Released in 1984,
Stop Making Sense
has survived to this day as one of the best filmed concerts in history.
Recorded from four performances at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, Talking Heads, a leading Anglo-Saxon
indie
band and one of the most innovative groups in world pop-rock, teamed up with director Jonathan Demme to reach a summit between the fusion of cinema and music in the recording of a live concert.
The New Hollywood, whose leading representatives were marked by being part of the
rock and roll generation,
changed the way of understanding the sound dimension in the seventh art.
Films such as
American Graffiti
(1973), by George Lucas;
The Conversation
(1974), by Francis Ford Coppola;
Impact
(1981), by Brian de Palma, and
Nashville
(1974), by Robert Altman, opened new avenues of exploration for sound creators to take the lead that artists linked to image and photography previously had.
Shortly after, Martin Scorsese masterfully captured the collective experience of live music in
The Last Waltz
(1978), the first great
rockumentary
,
which records the farewell of The Band.
With Talking Heads' own postmodern sophistications,
Stop Making Sense,
like
The Last Waltz,
immediately became another classic.
That documentary event is now repeated with the re-release of the restored film with sound and image improvements this Friday, March 8 in movie theaters.
From their respective homes in the United States, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison, the four
heads
who separated in 1991, chat by videoconference about this revival, those years in which they marked an era from the streets of New York and his legacy.
A historic meeting after years of disputes and legal claims by Byrne, whose solo career has been the most notable and who never wanted the rest of the band to be able to tour without him under the name Talking Heads.
Ask.
Forty years later, what did you think when you saw yourself again in the documentary?
David Byrne.
I hadn't seen the concert in 15 years and I thought about everything when I saw it.
Who is that intense guy? Does he have a sense of humor? Will he relax? Will he relax?
He seems very focused.
Chris Frantz.
We all look handsome and Tina looks very beautiful [Tina is Chris's partner and they both speak from the same camera].
Tina Weymouth.
Go now!
Let's see, it's wonderful that we have this movie.
It is a jewel.
It's wonderful that Jonathan Demme came into our lives to do this.
Jerry Harrison.
We play very well.
We were incredibly strict and disciplined about not stepping on each other's toes.
We were really good.
Tina Weymouth.
What a shame about the band!
Ask.
The viewer is immersed in a scenario.
You can see the knowing smiles, the impulsive movements, the sweat...
JH
It has something of a horror movie.
It's like being inside a crypt.
DB
Jonathan was very good at capturing each part and then making each part interact.
It looks great how each other connects with a smile or simply by touching.
TW
The new print is made from the original negative.
Now it is so easy to see colors, lighting... but also eyes, lips, tongues and even teeth.
And of course it has much better sound.
It's beautiful to watch this movie and feel like dancing.
A still from the film 'Stop Making Sense' showing David Byrne and Tina Weymouth on stage.
Ask.
The film is a testament to her love of funk and
rhythm and blues.
DB
The first time all the Talking Heads got together was in the
loft
we had.
There we gathered all our record collections, threw them on the floor and there were albums by Parliament, Funkadelic, Hamilton Bohannon, James Brown, but also Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, David Bowie and The Stooges.
If you imagine all those albums together, something like that was what we wanted to be.
Ask.
What was the most exciting thing for you in those seventies, when you started at CBGB in New York?
JH
The very existence of CBGB and its owner, Harry Crystal.
He was very generous with his sense of timing and those open mic nights.
We could probably survive a month on what we made in a weekend playing there.
There was a great sense of support.
It wasn't until the big labels came in that there started to be some competition between the bands.
DB
New York has changed a lot.
CBGB no longer exists.
So we all felt like we were in one of the most important places in the world, where new music and really artistic things were happening.
We were all being ignored, but we felt like we were in a gang with musical differences.
We were on tour with the Ramones and we had almost nothing to do with each other, but we respected them and they loved us.
My God!
I was in New York recently... What happened to Soho?
They have taken him away.
It looks like a public parking lot, without shops.
Where are those factory buildings?
We moved through the Bowery, which was full of drunks and drug addicts.
Maybe it wasn't a pretty landscape, but it was an incredible world.
The city was bankrupt at that time and, so, they ignored everyone, they ignored the center and things could happen there.
We lived with the feeling of being in an ignored club.
CHF
And yet it was better than now.
Who would have thought it then?
We used to make posters and put them up ourselves around Soho and the Bowery because we thought that was our world.
TW
Artists were allowed to live there.
We opened several small rooms throughout the city.
Now, however, they can't.
They had to move.
First, to Brooklyn.
Then, to other parts of the world.
New York is no longer the artistic center it once was.
It still has great museums, but those are dead people.
So, the city was in deficit, the garbage trucks weren't picking up the trash and everything seemed abandoned, but there was so much life... A new vitality opened up in the United States.
You could imagine yourself being anything.
You didn't need the money to have fun.
Today, if you are not part of a great show and production, you do not exist.
JH
Two things are important.
First, in that New York they had built many
lofts
and they were empty due to the flight of light industry.
That led to cheap rents.
The other thing was even more important: there was a wonderful sense of community.
Not only among musicians, but also among dancers, visual artists, painters... Everything that we had read about Paris or Vienna in the past was happening in New York at that time.
It was truly avant-garde.
The street was avant-garde.
And we had time to develop ideas with each other before we were discovered.
Talking Heads in December 1977 in Hollywood, California.
Then they would shoot for the New York CBGB.Getty
Ask.
Did you consider yourselves explorers even then?
TW
We didn't think we could compete with Steely Dan, The Eagles and all those types of groups.
We weren't interested.
I guess we were the new kids on the block.
We had Patti Smith and Television two streets away.
We could go see them and then think: Wow!
Seeing them made us challenge ourselves and address what we wanted to do with our music.
DB
I think we were very thoughtful.
We leave room to develop.
We let our audience know that we were going to change, that we were going to try different things and that they wouldn't like everything.
That was important.
JH
This is one of the things that has really made music less interesting now.
When we started for the first four years, we made one album a year and toured to promote that album.
Albums were 35 to 40 minutes long at most.
When CDs appeared, people started making 70-minute records.
People were trying to squeeze out the amount of money they could make so people could tour the world twice.
Record companies became very conservative and tried to force you to somehow duplicate the success you had before.
If you look back, The Beatles made more than one album in a year and no one wanted you to make the same album again.
Therefore, there was an expectation of change.
Ask.
Do you consider that his legacy has been important?
TW
We've never played our records to our kids.
They didn't know much about Talking Heads until they were 18 or 20 years old.
They grew up with other references.
We have never tried to compete with those leaders, but I think they now recognize what we did and feel it.
And they know something else: the golden age is over.
He won't come back.
I don't know, maybe the energy that used to be in music has transferred to gastronomy today.
JH
Well, the younger generations listen to everything via
streaming
and that means they don't know where things come from.
Too many song files all the time.
DB
Sometimes, you can find people in those restaurants listening to Talking Heads songs on that
stream
and saying that they love it without knowing or wondering where that comes from.
TW
Have we become elevator music?
(laughs)
Ask.
What advice would you give to a musician starting out?
TW
Work very hard and don't give up.
Because you can work really hard and then say, 'Oh, it's not working.'
But then everything you invested is gone.
So don't throw it away.
Go on.
CHF
I saw a Banksy.
A Banksy artwork that said: “If you get tired, don't give up, just rest.”
Yes, exactly, no one sleeps enough.
That's how I feel even today (laughs).
Simply rest.
DB
I remember that, when we started, the audience was about 20 people.
And then a few weeks later, there were 40. You can build something with that attitude of going.
Make some connection, right?
TW
A lot of this is just about connection.
Like you say, it's not even about the music.
Taylor Swift has all these young girls who love her.
You can sing her songs, of course, but I can't.
I couldn't tell you what a Taylor Swift song sounds like.
I'm from a different generation, but she has a huge hook.
She rules.
She is the new Princess Diana.
Some artists have that kind of luck.
I remember when I was first listening to Talking Heads and thinking: 'How are we going to make it in America?
'America likes Dolly Parton and
country
music .'
But people also liked Talking Heads because we also had a sound that spoke to another person.
We had our own distinctive style and ability to connect.
JH
One piece of advice for emerging musicians is that, back in the day, we worked very hard and toured more than any other band that came out of CBGB, except the Ramones.
All the other bands did much less.
They cared less about building an organic audience by going to it.
It helped in part that our
manager
was experienced and knew everything about the road and how you could make money on it.
And we also kept tickets cheap and didn't go into debt with our record company.
We make sure we can survive on the road.
So, if I gave any advice to any band, it would be: be very cautious about where you spend your money.
Ask.
With this good atmosphere in this talk,
Is it possible to trust a Talking Heads meeting?
[Laughs of the four]
JH
This interview is like a baby step.
The other would be like a grown-up step.
It is not convenient to think about it for now.
We are focused on this film.
CHF
Until next time.
TW
Until next time.
DB
Goodbye.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_