New to the UK charts : February 4, 1981

 

Stray Cats : Rock This Town

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In the first week of February 1981, three remarkable singles entered the UK singles chart that, at the time, was topped by John Lennon's "Woman". Coming in at #35 is "Rock This Town" by the American rockabilly band Stray Cats. The single would peak at UK#9 within three weeks. The Cats would open three dates for the Rolling Stones on their 1981 North American tour. 

Eventually "Rock This Town" would hit the Billboard Hot 100 where it peaked at US #9 in September of 1982.

The Jam : That's Entertainment

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Released as a single in Germany, so many British fans bought The Jam's "That's Entertainment" b/w a live version of "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" as an import that it entered the chart at UK#47. It would peak at UK#21 by the end of the month and remains one of the bands most famous songs.

In an interview with Absolute Radio Paul Weller said: "I wrote it in 10 mins flat, whilst under the influence, I'd had a few but some songs just write themselves. It was easy to write, I drew on everything around me."

Talking Heads : Once In a Lifetime

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Entering the chart at UK#63, "Once In A Lifetime" would eventually peak at #14. Only the UK#6 "Road to Nowhere" is a bigger  hit for Talking Heads on that side of the pond. The song emerged from studio jams by the band influenced by funk and Fela Kuti. 

David Byrne's lyrics make more and more sense as we listeners age: 

You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile 

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife 

And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?"

Byrne gave his take on this song to NPR: 

“We’re largely unconscious. You know, we operate half awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else. We haven’t really stopped to ask ourselves, ‘How did I get here?’”

My Top 40 Albums of 1980

Talking Heads : Once in a Lifetime

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There will never be another year for albums like 1980. So many incredible artists recorded the best albums of their careers. It has been a nice break from the reality of 2020 to musically inhabit that year. Next year I plan to post a bit less, while diving into 1971 for my Fifty Year Itch Instagram account.

1. Talking Heads Remain In Light 

2. The Jam Sound Affects 

3. Joy Division Closer 

4. Prince Dirty Mind 

5. Squeeze Argybargy 

6. Echo and the Bunnymen Crocodiles 

7. Elvis Costello & the Attractions Get Happy!! 

8. Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel (Melt) 

9. Pretenders Pretenders 

10. Bruce Springsteen The River 

11. U2 Boy 

12. Dexys Midnight Runners Searching For The Young Soul Rebels 

13. Bob Marley & The Wailers Uprising 

14,  Ultravox Vienna 

15. Magazine The Correct Use Of Soap 

16. NRBQ Tiddlywinks

17. Xtc Black Sea 

18. The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms 

19. The Teardrop Explodes Kilimanjaro 

20. The Sound Jeopardy 

21.  Siouxsie and The Banshees Kaleidoscope 

22.  Pete Townshend- Empty Glass 

23. The Cure 17 Seconds 

24. Young Marble Giants Colossal Youth 

25. X Los Angeles 

26. The Psychedelic Furs 

27. The Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight 

28. John Lennon/Yoko Ono  Double Fantasy 

29. John Foxx Metamatic 

30.  The Undertones Hypnotised

31.  AC DC Back in Black 

32. The Clash Sandinista 

33. Roxy Music Flesh + Blood 

34. The Comsat Angels Waiting for a Miracle 

35. Defunkt 

36. Professor Longhair Crawfish Fiesta 

37. Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band Doc At The Radar Station 

38. David Bowie Scary Monsters And Super Creeps 

39. Pylon Gyrate 

40. Japan Gentlemen Take Polaroids

Melody Maker and Sounds Agree Remain In Light is the Best Album of 1980

Talking Heads : Crosseyed And Painless

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Melody Maker joined Sounds in proclaiming Talking Heads' Remain In Light the best album of 1980. Melody Maker listed the runners-up in no particular order. The Sounds list is longer and includes a list of singles. Anyway you look at it, 1980 was a remarkable year for music. 

Melody Maker End Of Year Critic Lists - 1980 Albums

 

1. Remain In Light - Talking Heads  

Get Happy - Elvis Costello  

Pretenders - The Pretenders 

Vienna - Ultravox 

Searching For The Young Soul Rebels - Dexy's Midnight Runners 

Crocodiles - Echo & The Bunnymen  

Closer - Joy Division  

Scary Monsters - David Bowie  

Boy - U2  

Empires & Dance - Simple Minds 

Kings Of The Wild Frontier - Adam And The Ants  

Sandinista - The Clash  

Absolutely - Madness

 

Sounds End Of Year Lists 1980 ALBUMS 

1. Remain In Light - Talking Heads 

2. The Absolute Game - The Skids 

3. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel 

4. The River - Bruce Springsteen 

5. Closer - Joy Division =. 

The Pretenders - The Pretenders 

7. Black Sea - XTC 

8. The Correct Use Of Soap - Magazine 

9. Crocodiles - Echo And The Bunnymen 

10. Sound Affects - The Jam 

11. Boy - U2 

12. Wild Planet - B-52s 

13. I Just Can't Stop It - The Beat 

14. Freedom Of Choice - Devo 

15. Laughter - Ian dury 

16. Scary Monsters And Super Creeps - David Bowie 

17. Wheels Of Steel - Saxon ==. 

Heartattack And Vine - Tom Waits 

19. Empires And Dance - Simple Minds 

20. Get Happy - Elvis Costello ==. 

Absolutely - Madness 

 SINGLES 

1. C30 C60 C90 Go! - Bow Wow Wow 

2. Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division 

3. Going Underground - The Jam 

4. Biko - Peter Gabriel 

5. Talk Of The Town - The Pretenders 

6. Can't Stand up For Falling Down - Elvis Costello 

7. Holiday In Cambodia - Dead Kennedys 

8. King/Food For Thought - UB40 

9. You Better Scream - Wah! Heat 

10. Staring At The Rude Boys - The Ruts 

11. To Cut A Long Story Short - Spandau Ballet 

12. Two Pints Of Lager - Splodgenessabounds 

13. 747 (strangers In The Night) - Saxon 

14. Circus Games - The Skids 

15. West One (Shine On Me) - The Ruts 

16. My Number - Girl 

17. Seven Minutes To Midnight - Wah! Heat 

18. A Forest - The Cure 

19. Commercial Single - The Residents 

20. Lights - Styx 

21. Heyday - The Sound 

22. Games Without Frontiers - Peter Gabriel 

23. Give Me Back My Man - B52s 

24. Mirror In The bathroom - The Beat 

25. Dark Companion - Tuxedo Moon 

26. Girls Talk - Dave Edmunds 

27. Simply Thrilled Honey - Orange Juice 

28. Totally Wired - The Fall 

29. Dog Eat Dog - Adam And The Ants 

30. I'm Coming Out - Diana Ross

Talking Heads bring their Funk Orchestra to Europe

Talking Heads : Born Under Punches

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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.

Talking Heads release Remain In Light, the album of the year

Talking Heads : Born Under Punches

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On October 8 1980,  Talking Heads released Remain In Light, arguably the best album of the year.  

The songs began with single chord jams inspired by African polyrhythms and recorded at Compass Point Studios in The Bahamas where drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth rented a house. David Byrne, who had alfeady recorded most of My Life In The Bush With Ghosts with Brian Eno,  would tell the the Daily News that this record “wasn’t intended to be a Talking Heads LP at all, but after we put some tracks down, some of the sounds started taking shape and became songs. I was very unsure of it, but toward the end of the rehearsals I was really pleased with the progress, and I thought to myself, anybody who doesn’t like this is nuts.” 

This is how the German experimental band Can recorded songs, which is why all of the musicians are credited on every song.

 

For the longest time, the songs had no lyrics or even titles. Byrne struggled with words, eventually finding some of his best remembered lyrics in books ( the world moves on a woman's hips) in newspaper headlines ( the heat goes on) or inspired by the up and coming sounds of rap music ( Facts are simple, facts are straight). Adrian Belew came in to record on a song that would become "The Great Curve" not knowing where Byrne would be singing. It would be up to Byrne to sing around the solo.

Talking Heads and producer Brian Eno originally agreed to credit all songs in alphabetical order to "David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth" after failing to devise an accurate formula for the split, but the album was released with the label credit: "all songs written by David Byrne & Brian Eno (except "Houses In Motion" and 'The Overload", written by David Byrne, Brian Eno & Jerry Harrison)".

"We had been told another untruth by David Byrne and so had our listeners,” Frantz wrote in his 2020 memoir Remain In Love. “This was especially hurtful because without our persistence, love and musicianship, Remain in Light would never have been made.”

Shaun Cassidy and Todd Rundgren team up for 1980's most unusual album

Shaun Cassidy : Rebel Rebel

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On September 1, 1980 Shaun Cassidy released Wasp, one of the most unusual albums of 1980, because it was produced by Todd Rundgren whose band Utopia performed on the songs. Six of the tracks are covers including the single, David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel". 

Cassidy told Trouser Press Rundgren selected most of the songs.

I'd been listening to rock n roll ever since I can remember; "Da Do Ron Ron" (his US#1 hit) was the first single I ever bought...I had enjoyed the album Todd did for Grand Funk, but I really wasn't familiar with what he had been doing with Utopia. Todd gave me a list of records to familiarize myself with --some of them great, some of them terrible, but all material he thought I should know.

I enjoy Elvis Costello more than I used to. The B-52's are real dumb...I like that

Overall my attitude toward music has changed. I used to haver to like the songs or the way the performer would sing. Now, I'm more interested in commitment. I like Tom Petty's work a lot. Bruce Springsteen, too, though he seems to be in a bit of a rut.

David Cassidy's younger brother's own career was in a bit of a rut . His previous album failed to chart. So Shaun followed Rundgren's suggestions, recording covers of The Who's "So Sad About Us" The Four Tops' "Shake Me Wake Me (When It's Over)", The Animals' "It's My Life", and Talking Heads' "The Book I Read". The latter is especially egregious.

Rundgren also offered up some of his own originals including the title track. Hard to imagine what a young fan might have thought of this album. Wasp failed to chart , bringing he 21 year old singer's musical career pretty much to an end.

The New Wave Woodstock

On August 23, 1980 Heatwave, a day-long New Wave music festival held near Toronto on August 23rd drew more than 60,000 people who saw Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Talking Heads, the Pretenders, the B-52's and Rockpile. Promoters need 90,000 to break even and failed.  They blamed the lower-than-expected turnout on four factors: a limited advertising budget that didn't penetrate U.S. markets deeply enough and didn't include a sufficient budget for print ads; the lack of a big-name crossover artist like Tom Petty or the Cars, which would have attracted a broader audience; the riot that broke out a few days before the festival when Alice Cooper failed to appear at a concert at the nearby Canadian National Exhibition; and lack of support from record companies which were were reluctant to help with advertising costs and even wanted to charge the festival for photos and biographical material. It didn't help that The Clash dropped out. Overall promoters lost a million dollars.

But even if Heatwave wasn't a smashing commercial success, it was an artistic triumph. Particularly noteworthy were performances by Talking Heads and Elvis Costello (his only North American appearance so far this year). The Heads appeared with an expanded — and funk-infused — lineup of nine musicians, including keyboardist Bernie Worrell from Parliament-Funkadelic and guitarist Adrian Belew, who's played with David Bowie. Costello appeared friendlier than usual as he chatted and joked with the crowd ("Hi, we're the Clash" were his opening words), which brought him back for three encores.

"I Zimbra" anticipates a new direction for Talking Heads

Talking Heads : I Zimbra

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In February of 1980, Talking Heads released "I Zimbra", the band's second single from Fear of Music and the song that most suggested the band's next stop, a full submersion into the sounds of African pop. "We ... knew that our next album would be a further exploration of what we had begun with 'I Zimbra', Jerry Harrison told Liquid Audio. That album would be Remain In Light, one of the decade's best.

David Byrne and Brian Eno share songwriting credits with German Dada poet Hugo Ball ( pictured above), who died in 1927. The lyrics contain the lines: 

 Gadji beri bimba clandridi 

Lauli lonni cadori gadjam 

A bim beri glassala glandride 

E glassala tuffm I zimbra 

adapted from Ball's poem "Gadji beri bimba".  

Though they may sound Africa, the words have no meaning. 

Robert Fripp played guitar on the recording., which was augmented with congas, surdo, talking drums and djembe ( pictured below). When Talking Heads performed the song in concert they hired another virtuoso guitarist to play lead guitar, Adrien Belew. Belew and Fripp would team up in King Crimson in 1981.

While the album version barely eclipsed the 3:00 mark, there is an extended version that runs 6:37.

Best of 1979

1979 was a remarkable year for albums and singles. I don 't think we've witnessed a year like that since. In the same year we got The Clash's London Calling, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Gang of Four's Entertainment!, Talking Heads's Fear of Music, Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and Armed Forces by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Over the course of the year my admiration for some albums increased, especially Unknown Pleasures, Wire's 154, Pil's Metal Box, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk and The Beat's debut which I wasn't familiar with at the start of the year. Other great discoveries included Tangerine Dream's Force Majeure and Gary Numan's Pleasure Principle, Joe Egan's Out of Nowhere, and the Toms album. 

Fave Albums 1979

The Clash London Calling
Gang of Four Entertainment!
Talking Heads Fear of Music
Joy Division Unknown Pleasures
Elvis Costello Armed Forces

Wire 154
PiL Metal Box
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Damn the Torpedoes
Graham Parker Squeezing Out Sparks
Fleetwood Mac Tusk

XTC Drums and Wires
The Beat
Joe Jackson Look Sharp
The Specials
Sparks No 1 Song in Heaven

Tangerine Dream Force Majeure
Robert Fripp Exposure
The Cars Candy O
Gary Numan Pleasure Principle
The B 52's

Fave Singles

Joy Division Transmission
The Clash London Calling
Wire Outdoor Miner
The Cure Boys Don't Cry
Buzzcocks Everybody's Happy Nowadays/Why Can't I Touch It

XTC Making Plans for Nigel
The Specials Gangsters
Talking Heads Life During Wartime
The Pop Group She is Beyond Good and Evil
The Ruts Babylon's Burning

Undertones Teenage Kicks
Blondie Heart of Glass
Nick Lowe Cruel to be Kind
Prince I Wanna Be Your Lover
Squeeze Up the Junction

Gary Numan Cars
Michael Jackson Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
Chic Good Times
Sugarhill Gang Rappers Delight
Sparks The Number One Song in Heaven

    On Social Media

Promoting this page on Twitter has been fun this year with retweets, likes and responses from Graham Parker, Eric Idle, The Mekons, Gang of Four, Bebe Buell, Mark Stewart of The Pop Group and these two, from Cher and Feargal Sharkey.

Fear of Music tops NME Critics Poll

Talking Heads : Life During Wartime

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New Musical Express declared Fear of Music by Talking Heads as the best album of 1979, over such memorable efforts as London Calling, Entertainment!, Unknown Pleasures and Metal Box. In an article published weeks before the release of the album, David Byrne gave NME some hints about the songs on the new record:

"I've tried to write songs that are far from my usual point of view, about getting drunk and chasing after girls, but they're never successful. I don't think I can chase...See, if I use the third person it achieves distance. It's slightly humorous. It isn't always very nice...The songs 'Heaven" and "Mind" are set in parties and bars, places where people get together, except in one  of 'em the party is in someone's mind and they want it to stop. Eventually they decide they like it"

Earlier in the month Talking Heads performed at London's Electric Ballroom with opening acts Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark and, from Ireland, a band calling themselves U2. 

NME 1979 ALBUMS
 1. Fear Of Music - Talking Heads
 2. Metal Box - Public Image Ltd.
 3. Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division
 4. Setting Sons - The Jam
 5. Entertainment - Gang Of Four

 6. Armed Forces - Elvis Costello
 7. Do It Yourself - Ian Dury
 8. London Calling - The Clash
 9. Squeezing Out The Sparks - Graham Parker
 10. The Specials - The Specials

 11. Forces Of Victory - Linton Kwesi Johnson
 12. The B52's - The B52's
 13. Bop Till You Drop - Ry Cooder
 14. The Raincoats - The Raincoats
 15. Tom Verlaine - Tom Verlaine
 16. I Am - Earth, Wind + Fire

 17. The Undertones - The Undertones
 18. 154 - Wire
 19. Repeat When Necessary - Dave Edmunds
 20. Drums + Wires - Xtc
 21. New Picnic Time - Pere Ubu

 22. Cut - The Slits
 23. Risque - Chic
 24. Regatta De Blank - Police
 25. Humanity - The Royle Rasses

 26. Same Song - Israel Vibration
 27. Katzenmusic - Michael Rother
 28. Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young
 29. Bruder Des Schattens, Sohne Des.. - Popol Vuh

 30. Dragnet - The Fall
 31. Even Serpents Shine - The Only Ones
 32. Eskimo - The Residents
 33. Slow Train Coming - Bob Dylan
 34. Blue Valentine - Tom Waits

 35. This Heat - This Heat
 36. A Train To Marineville - Swell Maps
 37. I’m The Man - Joe Jackson
 38. Soldier Talk - The Red Crayola

 39. Reproduction - The Human League
 40. Lodger - David Bowie

Squeezing Out Sparks Tops 1979 Pazz and Jop Poll

Graham Parker: Protection

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Graham Parker and The Rumour win the annual Village Voice Pazz and Jop critics poll. Robert Christgau sums up the results in this way :

Especially if allowances are made for Nashville and Denver and Omaha and New Orleans, it's hard to imagine any other album cracking this year's top five: Armed Forces, by last year's overpowering winner, Elvis Costello; Fear of Music, by Talking Heads, up from fifth in 1978; the confusing American version of The Clash, which in its 1977 English edition showed up on a lot of best-of-the-decade lists; Rust Never Sleeps, generally regarded as Neil Young's best album since Tonight's the Night; and this year's model, Squeezing Out Sparks, by Graham Parker and the Rumour, who placed their first two albums at two and four in the 1976 poll but haven't made much noise among the voters since.

By clicking a link on the albums you can find my own reviews from this year.

The 1979 Pazz +Jop Critics Poll Albums

1. Graham Parker: Squeezing Out Sparks (Arista) 767 (63)
2. Neil Young: Rust Never Sleeps (Reprise) 652 (50) 
3. The Clash: The Clash (Epic) 638 (50)
4. Talking Heads : Fear of Music (Sire) 620 (51)

5. Elvis Costello: Armed Forces (Columbia) 619 (55)
6. Van Morrison: Into the Music (Warner Bros.) 474 (41)
7. The B-52s: The B-52s (Warner Bros.) 371 (37) 
8. Tom Petty Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA) 340 (31)
9. Pere Ubu: Dub Housing (Chrysalis) 334 (28)
10. Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca) 330 (30)

11. The Roches: The Roches (Warner Bros.) 292 (30)
12. Dave Edmunds: Repeat When Necessary (Swan Song) 222 (21) 
13. Nick Lowe: Labour of Lust (Columbia) 201 (24)
14. Tom Verlaine: Tom Verlaine (Elektra)
15. Iggy Pop: New Values (Arista) 190 (20)

16. Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (Island) 185 (20)
17. Blondie: Eat to the Beat (Chrysalis) 184 (20)
18. Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (Epic) 179 (16)
19. Rickie Lee Jones: Rickie Lee Jones (Warner Bros.) 176 (20)
20. Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady (I.R.S.) 172 (18)
21. Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Bros.) 160 (17)

22. Neil Young with Crazy Horse: Live Rust (Reprise) 158 (15)
23. Ry Cooder: Bop 'Til You Drop (Warner Bros.) 155 (18)
24. David Johansen: In Style (Blue Sky) 136 (15)
25. Lene Lovich: Stateless (Stiff/Epic) 125 (13)
26. Linton Kwesi Johnson: Forces of Victory (Mango) 122 (13) 

27. Chic: Risque (Atlantic) 112 (11) 
28. Joe Jackson: Look Sharp! (A+M) 111 (11) 
29. Art Ensemble of Chicago: Nice Guys (ECM)
30. Roxy Music: Manifesto (Atlantic) 107 (11) 
31. David Bowie: Lodger (RCA Victor) 104 (12)
32. The Slits: Cut (Antilles) 99 (10)

33. Philip Glass/Robert Wilson: Einstein on the Beach (Tomato) 98 (9)
34. Bob Marley the Wailers: Survival (Island) 94 (9)
35. The Police: Regatta de Blanc (A+M) 92 (10)
36. The Shoes: Present Tense (Elektra) 90 (12)
37. The Jam: All Mod Cons (Polydor) 89 (9)

38. Bob Dylan: Slow Train Coming (Columbia) 88 (11)
39. Stevie Wonder: Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (Tamla) 88 (9)
40. The Kinks: Low Budget (Arista) 85 (9)

Lester Bangs Top 10 Albums of 1979

Lester Bangs : Let It Blurt

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In 1979 rock critic Lester Bangs released a single he recorded in 1977 with Jay Dee Daugherty of the Patti Smith Group, Robert Quine of Richard Hell and the Voidoids and two members of the Contortions. It's too derivative of the Richard Hell sound for me to take too seriously.

Here are his Top 10 albums of 1979 according to a list he made for the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll. It's odd to see Wavelength top his list because his Rolling Stone review for the Van Morrison album was hardly a rave :

Wavelength is a very nice record. I’m sure all the people at Warner Bros. are pleased with it. Ditto the DJs. It probably would also be really groovy for somebody’s idea of a wine-and-joints, Renaissance-fair garden party. It makes a lovely sound, breaks no rules and keeps its grimy snout (or, rather, that of its maker) out of the dark places that mainstreams step correctly over. Rigid. The singer has a nifty little band here, what with Bobby Tench, Peter Bardens from the original Them and even great googamoogah Garth Hudson sittin’ in on various instruments. Well, take me back to Orpheus!

Van Morrison: Into the Music (Warner Bros.) 25; 
Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (Island) 20;
 The Clash (Epic) 20;
 Talking Heads: Fear of Music (Sire) 5;

"The closer you get to whatever it is you’re terrified of, the more it and the dread of it begin to seem like old friends, ergo you become progressively less terrified. As a second Dark Ages seems to loom over us, David Byrne strolls right down its maw, placid and bemused, humming little tunes to himself. Sometimes I think Fear of Music is one of the best comedy albums I’ve ever heard. Which doesn’t mean he makes you forget the fear is real. He just reminds you that it’s something you’re going to have to live with, so you might as well get a kick out of it while you can."


 Lou Reed: The Bells (Arista) 5;

Lou Reed is a prick and a jerkoff who regularly commits the ultimate sin of treating his audience with contempt. He’s also a person with deep compassion for a great many other people about whom almost nobody else gives a shit. I won’t say who they are, because I don’t want to get too schmaltzy, except to emphasize that there’s always been more to this than drugs and fashionable kinks, and to point out that suffering, loneliness and psychic/spiritual exile are great levelers. The Bells isn’t merely Lou Reed’s best solo LP, it’s great art.


 Neil Young + Crazy Horse: Live Rust (Warner Bros.) 5;
 Charles Mingus: Mingus at Antibes (Atlantic) 5; 

Miles Davis: Circle in the Round (Columbia) 5;
 Heartbreakers: Live at Max's Kansas City (Max's Kansas City) 5;
 Patti Smith Group: Wave (Arista) 5.

Sez one fan:
 My one enduring memory of (Lester Bangs) is from a New York Rocker Christmas party (1979) that took place in some squat on the lower, lower east side. I heard PIL's Metal Box blasting from one of the rooms, and there was Lester, doing some insane bat dance to the music. Everyone was just watching as he spun around with whatever girlfriend he was with at the time. I mean, how in the hell do you dance to a song like "Poptones"?

There's a Party in My Mind

Talking Heads : Memories Can't Wait

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On August 3, 1979 Talking Heads released Fear of Music, the band's third album. With lines like "I know the animals are laughing at us" and "I got three passports, a couple of visas,/You don't even know my real name", this is the band's most paranoid album. Recorded in Chris and Tina's New York City loft and produced by Brian Eno, it's loaded with one word song titles ("Air", "Paper", "Heaven", "Drugs", "Cities") and a black embossed album cover designed by Jerry Harrison. The album finished 4th in the Village Voice Pazz + Jop Critics poll behind Graham Parker's  Squeezing Out Sparks , Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps and The Clash's US release of their 1977 debut.  

John Pareles wrote the review for Rolling Stone:

Time stands still when you're cracking up. At the brink of mental overload, there's a revelatory instant -- a frozen frame in which everything fits together in new ways. Logic dissolves, paralogic reigns. And in that precarious moment, the world is fixed in place, skewed and renewed. 

 David Byrne's lyrics on Talking Heads' Fear of Music are paralogical visions stated with almost childlike directness: he thinks that air hits him in the face, that animals want to change his life, that "someone controls electric guitar." By itself, this perspective makes Byrne's songs fascinating. But what makes Talking Heads my favorite and probably the best rock band anywhere is that they've invented an audio analog to their view from the brink: rock music that warps and suspends time.

 They use a simple device: repetition. Unswerving rhythms, immobile harmonies. Each tune is a chain of sections linked by rhythm, each section a matrix of interlocking riffs. "I Zimbra" stakes Talking Heads' claim to pure mechanization. One by one, the instruments click into place in a rhythm pattern fleshed out by Afro-futurist harmonies and topped by the meaningless chanted syllables of a poem by Twenties Dadaist Hugo Ball. At composition's end, Robert Fripp's guitar phases through the whole pulsing assemblage like the shuttle of a high-speed loom.

From the A- review by Robert Christgau:

David Byrne's celebration of paranoia is a little obsessive, but like they say, that doesn't mean somebody isn't trying to get him. I just wish material as relatively expansive as "Found a Job" or "The Big Country" were available to open up the context a little; that way, a plausible prophecy like "Life During Wartime" might come off as cautionary realism instead of ending up in the nutball corner with self-referential fantasies like "Paper" and "Memories Can't Wait." And although I'm impressed with the gritty weirdness of the music, it is narrow--a little sweetening might help.

Novelist Jonathan Lethem wrote an in-depth exploration of the album for the 331/3 series. He told NPR how the album impacted him as a teen:

My father was a painter, and I was already an art student myself, and so all the frameworks that seemed to be surrounding this music — the self-conscious brandishing of neuroses and fear, the bookishness, the pretentions to the visual arts, the celebration and anxiety about New York City, the sneaky relationship to black polyrhythms and dance music, but putting kind of a gawky white face on top of that — all of this just made it like a magic trick, I identified with it so totally. It also had narrative elements and language elements, motifs that really mattered a lot to me. It seemed to be kind of dystopian — kind of about that weird way in which everyday life could feel also a bit like a paranoid future. That certain kinds of encroachments of technology, or political paranoia, or the undertow of devastation in the urban environment, all of these could combine to make you feel like you were living in a sort of science fiction novel. And it seemed to me that Fear of Music was saying the same thing about everyday life — that it was both the future and the present all at once, that it was supposed to be totally normal, made up of familiar stuff — "Paper" and "Air" and "Drugs" and "Animals" — but it still had this ominous overtone, that all of these things could seem charged. Like they were grievances, or like they were your enemy in some way simultaneously.

Hold On To That Paper

Talking Heads : Paper

[Purchase]

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.