Since some of us saw the reissue of Talking Heads' concert film STOP MAKING SENSE this past weekend, I thought maybe we could fill an item for a while. I do sort of wish I'd gone back to the Michigan for the Sunday show, o well. Instead I just dug out my copy of the original CD, the nine-song edition. I'll have to get one of the new 16 track versions. On amazon.com, a reviewer was lamenting that three extra songs from the original video release -- "Cities," "I Zimbra," and "Big Business" -- are still missing. (I don't recognize that last title...) Where does the song "What A Day That Was" come from? Is that from "The Catherine Wheel?" I haven't heard that in ages.46 responses total.
yes, it's from "The Catherine Wheel", as is "Big Business" you should dig up "The Catherine Wheel" and give it another listen. I think it's a wonderful album -- as good as any of the Talking Heads albums through "Little Creatures" (except "Remain In Light", which is unmatchable..) and much better than "True Stories" or the horrible "Naked" Perhaps we could also discuss the other Talking-Heads-related film, "True Stories". I'd recommend it to anyone who likes rambling, more-than- slightly goofy movies.. Swoozie Kurtz' character and the Subgenius-like revival meeting crack me up every time.. I've always thought it was a shame that they didn't release an album of the movie versions of the songs (there *was* an album "Songs from the Movie True Stories" but it was just background music..)
There *was* an album soundtrack with the movie versions of the songs. It was very short-lived, and I was disillusioned enough with Byrne not to buy it. Unless my memory is making this all up... I never saw that film.
(you're sure you're not thinking of "Songs from the Movie 'True Stories'", which, as I mentioned, doesn't have the movie versions of the songs?)
Would it be total heresey to mention that I don't own any Talking Heads? What would be a good first album of theirs to get?
Personally, I'd recommend either "Stop Making Sense" or "Sand in the Vaseline". The latter is a "Best of..." album. Normally, I wouldn't recommend those, since I prefer the original albums, but it has a lot of great tracks on it.
No, no, no! Not "Sand in the Vaseline".. It omits so much *great* stuff
and presents the rest out of context, which really does change the way you
hear it.
My personal favorite album is "Remain in Light" but I could honestly
recommend starting with any of the albums up to (but not including)
True Stories.
They basically break down as follows:
Talking Heads 77 -- unpolished experimental pop. harsher sound.
not "punk" by a long stretch, but influenced by the New York scene
around whose periphery they floated..
More Songs About Buildings and Food -- great, quirky pop album
full of amusing songs about odd topics. sound is a little more
polished but still discernibly "early period"
Fear of Music -- big change for this album, as they team with producer
Brian Eno and begin experimenting with African rhythms. complex,
polyrhythmic, and highly memorable.
Remain in Light -- in my opinion, their masterwork. the same polrhythms
that appeared in "Fear of Music" but more fully developed. the first
half of the album is brilliant, high-energy, and infectiously funky.
the second half shifts pace considerably and has a whold different feel
to it -- unfortunately this separation worked a lot better when they
were different sides of an LP, but both halves are great.
Speaking in Tongues -- more polished, mature sound marks the band's
growing influence and popularity. source of the first (and biggest)
mainstream radio hit, "Burning Down the House". varies considerably
from eminently-dancable high-energy tracks like "Burning.." to
tender bits like "Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place)"
Little Creatures -- my second favorite after "Remain in Light"
very polished pop, substantially slicker than earlier releases, but
still featuring the quirky lyrics and complex rhythms that are the
band's trademark.
Stop Making Sense -- (chronologically comes before "Little Creatures",
I think..) Excellent live album from the four Los Angeles performances
that were filmed for the movie. Heavy on material from "Speaking In
Tongues" and "More Songs About Buildings and Food"
Related, and also highly recommended:
David Byrne -- "The Catherine Wheel" Byrne and choreographer Twyla
Tharp teamed to do a ballet (!) Although uncredited in the title,
Brian Eno and Adrian Belew's influences can be heard all throughout
this album as well.
David Byrne and Brian Eno -- "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts". Byrne
and Eno take found sound samples and set them to really funky music.
Works incredibly well..
(Yeah, I've got "Bush of Ghosts" and I love it, which is why I suspect I'd like the Talking Heads too if I ever got around to buying an album)
"More Songs about Buildings and Food" is also Eno produced, by the way. The three eno albums (I think) are the best intros to Talking Heads. How do you all like solo Byrne, by the way?
I guess my question to orinoco would be: how many Talking Heads albums are you considering buying? If the answer is just one or two, then the SAND IN THE VASELINE compilation and maybe the new edition of STOP MAKING SENSE would be my suggestion. But if you're willing to spend a little more, I think would be fun to relive the band's development by starting with MORE SONGS and proceeding chronologically from there. MORE SONGS, FEAR OF MUSIC, REMAIN IN LIGHT, and SPEAKING IN TONGUES are all on my personal list of Greatest Albums. I don't rate LITTLE CREATURES as high as Mike does. I'll have to write more later, have to go now.... I did want to note that the Eno connection starts with the second album, MORE SONGS. My vague recollection is that MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS was contemporary with REMAIN IN LIGHT, so that might be another hook to hang orinoco's choice on.
(8 slipped in... hi Justin, and welcome to the music conference!)
Yes i would recomend Remain in Light as Well. The world musicy second side has some really erie songs on in and the first side is very funky, fun and rhythmic.
Re #6: Mike, you just summed up why I don't like "Best of..." collections, but I still think "Sand in the Vaseline" is better than most.
What side projects did the members of Talking Heads do? I'm already aware of Byrne's solo work, the Tom Tom Club, and the Heads (band minus Byrne). Are there any others?
Jerry Harrison's "Casual Gods" [best left unmentioned, imho..]
As far as Byrne's post-Talking-Heads solo work goes, it varies quite widely in quality (my opinion, at least..) I don't have much of it -- until recently [latest album, "Feelings"] he hadn't released a solo record that I would have recommended. I thought "Rei Momo" was awful (except for one or two tracks) and what I remember from "Uh-Oh" was pretty dull. I liked the remix CD-single that accompanied "The Forest", but wasn't big on "The Forest" itself. As far as the Tom Tom Club stuff goes, I like the first album (just called "Tom Tom Club", the one with "Genius of Love") and also enjoyed "Dark Sneak Love Action". It's enjoyable fluff, nowhere near the level of quality that the Talking Heads achieved as a band, but it's interesting if only to show how important husband and wife Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth were to the band -- it seems to indicate that their sense of fun and enjoyment of funky rhythms were important counterbalances to Byrne's self-indulgence
Mike in resp:3 :: sorry for being misinformed about the various
TRUE STORIES discs. I never did get to see the movie.
Jerry Harrison's first solo album, from around the same time as everyone
else in the band was doing side projects, was THE RED AND THE BLACK.
I'd be surprised if it had ever been issued on CD. Harrison was also
in an early version of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, before
his days in Talking Heads.
I picked up the new 16-track CD of STOP MAKING SENSE last night.
To the best of my feeble recollection, it has all of the songs from
the movie. It have have all of the performances from the movie; if
so, the band introduction at the end of "Take Me To The River" was
edited out. I'm annoyed that what appears to be canned applause
has been bled over the beginning of each track; this wasn't there in
the 1984 edition.
I'm sure that the 1984 edition has a different recording of "Psycho Killer,"
a different one than used in the film. I don't think it's just variations
in editing.
Ah, I did a little web searching and found an interesting band site:
http://talking-heads.net/th_sms99.html
This says that "This Must Be The Place" will be issued as a single, with
the three extra tracks from the video as bonus tracks. Have to look for
that...
Even more: The Palm Pictures web site has a list of where STOP MAKING SENSE will be playing. East Lansing Film Society is on the list for November 5-7. I can't imagine where they'll put it. More information as it becomes available.
I gave FEAR OF MUSIC a spin lately, having gotten a fresh copy of it. Definitely not an album to start with. I'd hoped that a modern American edition would sound better than the old German CD I had, but I don't know if this worked out. There is an incredible amount of loud high-energy signal in that album, and *something* isn't handling it well. It's an interesting mix of styles. "I Zimbra," the collaboration with Fripp, pointed the main course for the next few albums with its driving polyrhythmic percussion track. And the tracks I remember most fondly from the album, such as "Paper," "Cities," "Heaven," and "Air," are in the band's quirky pop-song style, maybe with the intensity ratcheted up -- this is a very *tense* album. After FEAR OF MUSIC, the pop style got laid aside until LITTLE CREATURES. And a few tracks seem to lay out a path not followed: deliberate off-tuning in "Memories Can't Wait," odd time signatures in "Animals" -- I vaguely recall reading that "Animals" could not be played live by the band. And then there's the slow dirge of "Drugs." There's a faster arrangement of that song, usually billed as "Electricity," from the live promo "Warner Bros. Music Show," which I much prefer.
I agree that it's not their most accessible album, but I believe it's
one of their best. I suppose I'd direct a neophyte to choose either of
the albums that bracketed it, though ("More Songs About Buildings and Food"
or "Remain in Light")
I dragged out my copy of "Sand in the Vaseline" to check out what had
and hadn't been included and it reaffirmed my opinion that although it's
a better cover of the band's career than any other single recording it
has some major flaws as a starting point. In my opinion:
1) the track selection isn't that good.. maybe I'm just bitter
because they left off my very favorite track, "The Great Curve",
but as far as I can tell they included no more than three tracks
from any single album and only two from "Remain in Light"..
I'm somewhat mystified by the inclusion of "Swamp" as one of the
three tracks from "Speaking In Tongues" -- I can think of several
more deserving choices.
2) the inclusion of the hard-to-find and never-previously-released
tracks makes the collection attractive to the completist but most
of them (out of seven or eight tracks) are definitely b-grade
material compared to the things that were left off to make room
for them.
Supposing that you can get two of the original albums for not much more
than the double-CD collection, I think that's the way to go..
<nods> Okay, thanks. Someday when I've got a few bucks sitting around....
I have the information about this weekend's showing of STOP MAKING SENSE in East Lansing. The film is showing in one of the Wells Hall auditoriums at 7 & 9:15 pm, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, November 5-7. Unless Wells Hall soundsystems have been upgraded in the ten years since I last saw a movie there, this won't compare to the Michigan Theatre experience, but it is probably better than video.
Which was the early '80s David Byrne solo album with the spoken-word- interspersed-with-brass-ensemble piece about the woman selecting her power outfit for the day? I haven't heard that thing in 15 years but it was absolutely unforgettable.
Early 80s with a spoken word piece? Wow, that rings *no* bells whatsoever..
My guess would be "Music from The Knee Plays," which was for a theatre piece, by, maybe, Robert Wilson the Philip Glass collaborator? This was notable for introducing me to Bulgarian women singing, because Byrne set one of the Bulgarian songs from the legendary, then-lost album "Le Mystere Dex Voix Bulgares" to a brass ensemble. I have a copy of this somewhere.
that's it...i was just lissening to THe Knee Plays a cupple of months ago.
I got a tape of "Stop Making Sense" at a garage sale a while back, and finally got around to giving it a good listen. I was more or less unimpressed by the first side (with the slight exception of "Girlfriend is Better"), but I rather liked the second side, especially "Once in a Lifetime" (which I'd heard before, loved, and not realized I was listening to the Talking Heads) and "Take Me To the River" (of which Annie Lennox's version now seems a lot less original....). For what it's worth, I think I agree with McNally's low opinion of "Swamp". So between the song "Once in a Lifetime" and the reccomendations it's gotten here, I guess I'll be putting "Remain In Light" on my to-buy list, although the weirdnesses Ken mentions on "Fear of Music" sound awful tempting...
I can't remember if it was mentioned here, but "Take Me to The River" is by Al Green and the original is very R&B.
Right; that was the version I knew originally. So when I heard Annie Lennox do her Annie-Lennox-sounding version of it on "Medusa," I sort of though "oh, who would have thought to do a pop version of that one?" And apparently, the Talking Heads would have.
r28...i'm not fer sure goose but i think rev. al *covered*
it as well. you may dump some hot grits on me
if i'm wrong tho, k?
Hmmm, I've heard it as being attributed to Al Green. I know it better these days in the "Commitments" movie band version, since I played it that way in a band last year (an R&B version). Interesting thing is that the words sound almost like a gospel song.
The song "Take Me To The River" was originally sung by Al Green, although the Talking Heads cover was somewhat better remembered.
the song is about baptism/suicide.
(?) (!) I guess I'd never thought of seeing it as a suicide reference. But now that you mention it, it could go either way. Hrm. I'll have to go back and listen to them lyrics again.
I believe the suicide message in the song "Take Me To The River" may relate to Al Green's girlfriend, whose marriage proposal Green turned down, committing suicide after throwing hot oatmeal onto Green's lap while he was taking a bath.
He seems to get a lot of hot food thrown at him, doesn't he?
Either I'm missing a whole lot of references here, or the oatmeal part doesn't show up in the song itself, no? :)
That's GOTTA hurt!
Actually, the song is sung from the point of view *of* oatmeal. The "drop me in the water" part is the oatmeal's suicidal impulse to end it all..
Um, OK.
not buying that, huh?
he performed the song before she threw hot grits on him and killed herself, i believe, the event which moved him away from secular music for many years,,, i think he recorded a dubble album in tribute to her before dissappearing into gospel music.
I got back from Thanksgiving and discovered the CDs I'd ordered a while back - including 'Remain in Light" - in my mailbox. I'm liking it so far, but I wonder whether it's the band or Eno's production that I'm liking: it sounds (no all that surprisingly) like something off of "Bush of Ghosts," but also enough like the other stuff I've heard that Eno's helped on. Hrm.
Sounds like now you'll need some pre- and post-Eno Talking Heads records to compare against..
...and also whether or not Adrian Belew is doing guitar parts...
Oh, I'd half-forgotten Belew was on the album,. That explains some of the weirder solos, I guess.
You have several choices: