Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

I am going to give it play tomorrow, as I have not listened to it in a while.

(America had to wait 8 years until Jane's Addiction - Nothing Shocking album - that could match the tripped out brilliance of Remain in Light)

For that stuff: classic.

Don't know any of the music mentioned in it, but it's worth buying Papercuts for that alone.

Call me 'a fan', but I like Naked.

Beyond that, dear heavens. No thanks. Though this could in part be due to the fact that David Byrne has turned into such an aggressive nonentity.

I think the context that's grown up around it does that record harm - it's now seen as this proto-dance sampling-based historical thing but I wasnt into dance or sampling much when I heard it - I just came to it as basically the further-out follow-up to Remain In Light: Kid A to RIL's OKC, as it were. And on that level I loved it and still do - I think the first side is all classic, the second drags a bit.

I think the sampled voices work well and put their point across well - the whole first side, esp. in the context of FOM and RIL, is a great artrock portrait of social/religious/political paranoia and craziness. Then when it goes so-to-speak 'to Africa' and becomes more tranquil it sounds more like an Eno record and I switch off a little.

I'll forward you the article as I don't know how easy it's going to be to get Papercuts in the US. But I'll ask the editor first. Papercuts will also feature LOADS OF OTHER GOOD STUFF though so everyone in England should own a copy.

Additional question so I can justify posting the last bit instead of emailing it to Tom like I should've done: Who are the nineties/noughties TH? Bands like the d-plan bear a sonic resemblance, esp in light of stuff like "superpowers" w its polyrhythms and non-linear structure and buzzing guitar textures and all that trademark TH stuff, but surely radiohead come closest ideologically? cf. lyrics as cut-up mundanities that serve as sharp, uncomfortable reminders of the paranoia/disconnection/submerged mysticism of modern life (as talked about on some other thread) etc

Radiohead & the Plan are obvious contenders, I guess. A lot of the ideas Radiohead have in common with TH seem kinda, well, RIPPED-OFF, to me. When you compare the sleeves of OKC and Stop Making Sense, the difference is deliberately strange, borderline nonsensical sloganeering over neatly framed pictures vs. over fracturedpostcomputerparanoidwhatever artwork. There's obviously a reason for the constant comparisons for the D-Plan. I think the similarities between TH and Les Savy Fav are, you know, kinda uncanny. (they formed at the same school! plus looking like a bizarro punk-rock gym teacher = 00's equiv. of dressing like a nerdy art school kid at CBGB's). I could see them making the necessary improvements upon their sound, too. They'd make a killer afro-beat record.

Chris

I was thinking today about how I've always heard "born under punches" as a 'vertical' song: starting at the top and moving downwards, a perfectly orchestrated funk-collapse, labyrinthine, rube goldberg music.

Talking Heads had some of my all-time favorite beginnings of songs: "This Must Be the Place," "Road to Nowhere," "Born Under Punches," "Once in a Lifetime"...

"The Overload" is a horizontal song if there ever was one. It's like crawling.

what track recommendations do you need if you *presumably already like some of their songs* and indeed *have heard them in both live and studio versions*?

lex to thread obv.

nothing on stop making sense is from little creatures.

I'll take the Feelies over the Talking Heads anyday. Better nerd rock.

I believe you are thinking of

...thinking of Speaking In Tongues

No songs from Little Creatures are on SMS.

My favourite TH album is 'The Name of this Band is...." Holy jack-in-a-box, Adrian Belew ****ing rules, especially on "Born Under Punches", which I've only listened to about.... 38 times? I love that song.

well, it would make sense you liking 'SMS' and 'SIT' above the other eno-era material. of the three eno albums i'd rate 'em: 'fear' best, then 'more songs', then 'remain'.

Yes, really really good stuff. For me the jury's still out on Belew - I much prefer the twin Fenders of Byrne and Harrison on the earliest stuff. The playing on New Feeling and especially A Clean Break is terrific - crisp and sparkling. I'd love to know on which trax (studio and live) Byrne uses a Jaguar. NF and ACB sound like a Strat/Tele combination to me.

Life During Wartime
Swamp
Once In A Lifetime
Crosseyed And Painless
Psycho Killer

I thought you said "emo-era" instead of "Eno-era", and I was, like, "WTF?" Me and my stupid eyesight.

http://www.discogs.com/release/157172
http://www.discogs.com/release/424908

Although Remain in Light's probably my favourite Talking Heads album I really like Johnny Marr's guitar on Nothing but Flowers from Naked, I think that's a great pop song. Classic.

Lifetime Piling Up is my favourite Talking Heads song. Anyone know why it didn't make it onto any of their albums?

They had other things to do.

"Naked" is actually an amazing album. I will fite u ifn u say no.

also i heard luke slater play a dance version of i zimbra - what is this called?

it's probably the Peter Black remix.

http://www.vinylrecords.ca/talking-heads-zimbra-peter-blackjezebel-spirit-p-60.html

lifetime piling up was made after naked, I believe. I agree that it's one of their best songs, along with sax and violins. I kind of feel like if they'd managed another album it could have been completely classic, based off just those two tracks. anyway I guess these songs AREN'T bonuses on any of the reissues which is a bad oversight and makes the 'sand in the vasoline' collection absolutely necessary.

are there enough hip hop and house songs that have sampled TH to warrant their own thread?

xpost Weirdly enough -- assuming that the 2005 Brick box set contains the same reissues you're talking about, and I think it does -- "Sax and Violins" is there as an extra on the Naked disc, but "Lifetime Piling Up" is not. Though it is on the Once In A Lifetime multi-disc compilation from 2003. The catalogue is a mess of reissues.

Yeah, "Sax & Violins" is on my copy of the Naked reissue. Has there really been a mess of reissues? Comps, sure.

I think the non-album singles from 1977 that are collected on Sand in the Vaseline are pretty essential.

are there enough hip hop and house songs that have sampled TH to warrant their own thread?

KC Flyte - Planet E

Old question - Who are the nineties/noughties TH?

I do agree with Dismemberment Plan and Radiohead. Would have to think about others. Going back to their own era, Talking Heads were a big influence on King Crimson for their Discipline (1981), Beat (1982) and Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984) albums.

Martha & The Muffins sort of paralleled the TH Eno trilogy with their work with Daniel Lanois on This Is The Ice Age (1981), Danseparc (1982) and Mystery Walk (1984). The first is available, and Danseparc will be reissued on August 4 in the UK.

I think the non-album singles from 1977 that are collected on Sand in the Vaseline are pretty essential.

Totally. "Sugar On My Tongue," "I Want To Live," "Gangster of Love," "Popsicle" – all great.

Also, "I Wish You Wouldn't Say That". "No Compassion" from the album '77 is another fave of mine.

I finally read Tom's article several years late - http://freakytrigger.co.uk/old-ft/essays/2001/02/africa/

Here's a comment I posted:

You likely know this by now, but My Life... was actually recorded before Remain In Light. It makes more sense as a sort of warm up to their masterpiece rather than a follow-up. The band supposedly wrote "The Overload" as their concept of what Joy Division might sound like, having not yet actually heard them. "Listening Wind" is by no distance the worst track. It's freaking eerie and haunting, and just another strong track in a nearly flawless masterpiece.

Wanna define...so say so, so say so
Divine to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She...has got to move the world...to move the world...to move
The world

so so great

listening wind is one of my favorite songs on that album

I think the Dismemberment Plan turned out not to be like Talking Heads at all... I don't know if they sounded so great at the time because I was younger or because so much shit has come out since then. The D-plan's legacy has turned out to be a, well... dumb one. The bands who picked up on a lot of their references ended up dumbing down indie rock instead of running with it in new directions (like RiL's influence on electronic music) or acting as a hipster reference for pop musicians.

I'm listening to "Sax & Violins" right now for the first time in a while -- what a great song! The melody is really very well written and honestly beautiful. When I was a much bigger TH fan (see upthread, haha!) I was really impressed by the Philip Larkin reference, partly because I was also geeked out on a lot of academic poetry at the time... I'm surprised to say I still think it's pretty well done! Not a lot of songwriters could pull that off. There will probably never be another Talking Heads, oh oh oh....

Fear of Music is still so amazing.

I must be the only person here who loves True Stories (the album).

"true stories" isn't bad ... it isn't great, either, and seems like a letdown compared to the albums that came before it, which is why it gets a bad rap.

boring and wrong

Talking Heads Live in '80-'81>>>>>>>>>>>>most other live music.

― cosmo vitelli (cosmo vitelli), Wednesday, September 20, 2006 1:54 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Talking Heads live in Rome 1980...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wp2qhoop9U

If you don't have time for the full concert (it's worth it!), go to 30:00 for Crosseyed and Painless or 48:50 for Born Under Punches then The Great Curve.

listening to Naked all the way through in a long time. I loved this when it came out, then went through this period where I thought it was substandard like everyone else. Certainly feels more like a David Byrne solo record than anything else they did but now I really like it again.

Good discussion: Talking Heads: Naked poll

Wow. The Born Under Punches from that Rome show xxp is extraordinary. I always wondered how/if they tackled that live.

Is there a decent-quality audio boot from that era?

just get the name of this band is talking heads (the reish) -- that's got a whole disc worth of awwwwwesome remain in light tour tracks.

Thanks

the Warner Music Show radio lp is a keeper too--six tracks from the FoM tour. Three numbers from the set appear on the expanded TNOTBITH, but it's all gold.

(part of?) that Rome concert is available on cd: http://www.discogs.com/Talking-Heads-Rome-Concert-1980/release/3762045. Non-official. Bought it a few years ago. Source unclear to me, I get the feeling that it might be a transfer from VHS. Still, stellar performance.
But definitely get the 2CD reissue of The Name of this Band... tyler mentioned.

The audio's taken from VHS? That doesn't sound like it'd be great.

1982 was an interesting year for TH live as well, you start to get weirder song choices like Jerry's solo track 'Slink' and DB's 'Big Blue Plymouth' and the fantastic 'My Big Hands' creeping into the set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58oSPZO-qSo

and of course the following year was the Stop Making Sense tour, and the go-to boot from the era is the Saratoga one, recorded 3 months before the movie

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

xpost to ismael - well it doesn't sound bad, just find it/the mix a little weird. i can send you the files if you like.

That'd be fantastic, thanks: ismaelklata at gmail dot com

didn't know they played "Big Blue Plymouth" live!

Yep, here's a good example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HOvElJtxfA

unreleased surf(!) instrumental

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae_J3iPEE-A

This live footage from late '80 just surfaced, b&w but it's the full concert and sounds pretty good too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-_PC6TlIhs

So many great shows from the Capitol Theatre you can find online. This, Clash, Springsteen, Prince. Rush.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LJKXIHaKqE

Great to see them with Belew. His guitar is such an x factor.

seems weird that the album version of "Take Me To the River" was any kind of hit, it's so leaden and sluggish - possibly the worst idea/song on the album

otm

for sure

first album is better anyway

too far

Odd choice for a single, yes, leaden no.

First and second albums are the same album except the second has that swirling Eno production.

While I much prefer Al Green's funky original, I've always liked the intensity of the Heads' cover.

yeah I don't feel the intensity. the band seems removed from the quasi-religious emotional fervor underpinning the song, which is a little strange given that Byrne def figured out how to incorporate that into later material

I was looking up live performances of "Girls Want To Be With The Girls" recently, and kind of fascinated by the difference between this vs. concert performances just a year or so later. Also, this video pretty much confirms the origin of the Feelies' first album cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25XLlpAigWw

I just loooove the way the guitars sound on that first record and the way the two of them frisk each other

seems weird that the album version of "Take Me To the River" was any kind of hit, it's so leaden and sluggish

BASS LINE AS HOOK

In that old PBS Rock & Roll doc series, in the "Punk" episode Weymouth recounts a conversation she had with Bernie Worrell about why their version became the hit. He told her something to the effect that the groove they laid down made you want to move up on your lover.

https://youtu.be/Dp-dwcyFmig?t=8m33s

Can someone help me find those amazing fan remasters of the early albums that were online?

i remember reading about them here and there were youtube links and everything!

You mean those Downmix things? They do sound incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7okvbwIg9M

omg you are the best thank you!!!

Here's where you can download all the downmixes -

http://www.sharoma.com/eclectic_ril.htm

Many have different vocal takes and all sorts of antics

While we're at it: Does anyone here have the og Byrne mixes of The B-52's "Mesopotamia"? Have been searching a while for those and most places that had them seem to have disappeared in The Great Blog Purge Of '12.

I do. I just sent you email.

May I too? If it's no trouble?

You have mail!

Thanks! Replied!

Holy crap, listening to "More Songs" and it's like hearing the album for the first time with fresh ears. I've heard the 5.1 mixes, but this is something better. How awesome.

can i get that b52s?! corysklar AT gmail ??

Sent!

ookay, just one more? pretty pls mr peterson?

adamrsbeales at hotmail dot combover

Sent. Why the band hasn't made this stuff generally available I'll never know, there's obviously a demand!

The Byrne mixes are great fun. Super skeletal and dubby. Thanks again!

Cluttering up the Heads thread with just a bit more B's, the other four songs that were to be part of the Byrne-produced album are:

Queen of Las Vegas (that outtake is now on the Nude on the Moon comp)
Big Bird
Butterbean (above 2 both reworked for the Whammy! album; I've never seen/heard Byrne versions)
Adios Desconocida (a ballad by Fred!) I think I have this somewhere.

Aha!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjHJcji686k

o shit this is so f'n tite thank you thx dp

I have this: https://www.discogs.com/The-B-52s-Party-Mix-Mesopotamia/release/76869

but I guess these are remixes, different from Byrne's originals?

There are three mixes, afaik. The US Warner Brothers is the standard mix, the UK Island label contains the Byrne mixes (only on the very first copies? I think the Island release was fixed to include the standard mix shortly after release.) WB tweaked the mix again for the twofer release; I've seen this referred to as a "rock" mix. I own both US releases, but I've never really done a compare and contrast.

hey after basking in the glory of those fold-down mixes for a while, I have realized that for some reason I am missing "Life During Wartime", guess it failed to extract? if anyone happens to have that a PM would be great, it bugs the completist in me to have a track missing esp on one of my fave albums.

DLing the downmix of Remain in Light; seems like perfect hot-day music.

yeah the downmixes are just a work of genius. the final minute or so of Seen And Not Seen where you hear Byrne scatting and mumbling stuff that is literally unheard in the final mix (i'm sure he says "Brian?.." at one point). does make the originals sound very flat by comparison.

I'm gonna go contrarian on this - the magic of Remain for me is the intricate melange of parts simmering away in a fugue. You can focus on and isolate an element while you listen, or you can lose yourself in the ocean. The downmixes sound like worktapes to me, where the mix is not bedded in and the rough edges are showing. Fascinating, but not fully realised and in no way superior to the released mixes.

Did anyone watch the Documentary Now! parody of 'Stop Making Sense'? It was so lovingly done.

While this thread is active, my uh version of the downmixes discussed above failed to properly extract "Life During Wartime" ( the regular album version), if anyone has this plz ILXmail me.

yeah that was good (the documentary now episode).

any more to the rumors that they were in rehearsals?

I'm probably going to get lynched for this but...

...*deep breath*...

...Dud.

if you say so

They're no GENESIS...

so wrong Turrican, most of the time you are OTM. not even close on this one.

I deeply love Remain in Light but not too jazzed about anything else.

i like todd edwards' remix of "burning down the house"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_BpfEOd9U

incredibly overrated but not dud. i love so many of his songs but i find david byrne to be really insufferable

ha, let me just say - i love the talking heads. but for so many people i know, they're foundational. Remain in Light is the only record I like front to back.

oh yeah, I went to a screening of Stop Making Sense last month and the movie was missing most of the soundtrack. bass, vocals, drums, guitar. nothing else. they'd cut to the backup singers, keyboard players - nothing. we left once tina weymouth started singing genius of love, it was like watching a st. sanders shreds video. i was pissed at the time but now it's just funny. p sure i posted this already on ilx

later talking heads is good too, fools.

wtf flappy explain...

when we left I asked the employees what happened (obviously wasn't their fault) - apparently it was an issue with the copy they got from the distributor. I'm not exactly sure how DCP works, but it wasn't just the movie, the theater's "Don't talk" ad that played when the lights went down had the same sound issues - muffled & missing layers. It was bizarre & disappointing but what are you gonna do. they gave us passes for a free movie & I used them to see It last night.

Super classic c'mon

flappy bird - might have been a stereo issue? think they'd got their plugs in the wrong way round and the two channels were phase-cancelling

Yep almost definitely. I have a pair of earphones that do the same thing as flappy described, if I plug them in the wrong way

I just heard the live LP The Name of This Band is Talking Heads for the first time ever. Very different feel to my ears than their records, sloppy and immediate.

I would have thought phase cancellation would occur more from faulty wiring than having any plugs the wrong way around, but it does seem like that's what's happened.

In stereo, if left is plugged into right and vice versa, all this does is reverse the stereo field, for phase cancellation to occur both stereo channels need to be played through the same channel (in mono) with one of the channels inverted.

flappy bird - might have been a stereo issue? think they'd got their plugs in the wrong way round and the two channels were phase-cancelling

― Shat Parp (dog latin), Tuesday, September 12, 2017 10:55 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep almost definitely. I have a pair of earphones that do the same thing as flappy described, if I plug them in the wrong way

― Vinnie, Tuesday, September 12, 2017 11:25 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahaha awesome, i love that an 800 capacity theater had this problem

I'd say either a plug wasn't inserted fully (sometimes if a headphone jack plug isn't inserted properly it has this exact effect) or it's some other wiring problem. But yeah, incredible that a cinema - particularly one showing a concert film - had this problem.

I just heard the live LP The Name of This Band is Talking Heads for the first time ever. Very different feel to my ears than their records, sloppy and immediate.

This, along with "Stop Making Sense", is my go-to Talking Heads. I rarely play the studio albums, in fact. Not too many bands work improves that dramatically on their live albums.

Likewise, with the exception of Remain In Light, which is impossible to improve upon

Fear of Music is their best album

I'm not the biggest fan of "Remain In Light" either tbh.

"Fear Of Music" is godlike.

FOM is v good but yall are high as fuck if you think it's better than RIL

otm

i've been called worse things, i'll accept that

hey, opinions formed while high as fuck are opinions too, you know

especially opinions about fear of music and remain in light

Would not be good listening if you're paranoid-when-high.

Eazy OTM, "Drugs" is a bad trip

Lost my shape!
Trying to act casual!

they only have one genuinely bad album and that album is True Stories.

and it's puzzlin' evidence either way

so wrong Turrican, most of the time you are OTM. not even close on this one.

― Bee OK, Saturday, 9 September 2017 01:11 (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am profoundly disturbed by this post.

Good!

But yeah, I have tried a lot with this band - particularly since their so-called "peak" years (1977-1980) fall within one of my favourite periods of time for music ever. There is the occasional song I like here and there, but I find a lot of their material a little on the tedious side. I'm often left with the impression that they're a white funk band for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal, with some superficial "African" elements sprinkled on top and a thoroughly annoying vocalist bulldozing his way through it all, and I can tolerate seal-bark Andy Partridge just fine. Perhaps this description is a little harsh, but that's the impression that I get. The post-Remain in Light particularly comes across to me as quite bland.

It is, of course, undetstandable why there are fans of Remain in Light that haven't taken to their other albums - it sticks out like a sore thumb in their discography.

*understandable

their entire discography is sore thumbs

I'm often left with the impression that they're a white funk band for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal

Yeah, there's so many of these types around isn't there?

I think you can chart a pretty clear progression - you can see what ideas they're playing with and where they're going with them - from the beginning to the end, but none of their albums really sound like each other. Each one is in many ways a departure from the one before it.

a white funk band for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal

ad hominem bullshit

What century is it again?

Remove Bookmark from this Thread

Do I wish I got more out of this stuff than I do? You bet I do. Particularly since folks like Shakey and McBoing-Boing like 'em.

truly insane argument by Turrican, especially considering Tina Weymouth is in the band - one of the funkiest bass players ever.

I don't think of TH in terms of funk tbh. I don't think they are ever really "funky" in the conventional 70s-funk-by-black-artists sense. They borrow (liberally) elements from funk but I don't think they ever really get there, or even intended to get there. I think of them more like CAN - interested in building a musical vocabulary that deliberately excises certain things (some of which they were explicit about cf. Byrne's comments about "the blues", major key melodies, etc.) in favor of trying to incorporate genres and instrumentation and approaches that were not normally the province of white America (tropicalia, afrobeat, Brian Eno lol). Somewhere around the end of Speaking in Tongues-era Byrne very clearly *does* turn back towards America and then there's brief period of warped Americana/True Stories/Little Creatures which pulls in these other things like country and zydeco while mashing them together with their previous interests. And from then on Byrne is just in full polyglot cut-up pastiche mode through Naked and into his solo career.

these goddam byrnebros

superficial "African" elements

feel like this is a deliberate misreading as well, since it's not like their tactic was to just threw a ngoni solo on top of standard American pop song. Esp w/Remain in Light they are clearly borrowing compositional/structural ideas - building songs around circular multi-part vocal melodies, or long droning vamps that just alternate around a single tonal center or two-note riff.

I don't think of TH in terms of funk tbh. I don't think they are ever really "funky" in the conventional 70s-funk-by-black-artists sense. They borrow (liberally) elements from funk but I don't think they ever really get there, or even intended to get there. I think of them more like CAN

Kind of agree with this, they were definitely funky, but on their own terms - like Can - and not in some lame 'white funk band' way that Turrican seems to imagine they were.

yeah there is an immense gulf in approach between, say, the Average White Band and Talking Heads

there's this great japanese record called "fine time, a tribute to new wave" where a guy named yasuyuki okamura does "burning down the house". what's great about is not just the performance itself, but the fact that okamura is clearly singing it phonetically. the lyrics sound even better when they're sung by someone to whom they're literally, not just figuratively, meaningless. better than byrne!

i searched to see if it was on youtube, but i only found a version of talking heads' version apparently transcoded from a 32k realaudio file. it has 306 views.

xxpost:

Yes, I didn't expect that description to go down well, but unfortunately - because, like I say, I wish I got more out of their music than I do - it's exactly what I hear.

I don't see Can as a funk band at all.

One of the great things about TH is that on the whole they appreciated without appropriating music outside their immediate worldview. So when they dabbled with funk and African rhythms, it felt like they'd worked out what made that music great on a nucleic rather than superficial level. They 'got' it. Byrne never tried to make his vocals and lyrics 'funky', it was all in the groove, and even then, even when they were working with members of Funkadelic, it was never a note-for-note rip off of that music or a piss-take. You could tell they'd been listening to disco and funk and afrobeat, but weren't setting out to mimic it.

So, no, I would never call them a 'funk' band, always a new wave band, even though their very earliest stuff had a certain amount of funky drive to it.

v otm

In this case, I think it's irrelevant how they intended to or were setting out to sound, more how they actually do - and for the most part, I hear white funk.

Wild Cherry was doing white funk in case you need a reference point

In this case, I think it's irrelevant how they intended to or were setting out to sound, more how they actually do - and for the most part, I hear white funk.

OK, so you listen to Talking Heads and you hear white funk. Are you sure you're listening to Talking Heads and are you sure you know what funk is?

Why am I even asking the question?

Am I right? Am I wrong?

My God, what have you done?

big fan of the average white byrne

Indeed, why are you even asking the question when you know the answers are "yes" and "yes"?

Yes, Wild Cherry did white funk and so what? Yes and Genesis were both prog bands yet their approaches are different. It happens.

AWB seem clearly to be aiming for some pastiche of "authentic" black funk, for better or worse. Talking Heads are attempting to filter the idea of funk through some notionally white filter with its attendant up tight neuroticism. Not saying this is better or worse. But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

it's about as insightful as calling new order a disco band tbh

Indeed, why are you even asking the question when you know the answers are "yes" and "yes"?

If only it was that obvious.

AWB seem clearly to be aiming for some pastiche of "authentic" black funk, for better or worse. Talking Heads are attempting to filter the idea of funk through some notionally white filter with its attendant up tight neuroticism. Not saying this is better or worse. But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 12:20 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup!

But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

Especially if someone is also going to say that Weymouth is one of the funkiest bass players ever. xp

Byrne described the full touring band in their SMS mode a 'disco funk revue' which is fair enough, but calling them a 'funk band' seems reductive or slightly off. Funky band, yes, sure. Even the Smiths could be funky. But I guess this is all semantic. Turrican, have you seen Stop Making Sense? Ironically that's the film that made TH make sense to me.

What genre label wouldn't be reductive?

Stop Making Sense also features Parliament/Funkadelic's Bernie Worrell on keyboards, so it gets blurry. Simulacra Funk.

TH having their own take on funk/disco/afrobeat because they listened closely is true and obvious and the only way to conflate that with superficial bland "white funk" is maybe due to too many indie bands since trying to do the same thing or just plain deafness sorry. Also, I don't know anyone who loves Remain In Light who isn't also into all sorts of r'n'b genres. At least I hope I don't.

A very large portion of their catalog doesn't really relate to funk at all. Not sure how you connect 77 or MSABAF to white funk.

Yeah, I was going to say while TH didn't really appropriate the music that they were listening to, plenty of bands (like Arcade Fire) have made careers from appropriating TH, as well as others. That TH track that samples Francis Bebey and sounds a bit ABBA-ish for example; TH used samples and loved disco but they wouldn't have done something like that. They were quite methodical about it too - like with I Zimbra, the closest thing they came to sounding like afrobeat, using a Dadaist poem as the lyrics etc...

TH used samples? Where?

I never understood Arcade Fire comparisons to TH. I don't think anything Arcade Fire has ever done has sounded particularly like Talking Heads, save their early Talking Heads cover, perhaps.

At least until the Speaking in Tongues era I think of the TH as sort of academic anti-funk. They were one of those bands, like VU (iirc) who made a point of avoiding blues licks and progressions, at least early on. If anything they presage no wave as much as new wave, not unlike Devo. TH's Al Green cover is to funk/soul sort of what Devo's "Satisfaction" is to rock, sort of a weirdly sideways glance.

Deep down, everyone knows the AF's primary influence is John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band.

TH used samples? Where?

― Moodles, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 4:01 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts is famous for its use of sampling, but rather than sampling disco or afrobeat records to prove their hip cultural cache, they sampled preachers off of Christian radio

Not really TH exactly

I never understood Arcade Fire comparisons to TH. I don't think anything Arcade Fire has ever done has sounded particularly like Talking Heads, save their early Talking Heads cover, perhaps.

A whole bunch of their last two albums are clearly influenced by Talking Heads, but clearly missing the point. It's as though Win Butler listened to TH (much in the same way as Turrican) and thought 'Now that's good - white people doing disco - I can do that too!'. And so he litters his tracks with afrobeat references and disco strings, whacks in some pseudo-paranoiac lyrics about the modern world, and thinks he's done some great work. That, in my view, is a form of appropriation - riding the same ideas but totally missing the point.

xp let's not nitpick here. You are OTM about much of TH's work not being funk-oriented. Even their funkiest records like RiL and FoM have a good handful of tracks that don't rely on funky grooves at all

Fear of Music isn't esp. funky, of course.

AF don't really do afrobeat, though? They're clearly inspired by Caribbean music on their last few albums, but since Regine is from Haiti, that kinda makes sense?

Turrican, have you seen Stop Making Sense? Ironically that's the film that made TH make sense to me.

Dog Latin nails it right here, I was just going to suggest the same. That film has the visual element to Talking Heads that is missing, as well as the aforementioned live aspect, that helps fill in the picture. But, to be fair, the music should stand on its own.

I think people's reactions itt are interesting - going down the "cultural appropriation" rabbit hole isn't going to get anywhere. When people say they don't like a particular artist, my first question is, "What exactly do you find off-putting?" I can understand finding David's voice difficult but liking the music - that's how I feel about Robert Smith and The Cure. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of different musical styles? That's exactly what I love about TH. Or maybe the hype or image surrounding an artist is the problem. I usually find that easy to ignore.

And for some artists, I find that cherry picking my favorite songs is enough. Maybe that's where Turrican is with Talking Heads.

But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

You've got to question why it is that people are losing their minds, really. I think people in this thread are too scared to call something for what it is out of some kind of deep fear that others will think they're somehow closet Wild Cherry fans and that's basically what it boils down to.

So, "white funk for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal", as I near enough said in the first place.

"Talking Heads listen to funk and are influenced by funk and are white people that play funk but OH GOD THEY'RE NOT WHITE FUNK!" ...

...yeah, OK mate.

No-one is losing their minds, the fact you have no clue about what you're talking about, as usual, is just irritating.

That's all.

But, fair enough, I occasionally might blunder into a Paul McCartney thread, or whatever, to make inane comments, I hold my hand up.

ah more ad hominem strawman attacks impugning people's tastes, always a good route to go down. Why don't you just come out and say that TH fans are racist for not liking "real" funk music and be done with it.

(ftr Average White Band, Wild Cherry and KC and the Sunshine Band have some jams)

if you can't tell the difference between what AWB or Wild Cherry do and what TH do idk what to tell you. These bands are not alike.

I was going to say earlier, enough of the attacks on AWB!

xxxpost:

I think you'll find the music speaks for itself, Tom. It's others that project stuff onto it. Given that you're generally someone who perceives himself to have some sort of sophisticated and exotic taste, it surprises me none to find you're offended. Sorry to burst your bubble, it wasn't intentional.

Yes, but as I said above Yes and Genesis have different approaches and they're still prog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF866xp-tag

Clearly the music speaks for itself and this is funk music. Anyone who thinks that's weird is secretly racist.

^ Typed with a tears and semen stained fist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QBFMmIZTVs

Just another kind of funk, y'know.

I don't think that analogy holds water for a number of reasons (not the least of which is that one is based primarily on the race of the performers - always dubious). Yes and Genesis have different approaches but my marginal familiarity with both recognizes some basic similarities - high concept song-suites with complex narratives, an extension and expansion of ideas initially developed from UK 60s psych, etc.

The same cannot be said of AWB and Talking Heads. AWB are a pastiche of (primarily) the JBs, focused almost exclusively on tight, interlocking horn riffs and a rhythm section that closely replicates the grooves and beats of James Brown-derived American funk bands (Kool & the Gang, etc.). Talking Heads do not do this, their polyglot approach is more about the juxtaposition of disparate elements, nothing is slavishly recreated, the various elements are combined and obscured and mixed up.

There's literally nothing but strawmen and ad hominem attacks with Turrican. Completely blank. And a piece of shit. So that's basically that.

Obviously, there's the occassional diversion from white funk territory, but when their entire discography is taken into consideration that is what is dominant.

At least until the Speaking in Tongues era I think of the TH as sort of academic anti-funk. They were one of those bands, like VU (iirc) who made a point of avoiding blues licks and progressions, at least early on. If anything they presage no wave as much as new wave, not unlike Devo. TH's Al Green cover is to funk/soul sort of what Devo's "Satisfaction" is to rock, sort of a weirdly sideways glance.

Josh OTM. It's that POV that is most explicit in "The Big Country": detached, skeptical of appetite and happiness. Part of what makes Little Creatures sufferable is how it feels like they earned that joy of parenthood, instead of viewing it from a distance.

but when their entire discography is taken into consideration that is what is dominant

I don't think this is accurate at all

Turrican, what are the TH songs that are representative of white funk? What funk songs do they remind you of?

I think you'll find the music speaks for itself, Tom. It's others that project stuff onto it. Given that you're generally someone who perceives himself to have some sort of sophisticated and exotic taste, it surprises me none to find you're offended. Sorry to burst your bubble, it wasn't intentional

I am offended by someone posting ill-informed nonsense which they fondly imagine, and apparently persist in fondly imagining, is provocative but is, in fact, mere ill-informed nonsense. I'll pass over the rest of your post o_0

I don't think this is accurate at all

Not even remotely.

bizarrely reductionist take on a band whose string of charting singles in the US indicates a pretty strange breadth, only one of which can accurately be described as a "white band playing funk music" (let's see if you can spot it!)

Psycho Killer
Take Me to the River
Life During Wartime
Burning Down the House
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
And She Was
Wild Wild Life

xp

It's really not, Turrican. There is no reason to call it 'white funk' when terms like 'new wave' or 'post-punk' are both wider and more precise. If Talking Heads is a funk-band, then Gang of Four is a funk-band, The Contortions is a funk-band, Liquid Liquid is a funk-band, ESG is a funk-band, !!! is a funk-band, Franz Ferdinand is a funk-band. So much is funk, and then the term doesn't really say anything, other than it's white people making music slightly more syncopated than Rolling Stones...

I imagine what Turrican was referring to, with regard to TH, was more in the area of the Gang of Four and, I don't know, Pigbag(?) than the Average White Band or Wild Cherry. Art school funk.

It's great of you guys to make out that funk was just a coat that Talking Heads were trying on but... no, it's a dominant part of their DNA.

(Rolling Stones totally a white funk band btw)

Side project Tom Tom Club, though, does fall closer into the category.

Οὖτις OTM above re: the juxtaposition of disparate elements. "Funk band" to my ears is like The Dap-Kings, a recreation of a particular era of R&B music. There is so much more going on in Talking Heads' music that this seems just ridiculously reductive.

there's funk in there, but there's a distance from it, and it's combined with a bunch of other things that don't bear any relationship or resemblance to funk.

xp

Rolling Stones is a white r'n'b band.

I... don't think that's an insane way to describe the Stones?

Honestly, Talking Heads is closer to being a white r'n'b band too. I could call Remain in Light a funk-record, Stop Making Sense a funk concert, sure. But the idea that funk is a 'dominant part of their DNA' basically just tells me that Turrican knows nothing about Talking Heads nor funk.

where is the funk here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKW7JkHKm8

etc. What I'm getting from this thread is that Turrican has just heard Remain In Light for the first time.

just another slab o' funk, remember all those marching zydeco accordian arrangements James Brown used to do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtCittJyr0

(xp) Which is no crime btw.

TBF the bass plays a syncope every second measure in Heaven. So it's kinda funk, right?

You would be wrong, Tom.

(x-post)

Oh right, you haven't even heard it yet.

Ha! Okay Tom, you're getting desperate now.

Well, yeah, I'm not a fan of this band but, of what I've heard, I only really think of them as funk-based in the Remain in Light/Stop Making Sense era. I do like "Road to Nowhere" and "Psycho Killer" a lot btw! xps

an outtake from "Mothership Connection" iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvua6zPIi7c

I'm hoping anyone using roaming minutes in Florida as their phone batteries have 3 percent power doesn't find this thread.

Apologies to everyone in the world.

'Funk' really just means thinking ever so slightly about rhythms, right?

funk is a joint rolled in toilet paper iirc

watch out folks, turri's expounding heads band

ok lol

Haha!!

A whole bunch of their last two albums are clearly influenced by Talking Heads,

Well, yeah. But inexplicably people were comparing them to TH c. "Funeral," which is so not TH.

calm down, nerds.

Um...TH are definitely funk. As is Gang of Four and the Stones are r'n'b. Everyone knows this. The ridiculous part is claiming Remain In Light is derivative or for people who don't listen to r'n'b genres. Remain In Light is a perfect album for Fela Kuti fans who want to hear that groove taken places.

Steering away from this madness, it occurred to me that I've never heard any of jerry harrison's solo records. What's good?

they are not good

The Red and the Black rips off so much of Remain in Light's sound that Byrne could have sued Harrison for plagiarism (if Harrison hadn't been part of creating that sound.) The other ones I can't even remember.

If everything syncopated is funk, then Talking Heads is definitely sorta kinda a funk band? The really insane thing is that Turrican then says Can isn't a funk band. So The Overload is funk, but this isn't?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp6oPyQnX60

Btw one of the first reviews of Arcade Fire I remember reading called them a funkpunk band. Guess that's halfway to being a TH cover band, then?

Of course Can aren't a funk band.

Now you're getting the picture.

Halleluhwah is funk

Tom, you'd have a point if I hadn't already said the same thing a zillion posts up.

The point being that playing funky stuff every so often doesn't make you a funk band.

TBF to Tom you never ever do anything but repeat yourself, so it's kinda hard to react to.

I LOVE TALKING HEADS

You can't handle the real thing, admit it.

this sort of thinking is A-OK by me:

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/07/46/2d/07462d5c14327ec81075f9ccae163e26--weird-music-hipster-tattoo.jpg

Are people honestly concerned that other people might not agree on what genre Talking Heads are? Like if someone is wrong about this (if it's even possible to verify such a thing and I think it isn't) can't you just let them be wrong and smugly but silently enjoy the fact that you're right about everything?

For the sake of the argument it's more giving to pretend that Turrican knows what 'funk' is and has ever heard a song by Talking Heads, instead of having an actual argument with a somewhat sentient pile of feces that doesn't seem to understand 'of course it is' and 'it speaks for itself' isn't good arguments. I guess that means I'm strawmanning, and for that I guess I'm sorry.

Also, 29 Facepalms is clearly a Turrican sockpuppet, right?

You'd know all about socks, eh Frederik?

everyone knows talking heads are PUNK just like blondie and television

Clearly.

I wouldn't mind Frederik, 29 facepalms, he's a very stressed, highly-strung guy who reacts badly when he's unable to relax. I'm guessing his DVD/Blu Ray player is broken or he's out of Kleenex or has given himself RSI or something, in which case I'd feel bad about slagging off a man in such obvious pain.

I've never heard any of jerry harrison's solo records. What's good?

First and only song I heard for a long time was "Man with a Gun" featured on the Something Wild soundtrack. Has that "Fast Car" / "Losing My Religion" video style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNjfVqzJR8g

Hey I just came here to talk about the absurdity of treating genres like ontologically essentialist categories, I'll leave the ad hominem shit to others.

That sounds like mediocre INXS in ballad mode.

xpost

Also Stop Making Sense is great and I'm currently engaged in learning how to play all of the tracks on it which is why I opened this thread in the first place.

fp'd everyone on this thread including myself

it took 2 and a half hours

I guess I can't think of anything more horrible to say to a poster than that they remind me of Turrican, so I'm sorry 29 Facepalms, I guess that was over the line. I deserve the fp.

lol frederik so mad

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ine9ZoGRl9s/WXBTObHkeiI/AAAAAAAAQkU/7ouF6G_NtRAwiy3twkNsOvrupnDTjnbGgCEwYBhgL/s1600/b.talking%2Bheads%2B2.jpg

That's ok, I didn't know enough about either of you to be upset.

'fp' pronounced as 'fap'

More Songs About Buildings and Fp

Now, back to the topic...

The point being that playing funky stuff every so often doesn't make you a funk band.

― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, September 13, 2017 5:47 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In Talking Heads' case, this is more than "every so often" ...

is there something wrong with saying tina weymouth is a funky bass player? i don't get ilx sometimes....

it's just music christ

No, I just thought it was funny that, at the same time, other people were defending Talking Heads by arguing that it's crazy and wrong to call them funk.

Talking Heads = Music Christ. it is settled law.

Amen!

The album wasn't called Fear of Funk after all.

No, I just thought it was funny that, at the same time, other people were defending Talking Heads by arguing that it's crazy and wrong to call them funk.

You have to put that in the context of the original post that kicked all this off:

I'm often left with the impression that they're a white funk band for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal

And then all manner of further nonsense from the same poster thereafter.

Who considers themselves too artsy to listen to real funk anyway? Hasn't that been cool for decades?

Or am I reading it wrong and does 'the real deal' mean that somehow Jamiriqoi is where it's at?

"This song started from a jam," says bassist Tina Weymouth in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads. "Chris [Frantz, drummer] had just been to see Parliament-Funkadelic in its full glory at Madison Square Garden, and he was really hyped. During the jam, he kept yelling 'Burn down the house!' which was a P-Funk audience chant, and David dug the line, changing it to the finished version, 'Burning down the house'." (Bernie Worrell of Parliament-Funkadelic joined Talking Heads' live incarnation.)

hmm, so there does appear to be a connection between talking heads and funk

very interesting

boy did this become tedious

mission accomplished Turrican

Didn't they work with that guy what's his face from Roxy Music? So they're clearly glam rock!

Yeah, sorry, this is tedious. I'll fap myself out.

they are actually a white rap group cf David Byrne's rapping on Crosseyed and Painless

let's change the topic. how about this one: all of sgt pepper's is totally overrated. and after that: that thing your grandma told you on your 6th birthday party that stuck with you your entire life? it wasn't that insightful, and you didn't even remember it correctly. final topic: that thing you like? no, wrong.

except for those times they used a pedal steel guitar, then they were a white country group

xp

xp i liked that post up until your final topic explained very clearly how it was wrong to do so

lol
well, at least david byrne might appreciate the contradiction

Y'know. I've really been thinking today. About a lot of things. Talking Heads. Can. What funk is and is not. How to form an argument. And I just want to say to Turrican: Thank You. Because you make me a better person. I mean, you don't really 'better' anything, you're an awful piece of shit, who clearly couldn't construct a cohesive argument if you're life depended on it, clearly hasn't heard an appropriate amount of funk music, and you seem to have some deep rooted issues related to masturbation, which is a good and natural thing. I guess what I mean to say is this: You're lowering the bar. And you do that for all of us. And the way my life has been going these last few months, I really needed that. So Thank You.

Also, I guess I should really stop watching BoJack Horseman at this point.

I'm often left with the impression that Bojack Horseman is the horse cartoon for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to watch the real deal, my little pony

roflz

Holy shit

It was in front of us all along

Turrican is fred b

ps talking heads are a really shit band, like they're bad at music and sound bad.

Also yanks note the 'are a shit band' not 'is a shit band' it's little things like this that make ye stand out as not native speakers

Thanks for clarifying that Sund4r :)

So did we figure out if Talking Heads are a funk band or what?

No, we found out that people are in denial about it and Frederik B is a middle aged divorcee with an anger problem, who seems to enjoy re-using the exact wording of his personal correspondence.

(with some words changed obviously)

I LOVE TALKING HEADS

No, we found out that people are in denial about it
- everyone is in denial
and Frederik B is a middle aged
- who cares how old he is
divorcee
- who cares
with an anger problem
- I'M GONNA PUNCH A WALL
, who seems to enjoy re-using the exact wording of his personal correspondence.
-

-

0
i love talking heads

Now now, there's no need to start going and punching walls.

clearly ilm is going through a golden era

what's the cutoff for a "golden era"? anything under two?

Animal think...they're pretty smart
Shit on the ground...see in the dark.

What about Houston?
What about Detroit?

WHAT ABOUT PITTSBURGH P-A?

Some TH playing in Morrisons when I was doing my shopping last evening, very deep and artsy.

All the fans of real funk fled

I've never been too crazy about them, don't dislike them really either, just ambivalent I guess. However, On the strength of this thread, I decided to DL Fear of Music and the live thingy. Will live with them for a week or so and see if they click. Off topic but the Liam Gallagher pre-covers thing is wonderful. Nice work everybody.

Much of early Heads, like say, Name of This Band is spiky art-punky, with the uber trebly sound and intentionally naïve/awkward vibe.

Late Heads could be funky, like Popsicle of Love, or world-musicky like I Zimbra.

In between, I think, is both their creative and popular peak - Little Creatures, Stop Making Sense.

Tangentially, I liked how Byrne's book (and TED Talk) discusses the extent to which spaces CBGBs - narrow and live - complemented and enhanced the sounds they happened to be making. Short delays, hard surfaces. Just as Gregorian chants and 18th-century chamber music worked well in the spaces those musics were performed in. Characteristically, he leaves open whether it's chicken or egg.

spaces LIKE

For me, Fear of Music is 50% peak Heads and 50% awkward murkiness that doesn't push my buttons. The live albums (and vids of course) are the best intro to the band.

otm

fear of music is their best album

I actually really, really like Little Creatures. It's quality cheerfulness. I don't know the first two albums but LC is my fave out of albums 3 to 8.

Can't get enough of this Rome, 1980 version of "Born Under Punches"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO7N2tFb0X8

hell yeah

that version is great, creepier in a different way than the studio version. this show/era was great. i love the super slow languorous intros to Crosseyed and Painless

That is really good. At points the groove got real Lagos and the dual basses is a bit Miles Davis, that's a real good take.

I don't think I've ever heard that. Straight fire.

Tina.

Wow.

The whole Live in Rome show is straight fire.

Belew is just ridiculous. Master

Great all around-- everyone on the stage

I've kind of forever dismissed the T Heads cuz of Byrne dislike and general allergy, but I've come around to that 79-81 era and that holy cow that Rome show is insane.

Adrian Belew is the worst dresser in rock music.

nah that outfit is some str8 up dirtbag peacocking, thats confidence right there

I do like this jumper

https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/f/7/d/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwdfmt.png/1496464311120.jpg

I've come around to that 79-81 era

the expanded heads were one of the best live bands of all time imo, just phenomenally tight and exciting

always found it cool how the bassline pops out in the live versions of born under punches. the remain in light version feels like a totally different song.

despite telling a familiar story, i still enjoyed this little mini-doc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeDf-1Wr-Ks

lots of great eno-era footage i had never seen, just from talk shows and the like i think.

the sources for ^^ led me to this pretty cool doc as well, from 1979:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5EzLDD1D_Q

all of this is probably upthread, apologies if it's already been discussed

David Byrne on Desert Island Discs! Available now and in the online archive thereafter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vz6r1

Man, I love “Listening Wind,” which is used very effectively in the season premiere of The Americans.

Also good to see Turrican takes his wrong opinion road show into other threads. I thought I was the only one who had to deal with this.

for prosperity:

POLL Me Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up – TALKING HEADS – ILM Artist Poll #82 - (The Results Thread)

Should be revived every few months, thx. 🙂

Listening to the 5.1 down mix for Remain in Light for the first time.

Wow.

I love those things. I interviewed Tony Visconti years ago when they did a 5.1 mix of Electric Warrior, and one of the things we talked about is how music of course is a 360 degree, room filling expanse that our ears sort of pick and choose from to process, but a stereo mix is sort of the producer picking one pair of ears for you. And yet with all these sonic elements swirling around there are so many ways an album could have sounded without changing a note of music, just by picking different instruments to foreground or emphasize, and listening to 5.1 mixes kind of pulls the curtain back to reveal some of them. And then 5.1 mix downs in turn take those elements and re-introduce them as an alternative mix of the album that if it sounds like hearing something for the first time could very well be because you are!

Also good to see Turrican takes his wrong opinion road show into other threads. I thought I was the only one who had to deal with this.

― afriendlypioneer, Tuesday, April 3, 2018 12:21 AM

Sorry, who are you again?

Oh yeah, some guy that I interacted with on that one thread a billion years ago.

Anyway, I still stand by my opinion of Talking Heads as a white funk band for art-rockers who don't like funk.

This old chestnut

I can imagine Talking Heads fans stroking their chins to Devo or Brian Eno, but can't imagine them getting down to... well, anything. Even Talking Heads themselves.

always good to judge a band by what you imagine their fans are like imo

All TH were huge fans of funk and soul hence the introduction of big name funk and soul people into the expanded band. In the sleevenotes for Sand In The Vaseline (1993) DB raves about The Jacksons' Get It Together as being as important as Sgt Pepper. Just last week on his Desert Island Discs he was picking Brazilian music, Parliament and recent RnB stuff. I think he and Tom Tom Club especially, did as much as anyone to celebrate as many other forms of music as they could and fold that successfully into their own stuff. I can't imagine what more they could have done to 'get down' live on stage either. They're could hardly shake their collective ass *more* than they do in Stop Making Sense. They've always struck me as a white funk band for art-rockers who LOVE funk and not really a very 'chin stroke' kind of band at all.

Sounds like turricans describing a crisis of imagination

Not sure it’s worth bothering here

I can imagine Talking Heads fans stroking their chins to Devo or Brian Eno, but can't imagine them getting down to... well, anything. Even Talking Heads themselves

dude when TH were the biggest band ever and SMS was in theaters and my mom took my sister and I to see it, the whole ass theater was getting down in the isles!

Everything is possible with imagination

I'm not denying that Talking Heads were funk fans - obviously they were! Their audience was not a funk audience, though.

https://media.tenor.com/images/81fc2c1a812010ed3333122056e47694/tenor.gif

are you calling my mom not a funk fan?

but yah you're forgetting that TH fans aren't just NYC cool people. Burning Down The House was on tv and radio 24/7. TH fans are Madonna fans, MJ fans, Prince fans.

I'm not denying that Talking Heads were funk fans - obviously they were! Their audience was not a funk audience, though.

Caught b/w a rock and a hard place as I decide whether to toss out my art rock or my funk albums. This new dogmatism is killing me.

I'm not denying that Talking Heads were funk fans

Not just Talking Heads...

https://cdn-s3.si.com/s3fs-public/golf/2015/04/22/FunkClinton.jpg

Sorry, who are you again?

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 3:46 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess your thing is stinking up multiple threads with your negativity and played out devil’s advocate trolling. Didn’t realize you were so ubiquitous.

the funniest thing lately is when he admits he never talks about music with people in real life. like dude, you should try that, it could really help u!

I don't get what's so difficult to understand about that - not when I have a zillion other things to talk about.

As for the poster above, I enjoyed his or her memorable and insightful posts on the same three or four bands so much I had to check their posting history to remind myself just where and when we'd interacted on here.

well this is all very good but how are people who like Talking Heads supposed to chat about their favourite band now?

I still experience the 5.1 mix of fear of music like I've been abducted by aliens and I'm in a dream state listening to the best reimagination of a very good album into a... well a fucking perfect album. Like a beautiful usgs topo map scan of canyonlands, it makes me wanna cry a little.

i just listened to the remain in light 5.1 downmix this week, holy shit

ughhhhhh this band is o fucking good

RIL in 5.1 was first one I did, and while it amazed, it sorta didn't change my perception of how good RIL is. It was an improvement bud not a revolution to me, even with its several revelations.

FOM just ~changed everything~. "This is a crime...against the state..." HOLY SHIT a song I didn't care about before is the best shit ever.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is- a 5.1 mix.

FOM is def bigger and fuller in 5.1 but there are straight up entire instruments revealed on RiL.

Byrne was on Desert Island Discs last week. Sounding so much more relaxed and confident than back in the day. Great interview with lots of details about growing up Scottish and great tunes too.

Damn I would love to hear that 5.1 mix of fom. The first record I heard of theirs and my favourite talking heads record

Here's the link http://www.sharoma.com/eclectic_ril.htm

He seems to take a lot more liberties with FOM than with RIL, especially "Electric Guitar". Is there a reason that one is so different than the original mix? It seems like there is a lot of material in that track that just isn't in the original at all.

electric guitar has added percussion that totally changes the vibe - seems tacked on, also some extra synth parts

the additional percussion changes the tempo

But why was all of that added? Most of the other tracks just seem to enhanced without a bunch of new things added.

from what I gather it was done as a way to give "clarity" to the mix - liberties is the key word as mentioned above

The arcade console missile command video game sounds popping up in _Cities_, along with Byrne's relaxed,funny vocal style, will never not bring me total amusement and joy. Incredible.

So apparently Angélique Kidjo is releasing a full-album cover version of Remain In Light next month, and the video for "Once In A Lifetime" is kinda cheesy but also nuts in a good way...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z84rtbVbIEQ

She's touring it at the moment (I found out a few days after she played here).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR8jgFGmqvU

omg im in love with this

Damn^

So necessary

Very nice

Wow, love the Born Under Punches. Less said about her Once in a Lifetime the better.

Yeah, agree. That's really good. I'm really curious to hear her version of "Houses in Motion," kinda not too optimistic about "Listening Wind," which really won't benefit from a big voice.

I always liked this one:

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

Wow, love the Born Under Punches. Less said about her Once in a Lifetime the better.

― that's not my post, Saturday, May 12, 2018 1:20 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

u r hi af. her version fuckin slaps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRxxt53yFBs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcGUXNRV-NI

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Xi2AdpEDU

sure?

i saw this latest tour, it was quite good

that video misses how great the lighting design was, definitely see this in a theater hall if you can

Seeing him Friday, seen him before but still looking forward to it.

Great documentary about the London scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwCCfWiYk2s

Yo global tell me more about the tour

i will be seeing his tour too

it was staged like a field show/halftime marching band show, tightly choreographed, extremely minimal staging- no amps, no gear. at least 4 percussionists, byrne said it was like the most ambitious thing he'd done since SMS although that could have been hyperbole. expect 7-8 talking heads classics but no variation from night to night. personally i thought the lighting was one of the most impressive parts. i dunno, just a pro knocking it out of the park basically. people smoked weed near us and upset my mom, who i took for mother's day haha

Thanks global and you sound like a nice person

I saw him maybe... nine years ago? and that show was incredibly choreographed, as many dancers as musicians, moving amongst them, sitting the musicians in office chairs & wheeling them round as they played etc

I saw him on that tour (Songs of Byrne and Eno) too. Fantastic show. It was a seated show but soon enough everybody was out of their seats and dancing. Great setlist.

Strange Overtones
I Zimbra
One Fine Day
Help Me Somebody
Houses in Motion
My Big Nurse
My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks)
Heaven
Wanted for Life
Life Is Long
Crosseyed and Painless
Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
Once in a Lifetime
Life During Wartime
I Feel My Stuff

Encore:
Take Me to the River
The Great Curve

Encore 2:
Air
Burning Down the House

Encore 3:
Everything That Happens

urgh fck off setlist spoilz

No worries, this was from the 2009 show. Considered comparing it to a recent show but refrained, at your service :)

Going to see him in London, hope he doesn't play Lazy but everything else I've glimpsed from that Chile concert I'm excited about.

I saw him on the eno tour and his voice blew me away.
Regret missing the vincent tour

I hope he brings out Rocky & Diesel and plays a 15-minute version

vincent tour was great!

Nice Niels!

The live YouTube clips from that tour ripped

Saw this in Portland a few days ago

One of the most memorable concerts I've ever attended, joyous and life-affirming at every possible moment

Byrne's voice is a marvel, he's singing better than ever

Lighting is unreal

Go see it

and a few lucky(?!) punters got to peep this while he was in town:

https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2018/05/29/20188583/david-byrne-sang-a-prince-song-at-a-portland-karaoke-bar-over-the-weekend

One of the coolest shows I've seen in years.

Saw it last night and agree. ^^ Considering going back for a second time tomorrow night.

‪Full-on peak-80s conceptual concert, Stop Making Sense Pt. 2 and holding its own against the original, with pt. 1’s Robert Wilson influence replaced by Ivo Van Hove’s.‬

Does away with any traditional band-on-stage setup, instead being both carefully choreographed and playing all over a giant empty space with no grounded instruments.

I likened it to a neo-futurist drumline.

Friday tickets were going for $45 on StubHub, and tonight’s are $95-$400, so I think word has gotten out about how exceptional this is. On par with Stop Making Sense, United States Love — those 80s epics.

I'm in Chicago for work training thing tomorrow said fuck it and shelled out $150 for a ticket, orchestra pit seat looks like I'll be really close (printed face value is $125 doesn't feel too bad) got it from a local broker through Vivid Seats app which seemed to have better prices than Stub Hub but had to go pick it up physically at office

^^ good move imo, plz report back

I am a moron for not going to see this

My first thought after seeing it Friday was that if I had time I would have totally seen it again the next (two) nights.

goddamn, can attest nothing anyone has said is hyperbole.. maybe the most creative staging and choreography I've ever seen. band is just incredible. Byrne's voice and energy level is like the mid 80s, what a show!

You guys have convinced me to buy tickets to this show’s L.A. date!

do it!

really wish i'd heard all this praise before he came through the pnw!

*sees he's coming to dallas in....fuck thats a long time*

Ok, got tix for the SF show. The Oakland shows are already sold out.

Clay otm

well, he did announce the tour by calling it his most ambitious since SMS ...

ok you guys convinced me to get tickets to the forest hills stadium show. 35 years since we last saw him there!

Benjamin Clementine (of the Mercury Prize and Benjamin Clementine - I Tell A Fly (!!!!!) ) opened and baffled and/or failed to distract the Chicago audience.

There was no introduction, and I hadn't bought the Byrne tickets, so thought it was the first song or two of the Byrne show itself. And in a way threw the audience a "difficult" curveball (Tune-Yards may do the same when they open later shows).

Just missed his show here, fuck man

According to Andy Zax, the producer of Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime box set, the band has an enormous cache of completed songs that Byrne is continuing
to withhold.

Does it say why he’s withholding them? (Like Lucille Bluth, does he “get off on being withholding”?)

I know that he would maybe know, but imo that seems unlikely. First, the band released their stuff at a pretty good clip, and it's not like those albums were bursting with material, even as contemporaries were eventually releasing double and triple albums. Even then, say it was an artistic decision to keep things short, there have been a couple of sets of reissues - Sand in the Vaseline and that Once in a Lifetime boxed set, plus that other boxed set - where unreleased songs might have popped up, but the bonus stuff was pretty scant or just sketches. Googling around, there seem to be maybe a couple of tracks they played live but never put on an album, but I'd be shocked if there were tons of unreleased things that were never played live, never put on a reissue, and escaped being bootlegged.

I've always wondered if Byrne and Bowie had any sort of relationship. Longtime New Yorkers, smart, friends of Eno, arty and erudite ... you'd think they'd be fast friends.

i asked zax about remain in light outtakes at some point and he said there really wasn't that much of releasable quality left over from those sessions (don't know about other albums). the bonus tracks that have come out are fantastic, but they're essentially jams, not completed songs.

JiC otm, I'd be very surprised if there were any fully realized unreleased tracks at all

I recently discovered that the version of "New Feeling" on the B-side of "Love Goes To A Building On Fire" is an earlier version with cool horns and other production touches! Not on YT or I would link it...

re: Byrne and Bowie.

Tina Weymouth made a dismissive remark in the David Bowman biography to the effect that people like them and Brian Eno live in
their own spheres and would be happiest if in near-total isolation with artists like each other for company

Didn't Byrne introduce Bowie at the latter's RnR Hall of Fame induction?

Yes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GeFtpjuXk0

Of course, Bowie wasn't there, was he? Madonna accepted!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D8RLzOHk1Y

And Bowie was reckoned to be trying to sing like Byrne on D.J.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgPUxjQOk-w

My gf went with a friend night before last. She's not a particularly big fan of TH/Byrne but she raved about the show. And they even had nosebleed seats.

It was something. Weirdly comforting.

This interview is a tad indulgent, but has some gems in it:

https://www.gq.com/story/david-byrne-talking-heads-icon-profile

Including a link to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adUtlz0GcCg

A++++ cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkVC2p4gz1Y

Nosebleed seats were fine, because the whole stage was used and the sound was clear. Here was my view from Friday night (Auditorium Theater in Chicago):

http://i68.tinypic.com/2qisrcg.jpg

Yeah, she took some brief videos and it looked like the show was staged to be enjoyed from pretty much any distance. And is it just me, or has Byrne's voice remained magically unchanged for forty years?

did i already miss the nyc part of this tour? Y'all are waking me up here.

Seeing him in a month on a festival, guessing he won't be doing these exact shows in that setting. Still, psyched!

Been trying xyzal but th

did i already miss the nyc part of this tour? Y'all are waking me up here.

Ha, my unposted fragment of seasonal allergies post that went unfinished came along for the ride, sorry

I wish they were playing 'Totally Nude' instead of 'Blind.' Setlist looks awesome otherwise. I don't know much of his solo oeuvre. Is the material from the new album strong?

And is it just me, or has Byrne's voice remained magically unchanged for forty years?

― On the Wingers of Love: The Kip & Debra Story (Old Lunch), Tuesday, June 5, 2018 9:03 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it's kind of amazing, his voice doesn't really sound different than the 80s...

quite nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByTLLEdL8Og

New stuff was nothing special, was really all about the visuals imo.

Interesting essay: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/angelique-kidjo-interview-myth-of-cultural-appropriation-covering-remain-in-light/

How do you all rate the new record? I haven’t really given it a full listen. Feel like I’m a completist at this point

It's nothing special.

Alexa just played “No Compassion,” followed by a live acoustic version of “Heaven” – and I’m not gonna lie, the combo was poignant.

First song on the new album is off-putting. After that it gets better.

Angelique Kidjo has just covered all of Remain in Light:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR8jgFGmqvU&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR8jgFGmqvU&feature=youtu.be

Hmm. Anyway, pretty great.

was pretty blown away by benjamin clementine as the opener at the show i saw. had never heard of him before.

byrne was excellent too ofc :)

Man the reviews are excellent for this. Just got it and excited to listen to today

this version shits on the original from a high place

That's... a very vivid image

xp FP'd you for that, don't take it personally

i'm kidding of course, but it's amazing

sorry i was in passion's control, bad place, no harm sleeve

Back in style *yawns*

What’s back in style?

Angelique Kidjo has just covered all of Remain in Light

This is a fantastic record.

if we're talking covers of burning down the house i love yasuyuki oyamura's version (not on youtube unfortunately)

kidjo's essay is completely and totally otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRxxt53yFBs

The Kidjo is a perfect, seamless cover start to finish. She completely owns it.