On Mar 11, 2005, at 10:10 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
take at the TH's discogs profile and you'll see that later on they were remixed (and "extented" mixed) by mid 80s NYC club people like Arthur Baker, Eric Thorngren, etc.
there are so many connections between talking heads and 80's NYC art/hip-hop / leftfield disco (and emerging hip-hop) scene, Bambaata, Debbie Harry, Basquiat, Keith Haring, it was all happening at The Roxy where the cultures and styles collided. David Byrne also worked with Arthur Russell, I think he played guitar on a few cuts.... nuff said right there. Tina Weymouth of Tom Tom Club was a pal of Grandmaster Flash in early 80s, among others... back when it was all one crazy mixed-up and mascara smeared night out.
Talking Heads have some really funky tracks that i've thrown into sets before, some of the cuts on Speaking In Tongues -- prob. my favorite LP, from like 1983... this was the tour that was filmed to become Stop making Sense movie... it has EVERYTHING, Burning Down the House, Slippery People, Girlfriend is Better... (David Byrne hand painted the album cover!) Tracks like like Naive Melody and Moon Rocks and Pull Up The Roots can be mixes in with left-field disco and dance music for the adventurous DJ.... Pull Up the Roots has a really wicked kind of synth arpeggiation that recalls of disco. Also if nobody has yet sampled the opening synthesized tom-tom and kickdrum beats yet in Psycho Killer for a cut, get busy... they'd be perfect.
Also their track Slippery People is an all time favorite, later covered in an incredibly funky-yet-electronic-yet-chicago-gospel fashion by the Staple Singers. I need to pull that one out again. The 12-inch extended mix is the best but there's a good short version on the Turning Point LP. I mean, Pop Staples singing David Byrne.. what else can you say. Everytime I've ever played this version out, people come ask me about it.
some of their tracks still sound ahead of their time TODAY. -- MM http://sonicsunset.com
