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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Talking Heads

  • David Byrne Rocks Brooklyn

    byrne

    Last night’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival opened with the groovy and unrelenting music of New Wave icon David Byrne. Byrne played a nearly-2 hour set of his material borne out of collaborations with Brian Eno, drawing from three Talking Heads albums and the albums My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and last year’s Everything that Happens will Happen Today. Byrne was on-form and his band drove the set with powerful, in-the-pocket grooves that brought the audience back to those halcyon days when the Talking Heads were a critically-acclaimed and popular band (even if some of the audience members, this one included, did not live those days). Fans dug versions of “Once in a Lifetime” and “Life During Wartime”, which were true to the original and featured, like many of the other songs, whacky antics from Byrne and his supporting cast, a mix of musicians and dances all clad in white.
    This stop in Brooklyn was part of a larger “Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno” tour that has been going on since the fall of 2008 and will continue across the US and overseas to Europe for the summer. Celebrate Brooklyn is in it’s thirtieth year and is more popular than ever – this concert featured the largest crowd in the festival’s history. Celebrate Brooklyn is rocking an awesome line up – artists diverse as John Scofield, Big Daddy Kane, Femi Kuti, Dr. Dog, MGMT and Animal Collective (the last two are benefit concerts and, therefore, not free) will grace the Prospect Park Bandshell – and ya’ll should definitely get down there to enjoy the festivities. The only piece of advice that I can share is that it is essential to get there early. Once the crowd reaches overcapacity, the gates are shut and people left out have to watch from afar, which is still neat, but not quite the same.

  • Infatueighties #50: Genius of Love

    tomtomYou’re the bassist and the drummer of an influential new wave band? Whatcha gonna do when you’re on an extended vacation and you still have the urge to make music?

    They’re gonna have some fun.

    Not to say Talking Heads music wasn’t fun before, but prior to Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth breaking off temporarily to form Tom Tom Club, it was kind of stiff. “Genius of Love” is what a Heads record would sound like after a couple of spliffs. Loosey-goosey and effortless, the song’s rubbery groove is irresistible. Shouting out Hamilton Bohannon, Smokey Robinson and James Brown while giving props to the then-growing hip-hop sound (as well as a nod to reggae), it appealed to those graffiti drawing kids as well as the downtown arty types in similar fashion to Blondie’s “Rapture” (which you’ll find a few places back on this list).

    There’s a small percentage of folks who probably now know this from Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy”, which samples it heavily, but like most sampled cuts, ain’t nothin’ like the original.

    The video is awesome as well.

  • MisenPOPic: The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Is A Fuckin’ Joke!

    Every year around this time, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame nominating committee submits their list of finalists of which five artists will be selected for future induction.  I always get excited each time but then always forget that the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is a fuckin’ joke.  Instead of inducting bands that have truly made an impact on popular music, what seems to happen is that Jann Wenner and his cronies go with the bands on their personal favorites list.  If they don’t like the artist,  accomplishments like album sales and influences on other artists still won’t matter.  Jann Wenner is such an egotistical bastard that he even inducted himself into the Hall Of Fame.  I won’t discredit his contributions as founder and editor of Rolling Stone, but shouldn’t he be inducted when he’s bit older, or maybe when he’s dead?  I understand that listening to music is very subjective, and we all love to argue about who’s deserving to be in the hall of fame as much as we do about best songs of a decade, or greatest guitarist, etc.  But of any shrine to an art form or sport, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame has totally missed the boat.  I respect the following artists, but of any bands in the Hall Of Fame, they are the best examples of musicians whose overall impact is questionable: Traffic, Frank Zappa, Buffalo Springfield, Sex Pistols, and The Talking Heads.   Traffic introduced the world to Steve Winwood, but have they really ever produced a meaningful song?  Frank Zappa might have been innovative, but for a guy whose best known song is Valley Girl, does he really deserve to be in the hall?  Buffalo Springfield only had one album with Stephen Stills and Neil Young and have only one relevant song (For What It’s Worth)!  The Sex Pistols are also known for one album, and it’s a fact that Sid Vicious wasn’t even good enough to play bass, so he performed without his guitar even plugged in.  I personally like the Talking Heads, but they are more known for their unique videos on MTV than their actual music. Only the creme de la creme should be in the Hall Of Fame: those that no sane person could argue such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Michael Jackson.

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