Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

X-post- wife & I were in NYC for MLK weekend and saw David Byrne American Utopia.

American Utopia closed on Broadway, but now I see it’s coming back for 17 weeks. I think Byrne & band doing Janelle Monae’s Black Lives Matter song is the highlight.

Interview with Chris Frantz on his Talking Heads book to be published later this month.

Amazon quotes this review/recommendation:

"From the first time I saw Talking Heads live (CBGB, 1976), I've had a huge thing for Tina Weymouth. And since then I've been biding my time, waiting for the right moment to make my move. But after reading Remain in Love by Chris Frantz, it's become pretty clear to me that she's already in a relationship (see pages xi, 3, 33-34, etc.), and what's more, it looks to be serious (pages 41, 43-48, and especially 147). But you know something? That's OK. I'm happy for Tina, and for Chris, a great drummer who has written a great book." ―Bill Murray

lol

:D

irl lol at “especially 147”

Probably not the biggest Heads fan on the borad, I mean I like them fine but they aren’t one of “my bands” but dying to read this based on the tastes I’ve gotten and the interview just posted is no exception. I am a huge Modern Lovers fan so there is that, I guess.

watching the “stop making sense” concert right now and I think these guys might be the peak of music.

Many (most?) days I would not disagree.

i like stop making sense a lot, but i always feel a lil' lonely in thinking i would much rather see them in 79 somewhere

before they got the giant band, i mean (which rules, i get it)

Had I gone with Karl in '79 I'd have to stop him from pogoing.

oh my god, it's hard to put a lid on that though once it gets going

imagine being one of the ORIGINAL white kids being taught how to dance by talking heads, in the late 70s! i could have told some stories to the later generations of white kids being taught how to dance by talking heads-influenced bands

I assume they actually grew up to spread that weird funkless herky-jerk '80s dance you always see.

i'm surprised the trademark Stop Make Sense collective "Running in Place" move didn't take off, it seems like excellent cardio

for real though, i do get a bit distracted by all that stuff (the dancing) during the film. whereas, i imagine a sweaty '79 gig (did they even tour in '79? whatever) where everyone is on too many drugs to dance

Here's a one-off of them in 1979 as afaict a quintet (with Belew):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1KIYV9ZuKM

Looks like they just kept adding musicians after that.

i feel like the odd th fan out because i like the first disc of the name of this band is talking heads, which covers the first two albums, a lot more than the second, which covers remain in light era.

Whoops I meant this one:

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

i can confirm (and this is sciencE) that SMS is the peak of music

xxp Me too

xp map i remember wearing that first CD (out of 2) when it came out, i agree

(I’m prob an atypical fan for only really being into the first 3 albums… and a few later songs here and there)

i still include remain in light in my holy albums list, and i finally let speaking in tongues in a few years ago. but that's IT from talking heads, NO more

km i assume you're familiar with it but if not, Live in Rome 1980 may scratch your itch. it is all on youtube. now that would be a nice thing to get a remaster/reissue of, i have no idea who owns the rights to it or what.

i'd say that one and SMS are the respective apples and oranges of the peak of music

Can we discuss the awesomeness of Weymouth's bass line on the live "Born Under Punches."

my relationship with Speaking in Tongues is also weird. I love just about every individual track, and on their own I'm a fan of the production on each too. So many great sounds. But taken as a whole there is just a little bit too much of a sheen on it, that keeps it a notch below RiL and Fear of Music. Also can't really compare it to the first two, which I love as much.

Girlfriend is Better and Life During Wartime are two songs that suffer for me on their respective albums compared to the SMS versions, which I knew and loved first, and I just find to be such higher energy. Everyone seems to love the FoM version of Wartime but I with the SMS version eternally in my head as a comparison, just hear it as kind of neutered

Alfred - oh my yes. how can it be so funky while still having that woozy, wobbly quality

A sheen? It sounds primitive: a true self-production.

km i assume you're familiar with it but if not, Live in Rome 1980 may scratch your itch

usually i am not familiar with things like this, but in this case, i am familiar! that itch has been scratched raw, i love that performance so much. it must have some sort of rights issue because it's a blistering set, and the video footage also rules

Iirc there's a long segment of that film where there is all sorts of cool stuff going on, but instead the camera does a slow closeup of the bass drum head.

exactly!!

the more pro the world becomes, the less often stuff like that happens, it's sad

A sheen? It sounds primitive: a true self-production.

Maybe that's it then? Primitive in that it doesn't pop and sparkle and invite you into weird jungles of sound like RiL. Those sounds are there but they feel more approachable for some reason, compared to what Eno did on the previous masterpieces. Sheen isn't quite the right word, maybe it's that the dynamic range is narrower? Don't know if that's true but it would capture some of my experience. Does that square with how you're using 'primitive'?

Sheen isn't quite the right word, maybe it's that the dynamic range is narrower?

otm

yeah the extra space in the mix compared to RiL gives it a clean sound that simultaneously sounds v polished but also has home-studio/demo vibes.

it's a bit too stripped down and lifeless while adding in this 80s gloss that doesn't do them any favors. I see it as a kind of cleaned up version of what they were doing on RIL, but unfortunately cleaned up doesn't really suit them at that point, it was the wild experiments that were really elevating their music. I also heard most of the SIT tracks in SMS first and generally prefer those live versions except for "Burning Down The House".

Gotta stan for the live versions of Byrne's 'My Big Hands' that they performed in 1982, so great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHEb6Duxt7U

so good, i always wish that had made it into the SMS setlist. i saw Byrne on that "songs of david byrne & brian eno" tour he did and was very excited when he busted out 'my big hands'

Moodles otm upthread - "lifeless" is really what I meant, though only relatively speaking to the towering heights of what came before. I have somehow managed to continue to love "This Must Be the Place" despite its becoming so ubiquitous, and I think "Slippery People" retains enough vibrancy to stand alongside the awesome SMS version. But other than that, all the songs that are in SMS suffer by comparison. The less prominent tracks - "Pull Up the Roots", "Moon Rocks" - have become the ones that bring me back to Speaking in Tongues, and maybe it's just because I don't have those comparison points. I guess this is probably a challops but I think those might be my 2 favorite tracks on the record alongside "This Must be the Place" (not my fav *songs*, but tracks on that record).

On my list yesterday of Favorite Bass Lines, I praised "Wild Wild Life" for the chorus line.

Pretty much every bassline in SMS sounds massive compared to the studio versions.

Guys I’m in love with this concert. How come I had never heard it before in its entirety? This is the coolest thing ever.

I've never watched SMS and I'm really looking forward to it.

xp oh yeah. crown jewel of youtube
glad you're enjoying it, Moka :)

There’s two full versions of it on youtube. I suggest doing it now.

There’s some standalone videos too… the live version of “life during wartime” is genius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0DpBnUznd0

Also “burn under punches” live is mindblowing, but the whole thing is so good.

wait are you talking about Stop Making Sense, or Rome 1980? Both amazing. But you had never heard the SMS concert?

I haven’t heard the Rome one either! I need to see that one asap.

First time seeing the SMS concert today. I had seen clips of some songs but never the full thing.

I have no excuse, I love them and of course RiL is a classic, but I hadn’t been truly acquainted with how brilliant they are live as a band.

aah I am jealous, to be experiencing both of those things for the first time. And don't forget The Name of This Band is Talking Heads - it's a live compilation so not as much of a unified experience, but pretty darn incredible.

SMS otoh needs to be seen in its entirety, start-to-finish; it has such a sublime flow.

A first viewing of SMS put me in mind of this incredible story:

https://www.slashfilm.com/tobolowsky-files-ep-44-the-voice-from-another-room/

You may be familiar with some parts of it, but it is really worth hearing Tobolowsky tell the whole tale.