Talking Heads alums reimagine ‘Remain in Light’ tour
Talking Heads’
1980 album “Remain in Light” redefined rock. Sorry, it continues to redefine rock.
“Remain in Light” elicited a five star review from Rolling Stone. It opened the door for Paul Simon’s “Graceland” — as well as records from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, and Vampire Weekend. Both jam band Phish and Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo have covered it in its entirety.
“There were a number of groups that took different kinds of things from ‘Remain in Light’ and the tour we did,” Talking Heads guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison told the Herald. “Even the Police were stealing our singers (from the tour).”
A few years ago, Harrison spent some time with an internet video of Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light” tour stop in Rome. It reminded him of his old band’s might. With guitarist Adrian Belew — who played with the band on that early ’80s tour — Harrison decided to reinterpret the music with a new ensemble, which performs March 10 at the House of Blues.
“Belew said that his audience often comments to him about the joy and energy of that (Rome) show,” Harrison said.
Talking Heads and producer Brian Eno created “Remain in Light” by endlessly stacking guitars, synthesizers, percussion instruments into a tower of Afropop, funk, art rock and new wave. The resulting LP felt both meticulously labyrinthine and utterly visceral.
To tackle the music, Harrison and Belew recruited an 11-piece band from former members of disco revivalists Turkuaz with a dash of Belew’s solo group. With such a huge band, Harrison and crew can reinvent the album’s core and a wealth of other classics and obscurities in strange new ways.
“One of the things that is really great is that we have a horn section,” Harrison said. “Talking Heads used horns on later albums but not on ‘Remain in Light’ so it’s really fun to have horns on these songs… There are places where you can build the power. ‘Remain in Light’ is often built of repetitive figures so with this arrangement (of players) you have the horns add more power to a figure as it builds in a song.”
Not surprisingly, Belew is the key to the ensemble. Belew came to Talking Heads after logging time with Frank Zappa and David Bowie so he wasn’t an unknown commodity. But his guitar freakouts on “Remain in Light” were unlike anything in pop music at the time (unless you were listening to Zappa or Van Halen deep cuts).
“The solos on ‘The Great Curve’ are amongst the best he ever did,” Harrison noted. “We were all such great admirers of what he did.”
This band should have legs. Talking Heads closed its career by making three albums it didn’t tour behind so there’s plenty of material to cover — Harrison also has three solo records and Belew has a score more (the group has been doing Harrison’s “Rev It Up” and Belew’s track “Thela Hun Ginjeet” from his time with King Crimson).
“This band would be really great for (Talking Heads’ 1988 album) ‘Naked’ because we could try to duplicate those horn arrangements,” Harrison said. “Those would be fun challenges, and seeing how fantastic ‘Thela Hun Ginjeet’ is… There are people who would love to hear more King Crimson or Adrian Belew music.”
“But we are getting ahead of ourselves,” he added with a laugh. “Right now that’s not what we are thinking about. We are thinking that our show is pretty well honed and we want to deliver that great show every night for our audience.”
For details and tickets, visit remaininlight.net