MOG

The Talking Heads were my first introduction to Alternative/College Radio music. We were living in Laredo, Texas at the time and we had a friend of ours Juan from Detroit come and visit us. He brought all of this cool and strange new music that mis hermanos and I never heard of before. We were living in a Texas border town where Top 40 and Tejano were king.

One of bands that I instantly fell for was The Talking Heads. Years, later after we moved up to San Antonio, I finally had a chance to see three of the Heads live in concert for the Escape from New York tour in 1989. It was The Ramones, Debbie Harry, Tom Tom Club and Jerry Harrison at the now defunct Aquafest in Austin, Texas. The show cost a whole $7. Can you imagine seeing all of these incredible NYC bands for all under ten bucks?

The highlight besides seeing The Ramones and my teenage crush Blondie live was seeing three of the Talking Heads perform "Life During Wartime." To this day after seeing them play this song it is my all time favorite song. Growing up, the lyrics that I always connected with was "I changed my hairstyle, so many times now, I don't know what I look like!" I would have loved to have seen all four members play together in the hey day but I don't think they ever made their way that far south to Laredo.

A few years after that I finally saw David Byrne in concert. I was living in New Orleans and working at Tower Records. I so wanted to go but Byrne's show at the House of Blues was sold out. I was bummed standing at the front registers when this attractive blonde in a very sultry red dress asks one of our cashiers if she knows anyone who would want a ticket to the David Byrne show. I turned to her and said, "Me, please."

The girl turned out to be a crazy one but the show was incredible. Byrne played his own version of "Life During Wartime" but my favorite on wax has to be from Stop Making Sense. Today at work, the satellite radio played, this song for me. I consider it a birthday gift from the music Gods.

Thank you,