In December of 1980 The Minutemen released Paranoid Time, their six and a half minute seven-song debut EP on Black Flag's SST Records. Based in San Pedro, CA The Minutemen describe themselves as "a collection of three bozos. One's fat and screams and bangs guitar (d. boon) . Another is skinny and tall ( he thumps bass and yells too) (Mike Watt) . The drummer is kind of buffed out. ( George Hurley) ".
Watt says listening to Wire and Pop Group transformed the band from a sex Pistols/Clash/Jam cover band into what you're hearing here: short songs, no guitar solos, some funk and jazz influences, and the smartest lyrics in punk.
On "Paranoid Chant", Boon shouts
I try to talk to girls and I keep thinking of World War III!/
The goddamn six o'clock news makes sure I keep thinking of World War III!'
In early December of 1980 The Specials released a remixed version of the More Specials track "Do Nothing" ( with "The Ice Rink String Sounds") b/w a calypso-styled cover of Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm". The latter may be unlistenable, but that didn't matter. It became the band's sixth straight Top 10 hit, peaking at UK#4.
On December 1 and 2, 1980 U2 opened for the expanded 9-musician line up of Talking Heads at London's Hammersmith Palais. Joining the four Heads on their tour to promote Remain In Light were guitarist Adrian Belew, Parliament/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, percussionist Steve Scales, bassist Busta Jones and backing vocalist Dollette McDonald. All were musicians Jerry Harrison had met, bouncing around studios in Philadelphia and New York while David Byrne was getting deeply into African music while working on My Life In The Bush of Ghosts with Brian Eno.
"In the moments when this group really works, the underlying sensibility is very different from what it was before, a real radical shift," Byrne told NME. "This music, when it really comes together right, has a transcendent feeling, like a trance of some sort.
"That's exactly what happens in traditional African music and other Third World music. It's something that isn't sought after in most pop music. We're aiming at something different, although some of the elements may be the same. When it works you get the feeling: forget yourself and become part of the community. It's wonderful and it doesn't happen every night.
In two weeks The Talking Heads took their Funk Orchestra to Rome where they performed in front of television cameras at Palazzo dello Sport. This is the band working at genius level. You can hear this line up on the 1982 live album The Name of This Band is Talking Heads.
As good as it sounds, there is already a rift among the original members after songwriting credits on the collaborative Remain In Light went only to Byrne and Eno. There would be no new Talkings Heads studio album until 1983, just solo records from Harrison, Byrne and, outselling them all, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's Tom Tom Club.
On November 28, 1980 The Clash released the UK#40 anti-draft single "The Call Up", which preceded their new album Sandinista! I was seventeen when the draft was reinstated in the United States and Ronald Reagan had El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua in his gunsights. Central America would be our next Vietnam. The Clash, from overseas, told us "It's up to you not to heed the call-up".
Thanks to the music video the Clash introduced a new fashion trend: guerrilla chic.
