Album Description: Formed in NYC in the mid-'70s by David Byrne, Chris Franz, Tina Weymouth, and ex-Modern Lover Jerry Harrison, Talking Heads soared out of their humble CBGB's beginnings to become Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and one of the most adventurous and influential bands ever. The onstage energy that propelled their rise to fame was documented in the 1982 double-LP set THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS TALKING HEADS, now available on CD for the first time. Following them through several early evolutions from '77-'81, this live gem - a 1982 Top 40 Billboard Album- is a riveting portrait of a stellar band on the rise. For its CD debut it's been expanded with over 30 minutes of rare and mostly previously unreleased bonus material.
Something's Not Quite Right Here ... So here we go, the legendary Talking Heads live double album from 1982, combining live material from two distinct periods in their careers: The 1977 - 1979 CBGB influenced art/punk years, and then the still rightfully spoken of in awe 1980/1981 tour to promote "Remain In Light" that essentially invented a whole new sound for new wave/post punk that literally too a village onstage to reproduce the thick, groove driven studio jams that made that album so remarkably ahead of it's time.
Sadly after listening to this more or less nonstop now for about two weeks -- and comparing the 1980/81 material against an easy to find YouTube video concert of the band live in Italy from 1980 -- all I can say is that this turns out to be a missed opportunity of sorts to set the record straight on the band from the period just before they had their big commercial breakout with "Speaking In Tongues" and "Stop Making Sense". There's a good side and a bad side to it: The bad side is that nutcase devotees of the group like myself will be disappointed by the second disc material highlighting the 1980/81 band. The good side is that the final word on this period of time for the group has yet to be written, and in all likelihood probably WILL be written at some point in the near future. Plus, your double LP/cassette originals of the 1982 release are still worth keeping. Maybe it's time for a nice USB turntable?
First, the pros: The first disc is amazing, period. I was always more drawn to the 1978/1978 shows from the double LP and even the 1977 material is sounding fresher and more alive than it ever did before. This release gets one thing absolutely right which is demonstrating how important of a band Talking Heads were to the "post punk" art/rock period of say 1978 to 1980. If it wasn't for Talking Heads, bands like The Cure, Violent Femmes, Happy Mondays, Blur and Oasis might not have ever existed, period. Listen to the six minute live version of "Found A Job" on this set and you'll know why. The cut had previously been released on the megarare "Warner Brothers Radio Show" promo EP from 1979 but it's been gloriously remastered and every last note is precious. Tina's bass part on the outrageous live version of "Mind" will keep you wondering what the hell is going on, the remastering of "Air" from the original LP rundown is downright physical, and Jerry & David's "Memories Can't Wait" will bring a tear to the eye of any veteran Heads fan. Even the addition of "Heaven" is dead perfect, a song that I had grown tired of but will have to think about all over again. The bottom line is that Disc 1 is winners, and worth the cost of the whole set. Get a used copy for ten bucks, you'll be stoked.
The problem -- sigh -- is with Disc 2 with the 1980/81, and I smell a couple three culprits at work. Firstly, since the most music you can put on a CD using current techniques is 80 minutes, there is a problem: The live set for the 1980/81 band usually ran just under 90 minutes. So in order to "reproduce the entire set list" including a hilarious version of "Animals" which had never been released before, some editing had to be done to shave off just enough time to make one live take of each composition from the setlist fit onto a single sided CD, which frankly was a stubborn and somewhat unfortunate choice that was probably made by Rhino's otherwise stellar CD team. The biggest loser is "Crosseyed And Painless", which loses it's intro laid back funk groove section heard on the original LP and cassette, and is a remarkably weaker version of the song for the omission.
Granted the new edit gets right to the meat & potatoes of the song's strengths, but lost is the subtlety of having the core band of four musicians augmented by the virtuoso players they had join them on the tour. The first time I heard the CD cut it stopped the party cold for me, and I immediately dug out my double LP from it's hallowed storage spot and confirmed that yes, 1 minute and 10 seconds of lift-off groove is just plain unaccounted for. Gone. What a bummer. Sure, new fans of the group who had never heard the original LP won't miss it and for those who love action it does cut right to the chase. But that intro was an important part of the song, as witnessed by it's retention in the "Stop Making Sense" concert when it served as the closing encore number, with the groove intro intact.
Also, if you get nit-picky enough and compare the song runtimes as listed on the original LP to the actual runtimes on Disc 2 every one of the songs appears to be missing 10 seconds or so, which might not sound like much (and can probably be accounted for by the omission of audience & stage noise between cuts) and may have helped to make the inclusion of "Animals", "Stay Hungry", "Warning Sign" and "Once In A Lifetime" possible, but some of the cuts just feel more abrupt, as if the band was in a hurry to get the songs over with so they could fit on a CD. Which wasn't the spirit of the times and why I object to it, even though the result is probably a more well-rounded listening experience. You shouldn't mess with greatness, but do something radical like use a two sided CD with extra time for subtleties or even longer versions of the songs, which definitely exist as proven by the YouTube concert from Italy (Search YouTube for "Talking Heads Live Italy" and you'll see what I mean).
It's still not enough to "ruin" the show, though there's another weird spot that I find potentially troubling, namely my favorite cut from the CD, an eight minute live take of "Born Under Punches" that is priceless. What an amazing band!! BUT, it sounds like someone either unplugged guest 2nd bass player Busta Jones' instrument or mixed him down during the remastering so we could hear Tina's bass playing more clearly without Busta funking it up all over the place. Indeed if you watch the live show on YouTube Busta had an extended bass funk-out solo towards the end of the song that on the CD has been reduced to an odd plunking sound in the background. You can still hear it, but what gives?
Well, one of the urban legends surrounding this tour was the acrimony between various band members that developed as the ensemble spent roughly 13 months on the road together. People's patience levels began to wear a bit thin, and the two most persistent rumors heard relate that people started to get tired of Adrian Belew's infernal trademark freak-out guitar soloing (which when taken in small doses is mesmerizing but after about the fifth straight solo starts to wear a little thin), and that Tina Weymouth grew tired of being constantly upstaged & shoved off into the wings by Busta Jones.
Indeed if you watch the YouTube show mentioned as well as footage of them live from German television from the same 1980 tour one can sense that Tina Weymouth's role within the group had become somewhat ambiguous. Once Busta Jones took the stage for "I Zimbra" Tina was from time to time relegated to playing guitar, keyboard and hand-held percussion parts while warbling backup vocals as well, where her place in the band previously had been not just as the bass player, but the GIRL bass player. Yes, it made Talking Heads distinctive & unique and probably influenced a 2nd wave of "girl band" players like Throwing Muses and Au Pairs. My guess is that Tina probably originally signed off on having Busta join them for the tour but quickly came to realize that there is really only room for one bass player in a band and that Busta, just by being Busta, was overpowering her.
So one has to wonder if during the remastering there was perhaps a decision to "tone Busta down" a notch or two so that listeners could better decipher her particular contributions to the ensemble, and "Born Under Punches" might indeed be her revenge upon the band for having sidelined her, to a degree. Which would be too bad because Michael "Busta" Jones died in 1995 and one of his greatest claims to fame was his work on this tour. It would be petty for anyone to try and steal his thunder but that's exactly what sounds like is going on for that one song in particular (the opening of "Crosseyed And Painless too was all Busta) and one listens to the results with a certain amount of chagrin.
But that brings me back to one of my opening points about this release, which is that it certainly is not the final word on this very special period of the band's history -- Perhaps a live DVD/CD package could be put together documenting one or two discreet, specific shows from beginning to end, and with the 20th anniversary of the tour coming up in less than 2 years well, who knows, maybe someone will get wise. There are tons of baby boomers and post baby boomer generation X-ers who would walk many a crooked mile to get the final word on this band at their disposal, and provide fans with some accurate information as to what exactly was going on with this group to dispel any unfounded urban legends about them. Let's hope somebody is already planning to, though for the time being this will probably have to do.
Retail Nightmare Retail Nightmare really is a nightmare. They never mailed my CD i ordered - and when I asked them - they said OH sorry we mailed 3 others that day and no problems with them. They said they would mail it out again which is wierd, it seems like they would be wondering where the copy they initially mailed was.
I month later - credit card charged - no CD.
Woo hoo, finally! I can't really add much that hasn't already been written except to reinforce that this is one toe-tapping, kinetic album. I'm glad it finally appeared after all these years.
The Name of this Band is Talking Heads I ordered this CD as a gift. It came quickly and was everything I expectected.
Best talking heads album ever Best album of the early days of talking heads. An absolut must for friends of live recordings.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
