The Talking Heads - The Kitchen, New York City, 3-13-1976

Now that I've finished posting the complete 1982 US Festival, I have a backlog of other albums I want to post. This is the one I'm the most excited about. It's a must have for anyone interested in the early years of the Talking Heads. What really makes this stand out is the jaw-dropping sound quality, considering how early this comes in the band's career, a year and a half before their first album was released.

The reason I'm posting this is thanks to musical associate MZ. When I posted the Talking Heads set from the US Festival, he said he had a better sounding version, and sent it to me. Sure enough, it did sound better, so I used that one. But at the same time, he also sent me a bootleg of this concert, saying that I should listen to it if I hadn't already. I did, and I thought it was great, so I decided to post this too. 

The sound quality is heads and shoulders above any other recordings of the band from this time. The reason is because it was professionally filmed due to sheer luck. It seems they were the only band to play the Kitchen, a venue for (non-musical) artists, and many public events were being filmed there at the time. Keep in mind the band only had their first public concert nine months earlier. And they still were lacking their fourth member, Jerry Harrison, who didn't join until a full year after this.

The one snag with the recording MZ sent me was that it was only half an hour long. I was going to post it anyway, due to the rarity of having such sound quality from that far back in the band's history. But then I looked on YouTube and found further videos. The timing was extremely fortunate, because it seems they were only made available to the public two weeks prior to when I'm posting this, in December 2024. I don't know why they were hidden for nearly fifty years, but better late than never. These videos were of the band's entire performance that evening!

I converted everything to mp3. Then I made some audio edits. The main one was to drastically boost the volume of lead singer David Byrne talking between songs. On the videos, one could barely hear him at all most of the time, but now he comes in clearly. He was unusually chatty back then, speaking before every song, although usually just a sentence or two. A couple of years after this, he rarely spoke at all during concerts. I also boosted the volume of the applause after every song.

Since this is so early in the band's career, many of these songs were played rarely. For instance, setlist.fm has the song "I Want to Live" only ever being played three times. And decent recordings of them are rarer still. Those include the cover songs "Sugar on My Tongue," "Love Is All Around," "1 2 3 Red Light," and "96 Tears."

So please enjoy this. And if you're really interested, watch the full video of it on YouTube.

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 talk (Talking Heads)
02 Artists Only (Talking Heads)
03 talk (Talking Heads)
04 First Week-Last Week... Carefree (Talking Heads)
05 talk (Talking Heads)
06 I'm Not in Love (Talking Heads)
07 talk (Talking Heads)
08 Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Talking Heads)
09 talk (Talking Heads)
10 Who Is It (Talking Heads)
11 talk (Talking Heads)
12 Thank You for Sending Me an Angel (Talking Heads)
13 talk (Talking Heads)
14 Sugar on My Tongue (Talking Heads)
15 talk (Talking Heads)
16 Warning Sign (Talking Heads)
17 talk (Talking Heads)
18 talk (Talking Heads)
19 The Girls Want to Be with the Girls (Talking Heads)
20 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
21 talk (Talking Heads)
22 I Feel It in My Heart (Talking Heads)
23 talk (Talking Heads)
24 I Wish You Wouldn't Say That (Talking Heads)
25 talk (Talking Heads)
26 Stay Hungry (Talking Heads)
27 talk (Talking Heads)
28 I Want to Live (Talking Heads)
29 talk (Talking Heads)
30 Tentative Decisions (Talking Heads)
31 talk (Talking Heads)
32 No Compassion (Talking Heads)
33 talk (Talking Heads)
34 Love Is All Around (Talking Heads)
35 talk (Talking Heads)
36 1 2 3 Red Light (Talking Heads)
37 96 Tears (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17514502/TTALKNGHDS1976ThKitchnNwYrkC__3-13-1976_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2REkGH8T

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/RdvKL0ifH3D0dwi/file

In addition to this band having special music, I think it has a pretty special cover too. Luckily, there was a professional photographer, Kathy Landman, who took a bunch of photos of the band at this exact concert. You can see some of them here:

ON FILE: Talking Heads | The Kitchen

They all are in black and white, which is unfortunate for me, since I much prefer color. So I used a program to covert the best photo of the whole band into color. Since there also is low-res color film footage of the concert, I used that to make sure the colors matched what they actually looked like on that day. The only detail that isn't true is the back wall actually was a shade of blue. But it would have been too much of a pain in the rear to fix that.

In case anyone is interested, here's the full version of this photo, with greater resolution.

US Festival '82, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 9-3-1982 - Day 1, Part 5: The Talking Heads

The fifth album from Day One of the 1982 US Festival is a set by the new wave band the Talking Heads.

Be warned, again, that most of the albums I'm posting from this festival are audience bootlegs with lower sound quality than the soundboard or FM radio bootlegs I usually post. This is another case of that. 

It seems the sun set during the B-52's set that just prior to this one. So it was dark during this whole set, which helped a ton considered it had reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, and was quite dusty as well.

Here's what Rolling Stone Magazine wrote about this set in an article that came out shortly after the festival: "Talking Heads didn't have to inhale quite as much dirt during their set... but they did turn in the day's best show – a tough, gritty set of percussive funk that found [lead singer] David Byrne hopping around the stage like a bunny rabbit, running in circles around its perimeter and introducing one unrecorded, as-yet-untitled new song whose chorus consisted of 'Hi hi hi hi hi hi.'" The song mentioned at the end is called "Swamp" and would appear on the band's 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues."

Note that when I first posted this album, the sound quality was slightly worse. But musical associate MZ sent me a better source. It's still an audience boot, but it sounds significantly better. Thanks, MZ!

At the time of this concert, the band hadn't released a new album since 1980's "Remain in Light." At that time, for a young band, that was a long time between albums. But lead singer David Byrne released a solo album in late 1981 called "The Catherine Wheel," and that effectively served as a new Talking Heads album for the purposes of their 1982 concerts. They played four songs from that album in this concert (tracks 93, 96, 98, and 103). Additionally, band member Jerry Harrison released a solo album in 1981 called "The Red and the Black." One song from that, "Slink," was a minor hit, and was also performed in this concert.

This album is an hour and 18 minutes long. 

090 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
091 Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Talking Heads)
092 Cities (Talking Heads)
093 Big Blue Plymouth [Eyes Wide Open] (Talking Heads)
094 Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads)
095 Mind (Talking Heads)
096 My Big Hands [Fall Through the Cracks] (Talking Heads)
097 Slink (Talking Heads)
098 Big Business (Talking Heads)
099 I Zimbra (Talking Heads)
100 talk (Talking Heads)
101 Swamp (Talking Heads)
102 Houses in Motion (Talking Heads)
103 What a Day That Was (Talking Heads)
104 Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
105 Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17485749/VA-1982USFstvlDay0105TlkngHeds_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PfEkEMbx

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/WIV7X1T10YZU74W/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

David Byrne - True Creatures Demos (1984)

In 1985, the Talking Heads put out the studio album "Little Creatures," which turned out to be their best seller. In 1986, they put out the album "True Stories," which was linked to a movie of the same name largely created by the band's main singer-songwriter, David Byrne. It turns out Byrne wrote most of the songs for both albums by 1984, and recorded demos of them. This is the entirely unreleased album of those demos. 

These demos have long been nicknamed the "True Creatures" (or "True Creature") demos, combining the titles of the "Little Creatures" and "True Stories" album. But that was almost certainly just an idea of some clever bootlegger, and not what they were actually called. They just as easily could be known as the "Little Stories" demos, I suppose. But I'm sticking with the name.

This album is also widely credited to the Talking Heads. But I'm changing that, because it's obvious to my ears that the only person on them is Byrne. Mind you, these aren't simply solo acoustic versions. He had incorporated drum machines into his songwriting since early in his music career, and there are drum machines all over this. Plus, he fleshed it out with backing vocals and other instruments. But still, it sounds like it's all him. For instance, the backing vocals sound like his voice as well.

These aren't radically different versions from the final ones. But still, it's interesting to hear how these songs originated. Plus, the sound quality is excellent. I'd had this in my music collection for many years. But I was inspired to finally post them after I saw a new version recently (April 2024) shared by someone named Mr. Sifter. This person used the recently developed AI tools of programs like Izotope to clean up the recordings. So even if you've had this already, this version sounds better than ever before. 

There are nine songs on "Little Creatures" and nine more on "True Stories." This has 12 songs. So it has a majority of songs from those albums, but definitely not all of them. I presume some were composed later.

This album is 54 minutes long. 

By the way, fun fact: the band Radiohead got their name from one of the songs here, "Radio Head."

01 Wild Wild Life (David Byrne)
02 Puzzlin' Evidence (David Byrne)
03 Love for Sale (David Byrne)
04 The Lady Don't Mind (David Byrne)
05 Hey Now (David Byrne)
06 Road to Nowhere (David Byrne)
07 Hey [Instrumental] (David Byrne)
08 Papa Legba (David Byrne)
09 People like Us (David Byrne)
10 City of Dreams (David Byrne)
11 Radio Head (David Byrne)
12 Give Me Back My Name (David Byrne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16519362/DAVDBRYN1984TruCreturDmos_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is actually two images combined. I started with a photo of David Byrne, taken at a New York City party in 1986. The background was bland, so I came up with the idea of putting part of the cover to the "Little Creatures" album behind him.

Heatwave Festival, Mosport Park, Bowmanville, Canada, 8-23-1980, Part 5: Talking Heads

This is the fifth part of the 1980 Heatwave Festival.

The Talking Heads released their third album, "Fear of Music," in 1979. Their next album, the classic "Remain in Light," would come out in October 1980, two months after this concert. At the time of this concert, the band was finishing up the recording of the album. Their tour to support the album wouldn't start until mid-October, but this concert was an exception. 

The band started with five songs from previous albums, and finished with two more such songs. But between that, they did four songs from the upcoming "Remain in Light" album: "Once in a Lifetime," "Houses in Motion," "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)," and "Crosseyed and Painless." It turns out this concert was the very first time these four songs were ever played in public. Furthermore, this was the first time the band performed on stage with the many additional musicians who would be part of the "Remain in Light" tour, so even the older songs sounded quite different. The band was radically transformed, and this concert was the public debut of their new sound.

Like the other albums from this festival, the sound quality is excellent, even though this remains unreleased. And this set didn't have any sound problems.

As an aside, you can see from the covers I've posted that the earlier sets took place during the daytime, but by the time this band finished, it had grown dark.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

077 talk (Talking Heads)
078 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
079 Warning Sign (Talking Heads)
080 Stay Hungry (Talking Heads)
081 Cities (Talking Heads)
082 talk (Talking Heads)
083 I Zimbra (Talking Heads)
084 talk (Talking Heads)
085 Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads)
086 Houses in Motion (Talking Heads)
087 Born Under Punches [The Heat Goes On] (Talking Heads)
088 Crosseyed and Painless (Talking Heads)
089 talk (Talking Heads)
090 Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
091 talk (Talking Heads)
092 Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17315603/VA-HtwveFstivlMsprtPrkBwmnvlleCnda__8-23-1980_05TlkngHds.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CoZTd52E

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

The Talking Heads - Berklee Performance Center, Boston MA, 8-24-1979

I've been meaning to post a Talking Heads concert from their 1979 tour in order to further render the official live album "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads" further obsolete. I'm not a fan of that album because it tried to do too much, collecting live tracks from 1977 to 1980 instead of just focusing on one time period like most live albums. This is probably the best sounding concert recording of the band from 1979.

The reason this sounds so good is because it was professionally recorded for a Boston radio station and broadcast on the air at the time. The was also the case for the opening act, the B-52's, and I just posted their set. Only one song from this performance has ever been officially released as far as I know. "Mind" has appeared on the expanded edition of "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads."

The one flaw with this otherwise great sounding recording, in my opinion, is that the lead vocals were a bit low in the mix. But I used the audio editing program UVR5 to fix that, so this should sound better than it ever has been.

In 1979, the band was touring to support their latest album "Fear of Music." It was a very critically acclaimed album, for instance being named the best album of the year by NME, Melody Maker, and the Los Angeles Times. The band played most of the songs from that album, except for "I Zimbra," "Animals," and "Drugs." One interesting thing about this tour is that, even though the band's music was getting increasingly complicated, only the four band members played the concerts. For the next tour, that would drastically change, with more backing musicians than band members.

This album is an hour and ten minutes long.

01 talk (Talking Heads)
02 Artists Only (Talking Heads)
03 talk (Talking Heads)
04 Stay Hungry (Talking Heads)
05 Cities (Talking Heads)
06 Paper (Talking Heads)
07 Mind (Talking Heads)
08 talk (Talking Heads)
09 Heaven (Talking Heads)
10 The Book I Read (Talking Heads)
11 Electric Guitar (Talking Heads)
12 Air (Talking Heads)
13 Warning Sign (Talking Heads)
14 Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Talking Heads)
15 talk (Talking Heads)
16 Memories Can't Wait (Talking Heads)
17 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
18 talk (Talking Heads)
19 Life during Wartime (Talking Heads)
20 Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15454912/TTalkngHs_1979b_BrkleePerformnceCentrBostnMA__8-24-1979_atse.zip.html

Since I also posted the opening set by the B-52's, I thought it would be fun to have the two album covers look similar. I chose a similar photo that had a dark black background, even though it's probably from a different concert. (I don't know the sourcing from this one, except it looks like it's from the 1979 tour, judging by the fact that there are no extra musicians.) I also used the same font style and colors for both covers.

The Talking Heads - Jaap Eden Hal, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 12-11-1980

Here's a really rocking concert from the Talking Heads. Great sound quality, great set list, great performance. It's an unreleased bootleg, but you'd never know, because it's in great shape, with no flaws.

In 1982, the Talking Heads officially released the live album "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads." It's a double album, put together from concerts in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980. But I much prefer hearing entire concerts like this one. Even a later expanded edition of that album has more songs from 1980, but from three different concerts.

The Talking Heads really expanded their sound in 1980. In their early years, they toured as just a four-person band. But on their 1980 tour, they added six backing musicians, including guitarist Robert Fripp, to promote their classic album "Remain in Light." I don't have much more to say, except his should make you want to get up and dance.

This concert is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
02 Warning Sign (Talking Heads)
03 talk (Talking Heads)
04 Stay Hungry (Talking Heads)
05 Cities (Talking Heads)
06 talk (Talking Heads)
07 I Zimbra (Talking Heads)
08 Drugs (Talking Heads)
09 Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads)
10 Animals (Talking Heads)
11 Houses in Motion (Talking Heads)
12 Born Under Punches (Talking Heads)
13 Crosseyed and Painless (Talking Heads)
14 Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
15 talk (Talking Heads)
16 Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)
17 The Great Curve (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15301594/TTalkngHs_1980_JaapEdnHalAmsterdmNetherlnds__12-11-1980_atse.zip.html

I don't know much about the cover photo, except that it apparently was taken in August 1980. I picked it due to the unusual perspective, allowing you to see the band and part of the audience.

David Byrne - Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN, 8-20-2001

The other day, I found this concert on a bootleg torrent tracker, and I was impressed with the performance and the sound quality, so I've decided to share it here.

David Byrne, of course, was the lead singer and main songwriter for the Talking Heads. His solo career since that band fizzled out around 1987 has been more hit and miss, in my opinion, but he still has many quality songs. This concert is roughly evenly split between Talking Heads songs and his subsequent solo career.

There is an official live album from this tour, though a different date, called "Live from Austin, Texas." However, I prefer this. For one thing, at an hour and 26 minutes, it's about 25 minutes longer. And for another, the sound quality is every bit as good. The song selection is basically identical; it's just that you get more songs here.

There was only one sonic flaw with this album, and that was with the song "U. B. Jesus." The recording came to a halt about halfway through. I patched that with a version of that song taken from a bootleg from Denver on the same tour. That has similarly awesome sound, and the fix was so seamless that I doubt you'll notice it.

If you're a Talking Heads fan but you haven't paid much attention to Byrne's solo career, this is a good place to dip your toes in, since it has that mix of about half Talking Heads songs and half solo ones. It also has an interesting, unexpected cover of the Whitney Houston hit "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)."

01 The Revolution (David Byrne)
02 talk (David Byrne)
03 [Nothing But] Flowers (David Byrne)
04 talk (David Byrne)
05 Buck Naked (David Byrne)
06 Broken Things (David Byrne)
07 talk (David Byrne)
08 And She Was (David Byrne)
09 Once in a Lifetime (David Byrne)
10 talk (David Byrne)
11 The Great Intoxication (David Byrne)
12 talk (David Byrne)
13 Marching through the Wilderness (David Byrne)
14 talk (David Byrne)
15 Dura Europas (David Byrne)
16 talk (David Byrne)
17 Sax and Violins (David Byrne)
18 talk (David Byrne)
19 This Must Be the Place [Naive Melody] (David Byrne)
20 talk (David Byrne)
21 What a Day that Was (David Byrne)
22 talk (David Byrne)
23 Desconocido Soy (David Byrne)
24 Like Humans Do (David Byrne)
25 talk (David Byrne)
26 U. B. Jesus [Edit] (David Byrne)
27 talk (David Byrne)
28 I Wanna Dance with Somebody [Who Loves Me] (David Byrne)
29 Life during Wartime (David Byrne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274974/DavicByr_2001_RymnAuditoriumNashvilleTN__8-20-2001_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Byrne was taken backstage at the Warfield in San Francisco in 2001.

The Talking Heads - Jabberwocky Club, Syracuse, NY, 10-13-1977

Yesterday, I posted a live album by James Taylor, where he played at the Jabberwocky Club in Syracuse, New York in 1970. I'd previously posted a live album by Bonnie Raitt at that same club in 1971. That reminded me that I have another excellent concert at the same venue, this one by the Talking Heads. What makes this venue special for bootlegs is that while the club was in existence, from about 1969 to 1985, the club management regularly recorded the concerts there and played them on the local college radio station. That's the case here, so once again the sound quality is excellent.

The Jabberwocky Club was small, only holding about 250 people at most. It was so small that bigger bands couldn't even get all their band members on the stage, and some would have to stand with the audience near the stage. Because it was such a small place, big name acts wouldn't play there. But occasionally a future big name act would play there when they were starting out. That's the case with the Talking Heads. In October 1977, at the time of this concert, they had just released their debut album, "Talking Heads: 77" the month before. So we're very lucky to get this soundboard quality recording at this point of the band's career.

It was a bit tricky for me to figure out what and when this recording was frin, exactly. There are a number of different recordings claiming to be from the Jabberwocky Club, but often giving different dates (including in 1976) and different sets. After doing some research, I figured out that the Talking Heads played the Jabberwocky Club twice in 1977, once in January and again in October. The two dates had very similar set lists, and they played two sets each night. Recordings for most of the sets exist, but I've chosen the best set in terms of sound quality, performance, and song selection, which is the late set from October, because I don't want lots of repetition. However, they played three songs at the January date that they didn't play at the October one, so I've added those three in at the start.

Most of the songs played were released on that first album, "Talking Heads: 77." But they did some non-album originals, like "Love Goes to a Building on Fire," "A Clean Break," and "I Wish You Wouldn't Say That." They also played some covers, like "Sugar on My Tongue," "Love Is All Around," and "Take Me to the River." Also, a few songs would appear on their second album in 1978, such as "Artists Only," "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel," and "I'm Not in Love."

There were a couple of minor problems that I fixed. For the intro to "Artists Only," the sound wobbled in parts, probably because it was the very first song of that particular recording. Luckily, there was a section of the intro that didn't wobble, so I used that to patch in the repeats of that section. Also, for "No Compassion," about five seconds of the song was missing in the middle. Again I got lucky, because it was another case of a repeating section, and I was about to patch that too. I also boosted the volume of the banter between songs. Plus, in some cases, I boosted the volume of the audience applause, or extended it when it got cut off prematurely.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long, including the three songs at the start from the earlier concert.

01 talk (Talking Heads)
02 Artists Only (Talking Heads)
03 talk (Talking Heads)
04 Sugar on My Tongue (Talking Heads)
05 I Wish You Wouldn't Say That (Talking Heads)
06 Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Talking Heads)
07 talk (Talking Heads)
08 Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town (Talking Heads)
09 Don't Worry about the Government (Talking Heads)
10 Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)
11 The Book I Read (Talking Heads)
12 talk (Talking Heads)
13 New Feeling (Talking Heads)
14 A Clean Break [Let's Work] (Talking Heads)
15 Stay Hungry (Talking Heads)
16 talk (Talking Heads)
17 Thank You for Sending Me an Angel (Talking Heads)
18 Who Is It (Talking Heads)
19 Pulled Up (Talking Heads)
20 No Compassion (Talking Heads)
21 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
22 talk (Talking Heads)
23 I'm Not in Love (Talking Heads)
24 talk (Talking Heads)
25 Love Is All Around (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701092/TTALKNGHDS1977b_JbberwckyClubSyrcuseNY__10-13-1977_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of the band playing at this particular club. But I did find a good one of them playing at CBGB's in New York City some time in 1977, so I used that.

The Talking Heads - Gangster of Love - Non-Album Tracks (1986-1992)

I've had a problem with making albums out of the Talking Heads' stray tracks. When I looked at their career, such tracks came in three clusters: one in their formative years, 1975 to 1977, one during a big gap between official albums, 1982 to 1983, and then a mere four songs in the tail end of their career, 1986 to 1992. But those four songs are too good to ignore.

So I've made an album with those four songs, plus the best solo songs from that time period. Is it a Talking Heads album. Only sort of. But it is an album of solid music? Definitely!

The Talking Heads ended with a whimper instead of a bang. They stopped touring entirely in 1983 (with the tour stretching a little bit into 1984), but they released three more studio albums after that. The last album, "Naked," came out in 1988, but they got together to finish off a "Naked" outtake, "Sax and Violins," for a 1991 movie soundtrack. Then they finished off another outtake in 1992, "Gangster of Love," for a best of compilation. And that was it. They've done nothing together since (except for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame appearance in 2002) and bad blood between members makes it likely there never will be a reunion.

So of course I included those two songs, plus two more "Naked" outtakes that were released years later, "Lifetime Piling Up" and "In Asking Land." Personally, I think all four of these songs, which were at least attempted during the "Naked" sessions, are better than most of the songs that made the final cut of that album.

But I'm still left far short of an album's worth of music. So I chose my four favorite songs from David Byrne's first solo album, 1989's "Rei Momo." One of those, "Loco D'Amor," was actually released three years earlier for a movie soundtrack. I also included the one minor Jerry Harrison hit from this time period, "Rev It Up," and one Tom Tom Club song, "Love Wave." Tom Tom Club released two albums during this time, but didn't have any real hits. However, I think that one song is my favorite from those albums.

Someone else putting an album like this together may well have selected different songs. Especially with the Byrne material, there aren't four songs that are universally considered the best of that album. But these are the ones I like the most. I think if all these solo songs would have been done by the Talking Heads, it would have made for a very excellent final album.

By the way, the songs are in chronological order. I think it works pretty well, even though it results in three solo David Byrne songs in a row.

01 Loco D'Amour (David Byrne with Celia Cruz)
02 Lifetime Piling Up (Talking Heads)
03 In Asking Land (Talking Heads)
04 Rev It Up (Jerry Harrison)
05 Dirty Old Town (David Byrne)
06 Good and Evil (David Byrne)
07 Lie to Me (David Byrne)
08 Sax and Violins (Talking Heads)
09 Love Wave (Tom Tom Club)
10 Gangster of Love (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376810/TTALKNGHDS1986-1992GngsterofLve_atse.zip.html

Thanks to Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog for the cover art.

The Talking Heads - Melody Attack - Non-Album Tracks (1982-1983)

Out of all the albums I've posted here so far, this is one of my top favorites. If you're a Talking Heads fan at all, you should give this a listen.

In 1980, the Talking Heads released "Remain in Light," which is their most acclaimed album and frequently included on the best albums of all time lists. In 1983, the band released "Speaking in Tongues," which is widely considered another five star album. This era was the peak of the band's career, yet there was a three year gap between the two album releases. That was a long time for the band back then, when they generally released about an album a year. What happened during that long gap?

This album happened. The band members stayed busy, with David Byrne releasing two solo albums, Jerry Harrison releasing one, and Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth forming a side project, Tom Tom Club, that released two albums. I could do a lot with all that solo album material, but luckily I found enough material for me to make an album containing nothing but actual Talking Heads songs! So this really is the band's lost album that covers those gap years.

The reason I have all actual Talking Heads material for this is because the best of those solo songs were played live by the band in concert in 1982 and 1983. Four songs from Byrne's 1981 solo album "The Catherine Wheel" were done by the band live. Most of that album is made up of quirky instrumentals, but these four songs have lots of vocals and are very Talking Heads-like. ("What a Day that Was" in particular is one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, period.)

Additionally, the band did one song, "Slink," from Jerry Harrison's 1981 solo album that is the best song from the album, and was a minor hit. Harrison sings on the Talking Heads live version, but he sounds a lot like Bryne to begin with, and Bryne adds prominent backing vocals.

The situation with the Tom Tom Club songs I've included here is a bit more complicated. In 1981, Tom Tom Club released an album (also called "Tom Tom Club"). It resulted in two hits, including "Genius of Love," which is now considered an all-time classic that has been covered or sampled by dozens of artists, including a shameless rip-off by Mariah Carey called "Fantasy" that was a number one hit. What happened in 1982 and 1983 concerts is that Bryne would leave the stage for a while and the Talking Heads would temporarily "turn into" the Tom Tom Club. But it was the exact same band (complete with all the extra musicians and backing vocalists), just minus Byrne and plus two of Tina Weymouth's sisters helping on vocals. Generally, they only did "Genius of Love," but sometimes they were allowed more songs, and that's how I got a Talking Heads version of the other hit, "Wordy Rappinghood," from the first Tom Tom Club album.

On top of all that, I've also included a couple of Talking Heads studio outtakes that are really good songs. I edited one of them, "Two Note Swivel," by cutting the last three minutes or so. That's because the recording was never finalized, and while the first half of the song contained a lot of singing and interesting stuff, the second half was just the band going over the same two chords without any soloing or variety. I'm sure it was never intended to be released like that.

Although most of the songs here are from concert bootlegs, luckily I was able to find some high quality soundboard sources and eliminate all the audience noise, so it sounds like a studio album. For the song "Genius of Love," I decided to use the version from the "Stop Making Sense" official live album because the sound quality was a notch better than any other version I could find.

It's too bad David Byrne dominated the Talking Heads as much as he did, singing all the songs. The other three band members were very talented too, and this represents an alternate path the band could have taken, where the others were allowed songs on Talking Heads if they were strong enough. "Genius of Love" certainly would qualify! Chances are the band would have lasted longer and made stronger albums overall.

Now, I should explain the curious album title I've chosen, "Melody Attack." I went with this because it was the original intended album title for "Remain in Light," and the band came very close to using it. Look at the artwork on the back of that album, of three fighter planes flying over some mountains. That was originally planned for the front side, and was meant to illustrate the "Melody Attack" concept. That title was dropped at the last minute due to worries that it sounded too arrogant. But I think it's a fun title, and it fits here since the music on this album isn't far from the "Remain in Light" sound.

By the way, I've added one song as a bonus track, "The Man with the 4-Way Hips." It's only a bonus track because it's the actual Tom Tom Club and not the Talking Heads pretending to be that band. But it was a hit in 1983, which fits this time frame, and I think it's as solid as the other songs here. As far as I know, the Talking Heads never played this song in concert, probably because the band stopped doing any concerts at all after the 1983 tour, even though they continued as a studio band until 1988.

01 What a Day that Was (Talking Heads)
02 Big Blue Plymouth [Eyes Wide Open] (Talking Heads)
03 Wordy Rappinghood (Talking Heads)
04 My Big Hands [Fall through the Cracks] (Talking Heads)
05 Slink (Talking Heads)
06 Big Business (Talking Heads)
07 Genius of Love (Talking Heads)
08 Two Note Swivel [Edit] (Talking Heads)
09 Popsicle (Talking Heads)

The Man with the 4-Way Hips (Tom Tom Club)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701087/TTALKNGHDS982-1983_MlodyAttck_atse.zip.html

Thanks a lot to The Lifehouse for the cover art.

Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog has taken the back cover to "Remain in Light" that I mentioned above and altered it to make an alternate cover option.

The Talking Heads - A Clean Break - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1977)

The Talking Head are great. But they're the kind of band that made their albums definitive statements and didn't leave a lot of stray tracks lying around.

That's not to say there aren't any, though. I was able to come up with three albums' worth, and here's the first one. It covers 1975 to 1977, a pivotal time in music when the punk revolution was happening and new wave was just getting started.

The songs here fall into two categories. There are seven songs which are Talking Heads originals. Some should be familiar to fans of the band, such as "Love Goes to a Building on Fire" or "A Clean Break," having appeared on various live albums or compilations. Others are extremely obscure, such as "Questions for Lovers" and "Theme."

Then there are six songs that are cover versions. The early Talking Heads had a curiosity strong interest in 1960s pop songs, especially "bubblegum pop," which one would think would be about as uncool as it gets in the musical environment they were playing in. "Sugar on My Tongue" and "1 2 3 Red Light" are examples of that.

All in all, I think this makes a very nice 41-minute long album.

However, I've added no less than four bonus tracks. I'm not that keen on including them even as bonus tracks, but I feel obliged to do so for completist types. They are three more covers, plus one song that appears to have been made up on the spot ("I'm Not Ready Yet"). The original is just a silly goof. The problem with the covers is subpar sound quality. But they're here if you can handle that.

01 I Want to Live (Talking Heads)
02 Sugar on My Tongue (Talking Heads)
03 96 Tears (Talking Heads)
04 Love Is All Around (Talking Heads)
05 Theme [Instrumental] (Talking Heads)
06 Questions for Lovers (Talking Heads)
07 I Can't Control Myself (Talking Heads)
08 1 2 3 Red Light (Talking Heads)
09 Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Talking Heads)
10 I Feel It in My Heart (Talking Heads)
11 I Wish You Wouldn't Say That (Talking Heads)
12 A Clean Break [Let's Work] (Talking Heads)
13 These Boots Are Made for Walking (Talking Heads)

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Talking Heads)
I'm Not Ready Yet (Talking Heads)
Pablo Picasso (Talking Heads)
So Much in Love (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15261697/TTalkngHs_1975-1977_ACleanBrk_atse.zip.html

Thanks to The Lifehouse for making the cover art.