@f00l@Thumperchick That’s a terrific version of that song! Maybe I’m about ready to go back and listen to a ton of Talking Heads…! I mean, what’s better than Remain in Light?
@f00l@Thumperchick “I don’t think so…” is what I was gonna say, but I would have been wrong! Wikipedia says she joins him on stage after psycho killer, so that totally fits. (Although the doc is based on many different shows, so maybe this is from another film?) anyhoo, due to my Swiss cheese memory, this was pleasant and new, and for that I thank you.
I mean, I totally get what you’re saying re:fear of music, but…you see… I have seen faces in movies, on television, in magazines and in books…
Then perhaps it’s time for More Songs About Buildings And Food.
(I slightly prefer the TH’s earlier, harder, “stripped” version")
(Al Greenwas pretty much moved away from R&B and into straight gospel at this time)
Al Green’s collaborations with the Memphis producer Willie Mitchell and the Hi Records rhythm section resulted in some of the most soul-stirring sounds of the Seventies. Included on Green’s 1974 waxing, Al Green Explores Your Mind, is the gospel-tinged “Take Me to the River”, written with Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, guitarist with the Hi house band. Green’s song squares the singer’s early religious convictions with more earthly interests: “Take my money, my cigarettes/… Take me to the river, drop me in the water.” When Green was ordained as the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in 1976, he dropped the song from his repertoire. “As far as the church was concerned I was still singing rhythm and blues,” he said. “[The Church felt] if you’re serious about what you’re doing, you can’t sing that any more… So for eight years I didn’t sing any of my music.”
“Take Me to the River” remained an album track for Green. Instead it was taken into the R&B charts by Mississippi singer Syl Thompson. In 1978 it was a breakthrough single for Talking Heads, also featuring on their sophomore album, More Songs About Buildings and Food. Lead Head David Byrne recreated the song without sacrificing its intrinsic funk. He disassembles Green’s original note-by-note, the tempo is slowed to a plod and the already loose arrangement massaged until it is indistinguishable from one of the Heads’ own songs.
Green approved and jokingly commented that he hoped to cover one of Talking Heads’ songs someday. “I thought it was magnificent,” he said. We still await Green’s version of the Heads’ “Psychokiller”.
@f00l@Thumperchick I’m gonna have to go from memory here, because gargle and bling search are failing me.
On the album liner for some nostalgic Best of Talking Heads collection, either Jerry or Chris said something like, “I was nervous about joining the band, so on my first day …I didn’t know what to expect. They gave me a digital watch. We may have been the most on-time band ever.”
There are thousands of things about TH that endear them to me, but that’s a story that I roll around in my mind like a grapefruit hard candy.
Edit: which is to say…yes, early talking heads is especially fantastic
I was lucky enough to be living in Manhattan then. I must have seen B52’s-TH joint concerts perhaps 30-40 times. Wherever in the area they played, we went. Those concerts were cheap and smallish and so much fun!
Before they got big. And before the band got big.
And before DB got a bit lost and “accidentally” fired the rest of the band, during an interview, because, rumor has it, DB was annoyed with the interviewer.
The accidental band breakup “stuck”, sadly.
Maybe these sorts of collaborations have a shortish shelf life, and one should not hope for more.
@f00l@Thumperchick on the scale of jealousy, after hearing that story, I place Richter-ly.
I never looked into the details of their breakup, it just seemed sad and acrimonious and selfish on David Byrne’s part. Never realized it was also flippantly done
Who knows what happened? Stuff gets into the press. But we know nothing of the people.
Here are a few articles. The Salon piece reads like an assassination against Tina. I find it hard to believe. But what do I know?
I don’t take any of this as being either accurate or inaccurate. Clearly there is bitterness. But in a tight group of four that disintegrates, sometimes there is no objective “bad guy”.
And clearly, communication just have been terrible between them at the end.
In the Salon article, the writer seemed to completely have it in for Weymouth. Targeted her.
Maybe she is that crazy. Or not.
Most of the “fight by press quote” stuff that went on later is pretty mild compared to what went down between members or former members of other groups.
Some of it … Who knows. The more extreme stuff from the Salon article does not seem to be the “take” along most rock journalists.
Have no idea what happened in the group. And no reason to make judgments about it.
Byrne is clearly a creative master. But that doesn’t mean he created those songs by himself (scuttlebutt/rumor says he didnt);
And doesn’t mean he is easy to work or communicate with. Or that she is easy to communicate or work with. Or that either one is/is-not “normal” or “fair”, whatever that might mean, in this context.
Who knows. I wish them all well and wish for more music from all of them.
@f00l Yep, all three parts of that claim cracked me up. Buy specific music rather than a subscription. Buy every track from an album. Buy more than one album from REM. Claim did not age well.
(It’s not that I hate REM or anything. I’m not sure any 30+ year old music south of the Beatles holds up so well that kids in 2019 1. Buy specific tracks and 2. Buy ten from the same release… even if we limit to the white American, um, canon they were obviously writing about.)
@f00l talking about “Heaven” songs… I dated a girl named Heather in uni. She was über religious (that’s why we broke up, she didn’t want “to fall in love with someone going to hell”).
Anyhow she told me one night that before she was dating me, she had gone to a strip club on an amateur night with a couple of friends to perform. (I guess God’s ok with that).
She told me she used the name “Heaven” on stage because sounded close to her real name… (Sounds blasphemous to me… But what do I know, I’m going to hell according to her because I’m not religious enougg)…
Anyhow a little later she turned on the radio, (she listened to country,) and the first song that came on:
“I’m holding Heaven in my arms tonight”.
I think I laughed for 5 minutes straight. Ever since I can’t hear the word “heaven” without thinking of her and laughing.
The rebellion against “excessive religiosity” (whatever that means in general) is bred into our our American souls and culture, for many of us.
From Huck Finn:
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
"All right, then, I’ll go to hell"- and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
And that is the most signal and characteristic “American” moment in all of American literature.
(Tho HS teachers often don’t put too much weight on pointing that out … no need for sparking local culture wars every year over that book.)
Too bad about your being bound to that destination and all (according to your ex).
/giphy this never happened
@Thumperchick
/giphy heaven is a place where nothing ever happens
/youtube heaven is a place where nothing ever happens
@f00l @Thumperchick That’s a terrific version of that song! Maybe I’m about ready to go back and listen to a ton of Talking Heads…! I mean, what’s better than Remain in Light?
@Thumperchick @UncleVinny
What’s better?
I dunno. Possibly Fear of Music?
BTW - I’m not sure … Is that version of Heaven from the Stop Making Sense tour film?
@f00l @Thumperchick “I don’t think so…” is what I was gonna say, but I would have been wrong! Wikipedia says she joins him on stage after psycho killer, so that totally fits. (Although the doc is based on many different shows, so maybe this is from another film?) anyhoo, due to my Swiss cheese memory, this was pleasant and new, and for that I thank you.
I mean, I totally get what you’re saying re:fear of music, but…you see… I have seen faces in movies, on television, in magazines and in books…
@Thumperchick @UncleVinny
Then perhaps it’s time for More Songs About Buildings And Food.
(I slightly prefer the TH’s earlier, harder, “stripped” version")
(Al Greenwas pretty much moved away from R&B and into straight gospel at this time)
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/double-take-take-me-to-the-river-al-green-talking-heads-132478.html
@f00l @Thumperchick I’m gonna have to go from memory here, because gargle and bling search are failing me.
On the album liner for some nostalgic Best of Talking Heads collection, either Jerry or Chris said something like, “I was nervous about joining the band, so on my first day …I didn’t know what to expect. They gave me a digital watch. We may have been the most on-time band ever.”
There are thousands of things about TH that endear them to me, but that’s a story that I roll around in my mind like a grapefruit hard candy.
Edit: which is to say…yes, early talking heads is especially fantastic
@Thumperchick @UncleVinny
I was lucky enough to be living in Manhattan then. I must have seen B52’s-TH joint concerts perhaps 30-40 times. Wherever in the area they played, we went. Those concerts were cheap and smallish and so much fun!
Before they got big. And before the band got big.
And before DB got a bit lost and “accidentally” fired the rest of the band, during an interview, because, rumor has it, DB was annoyed with the interviewer.
The accidental band breakup “stuck”, sadly.
Maybe these sorts of collaborations have a shortish shelf life, and one should not hope for more.
@f00l @Thumperchick on the scale of jealousy, after hearing that story, I place Richter-ly.
I never looked into the details of their breakup, it just seemed sad and acrimonious and selfish on David Byrne’s part. Never realized it was also flippantly done
Alas!
@Thumperchick @UncleVinny
Who knows what happened? Stuff gets into the press. But we know nothing of the people.
Here are a few articles. The Salon piece reads like an assassination against Tina. I find it hard to believe. But what do I know?
I don’t take any of this as being either accurate or inaccurate. Clearly there is bitterness. But in a tight group of four that disintegrates, sometimes there is no objective “bad guy”.
And clearly, communication just have been terrible between them at the end.
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-1992-09-13-0000112531-story.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-09-10/entertainment/ca-490_1_tom-tom-club
https://www.salon.com/2003/12/03/heads_2/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/04/david-byrne-i-am-able-to-talk-in-a-social-group-now-american-utopia
/youtube life during wartime live
@f00l @Thumperchick @UncleVinny
Possibly a slightly inflated view of REM’s staying power in that Salon piece.
Good read, though; thanks!
@stinks @Thumperchick @UncleVinny
In the Salon article, the writer seemed to completely have it in for Weymouth. Targeted her.
Maybe she is that crazy. Or not.
Most of the “fight by press quote” stuff that went on later is pretty mild compared to what went down between members or former members of other groups.
Some of it … Who knows. The more extreme stuff from the Salon article does not seem to be the “take” along most rock journalists.
Have no idea what happened in the group. And no reason to make judgments about it.
Byrne is clearly a creative master. But that doesn’t mean he created those songs by himself (scuttlebutt/rumor says he didnt);
And doesn’t mean he is easy to work or communicate with. Or that she is easy to communicate or work with. Or that either one is/is-not “normal” or “fair”, whatever that might mean, in this context.
Who knows. I wish them all well and wish for more music from all of them.
And … Those early TH years were just great.
@stinks @Thumperchick @UncleVinny
Kids buy records? Still?
Did not know.
@f00l Yep, all three parts of that claim cracked me up. Buy specific music rather than a subscription. Buy every track from an album. Buy more than one album from REM. Claim did not age well.
(It’s not that I hate REM or anything. I’m not sure any 30+ year old music south of the Beatles holds up so well that kids in 2019 1. Buy specific tracks and 2. Buy ten from the same release… even if we limit to the white American, um, canon they were obviously writing about.)
@f00l talking about “Heaven” songs… I dated a girl named Heather in uni. She was über religious (that’s why we broke up, she didn’t want “to fall in love with someone going to hell”).
Anyhow she told me one night that before she was dating me, she had gone to a strip club on an amateur night with a couple of friends to perform. (I guess God’s ok with that).
She told me she used the name “Heaven” on stage because sounded close to her real name… (Sounds blasphemous to me… But what do I know, I’m going to hell according to her because I’m not religious enougg)…
Anyhow a little later she turned on the radio, (she listened to country,) and the first song that came on:
“I’m holding Heaven in my arms tonight”.
I think I laughed for 5 minutes straight. Ever since I can’t hear the word “heaven” without thinking of her and laughing.
@OnionSoup
The rebellion against “excessive religiosity” (whatever that means in general) is bred into our our American souls and culture, for many of us.
From Huck Finn:
And that is the most signal and characteristic “American” moment in all of American literature.
(Tho HS teachers often don’t put too much weight on pointing that out … no need for sparking local culture wars every year over that book.)
Too bad about your being bound to that destination and all (according to your ex).
You’ll prob have lots of company tho.
Don’t go to morningsave.com if typos bother you!
@mikibell I make just as many typos here.
@Ignorant me toooo… But the descriptions are terrible with typos!
@Ignorant @mikibell New forum feature - Typing terrible with Morningsave!
@mikibell Maybe I’ll go to morninsaiv.com instead