by Backsliding on December 9th, 2011, 2:37 pm
I'm not suprised - I was delighted today when I was shopping at JB Hi-Fi here in Melbourne and my eyes fell upon Chronology - I was quite amazed as the Brick and the other box set took their time in arriving on Australian shores.
Needless to say I bought it immediately (even though I have a bad feeling my girlfriend ordered me a copy for xmas on amazon !)
I suspected I would have seen the bulk of the live clips on Youtube - but I was pleasantly surprised to see a whole lot of bits n' pieces I'd not watched before.
*But* the real treat comes in the Bonus Material section, with the 'South Bank show 1979' feature - it is AMAZING, and has completely revitalised my enthusiasm and affection for the band.
There are extensive interviews with all four band members - Mr. Chris Frantz was particularly insightful and amusing I thought, and it was good to hear from Tina and Jerry at length too.
There is a montage of some really cool photos of the band members, some probably taken pre-band days.
There is a funny ad for 'Fear of Music' which shows the cover and inner sleeve pic overlaid with what sounds like David announcing through a vocoder "Talking Heads have a new album, it's called Fear of Music".
Interspersed between the interviews are 5 or 6 superb live performances - there are clips of the band playing Psycho Killer and Life During Wartime at a gig featuring probably the coolest looking crowd of hipsters I have ever seen; all manner of punks and artistic types mingling and nodding their heads in enjoyment.
Pulled Up, Animals, Air are all performed in a well-lit, funky studio room - it's all really casual but cool and tight - a guy sits at the mixing board with a beer, the band all break at one point for a cigarette (Jerry seems to be the only band member not partaking).
Air is note perfect and interesting; one of Tina's sisters (I assume, they are very alike, i.e. both cute !) sings back-up with Tina.
Jerry and David review the album track of Animals on a record player before attempting to reproduce it live in their studio room, its cool to see Jerry interacting with David in this way, he seems confident and somewhat of a guiding hand. Chris and Tina are very chilled between songs, Tina with beer in hand ..
after years and years of loving Talking Heads (I was listening to them on my ipod today when I spotted Chronology!) I'd gotten to a point where I thought I'd seen it all and I was content (actually I heard some demos of tracks from True Stories on Youtube the other night which I hadn't previously heard - obscure TH stuff pops up from time to time on Youtube as everyone probably already appreciates).
My girlfriend noted the other day that I don't seem to be listening to them as much as I used to (I go through phases though, she will discover).
But as I said earlier, this dvd, which I was looking forward to acquiring but didn't hold great expectations for, has regenerated my interest and love of Talking Heads - can't ask for much more than that, I highly recommend it ..