Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

Some TH playing in Morrisons when I was doing my shopping last evening, very deep and artsy.

All the fans of real funk fled

I've never been too crazy about them, don't dislike them really either, just ambivalent I guess. However, On the strength of this thread, I decided to DL Fear of Music and the live thingy. Will live with them for a week or so and see if they click. Off topic but the Liam Gallagher pre-covers thing is wonderful. Nice work everybody.

Much of early Heads, like say, Name of This Band is spiky art-punky, with the uber trebly sound and intentionally naïve/awkward vibe.

Late Heads could be funky, like Popsicle of Love, or world-musicky like I Zimbra.

In between, I think, is both their creative and popular peak - Little Creatures, Stop Making Sense.

Tangentially, I liked how Byrne's book (and TED Talk) discusses the extent to which spaces CBGBs - narrow and live - complemented and enhanced the sounds they happened to be making. Short delays, hard surfaces. Just as Gregorian chants and 18th-century chamber music worked well in the spaces those musics were performed in. Characteristically, he leaves open whether it's chicken or egg.

spaces LIKE

For me, Fear of Music is 50% peak Heads and 50% awkward murkiness that doesn't push my buttons. The live albums (and vids of course) are the best intro to the band.

otm

fear of music is their best album

I actually really, really like Little Creatures. It's quality cheerfulness. I don't know the first two albums but LC is my fave out of albums 3 to 8.

Can't get enough of this Rome, 1980 version of "Born Under Punches"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO7N2tFb0X8

hell yeah

that version is great, creepier in a different way than the studio version. this show/era was great. i love the super slow languorous intros to Crosseyed and Painless

That is really good. At points the groove got real Lagos and the dual basses is a bit Miles Davis, that's a real good take.

I don't think I've ever heard that. Straight fire.

Tina.

Wow.

The whole Live in Rome show is straight fire.

Belew is just ridiculous. Master

Great all around-- everyone on the stage

I've kind of forever dismissed the T Heads cuz of Byrne dislike and general allergy, but I've come around to that 79-81 era and that holy cow that Rome show is insane.

Adrian Belew is the worst dresser in rock music.

nah that outfit is some str8 up dirtbag peacocking, thats confidence right there

I do like this jumper

https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/f/7/d/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwdfmt.png/1496464311120.jpg

I've come around to that 79-81 era

the expanded heads were one of the best live bands of all time imo, just phenomenally tight and exciting

always found it cool how the bassline pops out in the live versions of born under punches. the remain in light version feels like a totally different song.

despite telling a familiar story, i still enjoyed this little mini-doc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeDf-1Wr-Ks

lots of great eno-era footage i had never seen, just from talk shows and the like i think.

the sources for ^^ led me to this pretty cool doc as well, from 1979:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5EzLDD1D_Q

all of this is probably upthread, apologies if it's already been discussed

David Byrne on Desert Island Discs! Available now and in the online archive thereafter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vz6r1

Man, I love “Listening Wind,” which is used very effectively in the season premiere of The Americans.

Also good to see Turrican takes his wrong opinion road show into other threads. I thought I was the only one who had to deal with this.

for prosperity:

POLL Me Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up – TALKING HEADS – ILM Artist Poll #82 - (The Results Thread)

Should be revived every few months, thx. 🙂

Listening to the 5.1 down mix for Remain in Light for the first time.

Wow.

I love those things. I interviewed Tony Visconti years ago when they did a 5.1 mix of Electric Warrior, and one of the things we talked about is how music of course is a 360 degree, room filling expanse that our ears sort of pick and choose from to process, but a stereo mix is sort of the producer picking one pair of ears for you. And yet with all these sonic elements swirling around there are so many ways an album could have sounded without changing a note of music, just by picking different instruments to foreground or emphasize, and listening to 5.1 mixes kind of pulls the curtain back to reveal some of them. And then 5.1 mix downs in turn take those elements and re-introduce them as an alternative mix of the album that if it sounds like hearing something for the first time could very well be because you are!

Also good to see Turrican takes his wrong opinion road show into other threads. I thought I was the only one who had to deal with this.

― afriendlypioneer, Tuesday, April 3, 2018 12:21 AM

Sorry, who are you again?

Oh yeah, some guy that I interacted with on that one thread a billion years ago.

Anyway, I still stand by my opinion of Talking Heads as a white funk band for art-rockers who don't like funk.

This old chestnut

I can imagine Talking Heads fans stroking their chins to Devo or Brian Eno, but can't imagine them getting down to... well, anything. Even Talking Heads themselves.

always good to judge a band by what you imagine their fans are like imo

All TH were huge fans of funk and soul hence the introduction of big name funk and soul people into the expanded band. In the sleevenotes for Sand In The Vaseline (1993) DB raves about The Jacksons' Get It Together as being as important as Sgt Pepper. Just last week on his Desert Island Discs he was picking Brazilian music, Parliament and recent RnB stuff. I think he and Tom Tom Club especially, did as much as anyone to celebrate as many other forms of music as they could and fold that successfully into their own stuff. I can't imagine what more they could have done to 'get down' live on stage either. They're could hardly shake their collective ass *more* than they do in Stop Making Sense. They've always struck me as a white funk band for art-rockers who LOVE funk and not really a very 'chin stroke' kind of band at all.

Sounds like turricans describing a crisis of imagination

Not sure it’s worth bothering here

I can imagine Talking Heads fans stroking their chins to Devo or Brian Eno, but can't imagine them getting down to... well, anything. Even Talking Heads themselves

dude when TH were the biggest band ever and SMS was in theaters and my mom took my sister and I to see it, the whole ass theater was getting down in the isles!

Everything is possible with imagination

I'm not denying that Talking Heads were funk fans - obviously they were! Their audience was not a funk audience, though.

https://media.tenor.com/images/81fc2c1a812010ed3333122056e47694/tenor.gif

are you calling my mom not a funk fan?

but yah you're forgetting that TH fans aren't just NYC cool people. Burning Down The House was on tv and radio 24/7. TH fans are Madonna fans, MJ fans, Prince fans.

I'm not denying that Talking Heads were funk fans - obviously they were! Their audience was not a funk audience, though.

Caught b/w a rock and a hard place as I decide whether to toss out my art rock or my funk albums. This new dogmatism is killing me.

I'm not denying that Talking Heads were funk fans

Not just Talking Heads...

https://cdn-s3.si.com/s3fs-public/golf/2015/04/22/FunkClinton.jpg

Sorry, who are you again?

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 3:46 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess your thing is stinking up multiple threads with your negativity and played out devil’s advocate trolling. Didn’t realize you were so ubiquitous.

the funniest thing lately is when he admits he never talks about music with people in real life. like dude, you should try that, it could really help u!

I don't get what's so difficult to understand about that - not when I have a zillion other things to talk about.

As for the poster above, I enjoyed his or her memorable and insightful posts on the same three or four bands so much I had to check their posting history to remind myself just where and when we'd interacted on here.

well this is all very good but how are people who like Talking Heads supposed to chat about their favourite band now?