Corporate rock was king. MTV was all the rage. One of the networks had a show called “Friday Night Videos.” If we got to stay up late, we could watch all of the new videos from the week–in one hour.
The Talking Heads videos were pretty neat. But, my true introduction to the band was the 1984 Jonathon Demme concert film, Stop Making Sense. They seemed like they were a bunch of nerds playing quirky new wave music. The first Talking Heads CD I bought was True Stories. It had a hard rock sensibility–who could imagine?
Does anyone remember the Columbia House scam? They mailed nine CDs for a penny–so long as you signed up for their regular club plan. All you had to do was use a fake name. I got Speaking in Tongues and Remain in Light that way.
Bob Woodward called the eyes the mineshaft to the soul. That may be a bit melodramatic, but I understand. Peter Gabriel cheapened the whole thing.
In 1994, my girlfriend and I drove to Norfolk to see David Byrne at the Boathouse. She insisted that we arrive early–we got a spot right at the stage. The musicians were dressed in black. This was when he had long hair.
The third song they played was “Cool Water,” the last song on the last Talking Heads album. In an interview he said that it’s his favorite song. It’s about death. I was so excited to hear it that I banged on the stage, loudly. Some girl gave me the look of hippie disapproval. That sort of thing didn’t happen again.
The rest of the show, my eyes were trained on his eyes. Every time he looked in my direction, I was right there, glaring at him. Our souls touched. He didn’t appear entirely comfortable, but I kept looking. For some reason, I really wanted to shake his hand.
The girl and I ended up in Nashville at the same time. We were trying the “just friends” thing. She was using me to make her boyfriend jealous. Hell, I didn’t mind–I got to see David Byrne again. (I also saw Lyle Lovett and Michael Bolton under the same pretense.) This concert was on the Feelings tour, at 328 Performance Hall.
We stood at more or less the same place at the stage as in Norfolk. The concert couldn’t have been more different–there were several colorful costume changes, and such. I was looking directly at him again. It was during the guitar solo on “Take Me to the River” that he figured it out. I could almost hear him thinking, “Oh no…not this guy again.”
I couldn’t stop looking into his pretty brown eyes. At some point later, I realized that it was exceedingly rude of me to do that. In the intervening years, my eye voodoo skills have caused me trouble. These days, I’m not really comfortable looking someone dead in the eyes for more than a few seconds…unless I’m angry.
nothing at all / 1994
