Music Reviews: Talking Heads’ Tentative Decisions, plus Mississippi Sheiks, Jesper Lindell, and James Houlahan You can point to obvious antecedents for many new wave and punk bands. In Blondie’s music, for example, you can hear the influence of so-called girl groups from the 1960s. You can also draw a straight line from the Ramones to […]
David Byrne at the Fox Theatre: A Night Where Art, Rhythm, and Americana Collide When I first considered covering David Byrne’s tour stop at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, I wasn’t sure I could justify it. After all, Byrne and The Talking Heads have roots in new wave, punk, art rock—genres that sit a long way from […]
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An Expanded Edition of Talking Heads’ More Songs About Buildings and Food Late last year, Talking Heads’ label released an expanded edition of the new-wave quartet’s groundbreaking debut album, Talking Heads:77. Now, only a little more than half a year later, we have a similarly enlarged version of their 1978 sophomore release, the flippantly titled […]
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Music & Book Reviews: Talking Heads: 77 Box Set, plus the Flatlanders, a History of Street Singing, and More Talking Heads: 77 ranks among the most striking, fully realized, and important debut albums of the punk/new wave era that spawned it, though it doesn’t particularly sound like punk or new wave. In fact, it sounds […]
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The Bottom of the Food Chain “There’s not a moment’s rest at the bottom of the food chain. You’re always on the run at the bottom of the food chain. There’s never peace of mind at the bottom. We’re always running, running, running, running, running, running, running away.” The Bottom of the Food Chain By […]
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Earlier this year, England’s Grapefruit label issued Too Much Sun Will Burn, the second of two three-CD sets celebrating the British psychedelic sounds of 1967. The anthologies underscored just how adventurous that country’s rock and pop artists were back then, and now, from the same label, comes a companion volume to remind us that just […]
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