Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

Here's where you can download all the downmixes -

http://www.sharoma.com/eclectic_ril.htm

Many have different vocal takes and all sorts of antics

While we're at it: Does anyone here have the og Byrne mixes of The B-52's "Mesopotamia"? Have been searching a while for those and most places that had them seem to have disappeared in The Great Blog Purge Of '12.

I do. I just sent you email.

May I too? If it's no trouble?

You have mail!

Thanks! Replied!

Holy crap, listening to "More Songs" and it's like hearing the album for the first time with fresh ears. I've heard the 5.1 mixes, but this is something better. How awesome.

can i get that b52s?! corysklar AT gmail ??

Sent!

ookay, just one more? pretty pls mr peterson?

adamrsbeales at hotmail dot combover

Sent. Why the band hasn't made this stuff generally available I'll never know, there's obviously a demand!

The Byrne mixes are great fun. Super skeletal and dubby. Thanks again!

Cluttering up the Heads thread with just a bit more B's, the other four songs that were to be part of the Byrne-produced album are:

Queen of Las Vegas (that outtake is now on the Nude on the Moon comp)
Big Bird
Butterbean (above 2 both reworked for the Whammy! album; I've never seen/heard Byrne versions)
Adios Desconocida (a ballad by Fred!) I think I have this somewhere.

Aha!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjHJcji686k

o shit this is so f'n tite thank you thx dp

I have this: https://www.discogs.com/The-B-52s-Party-Mix-Mesopotamia/release/76869

but I guess these are remixes, different from Byrne's originals?

There are three mixes, afaik. The US Warner Brothers is the standard mix, the UK Island label contains the Byrne mixes (only on the very first copies? I think the Island release was fixed to include the standard mix shortly after release.) WB tweaked the mix again for the twofer release; I've seen this referred to as a "rock" mix. I own both US releases, but I've never really done a compare and contrast.

hey after basking in the glory of those fold-down mixes for a while, I have realized that for some reason I am missing "Life During Wartime", guess it failed to extract? if anyone happens to have that a PM would be great, it bugs the completist in me to have a track missing esp on one of my fave albums.

DLing the downmix of Remain in Light; seems like perfect hot-day music.

yeah the downmixes are just a work of genius. the final minute or so of Seen And Not Seen where you hear Byrne scatting and mumbling stuff that is literally unheard in the final mix (i'm sure he says "Brian?.." at one point). does make the originals sound very flat by comparison.

I'm gonna go contrarian on this - the magic of Remain for me is the intricate melange of parts simmering away in a fugue. You can focus on and isolate an element while you listen, or you can lose yourself in the ocean. The downmixes sound like worktapes to me, where the mix is not bedded in and the rough edges are showing. Fascinating, but not fully realised and in no way superior to the released mixes.

Did anyone watch the Documentary Now! parody of 'Stop Making Sense'? It was so lovingly done.

While this thread is active, my uh version of the downmixes discussed above failed to properly extract "Life During Wartime" ( the regular album version), if anyone has this plz ILXmail me.

yeah that was good (the documentary now episode).

any more to the rumors that they were in rehearsals?

I'm probably going to get lynched for this but...

...*deep breath*...

...Dud.

if you say so

They're no GENESIS...

so wrong Turrican, most of the time you are OTM. not even close on this one.

I deeply love Remain in Light but not too jazzed about anything else.

i like todd edwards' remix of "burning down the house"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_BpfEOd9U

incredibly overrated but not dud. i love so many of his songs but i find david byrne to be really insufferable

ha, let me just say - i love the talking heads. but for so many people i know, they're foundational. Remain in Light is the only record I like front to back.

oh yeah, I went to a screening of Stop Making Sense last month and the movie was missing most of the soundtrack. bass, vocals, drums, guitar. nothing else. they'd cut to the backup singers, keyboard players - nothing. we left once tina weymouth started singing genius of love, it was like watching a st. sanders shreds video. i was pissed at the time but now it's just funny. p sure i posted this already on ilx

later talking heads is good too, fools.

wtf flappy explain...

when we left I asked the employees what happened (obviously wasn't their fault) - apparently it was an issue with the copy they got from the distributor. I'm not exactly sure how DCP works, but it wasn't just the movie, the theater's "Don't talk" ad that played when the lights went down had the same sound issues - muffled & missing layers. It was bizarre & disappointing but what are you gonna do. they gave us passes for a free movie & I used them to see It last night.

Super classic c'mon

flappy bird - might have been a stereo issue? think they'd got their plugs in the wrong way round and the two channels were phase-cancelling

Yep almost definitely. I have a pair of earphones that do the same thing as flappy described, if I plug them in the wrong way

I just heard the live LP The Name of This Band is Talking Heads for the first time ever. Very different feel to my ears than their records, sloppy and immediate.

I would have thought phase cancellation would occur more from faulty wiring than having any plugs the wrong way around, but it does seem like that's what's happened.

In stereo, if left is plugged into right and vice versa, all this does is reverse the stereo field, for phase cancellation to occur both stereo channels need to be played through the same channel (in mono) with one of the channels inverted.

flappy bird - might have been a stereo issue? think they'd got their plugs in the wrong way round and the two channels were phase-cancelling

― Shat Parp (dog latin), Tuesday, September 12, 2017 10:55 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep almost definitely. I have a pair of earphones that do the same thing as flappy described, if I plug them in the wrong way

― Vinnie, Tuesday, September 12, 2017 11:25 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahaha awesome, i love that an 800 capacity theater had this problem

I'd say either a plug wasn't inserted fully (sometimes if a headphone jack plug isn't inserted properly it has this exact effect) or it's some other wiring problem. But yeah, incredible that a cinema - particularly one showing a concert film - had this problem.

I just heard the live LP The Name of This Band is Talking Heads for the first time ever. Very different feel to my ears than their records, sloppy and immediate.

This, along with "Stop Making Sense", is my go-to Talking Heads. I rarely play the studio albums, in fact. Not too many bands work improves that dramatically on their live albums.

Likewise, with the exception of Remain In Light, which is impossible to improve upon

Fear of Music is their best album

I'm not the biggest fan of "Remain In Light" either tbh.

"Fear Of Music" is godlike.

FOM is v good but yall are high as fuck if you think it's better than RIL

otm

i've been called worse things, i'll accept that