I’ve got a tape I want to play – Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense

What is the aim of a concert movie? If it is to document the live experience, then this is relatively easily achieved using 21st century technology. If it is to create the feeling of wanting to have been in the audience, this is another layer of sophistication beyond the technical.

Having watched the re-release of Jonathan Demme’s filming of Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, it is clear that he and the band achieved something nigh on impossible.

Rather than create the emotion of wanting to be there, they actually succeeded in making the cinema goer feel like they were there.

How this is done is the director and the band’s sleight of hand. Camera technicians are largely absent from the film and yet you are amongst the band. You’re inbetween vocalists Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt as they sway and shift matching David Byrne’s and Jerry Harrison’s movements. You are following percussionist Steve Scales around stage as he whacks his cowbell. You’re in Bernie Worrell’s face as his squelchy P-funk synth doubles up Tina Weymouth’s bass.

When the shot cuts back to the auditorium, the glory of the full ensemble is revealed. For a band that had cerebral and occasionally affected manner, this gig looks like the best fun ever by the time the house lights come up for Crosseyed and Painless.

I’m not sure what the 4K reworking offers, mainly because I’m not sufficiently cinematically knowledgeable to know the technical aspects. What it does do though is place the band back in an auditorium, essentially for the first in 40 years.¹ It suits them. The production craft of the show should be a lesson to all bands. It demonstrates how attention to detail is key but not at the expense of spontaneity.

I know that the film isn’t a start to finish record of a single gig. The band played four nights at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles in December 1983. I know individual evenings centred around capturing different footage to construct the movie from. I’d love to know if the road crew setting up the risers and gear is as seamless as the film shows. There’s a few continuity glitches mostly around David Byrne’s hair and costume which suggests some post production re-ordering.

I must have watched the movie on VHS dozens of times in the eighties. Audiophile John Darko has written recently about how the reissues have mixed and matched the versions of the music and pictures. For instance the VHS had Cities and I Zimbra, which remain absent from the cinema version. What stood out for me, watching it again for the first time in probably 30 years? Here’s a few things:

• The malleability of the band was evident but the growth from the sparse and beautiful treatment of Heaven through the rat-tat-tat of Thank You for Sending Me an Angel into the full band work outs later in the set is bewitching
• The decision to wear neutral tones has meant the performers haven’t dated visually². David Byrne’s suits (not the big one) look beautifully and gracefully cut. I’d wear one today in a heartbeat
• Chris Franțz and Tina Weymouth were the centre of the band, which is to be expected as the rhythm section. But it goes beyond this to them imparting the infectious joy within the performance. This is most evident when the band perform Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love. I wonder if the absence of Byrne for one song led to the band letting their hair down even more
• My forty year crush on Tina Weymouth hasn’t really subsided

The elephant in the room is whether this leads to a rapprochement for the band and then new shows or music. Frantz and Weymouth have always left the door open to Byrne despite his reluctance. Given Jerry Harrison has been touring the band’s Remain In Light album with Adrian Belew, you’d assume he’d be along for the ride too. Talking Heads feel somewhat apart in the reformation stakes. They last toured before the peak of their commercial success with Little Creatures and I know from friends in the UK that many feel they never got the opportunity to see the band perform live.

I’m normally one for leaving these things alone and letting history and nature take it’s course but Talking Heads shows have always felt like an itch I need to scratch. I missed out on the David Byrne American Utopia UK tour – I went to see what turned out to be Ryuichi Sakamoto’s last show in London on the Hammersmith date and had tickets for the Birmingham gig which Byrne cancelled.

Tina and Chris were interviewed in October 2021 by Electronic Sound magazine. This is what they said about Byrne:

Tina: It’s tragic that he goes and does these American Utopia things…I think he’s basically trying to rewrite the history of the band

Chris: Like our former Donald Trump, David’s relationships tend to be transactional. I loved working with David and I think it is safe to say Tina and I loved him as a person. But it was not reciprocal

Tina: Squeeze the orange, toss the rind. David’s never going to apologise

Chris: But if he did by some miracle I’d say “David! What took you so long? Let’s get this together while we’re still alive!

Electronic Sound 82 – Interview by Stephen Dalton

Harsh stuff but ultimately pragmatic.

The band have been in the same room and were photographed together for the movie’s promotional cycle. In a Pitchfork interview, Tina and Chris identified as being individually a Talking Head, whilst David skirted the subject by acknowledging it was right to collectively reconnect with the film. The olive branch clearly still exists from Tina and Chris as the group interview from this clip still shows.

That said, in most of the promotional photos and interviews I’ve seen for the movie’s reissue, Tina and David are never next to each other. Usually Jerry is the bulwark between them. However if you look hard enough…

If this is the end, we still have the music which remains some of my favourite. It’s music for the head, heart and feet. It’s fun and funky as hell.

To finally illustrate this, my Iphone registered over 1000 steps whilst I was sat in the cinema watching the film. And we won’t talk about my welling up when David sang Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place)

Home, is where I want to be
But I guess I’m already there
I come home, she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place
I can’t tell one from another

Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born

If someone asks, this where I’ll be where I’ll be

Need to find that handkerchief – I’ve got something in my eye again…

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1. I’m setting aside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2002 here given it was so fleeting ↩︎
2. Apparently Chris Frantz’s dry cleaning didn’t come back on time so he wore his turquoise polo shirt throughout the performances to maintain continuity ↩︎