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No Talking, Just Head



Interesting  interview with Johnette Napolitano in the Dallas Observer. I always liked Concrete Blonde, esp their second album FREE. 

Anyway, here she talks about her time in the Talking Heads (sort of) and TR gets mentioned in relation to The Cars.

You were in the Heads with members of the Talking Heads, but that band was sued by David Byrne.

I can relate to how David felt about that project. Being in that band was like being in the middle of a war. It was just brutal. I got death threats. I had to have armed security. Fans of David Byrne were just not digging it. It was a drag. That band was mismanaged from the ground up. It was a brilliant record that nobody will probably hear.

What record is that?

We were working on two records at that time. We had finished one record and then did another called No Talking, Just Head. It had a lot of different singers on it. What they should have done was release the other album first because we could have established an identity without David Byrne. That one that wasn't released is genius. It was a brilliant record. It was a marketing mistake. I blame the management for that, but as far as being in the band and playing, how many people can say they've sung with the Talking Heads?

The fan reaction was odd considering Todd Rundgren replaced Ric Ocasek in the Cars and I don't believe he got death threats.

Well, you are talking about a whole generation who has never even seen the Cars. It just doesn't matter because Todd has his own legion of fans. How many people went to see the Cars and how many went to see Todd?

Comments

Jim Marquis said…
I was bummed the Cars thing crashed and burned. I thought there was potential for some great songs. But then again maybe some of Todd's music from the last ten years wouldn't have seen the light of day...
8:24 PM
Scott said…
I strangely have a soft spot for the Cars detour too. I actually thought the live album worked surprisingly well, and a 'full' 'new cars' album would have been interesting to get, but alas was not to be. {though suspect some of it would have come from same place much of the material from Arena came from.
8:35 AM
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