Ah, the late, lamented Talking Heads. For a few years there, they were really amazing and there’s been nothing like them since.
Today, you get two cover versions of T-Heads tunes, from two of the band’s three phases. My classification system would be as follows:
- NYC art rock band (Talking Heads: 77, More Songs About Buildings and Food)
- Groove-based world music (Fear of Music, Remain in Light)
- Mainstream rock (Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures)
Crude, and a touch simplistic, but I’ll argue for its essential accuracy. I guess you don’t see a lot of cover versions of Talking Heads; I really need to convert the two T-Heads cover versions I have from the Staple Singers.
First up, a reasonable imitation of an Eno-produced song “Born Under Punches,” taken from Remain in Light (1980). Fuzz Against Junk’s take really only differs in terms of length: Nine minutes instead of 5:46. Still, pretty good stuff. On this cut, Fuzz Against Junk are: Bass, Gordon Smith; saxophone, Rob Lavers; guitar, Ricardo Fernandez; vocals, Andy Williams; backing vocals, Claire Nicholson; drums, James Chappell; timbales, Ben Mitchell. Andy Williams went on to form the remixing team Yam Who? with Des Morgan. FAJ did a handful of tracks on the (now-defunct) Nuphonic label before disappearing. They are not to be confused with the “noisy, experimental, kraut rock band” Fuzz Against Junk or the other band of the same name, which this page says is “now signed to Invada Records (run by Geoff Barrow from Portishead and Fat Paul, legendary Bristol impresario), [and] contain[s] musicians from many legendary Bristol bands — drummer Steve Dew from the lost and lamented Spaceways, Paul Allen from The Heads, Billy Fuller whose day job is as bass player for Robert Plant, and the lynch-pin, musical archivist Ian Green.”
Then, The Arcade Fire give us a live version of “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody),” my favorite song from Speaking in Tongues (1983). This one’s from a live show in Cambridge, on Nov. 12 of 2004. It’s little more stripped down than the original, but it still retains the charm. Earlier this year, David Byrne joined the band onstage to perform this song.
Bonus tip: You may enjoy this backwards-interpretation of “Burning Down the House.” The whole song is played backwards, while the text of the new resulting lyrics appear on screen. It’s kind of eerie how articulate Byrne sounds in reverse.
Fuzz Against Junk – Born Under Punches — BUY
The Arcade Fire – This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)