While there's no debating the importance of Jonathan Demme's classic film record of Talking Heads' 1983 tour, the soundtrack released in support of it is a thornier matter. Since its release, purists have found Stop Making Sense slickly mixed and, worse yet, incomprehensive. The nine tracks included jumble and truncate the natural progression of frontman David Byrne's meticulously arranged stage show. Cries for a double-album treatment -- ŕ la 1982's live opus The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads -- were sounded almost immediately; more enterprising fans merely dubbed the VHS release of the film onto cassette tape. So, until a 1999 "special edition" cured the 1984 release's ills, fans had to make do with the Stop Making Sense they were given -- which is, by any account, an exemplary snapshot of a band at the height of its powers. Even with some of his more memorable tics edited out, Byrne is in fine voice here: Never before had he sounded warmer or more approachable, as evidenced by his soaring rendition of "Once in a Lifetime." Though almost half the album focuses on Speaking in Tongues material, the band makes room for one of Byrne's Catherine Wheel tunes (the hard-driving, elliptical "What a Day That Was") as well as up-tempo versions of "Pyscho Killer" and "Take Me to the River." If anything, Stop Making Sense's emphasis on keyboards and rhythm is its greatest asset as well as its biggest failing: Knob-tweakers Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison play up their parts at the expense of the treblier aspects of the performance, and fans would have to wait almost 15 years for reparations. Still, for a generation that may have missed the band's seminal '70s work, Stop Making Sense proves to be an excellent primer.
Live albums are tricky a business. Whenever a band chooses to release one you have to really look and see why they are choosing to release a record recorded when they played one night. Most of the time these records are used as a bookmark between albums or to keep a band's momentum going while they write and record their next record. Some labels use them to generate cheap sources of cash, after...
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Dance. Dance. Dance.And not to any old beatEver notice how idea-free and lyrically simplistic most super-hot, fail-safe get-'em-moving dance tracks are? I mean, you can hardly help yourself from rump-shaking to C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)," but seriously, it's just a series of short, obvious exhortations to a killer beat sequence.That's one of the reasons I r...
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It's New Wave Wednesday and '80s Revival time. How better to celebrate than a date with the man in the big suit?
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This is far more awesome than it has any right to be: Update 4.19.2009: A working embed... Balloon Trip: An Existential Journey @ Yahoo! Video
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Here is a Talkng Heads show from Tokyo at the Sun Palace on 2-27-81. They opened with their original, Psycho Killer. David Byrne is another one of those guys that is intimately connected to the music, and quite a dancer I might add....
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So today my teacher showed this clip in film class.During the clip, classmates started laughing at David Byrne's movements. At the same time I was thinking, "damn, that's exactly what I do/how I feel when I'm by listening to/playing music.... in my room, in the car, I get it, it looks so like he's having so much fun, oh man I want to play some music right now." The clip really made my day. I...
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Bad news: as of this post, the website that hosts our blogroll (blogrolling.com ) is down. I stupidly don't have any of my favorite blogs bookmarked, depending only on the links on SoD to read them. So instead of going down the blogroll list, I went through Hype Machine . I vow to bookmark all my fave blogs from now on. Fellow L.A. bloggers Rollo & Grady have live covers of Radiohead by Pa...
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"Mashup":http://www.searchles.com/channels/show/993 of a bunch of Stop Making Sense clips and some other life stuff as well. Stop Making Sense being up there with the Last Waltz as the best concert docs - also love this version of Naive Melody.
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Live albums are tricky a business. Whenever a band chooses to release one you have to really look and see why they are choosing to release a record recorded when they played one night. Most of the time these records are used as a bookmark between albums or to keep a band's momentum going while they write and record their next record. Some labels use them to generate cheap sources of cash, after...
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A long time ago my sister declared that if I were a song and not a human, I would be "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morisson. I don't even have brown eyes but she said the song "sounded like me." However, today I'm positive that I would be that song "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads. Can anyone relate to this?
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In 1984, the Talking Heads’ release of Stop Making Sense floored critics and fans alike, securing a place in music history as one of the greatest documentaries and performances captured on film. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker described it as “a dose of happiness from beginning to end.” Now, 25 years later, the film is being re-released on Blu-ray by Palm Pictures, on October 13th. The film w
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McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT) -- David Byrne had just flooded his hotel bathroom and needed some help. It was late 1980, and the idiosyncratic guitarist and front man of the rock band Talking Heads was staying at San Francisco's Miyako Hotel while his band toured in support of their new album, "Remain in Light." I was knocking on Byrne's door to do an interview with him for a music magaz...
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 "Stop Making Sense")
