Remain In Light, Side 2

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

One of the few polls whose results please me.

for some reason I am always surprised when I go back to this album and realize it was from 1980. It sounds like it came from several years later.

I had a stoner theory that each song gets faster than the one before. But I must have been reeeaally stonered.

goddamn the bass sounds in Houses in Motion so awesome

this is one of those records where I'd love a multi-disc "sessions" kinda box set, like the Miles Davis releases. So many layers and sounds to uncover.

what the fuck at "Seen And Not Seen" losing?

It really is remarkable how they nailed Joy Division's sound on "The Overload" without ever having heard their music.

i never believe that story. it can't be true

also it's one of my least favourite songs by them. appreciate the fact it exists but not into the dark atmospheric Heads so much as the funkier stuff

yeah I mean they started recording Remain in Light a full year after Unknown Pleasures came out, and I can't imagine Eno would've had any trouble getting a copy. Still. this legend I hold onto. it's such a good story!

yeah dog latin otm - i skip that song every time

angelique LP of this is on fire as well

I love the way Byrne trembles through the line, "in the free trade zone"

I love the way this record is sequenced, the way it just slowly grinds to a halt

yes

thirded

the version of "Houses in Motion" on The Name of this band is Talking Heads is so much funkier and livelier that I almost can't believe it's the same song

oh yeah, the live Houses in Motion is one of the very best Talking Heads songs.

Might be hard to find a Heads song where the live version isn't better than the studio tbh

Once in a Lifetime and Great Curve never came off too great live IMO. I mean they still rule but the studio recordings are perfect.

yeah i've never felt like "once in a lifetime" comes across right in a live setting for some reason — the chorus doesn't have the same lift

wearing shoes with no socks

I love "The Overload." And I never really 'got' Joy Division. But I 'get' The Melvins and this song is as close as Byrne ever got to Buzz (which is, admittedly, not very close, but that drone that runs throughout is some straight up Lysol shit)

hey, did Eno ever cop to "I Fall Up" being, err, inspired by "Houses in Motion?" Seems obvious to me but I'm no Eno scholar, and, lord knows, if anyone has the right to borrow ideas from TH it's Eno (and Hassell)

the wind in my heart, the dust in my head <3 <3 all time ultra humid groove

For the first four songs this is the greatest album ever made! Pity about the slower dirgey ones.

xp "Great Curve" was excellent live when I saw Byrne ten years ago, but I agree I haven't heard a live version of "Once in a Lifetime" that matches the studio version

otm and “Born Under Punches” too imo, perfect studio creations. “Crosseyed and Painless” bangs though.

live version of born under punches slays the studio version, you crazy

Too slow and a totally different groove. Tape loops make the song.

I like the live Born Under Punches, but it doesn't really compare. As flappy said the groove is totally different.

Not sure why Once in a Lifetime doesn't come through so well live, it's kind of got a strange rhythm to it and I think Eno's vocals are missed on the chorus. I feel like a lot of the power in the tune is due to the way the instruments are mixed - the bass up top, the twinkly synths in the background, Byrne front and center.

Great Curve...feel like it's too layered and complex to properly replicate. The live version I have sounds like it had to be slowed down and the mass vocals don't gel the way they do in studio.

there are plenty of live versions of born under punches that are significantly faster than the recording, like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVIKF03KkVM

it's true that the live version doesn't start out with the same groove as the studio version, but it slowly builds the component parts until it reaches a reasonable facsimile of the recorded groove. idk, born under punches is prob my fav heads song, i love both the live and studio versions, but in the live version you can really hear weymouth's bassline--about half of it is totally buried in the recording--and the moment when the rest of the groove locks in with her line is goosebump-inducing.

Still a totally different groove though. The parts that make up the studio version are perfectly out of sync in a way that is only possible with tape loops (or samplers, I suppose, but certainly not a live band).

xp

Good point about her bass line - the main sort of jumbled up slap bass loop sits really high in the mix.

back to the topic at hand, Houses In Motion...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMzKpNC2Jk

y'all should really check out the whole Rome 1980 concert on YT, the versions from that show match anything on The Name of This Band..

yes. Belew is an air bomber at this show. Insane playing

Just watching the version of Crosseyed and Painless from this show. Belew's solo around the 4-minute mark. Fucking hell. What a band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8lFmsCXhg

Srsly Rome 80 is a top 3 all time reason for youtube existing and i have no idea what the other two are.

^^

Breakdown of "Rapture" sounds like a Remain in Light outtake: discuss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9An5OcdE4

yes!

https://www.facebook.com/AdrianBelew/photos/a.10150340764179995/10151334736169995/?type=3&theater

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The Eno mix of Houses.. is still unavailable on CD; i can't understand why it wasn't on the Remain In Light reissue. 40 (!) years old this year;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2twY8YQYDBE

Ha oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=580i1YCnli0

XXP - Apologies, I was posting this news - https://www.loudersound.com/news/adrian-belew-teams-up-with-jerry-harrison-to-tour-remain-in-light

Be conservative : bring a $20 into the bar and that’s all you can spend.

Just watching the version of Crosseyed and Painless from this show. Belew's solo around the 4-minute mark. Fucking hell. What a band.

📹

Long interview with Jerry Harrison about upcoming RiL shows and other stuff

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/talking-heads-guitarist-jerry-harrison-remain-in-light-tour-936665/

I just heard about those shows this morning. Cool, but:

Are you playing the album straight through in sequence?

I don’t see a reason to do that. I don’t think that the order on the album is the order that I would want to play it live... Let’s just say we don’t feel obligated to play every song.

Since we’re playing festivals, we have maybe 45 minutes to play. We definitely want to give Turkuaz a chance to play a couple of their songs. I think Adrian and I both probably want to play something of our own, too.

So a 45 minute set featuring some Jerry Harrison solo songs, some Adrian Belew solo songs, some songs by this band Turkuaz, and a few songs from Remain in Light? Good for Jerry but I might take pass tbh.

Great interview though. What a wonderfully weird guy: I’ve co-founded a company that’s trying to create an antidote to snakebites. Basically, mosquitoes kill the most people, humans kill the next most people and then snakes.