David Byrne

Re: the interviews, it wasn't just one publication, it was apparently set up that way for everybody the following day:

From the San Francisco Examiner:

"...it was no surprise when interviews granted to herald the wide release of the film starting this Friday were given in two halves: Byrne in one hotel conference room, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison in another. It was an interesting succession of chats - one that left no doubt that this is one band that will never play together again."

I still don't know which publication got the quote I remember from Weymouth unfortunately.

As the description of the YouTube vid points out, this is *after* the whole lawsuit / "No Talking, Just Head" thing... which is kinda remarkable (and, like, no wonder!)

Oh man, long before they broke up, Weymouth was fulminating in the press about Eno and Byrne only having eyes and ears for each other, not caring what anybody else thought about the music, also something about Eno and royalties, and how Byrne was like "a janitor" in personal style, and I always heard that she was the one who ripped into him in band meetings---Rhino must have known about some of this, in Rolling Stone and so on, but hey why not try to squeeze more bucks out of this box set craze, and yeah Weymouth and Franz had Tom Tom Club and The Heads album with guest singers, not bad, but why try to do anything more like that when you see more TALKING HEADS REUNION TOUR bucks somewhere to be squeezed, and business is business but they never have wanted to understand that he doesn't need them the way they need him, or somebody else with more impetus than they have, past a few done deals. Whut fules.

morrisp, it doesn't appear to happen in this press conference - at 29:36 they're asked whether they thought about reuniting after seeing the film and Weymouth wryly says "When we saw it in the studio ... we said, 'Wow! What a great band...'" Harrison jokes he hasn't seen the film yet and Byrne avoids the question altogether. Wish I could remember the publications where I read about what I posted but it's impossible to say, I could've been jumping through dozens of articles linked on Yahoo! or AOL that particular day.

The Heads album is one of the worst things I've ever heard -- it's air pollution.

Either way, same point, about facing their own limitations, hitching their old wagon to somebody besides Byrne.

other than him.

I view Weymouth and Franz not unlike Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, and Byrne as Fogerty. They were important to the band, while in the band, but really haven't done much of anything outside the band, despite complaining loudly about not getting enough credit for their creative input. And their constant complaints about Eno are just silly; compare his track record as producer to theirs, let alone that of Jerry "ugh" Harrison.

Most Surprising Album in Jerry Harrison's Production Discography

Ugh. I thought he had produced The Raw & the Cooked for Fine Young Cannibals, but I guess he only did the Buzzcocks cover.

Don't drag Harrison into this!! lol

Tim Lawrence's great Arthur Russell bio indicates that Harrison's fellow ex-Modern Lover Ernie Brooks brought Arthur into work on JH albs which I gather weren't so hot, but I'd still like to hear them.

One of the Casual Gods albums was a late '90s cutout bin perennial.

Early '90s!

Clifford and the other Fogerty didn't co-write "Genius of Love," though. Frantz-Weymouth have plenty to be thankful for.

XP Those same copies were still there in the late-Clinton era!

"but really haven't done much of anything outside the band, despite complaining loudly about not getting enough credit for their creative input."

Josh! C'mon! Frantz and Weymouth recorded a record during the peak of the main band that was then and has since been universally beloved in dance music, post-new wave and just about every other context, featuring a song that everyone in the U.S. and probly UK at least under the age of 60 has heard and most likely adores. That one song is better known the result of the combined impact of every single solo song Byrne ever did. Cook and Clifford have nothing anywhere near that to show for.

"relevant context"

yes, thank you! Why are we not talking about "Genius of Love"?

I interviewed Narada Michael Walden last month and he couldn't stop talking about the impact of "Genius of Love" if you lived in NYC in 1981-1982

Yeah, so why not give up on/shut up about Byrne, and do more on their own, or with whatever help is required.

For what it is worth, there are four credited songwriters on "Genius of Love." I am not a huge fan of that song and honestly find it kind of annoying, but fine, let's call it a good track. Hey, a great track! So? That's one song! The era as we all know is full of great tracks, one hit wonders, one offs, but no one would ascribe greatness to, like, Peter Schilling.

Cook and Clifford have nothing anywhere near that to show for.

They're not "Genius of Love", but Groover's Paradise and The Evil One are nothing to sneeze at.

They knew they needed Doug and Roky!

(True, they still did battle w Fogerty in court, though that may well be on him, and they slogged on for many a year with that substitute singer who barely lived to tell in recent Rolling Stone, but they got it right a couple of times.)

For what it is worth, there are four credited songwriters on "Genius of Love." I am not a huge fan of that song and honestly find it kind of annoying, but fine, let's call it a good track. Hey, a great track! So? That's one song! The era as we all know is full of great tracks, one hit wonders, one offs, but no one would ascribe greatness to, like, Peter Schilling.

― Josh in Chicago

Josh, with respect, you're being...willful here. Who cares how many songwriters? "Genius" was an epochal track, sampled within months (weeks?) by Grandmaster Flash, blatantly plagiarized by Narada Michael Walden for Stacy Lattisaw, and, more than a decade later, became the basis for a ferocious Mariah Carey single...and popped up AGAIN when Carey's "Heartbreaker" sampled the Lattisaw track.

Tom Tom Club were only good for one album, but pop music is filled with one-album wonders. Don't hold it against them.

Anyway, my Cook and Clifford comparison was in the context of them in the Talking Heads. No one, not even Franz and Weymouth, are making any real claims their post TH stuff has somehow been overlooked, and few would go to bat for much of anything in Byrne's solo catalog, either, give or take "The Catherine Wheel" or his (other) collaborations with Eno. Franz and Weymouth's grievances are about their tenure in the Talking Heads, but that ship sailed decades ago. There'd be more merit to their grousing if they had managed much of anything in the past 30 years, good *or* bad. Though it doesn't help that what little they did was bad.

under the age of 60 has heard and most likely adores. That one song is better known the result of the combined impact of every single solo song Byrne ever did.

― veronica moser, Tuesday, September 20, 2022 5:40 PM

truth bomb. byrne's solo career is a snoozefest.

"Genius of Love" >>>>>> True Stories

and i mean maybe a bit more niche,
but "wordy rappinghood" is also a very solid jam.

byrne's catalogue otoh has nothing that even resembles someone having any fun whatsoever.

oh for sure it does. still mediocre at best, forgettable at worse.

I will speculate wildly that, even though in 1981 and 1982 Byrne would deny giving a solitary shit about chart success, given his dictatorial tendencies and pass/ag grandiosity (both accelerated by primo cocaine available to NYers in his position), he had to have been envious of their success at the time. That one song that Josh has the perfect right to be dismissive of at that time had greater cultural penetration than My life in the bush of Ghosts and, again, has had far greater legacy since than the combined impact of every single solo song David Byrne has ever done.

I live about a mile from Frantz and Weymouth. In 2019 I was seated next to them at a Mott the Hoople show and made some small talk with them re: the town we live in. 6 months beforehand, and two days before I moved out of NYC after 30 years, I saw the Byrne show, which while unmatched as live performance, I was not gonna discuss with them

i won't stand for this catherine wheel erasure! it's proof that byrne didn't necessarily need frantz & weymouth, but also that they really helped - just compare the studio versions of tracks to the live versions with talking heads. the studio versions are good but the live versions are fantastic

Good album!

Tina and Chris at a Mott the Hoople show seems like such an odd conjunction.

I'm not sure how trustworthy the David Bowman bio is, but it records a moment when Byrne frozen on hearing the news that the Tom Tom Club album had gone gold faster than any Heads.

the studio versions are good but the live versions are fantastic

"What a Day That Was" is one of the highlights of "Stop Making Sense."

i still am not sure where it all shakes out. genius of love is brilliant, and there are some other excellent songs on that first tom tom club LP as well. i've always been a big fan of "Lorelei". and then, yeah, the other three never caught traction after that. i think part of that was they were missing a compelling singer.

harrison managed to be a modern lover and also produce some of the very worst albums of all time, so i give him a bit more credit for being able to adapt himself to the situation. frantz and weymouth, they seem like the perfect bandmates for talking heads, like a key that only fits that particular keyhole

https://i.imgur.com/GHUylCh.png

xxxp (re The Catherine Wheel) Yeah, and Twyla Tharp's choreography was inspired, when I saw it. He should have taken more dance commissions. In How Music Works, he describes the tour where his dancers taught the musos how to dance, and they got the dancers playing instruments too, while dancing. And about all the busking he did in college towns, going back to the 60s. Considering also Stop Making Sense, The Name of This Band, as well as American Utopia, maybe he should always think and be live.

A weird conjunction for me was when Roddy Frame came into Tower Records on 4th and Broadway, where I was working the floor at the time, and asked if we had any "David Birrrne" albums.

Scot recognize Scot.

Byrne's had commendable collaborations outside of Talking Heads - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, The Catherine Wheel and I'll even add The Knee Plays and The Last Emperor, all but the first done for projects that were much more than a recorded album - but otherwise I agree, his solo career has been massively disappointing.

I should say basically every album he's done after Talking Heads split has been disappointing - I wasn't a fan of the last one with Eno or the one he did with St. Vincent.

morrisp, it doesn't appear to happen in this press conference - at 29:36 they're asked whether they thought about reuniting after seeing the film and Weymouth wryly says "When we saw it in the studio ... we said, 'Wow! What a great band...'" Harrison jokes he hasn't seen the film yet and Byrne avoids the question altogether.

weymouth's comment is a bit more than that:

Q: has this reinspired you, seeing it again, to do something together again musically?

Weymouth: yes. when we saw it in the studio with Erik Thorngren (sp?0, who was remixing it, he said "wow, what a great band...._too bad_"

and she kind of gave a deadpan stare during the "too bad" part. i don't know though, it's hard to read her. they have a very complicated situation and, like most humans, they are incredibly ambiguous and there are a lot of different ways one could understand what she said and her intentions

There have been flashes of greatness--"Strange Overtones" comes immediately to mind--but in general he's just underscored the importance of the other three.

catherine wheel a very good album, indeed. not tons of fun by any measuring stick though.

xxxp Oh yeah, Music for The Knee Plays , also for a stage production--with horn players, and "inspired by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band," also, The Last Emperor was a soundtrack, so those continue w the live and/or collaborative stimuli of his best DB albs. (I need to get back to the ones with Eno.)

El alma del Perú negro is an outstanding collection.

The Catherine Wheel was fun to try to dance to, or so my younger self would say.

Yeah, Luaka Bop released tons of great stuff.