Hey all - one of my bands is going to be the Talking Heads for Halloween as our musical "costume", but I am pretty ignorant when it comes to this band.

I have all 8 studio albums on my table that I am ripping right now:
Naked
True Stories
Little Creatures
Speaking in Tongues
Remain in Light
Fear of Music
More Songs about Buildings and Food
77

. . . but I really am woefully ignorant when it comes to this band. Any advice about where to start (songs and albums)? Putting together the setlist later this week with my bandmates (who obviously know this band a hell of a lot better than I do).

Thanks!

Colin

77, Remain in Light, More Songs and Fear of Music are pretty unfuckwithable. Whenever I go to listen to the Heads I always find myself opening up 77. I'd say the beginning is the best place to start, it's fun to hear them go straight from rock to "world" in four albums.

I'm not sure what kind of band you guys are, but if you're a strict rock outfit, then the earlier stuff is going to be a lot easier for you to cover. The Remain in Light and Fear of Music stuff involves much more complicated arrangements than the first two albums. I'm not sure how three or four guys could really pull off Born Under Punches, but stuff like Stay Hungry would make for great cover material. Speaking in Tongues has a few recognizable hits, but from there on the good material gets a lot scarcer. I don't think you really need to focus on Little Creatures and the like.

Whatever you do, record it and put it up.

I've got the live disc of Phish covering 'Remain in Light' if that helps.

You gotta do "The Good Thing"!
Awesomest Tina bass line.

if you have a steel drum...you're golden...or steel, whichever.

Yum. I'd give a listen to that again.

This is exactly what I thought of when this thread popped up.

Colin, I feel sorry for your ignorance.

Concentrate on these records:
Speaking in Tongues
Remain in Light
Fear of Music
More Songs about Buildings and Food
77

Yeah, just go chronologically through the first 5. You can stop with Remain in Light if you want, but Speaking in Tongues has some good songs on it despite somewhat annoying production.

I'll add The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads ...really great live stuff.

77 is my current long running favorite.

promise me that you'll do the david byrne move where it looks like he's doing charades syllables up and down his arm. promise.

I listened to:

Remain in Light
More Songs about Buildings and Food
77

today . . .

So much to learn - this'll be a fun gig, and not just because of the cross-dressing.

Yeah, I'm having a hard time picturing you as Weymouth.
Actually, I don't WANT to picture you as Weymouth.

Do they make Drano for the brain?

And give Naked a second chance - the first half of that album is pretty great. The second half . . . well, go back and listen to the first half again. The second side's not awful - I find it way more listenable than SiT and Little Creatures on the whole, actually - but the first side has some solid stuff happening.

I still haven't heard Naked. I've been meaning to pick that up one day as I've usually heard pretty good things about it.

Alrighty then.

Naked is the best-ever "worst" album in an artist's canon, if that makes any sense. And I mean that in a good way.

Consensus is it's the worst Talking Heads album, but it's better than every other band's worst album.

I thought consensus was that True Stories was their worst, followed by Little Creatures.

Anyway, I get what you mean. Even Little Creatures is a decent enough album, and Talking Heads at their worst is still way better than most.

huh?
you're going as the talking heads not the supremes.

I'm assuming that he'll be dressing as Tina Weymouth, the bass player.

hey people.

should i get the talking heads box set that has all their studio albums, the one that looks like a box, or the one that is like a collection, it looks like a long rectangle. any help would be appreciated.

bort

like i said:



somebody photoshop a handlebar mustache on this for me.

to be fair to tina: