Talking Heads

I don’t think they have plans of doing a tour, they sort of dodged the question about it happening and made clear they just want to promote “stop making sense”.

It’s probably for the best, at this point any new material would probably be subpar and the chemistry is probably too fractured to withstand the pressure of touring. And yeah, they are too old too and touring requires a lot of energy, specially if you haven’t played those songs as a band in decades.

Maybe I can see them doing a very small tour 10 concerts max in big venues but I don’t know. They don’t seem interested in it.

They do seem genuinely amicable to each other, at least in low doses.

Byrne, Weymouth and Frantz introduced the film at Alamo Drafthouse tonight in Brooklyn - pretty cool they’re still doing all the promo together (and they didn’t need Harrison as a “buffer”)

awwww, nice.

New A24 SMS Blu-Ray coming..

https://shop.a24films.com/products/stop-making-sense-collectors-edition

https://www.billboard.com/business/touring/coachella-wanted-talking-heads-reunion-1235593270/

they were unsurprisingly approached with offers for reunion shows and turned them down

Turning down a 80 million dollar offer for a few gigs is insane or even 10M for Coachella alone. Must be nice to be able to turn them down, good for them.

I bet three of them would happily reunite for less money.

Or maybe two of them. You can bet Harrison got him some points on all those shitty '90s bands that went platinum on his producer watch.

I bet Jerry would do it just for kicks. Well, kicks and money. He’s been on Jonathan Richman’s last couple of albums, I don’t think he had a problem play with old friends. I think The Heads would have a blast and Byrne would hate it, or art it up enough to make the others hate it.

“Okay guys, we can reunite, but only if we’re backstage playing the music for a stage production of True Stories.”

byrne has always been the one who really doesn't want to, the rest would all like to - harrison's just done a talking heads tribute tour with belew! obviously relations between byrne & frantz/weymouth having improved hasn't been enough to change that

Oh, Harrison would do it, I just meant that he and Byrne don't need the money, but I bet the other two wouldn't mind the late career cash infusion.

This may be a dumb question, but why are the Tom Tom Club not active? Obviously they wouldn’t headline Coachella, but I would think they could still be a draw(?)

oh well i think frantz & weymouth would still reunite for less money if they could get byrne to do it

Wasn't "Genius of Love" a bigger seller by far than any Talking Heads song?

I wonder what kind of money Chris & Tina made off of the "GoL" sample and co-writer credit in Mariah Carey's "Fantasy"?

Good question. Nick Lowe I think has said he made about $1.5 million from the Curtis Stigers cover of "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding" that was on "The Bodyguard" soundtrack. That soundtrack sold around 17 million+, but of course he was the only credited writer on that song. The more or less contemporaneous "Daydream" has sold around 20 million, but there are six credited songwriters on "Fantasy," so however much it made was divided up that many times, to degrees (like, I'm sure a bigger hunk went to Mariah than anyone else). So I guess the answer to the question "I wonder what kind of money Chris & Tina made off of the "GoL" sample and co-writer credit in Mariah Carey's "Fantasy"?" is: probably not enough to say no to a Talking Heads reunion.

It's a pet peeve of mine that people think Chris & Tina were the only writers on "Genius," btw. The song also credits Belew and Steven Stanley, so four writers. As to why they are not active, I think Chris had some health problems?

i of course don't for sure know about their finances but i think it's probably safe to say that (at least) tina weymouth comes from enough money that they don't need to trot out "Tom Tom Club" reunion concerts in their 70s.

not even getting into the sampling and licensing of genius of love, and their decade-plus tenure in Talking Heds. All these guys are most likely set for life lol, they're fine

was going to say I saw the TTC live not so long ago and looked and it was 2011, opening for the Psychedelic Furs. dang.

their reunion performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was enough to convince me I dont need to see them reunited again, especially now that theyre all 20 years older than they were then

Not only is A24 doing the Stop Making Sense Blu-Ray, they're also curating a tribute album to the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrjHhIGl90I

BADBADNOTGOOD
Blondshell
The Cavemen
Chicano Batman featuring Money Mark
DJ Tunez
El Mató a un Policía Motorizado
girl in red
Jean Dawson
Kevin Abstract
The Linda Lindas
Lorde
Miley Cyrus
The National
Paramore
Teezo Touchdown
Toro y Moi

I'm fairly certain Chris + Tina are set for life or can at least plan a decent retirement thanks to "Fantasy" and the numerous rap samples of "Genius of Love." This is when artists still made coin pre-streaming.

I read an interview published in the mid '00s where Frantz-Weymouth admitted they made "close to" a million bucks in royalties from "Fantasy" in the last ten years. Admittedly, this ain't Mariah Carey money, but it's a LOT of money for two punks who earned little to no publishing income from the Heads and depended on touring.

They also seem to live quiet lives in Connecticut, and their children are all grown up and on their own now (and I think doing well) - given their age, I imagine the enticement of a big payout is no longer that great, not unless they want to make their kids enormously wealthy or suddenly adopt an extravagant lifestyle.

They've been shockingly inactive compared to the other two, so clearly whatever they're getting is "enough." But there's comfortable, and then there's really rich, and I bet Chris and Tina would prefer to be the latter.

I don’t think it’s possible to look up the members of Tina Weymouth’s family and think anything other than “there is family money here”

Who's in her family? I thought she, like Chris, was a military kid?

Like, raised upper middle class?

Katharine Weymouth was the publisher of the Washington Post.

Her father was a vice admiral in the navy, her great-grandfather won the French legion of honor then married the sister of a banking tycoon

That’s technically through her brother, who married into the Graham publishing family

That’s technically through her brother, who married into the Graham publishing family

Novelist John Nichols is a cousin or uncle, and he’s related to the former governor of Massachusetts, etc

After a half-dozen wiki clicks from Tina’s page, I stopped worrying if she and Chris were doing okay on royalties from “Genius of Love”

She’s technically a “military kid,” but in the same way that like John McCain was a military kid

well, I live a mile away from them, and have interacted with them… while I did not discuss this with then the time I interacted with them, it's pretty clear to me they would want to do things like tour or do Coachella as the TH or do shows as TTC because they want to, not because they have to… their lifestyle around where I live, shall we say, is conducted in a manner that I don't think they would want to flaunt in front of Roberta Bayley or Cheetah Chrome…she is from a very very fancy family…

She was in a very bad car accident in 2020 or 2021…

Together, right?

https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Former-Talking-Heads-drummer-says-drunken-driver-17037087.php

This is a cool discussion, even as Tina’s biggest skepticfan

I still maintain that Franz and Weymouth came from upper middle class backgrounds but not, like, deep pocket money. Her dad was a Vice Admiral in the Navy, which ain't nothing; he gets a Wiki blue link, for historical reasons. Her mom was named Laure Bouchage and fwiw does not get a wiki blue link; Bouchage was apparently the granddaughter of a well-regarded poet named Anatole Le Braz; he was the one who married the sister of a banker. Tina was one of 8 kids, and some of those siblings went on to make or marry into money - her brother, for example, is a famous architect - but what that has to do with her I don't know. Franz's dad was a West Point and Harvard Law graduate who became a JAG in the Army Reserve.

Again, nothing to sniff at, but we're not talking never have to work again family money. I'm sure the Talking Heads provided that, though whether or not Franz and Weymouth were smart with their money, I dunno. It's only interesting to me because I've heard repeatedly that Tina is somehow royalty or something, but I've never seen evidence. Veronica Moser has better insight into how they live, but here's a nice article on Fairfield, Connecticut. Sounds lovely!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/realestate/fairfield-conn-a-relaxed-beach-town-where-theres-plenty-to-do.html

FWIW, I think it's in Franz's book (which, like much of his and Weymouth's post-Heads life, features an obnoxious, antagonistic fixation on Byrne) where he describes *Byrne's* upbringing as better off than the singer implied. (Projection/irony.) I think Byrne's dad was a Westinghouse engineer. Harrison, I think, was the son of a teacher and an advertising exec. Of the four, I think he's the only one that finished college (Harvard, of course).

Actually, I don't know if Frantz and Weymouth graduated from RISD. Bryne dropped out, I know that much.

Maybe I'm not sufficiently cynical, but the divergent attitudes towards reuniting held by the band members all seem to make complete sense without even considering the financial motives. Whatever else they've accomplished, I imagine Tina and Chris have fond memories of being in one of the most lauded bands in the world, and it could be fun to dip back into that experience. TH is for sure how they will be publicly remembered, feels like a very natural instinct to want to keep engaging with that part of your life and identity. Byrne meanwhile has proven himself time and again to have an insatiable appetite for trying new things, exploring different artistic directions and endeavors, whatever one might think of the results. He just seems wired in a way that pushes his instinct in the opposite direction.

I think that's true. Current health aside, though, I do wonder why Chris and Tina didn't tour much as the Tom Tom Club. Or did they? I'm trying to think when they last played Chicago (for example). 2011?

It might just be that they're older and the financial payoff isn't worth it. Playing the drums night after night in a different city in your 60s, easy to imagine why one would choose not to do that if they didn't have to.

for the record I don't think tina is "royalty." There is a lot of evidence of her family and extended family being entrenched in elite circles, which is usually correlated with wealth but not always. Doesn't change the value or any of her work or achievements.

For the good of the thread, I'll stop pocket-watching them now.

idk I love discussing the wealth of musicians. It fascinates me.

In Frantz's book he tells a story about being on a yacht in the Caribbean, then needing to fly back for drug rehab.

I am sure they are doing OK now but it may be that quite a lot of their money went up his nose.

Tina's dad had an interesting life story (enough so that his famous musician daughter isn't mentioned in that obit, and it doesn't feel incomplete).

She obv came from a "prominent" family, but (like Josh) I don't necessarily see evidence of enough "you'll never have to work" generational wealth to be spread across 8 kids.

Anyway, if I were personally a former Talking Head, no matter how disinterested I were in playing Coachella (and didn't "need" the money personally), I feel like I would do it and give the cash to a Good Cause... not that I fault Byrne or any of them for making a different choice, they're not me.

not reuniting is as good for the legacy as reuniting at this point, though. Compare the rerelease of Stop Making Sense vs the latest Blondie tour or album. And I cant imagine recapturing the hunger and finesse of the expanded band, no matter how enthused the core members might be.