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Show 9 te-fi- Music" (1979) and "Remain in Light." Only "77" and "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads" (1982) aren't gold. "Naked," however, should boost all the past albums considerably. Frantz and Weymouth first moved to New York in the fall of 1974, about six months after Byrne had done so. The three who met while students at the Rhode Island School of Design-li- ved together in a loft on the Lower East Side about two blocks from C.B.G.B. (page 15), where they would first play as Talking Heads some eight e movement months later and where the in rock was born. "We were living in a loft with a bathroom in the hall," Frantz remembers. "No hot water. No shower. Friends would invite us over for dinner and we'd take towels along and ask, 'Is it OK if we take a shower?' " Today, Frantz and Weymouth live in Westport, Conn., with their two daughters, Robin, five, and Egan, 18 months. Byrne owns a loft in Manhattan. So does Harrison, who also has inherited his parents' house in Shorewood, Wis., a northern suburb of Milwaukee. r new-wav- Back at lunch, the conversation turns from music TOM SOBOLIK attention 365 days a year." Outside projects also give the four a chance to flex different creative muscles. "It allows you to explore avenues that are easily explored as a solo artist or a producer rather than to try and fit Talking Heads into a genre that is perhaps not appropriate," says Harrison. And it pays dividends for the band itself: "I think it en- Casual Gods: BLACK STAR Harrison (left foreground) in rehearsal Palestinians? TW: It was probably the CIA. JH: The name of this band could have been The Vogue Dots "I never thought Talking Heads would be as successful as it has been," says Harrison. "I thought we were too strange. But the audience surprised us." In fact, sales of the band's albums were steady, but not explosive, until "Speaking in Tongues" pushed them to the platinum level sales of 1 million units with the single "Burning Down the House." Then came the concert film, "Stop Making Sense" (1984), which was a major e success, and the platinum soundtrack, which packaged many of the band's most popular songs. While "Little Creatures" (1985) continued their platinum streak, "True Stories" (1986) has yet to break the million mark. But it quickly went gold sales of 500,000 units as have "More Songs About Buildings and Food" (1978), "Fear of Sounded familiar. What I think is interesting is that the Palestinians have finally discovered civil disobedience. And it's working for them in ways that all of their more aggressive actions never worked at all. Apparently there's such sympathy building up for them. And they're doing simple things like closing their shops. And it's having a far greater effect than blowing up some kids on a bus. It's hard to discipline yourself to sit and be beaten and let people get hurt and die. TW: When Moses was directed to take his tribes out of Egypt, they displaced a lot of tribes from there. JH: Is there historical evidence that Moses actu- CF: courages us and expands us," says Weymouth, "and it enables us to be more open in the framework of Talking Heads." Tina Weymouth remembers these potential names for the band: The Tunnel Tubes, Subway of Love, Muscle of Love, The Vogue Dots. There were many others. They couldn't perform until they came up with a name. Talking Heads was the only finalist. A friend of Byrne, Frantz and Weymouth told them about the term, jargon for television newscasts that show the heads of anchormen rather than action footage. They liked the connotation of the term. "Talking Heads meant a lot of content but not much visuals," she says. What is this I hear about President Reagan announcing something about outside parties stirring up the Palestinians? Did you hear about that? Outside agitators were stirring up the CF: 'The Forest': Byrne (right) working with Robert Wilson RAI.F BRINKHOFF foX L" - J? art-hous- 12 NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS MAY 1988 |
