Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Hold On To That Paper


Talking Heads : Paper



By the spring of 1979 Talking Heads were ready to record their third album. They had survived an appearance on American Bandstand in March, where David Byrne sang "Take Me To The River" while the rest of the band pantomimed playing their instruments. 



After the song was over, Dick Clark headed over to interview the band. David Byrne froze up a bit. His interview reminds me of my mildly autistic son trying to answer an adult. Tina Weymouth explains "David is organically shy".


On April 22, 1979 a Record Plant truck parked outside Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's loft ( See video below at 14:50) . Audio cables were run through the windows. This is where the band always rehearsed so why not try to record here?



Byrne has some songs all ready. One was about paper. Another one was about New York (30:15 on the video below) . A third was about air. (23:14 on the video below . Both of Tina's sisters would perform backing vocals as "The Sweetbreaths"). This time, the band really wanted producer Brian Eno to go all out and help make what would become Fear of Music the weirdest and funkiest album ever recorded.

No comments:

Post a Comment