2007年 03月 2日 金曜日 07:08

(Links to downloads are provided in this entry. No outside link for once!)

Oh, Talking Heads. I've been re-watching clips of Stop Making Sense, their 1984 concert movie and I fall crazy in love with it every time I watch.

David Byrne (lead singer, lyricist) choreographed it, but it's not perfectly and expertly done, exact and precise step-by-step, like a Britney Spears or Kylie concert, it's so much more basic and natural than that - the movements are like something a child would un-selfconsciously make up, or how you might dance around crazily and manically in private. It's simply movements and music. (That said, Tina Weymouth's (bassist) movements are hilariously rubbish, and the pantsuit doesn't help at all.)

There's a wonderful, tremendous energy onstage and everyone seems to be having an incredible time, especially the backing singers - they're absolutely fantastic! Watching and listening for the first time, you might not catch what the fuck Byrne's saying - he's all juddering-jerking-snapping syllables - but the way the music and lyrics blend together, it's just a huge feeling.

fave bits of fave clips/songs
- absolutely ANYTHING involving the backing singers.
- "slp" the whole thing, I think this song's highly unappreciated.
- "slp" Tina Weymouth's uninspired grooves from 1:04-1.10.
- "slp" David Byrne and the backing singers at 2:20+.
- "slp" Pete Frantz’s drum bit near the end (3:35), pity the video cuts out.
- "bdth" the intro to gets me excited every. damn. time.
- "bdth" Jerry Harrison and the backing singers at 1:37 and 3:17.
- "bdth" David Byrne and the bassist at 3:35.
- "oial" all of it, really. but to quote someone on youtube "The shot at 4:25 showing David Byrne in the foreground, the backing singers bent backwards and Jerry Harrison & Bernie Worrell in the back doing their thing is one of the BEST. SHOTS. EVER."

Talking Heads // Slippery People
god help us! help us lose our minds! these slippery people, help us understand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTnjsNTTz2Q

Talking Heads // Burning Down The House
watch out! you might get what you're after.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozc70JPGRMQ

Talking Heads // Once In A Lifetime
and you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and you may ask yourself, well, how did i get here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUgKb-5u6v4

"I had demons and felt socially inept," he says. "In retrospect, I can see I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!" [iludavidbryne]

» I Zimbra by Talking Heads
bim blassa galassasa zimbrabim / blassa gallassasa zimbrabim.
Dadaist phonetic poetry, "sung" against a backdrop of African-inspired rhythms. And their performance on Letterman (1983) ain't too shabby either. David Byrne has got some sweet moves, yo. Actually, I can't post the performance without the interview, which is horribly uncomfortable and hilarious to watch - you can't tell whether or where Byrne's acting-nervy or actually-nervy, serious or taking the mick. Fascinating.

» Dream Operator by Talking Heads
when you were little, you dreamed you were big. you must have been something, a real tiny kid.
For a couple of years, sometime before I turned ten, I used to pop my dad's tape of "Little Creatures" into my crappy ten quid radio-cassette player before I went to bed so that I could fall asleep to this song (or alternatively, the last track "City Of Dreams"). Then when I was around ten or eleven and got a REAL PROPER CD player and my dad had slowly begun buying REAL PROPER CDs, I would set the "off" time function to five minutes, wait the twenty-two seconds and click set the song going. To me, the intro to this, especially the guitar, is one of the most perfect things in the world. Do you know who you are? I've been listening to this a lot lately.