My awakening to David Byrne and Talking Heads’ brilliance happened far later in my adulthood than I’d like to admit.  I guess I’ve always passingly enjoyed the Talking Heads, but had never really sat down to dig into their discography.

It was an interview I heard on a local college radio station with the legendary King Crimson singer/guitarist Adrian Belew where he was discussing the last album that he and Brian Eno had worked on with the Talking Heads, Remain in Light, which got me intrigued. At this point, I had no idea that Adrian Belew had ever worked with Eno and Byrne. So, I had to check it out.  There’s plenty to be written about the album. So, I’ll save it for a future post, but it’s definitely one of my favorite albums from the 80s.

I chose to bring up this album for a couple of reasons.  Along with my long, near-obliviousness to the genius of this band, I had inherited a copy of this album on vinyl many years ago.  I might have put it under a needle once or twice but didn’t really pay much attention to it.  I had been given a stack of albums that varied in style and taste quite sporadically.  There were some cool albums, but plenty of crap too (never been a Roger Williams fan.) It wasn’t until the most recent vinyl craze had me digging into my long-growing collection for gems I’d just forgotten about. I then came across this live album, and it is gooood.  I’m also mentioning it now because there is an upcoming expanded, complete concert, 40th anniversary edition being released August 2023 along with a theatrical re-release of the film by A24. Oh yeah, this is a live soundtrack!

The album is dominated mostly by tracks from their 1983 album Speaking In Tongues. This of course makes sense because the film was from the concert series supporting that album. But it does give you a snapshot of the performance that the group was capable of. A real highlight comes right at the top with David Byrne walking out onto the stage with a boombox playing an uptempo backing track to “Psycho Killer” as he plays acoustic guitar and sings along.  It’s naked and raw and just fun. It’s got to be my favorite version of that track. Throw in “Once In A Lifetime” and “Take Me To The River” and you’ve got a solid primer to classic Talking Heads.