You called it. When that video would come on MTV - back in the day - my life would be put on hold while I hung out with the band in the basement and we all bobbed with the beat. And when Miss Weymouth would go by I would sigh and think, “damn, she’s pretty cute”… eeeeevery time.
Funny thing about Talking Heads and a skinny high-school kid in Bosnia in mid and late 1980’s…
I grew up surrounded by music of the 1970’s with two much older brothers accumulating all the good stuff of the era - LZ, DP, WS, UH etc. Talking Heads was the music I heard at this uber-cool birthday party I attended very young where people danced silly just for fun and were all around smart and well-behaved kids with strange hobbies (like they read books).
Then and there I decided this is the music I’d like to listen to (and the crowd I wanted to hang out with) and started collecting all their vinyl. I still remember VHS tapes of “Stop Making Sense” and later “True Stories” being passed around and then acting it out. At the time and the place where I was in 1988 it was considered “music for smart people” (little did I know it was same thing in US). Talking Heads music was also my first window into New York and its significance in the world of not only music but art overall. And then, almost 20 years later I’m walking on the streets of Manhattan in and around CBGB club with my New Yorker boss who was college student at the time telling me all these stories. Full circle, I guess.
So, yeah, Talking Heads is very much appreciated…
Remain in Light is one of my favorite albums of all time. Though, I haven’t really listened to David Byrne’s newer work, I did catch him on The Colbert Report a while back, and it was fairly good, though no “Houses in Motion.”
David Byrne (off-camera) interviews Chris Frantz c. 1975 at 52 Bond St., New York City. Furniture is discussed.
I just listened to Naive Melody as it popped up randomly on my iTunes and it prompted me to seek out this thread.
If there is a more beautiful song out there, I haven’t heard it.
mmm
Perhaps the best concert film of all time. Besides the 97% approval rating on RottenTomatoes and the Film Critic Award for best documentary, it is notable for being directed by Jonathan Demme (director of Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Married to the Mob, and the wildly underrated Something Wild).
The lighting, the way it avoids shots of the audience, and the long takes really add to the atmosphere.
Great film.
Byrne recently did a side project with Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) that is a musical about the life of Imelda Marcos of all things. Here Lies Love is a pretty good album.
I remember going to the mall and buying Speaking in Tongues when I was fourteen. I listened to that album so much that I knew the words to every song by heart. I also agree with what others have said, Stop Making Sense is one of the greatest concert films ever made.
There is on my part. I rank it alongside Remain in Light as the very best of Byrne/Heads.
I felt like like Take Me to the River was about getting baptised.
Sorry. I grabbed the wrong post.
True Stories is a fine film, and Talking Heads tunes are great for learning bass guitar. I also had the privilege of sitting on my balcony and listening to David Byrne rehearse for, then later that night perform at, the Folk Festival a couple of years ago.
There is a talking heads cover band call this must be the band who good a pretty fine imitation. Since we can never go back and see the original you can look then up and see where they going next. They are based in Chicago but they have been touring the midwest on weekends. They put on good show.
Ha ha, I had the Talking Heads running through my head today because of another thread in the BBQ Pit where they got name dropped.
Nice!
I love listening to performers incidentally. Years ago I missed seeing a band because of work, but I lived very, very close to the stadium where they were playing. When I came home they were still on, and my roommates and I could hear them while hanging out on our porch.
I’m a fan. Tina Weymouth is one of my favorite bass players. “Psycho Killer” is such a simple bass line, but it fits the song so perfectly.
I have their “Greatest Hits” collection and I like pretty much all the tracks. Also, I’ve got a soft spot for Naked, which featured Johnny Marr prominently, especially on “(Nothing But) Flowers.” He’s doing the South African highlife thing there, one of my favorite Marr riffs.
I’d also like to know more about the breakup. I liked the Heads’ album, especially “Damage I’ve Done” with Johnette Napolitano. Apparently Byrne wasn’t having any of this, and threatened legal action. I saw an article in the Guardian a little while ago and Weymouth and Byrne were sniping at each other in it. So I guess there’s not going to be a reunion, then…
My favorite phase of their career is their first four albums. I went to see them on the day Remain In Light was released and no one I was with had yet heard the album. As a result, we were surprised to see the previously minimalist four piece group expanded to more than a dozen people including Adrian Belew. Awesome show, but every show I’ve seen by them has been amazing. One of the impressive things about them is how well their music has aged. A lot of bands I listened to at the time the 'Heads came out are very much a product of their time, while TH seem to have transcended that curse.
I post to say that if you are looking for more stuff like early TH check out Fischer-Z, their first three albums are great.
+1. Almost criminally under-appreciated.
I have to recommend Once in a Lifetime to any fan. 3 CDs of songs, many are alternate versions and a couple of live recordings as well. But for me, the best part of the collection is the DVD extended version of Storytelling Giant, which may be the greatest compilation of videos ever.
They also avoid any audience noise: Byrne said he wanted the movie audience to make up its own mind and not be influenced. Only at the very end do the cameras pan back to show the crowd, and the ecstatic applause fades in. Great decision, and that the movie works so well without any ‘atmosphere’ is a testament to the outstanding brilliance of the music.
Like others I had never heard the band until friends invited me to a movie theater in the '80s to see it; by the third track the entire audience was dancing in the aisles; by the end I was absolutely hooked.
Throughout my college years my circle of friends acknowledged Talking Heads as the perfect party music: you could put on an album - uptempo tracks at least - and nobody would object, be they punks, metallers or goths, and everybody would dance. I’m pleased to have been able to note over the past few years that this still holds true, even for young’uns who have never heard them before. And despite their infectious accessibility there’s a great depth to them, musically and lyrically, that goes beyond the awesome funk and African beats: that those songs bear repeated listening in so many different ways over so many decades is testament to a highly serendipitous meeting of minds and talents. One of my favourite bands of all time.
::Goes to iTunes and downloads entire back catalog::