This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century

By David Bowman

Book Overview

Could there have been a more improbable band to rise from the ashes of punk and the smoldering embers of the disco inferno than Talking Heads? Made up of art school students, "military brats," and an Ivy League dropout, the Heads came of rock age in New York, 1976--the Summer of Sam--thrilling the arty downtown crowd that filled the hallowed dirty halls of the infamous CBGB. This ain't no party, this ain't no disco: This was something no one had heard the likes of before.

In This Must Be the Place, David Bowman gives us a stunning in-depth view of the changing world, the unique sound, and the remarkable clashing personalities of four exceptional artists who refused to paint inside the lines: Jerry Harrison, Chris Franz, the beautiful blond bass player Tina Weymouth ... and her nemesis, a brilliant, loose-limbed, bug-eyed "carny geek" named David Byrne. No band in rock 'n' roll history was ever less mainstream yet so adept at producing FM hits and MTV eye candy, securing the group remarkable pop success. Bowman examines the band's collaborations with artists as diverse as Brian Eno, Robert Rauschenberg, and Robert Wilson, as well as the group's cultural borrowings from African pop, minimalism, and Tin Pan Alley.

Few bands managed to hold on to their original personnel as long as the Heads even while enduring the staggering intensity of internal jealousies and all--out ego warfare. Here is Talking Heads with all their flaws and finery, a classic story of the inner workings of a great American rock band told in superlative style and with vivid backstage detail. It is a fascinating m lange of complex personalities, twisted relationships, and dazzlingly creative brio. It has love and anger, genius and pettiness, bitterness, recriminations, even a broken heart or two. This is American pop culture at the end of a millennium, in a city in the throes of a cultural renaissance. This is Byrne, et al., ineffably innovative and relentlessly hip, blurring boundaries and breaking rules with their uncompromising commitment to excellence in the offbeat as they musically confront the volatile discordance of an uncertain future.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380978466
• ISBN13: 9780380978465
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.1" x 1.3" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

The complete history of Talking Heads

Bowman's book maps the early years, the huge worldwide success and eventual breakup of this talented band Talking Heads. Book One deals with Byrne and Weymouth's early years (Byrne's first band was called Revelation) and how the band came together. They began as New Wave art rockers who understood soul music. This part also covers the scene at the famous New York clubs CBGB's and Max's Kansas City, including interactions with other famous musicians like Patti Smith and John Cale - for example an interesting account of a John Cale gig at Lower Manhattan's Ocean Club. Book Two includes the account of the recording of More Songs About Buildings And Food with Brian Eno at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, discussions of the albums Fear Of Music and Remain In Light, a quote from the respected rock critic Lester Bangs on the song The Big Country, the involvement of Adrian Belew with the band, Twyla Tharp as choreographer, Byrne and Eno's influential album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, Weymouth an Frantz's solo project Tom Tom Club and much more. Book Three deals mainly with Little Creatures, True Stories and the conflict between Byrne and Weymouth that led to the demise of the band. The book concludes with a bibliography and notes, a discography, filmography and index. Black and white photographs enliven the text. Bowman's book is filled with memorable incidents, rock personalities and musical insights and reads like a novel. Highly recommended to all who enjoy the music of this unique band.

Why go to nightschool?

... when you could read this brilliant, sometimes scathing chronicle of life during wartime. This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, it's a fun, funny and outrageous look at the behind-the-scenes machinations of the single best band from the eighties. Bowman examines not only the Heads' heads, but the rarified and oft-polluted air they breathe in a NYC unnerved yet terrorized by psycho killer, Son of Sam, fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa. Even Tina Weymouth, known for her moodiness and irresistable cuteness onstage, comes off smelling like a ... well, you'll have to read it to find out. This ain't no fooling around. This is brash and witty "Salon" interviewer David Bowman at his best.

This Is the Place

This book did it for me. Not sure what those "one star reviewers" are yapping about. Inacurate? Maybe, although there are plenty of quotes and thirty pages of notes in the rear. I paged thru the book cuz I remembered something -- the very first quote is David Byrne saying, "Facts don't do what I want them to." Tina is then quoted saying, "You know nothing about us. Everything in here in wrong." A few pages later, the author asks David Byrne if the truth matters in rock and roll. "What's that quote?" Byrne says. "Between the truth and a myth, print the myth." The book is full of plenty of "facts," and myths are clearly labeled as myths. For a guy who knows nothing about the band, Bowman has a lot to say and he says it well. We would do well to remember that to this day no one really knows how bad Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident was (Did it even happen?) -- I go with myth & stories.

Screw "True" Fans--It's All About TTH!

I'm a big-time Talking Heads fan and I take issue with these messages from the "true" fans. Of course the main issue of the band has always been David and Tina. I remember reading about their fights in Rolling Stone around 1978. Chris was married to Tina. He's going to take her side of course. As for Jerry, Bowman portrays how time after time Jerry and David worked together, independent of the other two Heads. Whether or not you prescribe to Bowman's pro-David view, the pages are mostly about how the Talking Heads created their music in the studio, and that music's relationship to world culture. For example, I take the Walkman for granted, but I laughed when I read that originally it was designed it with two ear phone jacks because they imagined people would listen to the same tape on the street side-by-side? Apparently, no one could imagine Americans isolating themselves by walking down the street wearing headphones! The book is full of these terrifically weird quirky details. I have to say what the book could have used is an in-depth interview with Brian Eno. Eno comes across as a kind of Darth Vader. He's quite the mysterious guy! There are many reasons to read this book, but foremost, to me, is that it is well written and engaging. This is not your average "rock scene" self-indulgent journey. I stopped flagging pages with post-its after using half a stack on this book - it's got that much juicy info.

Superlicious

This is a fascinating story. The whole punk scene has been done to death, yet Bowman manages to say something new, be it post-19th Century Civil War references to CBGBs or a series of paintings Any Warhol made using urine (Piss Paintings).