I have officially hijacked the Swords to fill it up with pop music, new and old, and I have no shame in this action (my facebook post of The King of Wishful Thinking notwithstanding; it IS catchy, and damned hilarious).
To continue on, i must mention this favorite of mine for the last few years. I will get straight to the point: This Must Be The Place, off of their live album Stop Making Sense, is Talking Heads at their very very super-berry best. I have been listening to it a lot recently; it instantly puts me in a good mood. I first critically noticed how very repetitive the rhythm section is in the track.. The bass, guitar and percussion play precisely the same progression through the duration of the song, which in certain instances can mean a very redundant sound, but David Byrnes varying vocal melodies (with the great harmonies provided by his backup singers) lend the track many unique sections, with such nice lyrics behind them:
"Home is where i want to be/ But i guess im already there I come home/ she lifted up her wings/ i guess that this must be the place"
Ok, im going to go into a bit of a history lesson on Talking Heads (as i warned i might), because its great and quite amazing that they put together a concert and showcased these two songs, Genius of Love by the Tom Tom Club, and Girlfriend is Better by Talking Heads, back to back.
Talking Heads are one of the only 80s bands i know very well. They cruised into the scene at the end of disco and provided a strange kind of dance pop that fit the mainstream criteria, and garnered this strangely great success, and in doing so time and funding, to let them grow in really incredible ways. They were the most unique and adventurous band of the late 70s, and by 1984 they were selling out auditoriums with their, by that point, gigantic live electronic dance sound. Stop Making Sense was a retrospective concert they recorded with Jonathan Demme at the camera, and the actual show was a performance unto itself. They begin with an empty stage in shambles, and david byrne approaches with a boom box and an acoustic guitar, says "i got a tape i want to play you", and busts into THE best version of their very first single, Psycho Killer.
As the show progressed, the 3 other main band members are introduced in each of the next three songs, and it moves forward to include the rest of the then 9 piece band. They take a quick intermission after the first song with the entire band, and come back with Making Flippy Floppy. Love when those lights go on the band for the first time. So nice to see them all there.
Heres where the inner band history begins: at the time of the concert, bassist tina weymouth and drummer chris franz were in a relationship, and had formed The Tom Tom Club outside of talking heads; struck gold with their status and the awesomeness that is Genius of Love:
It is bubblegum awesomeness about being in love with your boyfriend. Nice song for a couple to write together; but before all of this Tom Tom Club action, david byrne and tina had also been involved romantically; im not sure to the extent of their relationship, but she went with chris franz over byrne. The fact that it was performed at this concert- as The Tom Tom Club WITHOUT david byrne- is a heartbreaking marvel to me. Having the strength to make music with these people after something like that happens within the group shows how deep the roots of their relationship as a band went. It still seems like a knife in the back to me; but oh snap, thats not all.
Immediately after Genius of Love ends in the concert, the full band comes out, and david byrne enters the stage in the iconic Big Suit:
It is a track off Speaking in Tongues, the album they were then touring to promote when Stop Making Sense was filmed, and it completely is david byrnes personal, incredibly musical, "fuck you" to the two of tina and chris.
"I've got a girlfriend thats better than that/ She has the smoke in her eyes/ Shes moving up, going right through my heart/ Shes gonna give me surprise"
Not to mention the choreography of all the big suit dancing. Just a great moment in an epic concert with the best quality audio recording of its time.
Im not sure the exact date of the adventure that lead to this music moment, but at some point in the past, Metaghost and I packed our shit up and took the 6 hour drive to Ithaca college where we were to jam out with our good friend Stewie. Acerola was a friend of stewies, and we had met before on a few prior visits to the school. Stewies jam space was a garage next to a huge house where a bunch of film students lived, and one night we just jammed our hearts out, from about 6pm until at least 11. Endless jamming, practicing, recording our improvisations. Such fun stuff, but by the end of this marathon we were pooped and decided to take a break and check out what was going on in the house. We walked into the living room, where a party of about 11 people were gathered around a TV watching some music i had never heard before. Right as we walked in the room, this nice song started. It was a strange moment; everyone in the room knew what was starting, and were so excited that they all started dancing in their seats, or getting up to dance. I just walked a bit closer to the screen and for the first time heard The Talking Heads perform This Must Be the Place, from Stop Making Sense, their ultimate tour album/ video directed by brian de palma at the height of their game.
I had known nothing of Talking Heads, or this concert in particular, until this moment. Looking back at how i approached their discography, it was a great point to start at; I got Stop Making Sense, loved it immensely and then went right back to their debut album, buying another album of theirs chronologically until i wound back up at Stop Making Sense. I could go into great detail about what this concert meant for the band, and how wonderfully their band had grown- creatively and physically- as they gained momentum. Maybe, in another post.
