Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

Beyond that, dear heavens. No thanks. Though this could in part be due to the fact that David Byrne has turned into such an aggressive nonentity.

I think the context that's grown up around it does that record harm - it's now seen as this proto-dance sampling-based historical thing but I wasnt into dance or sampling much when I heard it - I just came to it as basically the further-out follow-up to Remain In Light: Kid A to RIL's OKC, as it were. And on that level I loved it and still do - I think the first side is all classic, the second drags a bit.

I think the sampled voices work well and put their point across well - the whole first side, esp. in the context of FOM and RIL, is a great artrock portrait of social/religious/political paranoia and craziness. Then when it goes so-to-speak 'to Africa' and becomes more tranquil it sounds more like an Eno record and I switch off a little.

I'll forward you the article as I don't know how easy it's going to be to get Papercuts in the US. But I'll ask the editor first. Papercuts will also feature LOADS OF OTHER GOOD STUFF though so everyone in England should own a copy.

Additional question so I can justify posting the last bit instead of emailing it to Tom like I should've done: Who are the nineties/noughties TH? Bands like the d-plan bear a sonic resemblance, esp in light of stuff like "superpowers" w its polyrhythms and non-linear structure and buzzing guitar textures and all that trademark TH stuff, but surely radiohead come closest ideologically? cf. lyrics as cut-up mundanities that serve as sharp, uncomfortable reminders of the paranoia/disconnection/submerged mysticism of modern life (as talked about on some other thread) etc

Radiohead & the Plan are obvious contenders, I guess. A lot of the ideas Radiohead have in common with TH seem kinda, well, RIPPED-OFF, to me. When you compare the sleeves of OKC and Stop Making Sense, the difference is deliberately strange, borderline nonsensical sloganeering over neatly framed pictures vs. over fracturedpostcomputerparanoidwhatever artwork. There's obviously a reason for the constant comparisons for the D-Plan. I think the similarities between TH and Les Savy Fav are, you know, kinda uncanny. (they formed at the same school! plus looking like a bizarro punk-rock gym teacher = 00's equiv. of dressing like a nerdy art school kid at CBGB's). I could see them making the necessary improvements upon their sound, too. They'd make a killer afro-beat record.

Chris

I was thinking today about how I've always heard "born under punches" as a 'vertical' song: starting at the top and moving downwards, a perfectly orchestrated funk-collapse, labyrinthine, rube goldberg music.

Talking Heads had some of my all-time favorite beginnings of songs: "This Must Be the Place," "Road to Nowhere," "Born Under Punches," "Once in a Lifetime"...

"The Overload" is a horizontal song if there ever was one. It's like crawling.

what track recommendations do you need if you *presumably already like some of their songs* and indeed *have heard them in both live and studio versions*?

lex to thread obv.

nothing on stop making sense is from little creatures.

I'll take the Feelies over the Talking Heads anyday. Better nerd rock.

I believe you are thinking of

...thinking of Speaking In Tongues

No songs from Little Creatures are on SMS.

My favourite TH album is 'The Name of this Band is...." Holy jack-in-a-box, Adrian Belew ****ing rules, especially on "Born Under Punches", which I've only listened to about.... 38 times? I love that song.

well, it would make sense you liking 'SMS' and 'SIT' above the other eno-era material. of the three eno albums i'd rate 'em: 'fear' best, then 'more songs', then 'remain'.

Yes, really really good stuff. For me the jury's still out on Belew - I much prefer the twin Fenders of Byrne and Harrison on the earliest stuff. The playing on New Feeling and especially A Clean Break is terrific - crisp and sparkling. I'd love to know on which trax (studio and live) Byrne uses a Jaguar. NF and ACB sound like a Strat/Tele combination to me.

Life During Wartime
Swamp
Once In A Lifetime
Crosseyed And Painless
Psycho Killer

I thought you said "emo-era" instead of "Eno-era", and I was, like, "WTF?" Me and my stupid eyesight.

http://www.discogs.com/release/157172
http://www.discogs.com/release/424908

Although Remain in Light's probably my favourite Talking Heads album I really like Johnny Marr's guitar on Nothing but Flowers from Naked, I think that's a great pop song. Classic.

They were/are all so great.

Tina, Busta, Scales? It's not like we need to be stingy about praise. It's not zero-sum.

This show is from the same tour. More vivid color vs the washed out look of the Rome show. Think the music was better in Rome. Anyway in case you want another version...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQo1YK3I0BY

hell yeah

weird how little screen time Weymouth, Frantz and Harrison get - it's essentially Byrne, Belew, Jones, Scales, McDonald for 80% of the time. I love that old weirdo YouTube stabilising algorithm though.

Well, I hear you Matt but I suspect the true fans know.

I mean

I met somebody over the summer who was going to see David Byrne’s show on Broadway who told me Talking Heads was one of her favorite bands. I asked her if she had read Chris Frantz’s book and she said “Who?” /TrueStory

ouch :(

anyway, that Rome show was the reason I got an external DVDRW hard drive in 2003 - because I couldn't save the torrented files to a CDR. absolutely essential.

Probably a bland/untutored comment but to go back to the original comments about Tina on that clip: I'm not used to seeing her play with a pick - is that a rare move or have I just not been paying attention?

she uses both techniques regularly, depending on the song

anyway, that Rome show was the reason I got an external DVDRW hard drive in 2003 - because I couldn't save the torrented files to a CDR. absolutely essential.

Chris Frantz has even shared links to fans' YouTube uploads on his social media accounts. I'm certain he'd love to put it out officially on a DVD or something if he could.

there's a bunch of interviews from last year where frantz says he would love to be able to get the footage remastered & released. harrison has praised it a lot in interviews too

can't dig up anything corroborating my memory of there being some rights issue preventing it getting an official release but i would certainly assume they've looked into it in the past or are looking into it

weird how little screen time Weymouth, Frantz and Harrison get

True, although I didn't know Bernie Worrell was there until about 10 seconds from the end!

Yeah true, I guess I was thinking along the lines of the actual band members, but were the whole crew considered to be “in the band” at this point? Would seem unusually democratic for Byrne.

finally getting around to the Chris Frantz book and today i learned that the sonar-ping sounds on "take me to the river", which ive spent 30 years assuming were an Eno keyboard sound, are actually Frantz hitting some kind of woodblock w/reverb.

burning down the house and once in a lifetime are good but the rest bores me!

there are 3 other songs on the spotify top 5 for Talking Heads

xzanfar you should try "take me to the river", theres this cool 'ping' sound in the beginning that you might think is a keyboard but is actually a woodblock

the ping is only on the streaming version though, not the CD, and it depends on the stereo you have

#onethread

finally getting around to the Chris Frantz book and today i learned that the sonar-ping sounds on "take me to the river", which ive spent 30 years assuming were an Eno keyboard sound, are actually Frantz hitting some kind of woodblock w/reverb.

My friend and I like to talk about this late '70s/early '80s era of art-rock where it's sometimes impossible to tell the synths from the real instruments. Like, Peter Gabriel albums, sometimes it's a synth, sometimes it's a guitar, sometimes it's Gabriel yelling into a mic through a synth, etc.

Yep, like the outro to "Once in a Lifetime" has like these insanely distorted warbles that probably started life as humble organ parts

Yeah, I always thought they were distorted guitar power cords, but I'm pretty sure they're just overdriven organ.

and sometimes the synth yelled at Gabriel

the synth yelled at Gabriel

Sequel to "The Boy Looked at Johnny"?

Lol

Franz book ended up being a letdown imho, but did offer some interesting tidbits I'd never heard before about ideas for Talking Heads projects that Frantz liked but which never materialized - thankfully, bc they largely sound terrible.

One is that apparently the idea of having Phil Spector(!) produce the third Talking Heads LP got as far as the meeting stage - and no farther, after Spector predictably acted like a lunatic at the first meeting. Would he have added a children's choir to "Heaven"? Sadly we'll never know.

Another scuppered idea which Frantz still seems steamed about is that apparently he was approached by Ken Kesey in the early 80s about Talking Heads doing an opera based on Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha"...? Frantz loved the idea but apparently it was nixed by the bad ogre David Byrne, and we have the Stop Making Sense movie instead. The mind reels at the alternate-universe possibilities...

i wonder if he felt like that would compete with his catherine wheel stuff from the same period?

i can imagine how the hassles byrne was getting about appropriation & imperialism in the early 80s might dissuade him from taking on that particular subject matter at that moment in time

The new Spider-Man opens with "I Zimbra" playing over the opening credits, which I wasn't expecting

UH SPOILERS???

jk jk im not gonna watch that for a few years probably

You forgot to add #onethread there.

Dadaist poetry finally makes it to the mainstream.

you may ask yourself

where is that radioactive spider

About the talking heads 5.1 downmixes that were going around a few years ago (and which are fucking fantastic)… does everyone else’s file of the first track on Naked have a jarring glitch on the very first brass note? Been trying to live with it but it really bugs me!

Yes! I made a fix, lemme see if I can dig it out.

Oh yay yes please! Lol i knew it would be you who’d respond

Hah! Here 'tis - https://www.fromsmash.com/V~DKjP.~u7-bt
 

Listening now, thanks a lot MN!

No worries!