Most Surprising Album in Jerry Harrison's Production Discography

My friend wrote "Thanksgiving." Sometimes I contact him around that holiday to check in on his royalty payments. Nowadays he mostly does big Bowie and Queen tributes and such in Austin.

Nice, good song!

no way did he do Throwing Copper. that's amazing

https://www.punkglobe.com/robewilliamsinterview1013.php

Black 47 came through Bloomington a few times and would pack clubs. I saw them a couple of times and they were way better live than the cuts I heard off their CD.

Outside Looking In BoDeans - listened to this one a bunch on tape as a teenager, but it's pretty much ruined.

I also saw them play a free show in downtown B-ton and James McMurtry opened the show and he was killer. I'm pretty sure it was fall of '89.

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'Jerry Harrison produced "Lightning Crashes"' should be under a snapple cap

lol!

Jerry was the latest guest on the Talking Heads podcast Sufjan mentioned upthread. He has a lot of good stories and thoughts about the Talking Heads and he even mentions Throwing Copper and the Heads album (but otherwise doesn't mention his productions). seems like a very chill guy

Y’all know Jerry also is big medtech investor? Trying to recall the podcast where I heard him talk about, iirc, hearing assistance technology.

Y’all know Jerry also is big medtech investor? Trying to recall the podcast where I heard him talk about, iirc, hearing assistance technology.

He's also the co-founder of a medtech corp that's trying to develop a field antidote to snakebites:
https://www.ophirex.com/our-team

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Harrison was foisted on the Fatima Mansions by their record label, who wanted them to crack the US market. The album is a punchy hard rock effort with the usual vicious lyrics, but apart from three or four great tracks it's fairly forgettable by their standards. It also has a slightly monotonous uniformity of sound which isn't there on their other records, which are all really varied and jump from genre to genre (something which is very difficult to pull off but the Mansions managed it).

I found this quote by Cathal Coughlan about Harrison from the time (1994):

“He’s an amusing kind of a man, but it was always very evident that he comes from a slightly different background to the one that I did, and I never lost sight of that fact. He understood a lot, but there were some music references that were completely lost on him, and some of them were about American music as well.”

Why would anyone be surprised by No Talking, Just Head (of all these albums)?

Yay, Mansions!

I'll agree with Jon's point about uniformity of sound - that was the goal, after all. But I disagree that it's "fairly forgettable". All of their albums sort of blend in my head until I play them and their widescreen white hot anger burns bright.

You won't encounter a bigger Mansions fan than me, and Lost In The Former West would probably have sounded brilliant if it had been released by almost any other 1990s rock band. I just think that while it certainly has some real moments, it's not a patch on Viva Dead Ponies or especially Valhalla Avenue, that's all.

By all accounts they were on their last legs as a unit while recording it, which if true is an echo of what happened to Microdisney in the late 1980s. Coughlan put out the Bubonique album a year later and his own solo debut a year after that, which suggests that by 1994 he had already mentally checked out of the Mansions for various reasons.

Huh somehow missed that he produced God Shuffled His Feet. I've only heard a few albums on this list but that one is surprisingly good

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm has always been earworm comfort food for me, but I have never brought myself to listen to the entire album or anything else by them.

I have never heard of Cathal and/or Microdisney/Fatima Mansions until exactly an hour ago and I'm suddenly extremely obsessed

Microdisney are phenomenal. Do you know Sean O'Hagan? He got his start there as well...

Oh yes, I know his stuff... never been a fan! always preferred Stereolab without him and never cottoned to the High Llamas. I love all the Cathal-related stuff I listened to this morning, though! Fatima Mansions isn't on Tidal but I just was Youtube playlisting it and was delighted, Cathal has a proto-Falkous vibe or something. Haven't figured out if I agree with his politics yet ha

Hands up, who are the three ilxors that voted for the same String Cheese Incident album? I wouldn't have been surprised to see them get a joke vote or two, but three for the same album?

it's true. kenny wayne arguably as surprising but suffered some vote splitting.

failed to keep the herd moving in one direction

or failed to herd the flock in one direction, sorry

Big interview with Jerry in the new TapeOp. Seems like a nice, thoughtful guy, too bad he seems to think sales are what make an album a success.

Intriguing. I will read that. I should note that Frantz's memoir and interviews DO seem to dwell a bit on how:

(a) Byrne habitually stole credit for communally written material.

(b) LOL it's ok because Tom Tom Club sold a lot of records. Also ha ha samples.

I haven't delved into Jerry's side of this. But I will admit that Chris is both morally right (dude, just because you're the frontman/singer doesn't mean you get all the credit) and factually right (Tom Tom Club DID sell an awful lot of records).

At the same time, they're all globally famous and pretty rich. There is a limit to how much I want to hear about them as victims, thxbye

I never know how rich musicians are in an era when streaming accounts for income. I guess Frantz + Weymouth saved their Heads dough and/or invested well?

I found the jus'-folks tone of Frantz's memoir often irritating tbh.

Royalties from "Genius of Love"? Production points on mediocre records that nonetheless sold well enough for the era, getting while the getting was good? Real estate?

Harrison is in a different category, given the list at the top of the thread. He must have made a mint from "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" alone.

jus'folks? OK, perhaps true overall but near the end of the memoir...

(SPOILER ALERT)

(SPOILER ALERT)

(SPOILER ALERT)

Chris is on a yachting vacation in the Caribbean with his loving family. and needs to temporarily jet away to attend rehab for cocaine. And everyone knows, and it's totally cool, because hey, stuff happens.

Let it be said that I have been personally enriched by these people. Their art has defined most of my life since May 1986. My eldest sister was graduating from high school. I was a freshman sitting in the bleachers. She'd lent me her cassette copy of "Little Creatures" and my Walkman sent forth the following words: "And she was lying in the grass." I was hooked forever. One of their songs is among my open-mic mandolin standards.

At the same time, I have never interrupted a Jamaican yachting vacation to charter a plane to go back to New York so that I could go to a cocaine rehab session.

YMMV, carry on

being a Belew fan I thought about trying to catch Harrison and his REmain in Light show when it comes back to the bay area, but watching some live videos I don't think it's for me. Belew and Harrison are fine, but the backup singers I can do without, and they have a bassist sing a fair number of the songs (and Harrison sings a lot, which I wasn't expecting).

I wonder if Jerry got a decent check for Virtual Reality in Ready Player One

Bill Bottrell's OST check for Send Me on My Way is probably much larger bit less noticed amongst the Michael Jackson deposits.

ommaway

Rusted Root Neologisms

Frantz seems like kind of a bitter guy

(a) Kinda, albeit in a genial way and (b) Can you blame him for a tinge of bitterness?

We as a borad continually dwell on stories about domineering frontpeople robbing credit from their alleged sidepeople. And we are often on the side of the sidepeople (cf. recent Police and Beatle discussions).

Frantz does dwell overmuch on it, yes. And it will be sad if he's 80 years old and still dissing Byrne in this sideways way.

But the dude has the germ of a point, yes?

I only blame him for shouting in an oscar the grouch voice "Who dat? Who dat? Now who dat tryin' to be bad? Your mother!" during an otherwise enjoyable performance.

I found the jus'-folks tone of Frantz's memoir often irritating tbh.

A lot of people fit that description, as YMP says, including one other guy…hey wait!

Byrne's solo catalog might be thoroughly mediocre, but he's released a dozen or so albums, a couple of them good, a couple great. And had plenty of other projects and collaborations and tours. And won an Oscar. And got nominated again this year. Even generously giving the scales a tip in favor of the first Tom Tom Club album, if Frantz had something to prove, he would have done so by now.

Regarding Jerry’s net worth, David Bowman’s mostly excellent but distractedly VERY anti-Weymouth opens with a description of him building a new home in Malibu.

Doesn't that book also say he earned "Monopoly Man money" from the albums he produced by Live (i.e. wheelbarrows of cash)?

Yeah I think Jerry and Chris and Tina have generally done fine, cashflow-wise. If there were a neglected Head who was languishing in poverty and waiting for some restitution, maybe that would feel like a severe injustice.

As it stands, I can safely regard any extant core Talking Heads acrimony as arguments among millionaires.

If I were going to get morally exercised about anything, it would be the external magicians who made the excellent Stop Making Sense-era "extended" band so fucking awesome. Let us now sing the praises of: Lynn Mabry, Ednah Hole, Steve Scales, Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir.

If THOSE people haven't been sufficiently remunerated and praised, imma fight someone. I feel like Chris and Tina and Jerry will be fine.

sorry Ednah Holt

Believe Bernie might have had bigger problems getting compensated for his P-Funk-related activities iirc.

I hope Bernie is doing fine, of course. Dude is solid.

That said, my guess is he won't be writing a book in 20 years stewing about how David Byrne hogged his credits 40 years ago or whatever.

I am generous with my advocacy and with my sympathies. I feel like Byrne's contributions to the culture have been adequately recognized. I am generally optimistic that his bandmates will be generally okay (despite some understandable prickliness). Until I hear otherwise I will optimistically assume that their collaborators and sidepersons have gotten, or will get, their due.

p.s. I think we can all agree that the expanded Heads lineup was among the greatest supergroups ever, and that their work will be eternal. I love minimalist punky early Heads too, but the expanded Heads sound is among my favorite things ever.

Let us imagine that malevolent aliens showed up and demanded a reason why they should not obliterate or planet. Let us further imagine that they want to see a representative cultural product that encapsulates the best we have to offer. I would probably play them an Ella and Louis record first, and Stop Making Sense second.

Tina and Chris will plaything aliens Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom