode dropped today as well:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2LPd0Z7aUE3Wae2lvesObK?si=loX-7oI-TA-BVKBCuuljKw

i think a reunion tour could be good if byrne & frantz/weymouth were able to tolerate each other (unlike the r&r hof show where byrne seemed to be loathing it and unusually for him just going through the motions) and they had a proper extended lineup - get belew, steve scales, a second keyboard player, some backing vocalists, etc.

but even if that somehow actually happened, i'd have to think the chances of a new album would remain zero and chances of one being any good would be even less. it wouldn't possibly be better than even true stories.

Lol why do you all think it would suck. Byrne still releases some good things now and then and I’m not sure if the last Tom Tom Club thing was that EP from like a decade ago but there were good things in there too.

I think it was Trey Anastasio who said that getting back together with Phish was like "putting on a used condom." Of course, he then got back together with Phish.

I think it was Trey Anastasio who said after David Byrne said "It's only the river. It's only the river."

I can't think of a context in which Byrne as solo writer would interest me, let alone in Talking Heads, a band I revere for its curiosity about other music.

byrne's solo career has been inconsistent at best, and their creative process as a band was based around jamming together. i don't think there's any possibility they'd be on the same page enough or have anything close to that chemistry back in order to make anything work with new material at all.

Also they'd probably fall out over money

T/S: used condoms vs clean jerks

So kind of just like the VU then.
(xp)

Byrne's 90s compilation El alma del Perú negro was phenomenal. I was living there at the time, I remember him coming down to put that together.

Listen, I still listen to his 1994 eponymous album.

There are always one or two highlights. "Strange Overtones" is fantastic.

And, I mean, Life in the Bush of Ghosts

I don't suspect a reunion tour is at all likely or desirable unless it was a carefully curated show. it seems that energy has gone into packaging the film. the music and its legacy is bigger than these four individuals getting together to pluck through songs for money or nostalgia. it was bigger than them when they made it - hence the expanded lineup - and I think at least 2 of 4 are smart enough to see it that way now too. they were more about ideas that indefinable chemistry imo.

I think they make themselves more immortal by not playing. the interview itself is the cultural moment - a bit like the Friends cast reunion (forgive the comparison). the tantalising prospect of what could be masks the fact it'd likely be quite rusty and mediocre, and maintains the mystique.

I'm happy just to see them getting together to promote this release as a band. seems like they're just putting petty stuff aside to enjoy their moment while they're still alive to do so - a smart and classy move.

Stop Making Sense was the period at the end of the sentence. Everything after was diminishing returns, even though there were songs on both True Stories and Naked that I liked, their moment of glory was from 1980 to 1983. Attempting to re-create that 40 years later would be impossible, and attempting to make new music together would be a goddamn tragedy.

Huh. I must be the only one meh about American Utopia.

the album, the broadway show, or the tour? I'm mainly repping for the live tour, which was thrilling. the broadway show (at least the filmed version) was alright. The album itself? I never listen to it. I do love Rei Momo, Uh Oh, and the s/t album a lot though (not to mention the Catherine Wheel)

I think a reunion tour would more or less be on par with that of the Police, or maybe Pixies, reunion. That is, a group of people that pretty clearly don't really like each other that much, with a front person that's more or less been carrying the catalog on their own for decades. The presence of the other guys would add absolutely nothing to the songs, which Byrne has been playing - and playing well - for years. Unlike the Pixies and Police, though, it would likely be a total embarrassment that would do nothing but hurt the band's legacy, imo.

The presence of the other guys would add absolutely nothing to the songs, which Byrne has been playing - and playing well - for years.

I strongly disagree with this. Like post-Hüsker Bob Mould, Byrne never seemed to realize how important his former rhythm section was. Hell, you put Chris and Tina on Byrne’s thinnest solo material, and it won’t be great by any stretch, but it’ll improve considerably.

inject a few "james brown"s in there

xpost I disagree. For one, Bob Mould clearly (if maybe belatedly) recognizes that Narducy and Wurster is a rhythm section worth preserving, and they in turn make Mould better; are they his longest running post Husker band at this point? But I think I am in the minority on ILX at not worshipping Franz and Weymouth, and not thinking they would improve anything beyond people going "hey, it's the other guys from Talking Heads!" The "American Utopia" tour was absolutely stunning, and there is no way Franz and Wymouth would have made it better, and possibly/likely would have made it worse. Not even sure Belew would have made it better, tbh.

otm

it'd be shit if they were only doing it for the money and were obviously barely capable of tolerating each others presences (see the r&r hof show) but i think a reunion would only have any chance of happening if they felt more positive about it than that, because obviously if byrne were willing to go through the motions for the money he would have done it long ago

i don't think any of them are washed as performers either. byrne's still got it. harrison did that remain in light tribute tour with belew (who absolutely still has it!) that was pretty impressive. frantz & weymouth have been less active but there's video of them doing "psycho killer" and "take me to the river" from 2016 and it's good!

Yeah you might be right… it’s probably a bad idea at this point and there’s many outside factors that made their great albums work.

Still cool that they are reuniting for this, hope there’s some good insights. Stop Making Sense is the most important live performance in rock music in my eyes. Any further documentation is worth gold.

I guess I just wish Tina and Chris hadn’t made a voodoo doll of David and had a funeral for it and made it an album insert

But hey I’ve never experienced that, maybe David is chill about it, maybe Tina is “cool”

hope there’s some good insights

This would be a first at a TIFF question-and-answer session

Their Letterman appearance in 1983 - they even “filmed” it differently than everyone else:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8oxbwx2xAI

Just have Byrne and Stipe swap each other's places, and suddenly you have two mega-legacy tours with a band that gets along.

To James Redd + Blecchs, I think the main beef was not about him being all that much worse than other frontpersons, but rather not acknowledging coauthors of collaborative material.

That is, calling co-written stuff his own, and saying something vague like "oh, well, we can correct it on the next pressing" and then not doing so.

Me, I am glad I don't need to adjudicate all this - or even have an opinion- because have the music permanently embedded my head anyway, and it will always be there. No one can take that away from me ever.

Of course I read the Frantz book. He makes some cracks about how Tom Tom Club outsold Byrne, and this was their revenge for Byrne's systematic erasure of everyone else's contributions, but. This many years onward, bringing that up again seems unseemly.

I have never spoken ill of Tina and never will.

I had not seen that Letterman clip before. I mean, I might have seen it when it aired, but not recently. Outstanding.

Byrne has such an awkward charm.

I don’t want to speak ill of her so much as I assert my profound indifference toward her

would be so cool if talking heads pulled a Bowie and put out a late in the game fantastic record and then all of them died all of a sudden lol

just kidding about the dying part, but while I agree that the hall of fame gig was a mistake I think all parties involved are probably capable of making great new music, it would just be a tremendous pain in the ass to do together and they are all old and curmudgeonly and money issues and so on

but we can dream

alas, money issues

is there a thread about old(er) acts worth seeing?

(unlike the r&r hof show where byrne seemed to be loathing it and unusually for him just going through the motions)

Byrne reportedly left his wife by simply not going home after the HOF gig, so possibly was not entirely focused on the gig at all

ah that certainly is some further context there lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bBtgZE372g

just discovered this footage of them performing "love -> building on fire" in 1982 with the extended band. i'd never seen this before, it's wonderful

would love to see those four make another record. no extra musicians, no eno, no world tour, just a collaborative record full of songs. i saw them as a three-piece, then as a four-piece, saw the heatwave festival show which i think was their first appearance as a big band. admittedly "once in a lifetime" floored me then, but if i had to pick my absolute favorite TH it would be those four-piece shows.

is there a thread about old(er) acts worth seeing?

I think the correct answer is: all of them

talking heads contemporaries that are still great: OMD, Gang of Four, Sparks, Gary Numan, Tears for Fears, even Human League were pretty good a few years ago.

Not exactly contemporaries, but Pet Shop Boys bring it.

The Cure, of course

Huh. I must be the only one meh about American Utopia.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

same

don't get upset -- it's not a major disaster!

Byrne toured "the songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno" to promote the album they did together 15 years ago, Everything That Happens etc. That was a great show and included many songs from the 3 TH albums that Eno was heavily involved in as well as a couple from Bush of Ghosts. Also iirc it featured some pretty cool choreography along the lines of what everyone loved about American Utopia. That scratched my TH itch and I can't imagine a reunion show would be better than that, as much love as I have for the contributions made by the other 3 members 40 years ago.

Sadly, I missed the tour Byrne did with St Vincent, but I heard good things.