Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz could have been called his memoir More Recollections of Music and Food; between memories of life on the road, there are more than enough anecdotes about everything from chicken soup to French hospitality to a curious incident when David Bowie hoarded cheese and nuts backstage at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. But the author’s unassuming prose and candid but fair accounts primarily frame Remain in Love as a love story with Tina Weymouth, who with Frantz happened to make up the rhythm section for one of the great bands to emerge out of the New York punk scene. Whether that love story interests you will depend on how much you care about Talking Heads and the New York scene that spawned them. If you care, then there’s plenty of interest here.

The backdrop of Frantz and Weymouth’s relationship is of course populated with characters from a pivotal pop culture era, and the author comes across as a pretty decent guy, for the most part keeping his head together even around some of the oversized ones that surrounded him. As Frantz explains the key to his drumming, he’s essentially explaining the approach to his book, and what makes it a moderate success: “You should not be a show off. You should not aim to impress. What you should do is be sensitive to the tempo, and the melody…You should spread the love.” Born in Kentucky, Frantz starts spreading the love with his supportive early family life and his circle of friends at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he met both Weymouth and future frontman David Byrne.

Byrne does not come across well here. Frantz regularly notes that Byrne wasn’t the most generous of collaborators, not from the band’s early days and certainly not when they became successful. One could perhaps chalk it up Byrne’s coldness as a social awkwardness born of some kind of psychological impediment, but, as Frantz remembers it, even from the early days of Talking Heads, Byrne would often end up taking sole credit for a song that was a team effort. Still, although Frantz takes Byrne to task for his such ego trips, he doesn’t seem especially bitter. Just, hey, give the drummer and the rest of the band some credit, huh?

Talking Heads developed their sound in early gigs at the legendary CBGB, and much of the pleasure of Remain in Love is its sober account of some of the personalities in New York punk at the time, and finding out who was good people and who had a bad attitude. This is amplified as Frantz recalls the Heads’ first major European tour supporting Ramones. Most of the Queens punks come off as spoiled rock stars who, unlike Frantz, didn’t feel particularly grateful that they could turn rock ‘n’ roll into a moneymaker.

Frantz’s ongoing tales of Compass Point, the recording studio that Island Records’ Chris Blackwell founded in the Bahamas, end up grounding the book. Both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club (whose success, surpassing Talking Heads at a time, apparently left Byrne a little resentful) recorded some of their best work there. Remain in Love, as a piece of art, may not be Frantz’s best work. But since it documents his life with Weymouth as they’ve weathered its ups and downs (the latter of which Frantz admits almost too late in the book), it marks a different kind of rhythmic persistence of which he is understandably quite proud.

Having been a fan of The Talking Heads since the 1970s, I was very interested in reading this book. It gave me a lot of insight into the band and what made them tick. I found it very interesting to read about how they met, what they went through as a band, and how they evolved.

Of course, this is all from the point of view of one member, but just that one point of view was interesting. Especially interesting were the various collaborations with various other musicians, producers and other members of the musical arts community. The Talking Heads were always a major part of my personal musical journey during that period of time and it took me back and gave me insight and a different perspective than what I experienced during that era.

Recommended to anyone who was there, or wished they were, when The Talking Heads were an integral part of the Alternative music scene during a period of time when music flourished and often merged with the Art world which was also part of my world. As an Art student at the time who also loved music, I felt a common bond and enjoyed reading about their commitment to the Arts and how they were able to evolve.

Slow start with too much details about his way-too-normal childhood. Picks up after that. Best for fans of Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club.

Remain In Love is Chris Frantz's first hand account of his many years in the music business as part of the Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club.
His passion for music and his wife, Tina Weymouth, is evident on every page!
A very informative biography with a vivid description of touring and the many musicians and celebrities he met along the way.
A time in rock & roll history that leaves me with wonderful memories!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Such an excellent book about this talented group of people. Also a tribute to love and the music made because of it. Wonderful!

I already reviewed the audiobook. Again, I would highly suggest this book for any Talking Heads fan or those who are interested in the music of the punk and post-punk era. Plenty of great stories from Frantz's time immersed in New York and the CBGB "world".

A vivid retelling of the Talking Heads' story that offers a more balanced perspective of the creative "wellsprings" of their groundbreaking work. It's also a modern love story centered on Frantz's bandmate and soulmate Tina Weymouth. The book contains an assortment of colorful "walk ons," including laugh out loud descriptions of Mick Jagger, David Bowie, James Brown, Lou Reed, Johnny Ramone, Phil Spector, David Johanson, and more. Highly recommended.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-name-of-this-man-is-chris-frantz/id1459149715?i=1000488403818

Chris Frantz is warm and gregarious throughout this autobiography. That's no surprise; that's always been his stage persona, too.

It's hard not to "nerd out" while reading the behind-the-scenes stories and details behind the evolution of Talking Heads (and Tom Tom Club). Stories of hanging with the chilly Lou Reed, the unfriendly Ziggy Marley and touring with bands like the Ramones are catnip to music fans.

There will be a lot of attention focused on the relationship between David Byrne and the rest of the band. That's fair; we all harbor a decades-running desire to see the band get it together and tour again. But the relationship with Byrne is only part of the story. To summarize: Byrne is prickly, detached and generally unfriendly. Frantz's relationship and long-term romance with Tina Weymouth is the thread that pulls everything together (Gentlemen: our goal in life should be to find *our* Tina Weymouths).

The first thing I did after reading this was play "Remain in Light" and "Fear of Music," remembering Frantz's stories of how those albums and their songs came together.

The next thing I'll do is likely reread the book.

Remain in Love is an extremely detailed memoir, almost an autobiography of the drummer for Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club.

Beginning at the beginning, the book starts with the author’s birth. Then it backtracks to his parent’s meeting for the first time. In fact, it takes quite awhile to get to his musical career. Chris was already a couple with Tina in college. He decided to start a band. Soon, Chris, Tina and David wrote their first two songs together, Psycho Killer and Warning Signs. It was 1974. There were already troubling signs emerging. According to Chris, David had “a continual need to aggrandize himself at the expense of his collaborators, as if their contributions were not as important as his.” The band continued to have issues from then on.

As a friend of many (not-so-famous) bands, this complaint about lead singers is common. Many times the band creator feels slighted by the attention paid—by the public, management, and groupies—to the person singing and standing in front. This is especially true if the songs are written by another member of the band. So this seemed repetitive to me, but if you have no experience with bands, you may be surprised by the in-fighting.

My personal favorite part of Remain in Love was the behind-the-scenes look at not only these bands but others they worked with. If you are a fan of 70s and 80s punk and New Wave music, you will enjoy these long-delayed newsflashes too. 4 stars!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

"You're never going to make it in this business," David Johansen of the New York Dolls told Chris Frantz one night at CBGB. "You're too nice!"

Johansen was right about the latter, not so much about the former. Frantz is one of the poster-boy nice guys of the post-punk era, the joyfully sweaty drummer working triumphantly at his kit in the iconic concert film Stop Making Sense. As he repeatedly acknowledges in his new memoir Remain In Love (buy now), Frantz had every reason to be. He was in one of the world's most exciting bands, he was married to the group's talented and sexy bassist, and — when filming the last of three nights that became Stop Making Sense — Frantz had just made his Soul Train debut with his hitmaking side project Tom Tom Club.

Yep, Chris Frantz has had a good life. This despite longstanding frustration with his band's anti-charismatic frontman. "You could say that Tina and I were the team who made David Byrne famous," Frantz writes in the book's preface. Well, then! Tell us what you really think.

Frantz does, and he doesn't pull any punches, but he also makes clear that there aren't really any bridges left to Byrne. Aside from a successful and not unduly fraught reunion set for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2002, Talking Heads haven't performed live together for over 35 years, and haven't released new music for over 30. They're done. Peter Gabriel will rejoin Genesis before David Byrne reunites Talking Heads.

The setup might lead you to expect a real dishy read, but the reality is that Talking Heads were never Mötley Cruë. Jerry Harrison was showing up too drunk to the Speaking In Tongues sessions, so Frantz told him to clean up his act...and he did. Frantz himself drank too much rum at the studio for Tom Tom Club's first single...so they just recorded the song the following day. The absolute worst rock-star behavior Frantz recounts on Byrne's part is...well, let's just say it's a little too gross to get into, but it's the kind of thing that would be mere table ante for half of your favorite bands.

The truly hurtful thing Byrne did, in Frantz's account, was to unduly claim credit for the band's songwriting in ways that had both reputational and financial implications. In the annals of rock history, Remain In Love should help buttress the conviction that Talking Heads were a truly collaborative unit. It's also a reminder that Frantz and Weymouth demonstrated their chops with the success of a related musical collective that they led to chart success including one of the era's defining singles.

Tom Tom Club are now remembered as one-hit wonders — which is a little unfair given their touring success and the fact that their debut single "Wordy Rappinghood" topped the dance chart — but it's certainly the case that their signal pop-culture contribution was "Genius of Love," a Top 40 hit that went on to be one of the most-sampled tracks of all time. While the lyrical shout-outs to Black artists may sound awkward today, the song's success felt like validation for artists including Kurtis Blow, pioneer of the still-nascent genre of hip-hop. Sly and Robbie, who added handclips to the track, loved their mention.

In fact — Frantz would like to remind you — Tom Tom Club had a gold album before Talking Heads ever did. If the band's cameo in Stop Making Sense (as Byrne goes offstage for a costume change) feels like a sop, it wasn't: even for Talking Heads fans, "Genius of Love" was one of band's biggest hits.

Franz and Weymouth, though, always considered Talking Heads their flagship band and first love. Well, almost. Throughout the book, Frantz is absolutely reverential towards Weymouth, his wife of 43 years and partner since before Talking Heads even formed. Despite the title, though, he doesn't really write much about their relationship as such; the reader is generally given to understand that the two have always been on the same page about everything.

Other band biographers have suggested a more pitched conflict between Weymouth and Byrne, with overtones of sexual jealousy, but there's none of that here, nor would you expect there to be. It's certainly clear enough that both Frantz and Weymough adored the band's musical alchemy while resenting Byrne's increasingly independent attitude. Frantz's constant refrain is that Byrne is a poor communicator.

Alongside the author's frustration over that, the book also contains ample endearment and admiration for Byrne's ability to turn his distinctive personality (he's said he believes he has borderline Asperger's syndrome) into artistic gold. "He got into music to get out of himself," Frantz writes. "When you played music with David you came to realize his eccentricities were not an act."

But back to Chris Frantz. Born in Kentucky, where he continues to keep tight family connections, he grew up in Pittsburgh and found his way to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), which his high school art teacher described to Frantz's skeptical parents as "the Harvard of art schools." That wasn't good enough for Byrne, who dropped out, but it got him to RISD along with Frantz and Weymouth. Frantz invited Byrne to join a band called the Artistics; after graduation the two migrated to New York along with Weymouth, who finally succumbed to her boyfriend's pleas that she pick up a bass.

Thus were born Talking Heads, later supplemented with Jerry Harrison — who appears here as a doomy character, bitter over the breakup of his former band the Modern Lovers and convinced Talking Heads will meet the same fate. The bulk of Remain in Love is a surprisingly detailed account of Talking Heads' recording and touring career, including travelogues of Europe and the U.S.

Let's just get the local angle out of the way: here's what Frantz remembers about the band's visit to Minneapolis.

When we rolled into Minneapolis we visited the legendary Oar Folkjokopus record shop. Even though the clerks could be condescending, it was the hippest record store for miles around and the only shop carrying Punk and New Wave in Minneapolis. Let's just say the clerks did not condescend to us. We met Andy Schwartz, who would soon be running New York Rocker magazine. We performed at Jay's Longhorn, another steakhouse that pushed back the tables after dinner for the bands to play. They had a scene germinating with bands like Suicide Commandos, the Replacements, and the Suburbs. The Longhorn was the CBGB of Minneapolis, and every show we played there was packed.
Of course, Talking Heads also played the CBGB of New York. It's where they played their first show, a home away from home for artists including the Ramones, Television, Blondie, and Patti Smith. "Oh yeah," said Smith when she met Talking Heads. "You're that art school band. I wish my parents were rich enough to send me to art school."

Frantz has stories about all the other CBGB regulars, as well as older heads like Andy Warhol (who invited the band to his shiny, corporate post-shooting Factory) and Lou Reed (unstable and weird, but still a musical hero who would later collaborate with Tom Tom Club on a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale"). Frantz remembers Seymour Stein as almost literally salivating to sign Talking Heads, who were a perfect fit for his label Sire.

Remain In Love is a memory-dump memoir, but there are plenty of music fans who will be more than happy to download these memories. Frantz makes a point of describing just how down-and-out the Bowry was; Remain in Love is an apt companion piece to Debbie Harry's recent memoir, where she similarly recalls a contrast between the musical magic happening at CBGB and the unmistakable danger of a neighborhood where she was personally raped by a home intruder. Frantz recalls stepping over dead bodies, and writes that when he and Weymouth were loft-shopping for Talking Heads' first living/rehearsal space, they saw one property that was just casually aflame, with no apparent effort to douse the blaze.

Frantz recalls being over the moon at the opportunity to work with Brian Eno, whose genius as a producer was to leave room for Talking Heads to be themselves and to drop in with judicious suggestions like slowing down their cover of "Take Me to the River." Talking Heads weren't too slow to be a famed live act, though: a perfect match for tourmates including the Ramones (who obliterated audiences that Talking Heads warmed up) and the B-52s (who reminded Frantz of his art-school friends).

Perhaps the craziest gig Frantz recounts was a show in Belgium in the days when pogo-ing was a thing. Some of the band's young fans, Frantz remembers, "had managed to pogo right through the floor, landing in the basement below. They would then climb back up the stairs and push the crowd so that the kids in front of them dropped through the hole they had created."

As Talking Heads became increasingly a vehicle for Byrne's vision (Frantz evinces a little schadenfreude at the flop of True Stories), Frantz and Weymouth increasingly settled into their home in the Bahamas; Tom Tom Club was born from their active participation in Island Records founder Chris Blackwell's successful attempt to turn his Compass Point Studio into a landmark of pop reggae. Frantz and Weymouth produced Ziggy Marley, befriended Robert Palmer, and even got to hang out with the Godfather of Soul himself.

Frantz's father happened to be visiting at the same time Brown was in town, and when the drummer introduced the two, his dad said the most dad thing possible. Referring to the growled mention of Brown in "Genius of Love," Frantz's father said, "You know Mr. Brown, my son made you famous."

"You know, General Frantz," Brown said to the Army man, "your son may be a genius, but I was already famous."

So, I am a fan of Talking Heads, but not a Mega-fan. It is not like I have posters up or have all of their lyrics memorized. However, I have a good number of songs on regular rotation. In fact, I played Psycho Killer so much that when my son was 2 or 3 I occasionally heard his little voice from the backseat of my car saying "play Psycho Killer!"

This new memoir by Chris Frantz tells of his youth, his time with the Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club. Frantz tells of how he met his wife Tina Weymouth and David Byrne while they were students at the Rhode Island School of Design and formed a band that was called The Artistics. Later, after he graduated, Chris and Tina moved to NYC where they moved into an industrial loft space with David Byrne so they could work on their music. They became regulars at the nearby club CBGB, where many bands got their start in the 1970's.

Like any celebrity or rock & roll memoir, there is lots of name dropping of people they met along the way...The Ramones, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones etc. to name a few. We also see that there have been tensions between David Byrne and the rest of the band since early on. David has issues connecting and socializing with the band and is apparently oblivious to giving others credit.

I found this to be an interesting and entertaining read. While, Chris Frantz may not be a wordsmith, his voice does come through and we clearly feel the love he has for his wife and his passion for music. The audio version is narrated by Chris himself.

<b>What to listen to while reading (or taking a break)</b>
Clearly, the obvious choice here is The Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club.
Other groups mentioned that you can listen to include The Ramones, XTC, Blondie, Bob Marley...

Major takeaway: David Byrne is not a nice person who takes credit for the work of others and has zero social skills. What is less clear is why, knowing this, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth continued working with him.

Any fan of the late 1970s-early 1980s punk/alternative music scene will enjoy this memoir, with its front row depictions of the Ramones, Debbie Harry, B-52s, CBGB, etc., despite the fact that it's primarily superficial with little to no analysis. I'm a longtime Talking Heads fan, and a Pittsburgher, so I was eager to learn more about the Talking Heads from fellow Pittsburgher, Frantz. But he considers himself to actually be from Kentucky, so I don't feel bad in saying he's not a true Pittsburgher. Most Pittsburghers have a degree of humility, and he does not. Granted, he is hugely successful in his chosen field, but he's quick to find fault with others while glossing over his own (his mention of his cocaine problem is parenthetical, for example).

REMAIN IN LOVE is an engaging, enjoyable read, but had the unusual effect of making me think less of the author than I had when I started the memoir. #RemainInLove #NetGalley

I am omnivorous when it comes to books about the musical era covered in this book, '70s and '80s punk and new wave. If it takes place in NYC, all the better! Chris gives the reader a front row seat to the rise of The Talking Heads, plus we see his relationship with fellow Talking Head Tina Weymouth, blossom before our eyes. It's a lovely addition to the rock memoir canon.

Man......what a story. Art students in love and who stay in love. It's rare!

Chris Frantz has been a musician who has changed the music landscape as we know it. The Tom Tom Club? Talking Heads!!! Where would we be without "Psycho Killer???"

BUT this isn't a musicians ramblings. This is the story of a marriage and a partnership.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I wanted to read this book when I heard Richard Blade promoting it on XM First Wave. The book gives a detailed description of Chris’s life and career. The highlights were the stories of the Talking Heads European tour with The Ramones, detailed stories about recording at Compass Point studios, stories about the formation of the Tom Tom Club and their success.
The author must have kept a detailed journal over the years because his memory of setlists, tour dates, and hotels is impressive. This is great when hearing about the European tour with the Ramones but a little grating when hearing the names of all of his childhood friends. The authors style is very anecdotal and took me awhile to get used to. It feels very Forrest Gumpish at times “we did talk to a group of kids who’d come up from Athens, Georgia..they said they were starting a band…What’s the name of your band, they replied The B-52’s”, “one of the night bar men was Damon Albarn who told us I’ve got a band”. As another reviewer mentioned the timeline on the Damon Albarn anecdote had to have been off as he would of only been 9 years old at the time of this tour.
Other times this writing style is very entertaining such as when the Frantz is telling Lee “Scratch” Perry stories or detailing the production of The Happy Mondays album “Yes Please!”.
If you are a Talking Heads fan you will enjoy a lot of the details on creation of songs and the recording of albums. Frantz portrays David Byrne as not giving the other band members credit from the beginning but never explains why the other band members wanted to keep The Talking Heads together. It feels like there might be some pieces of the story missing.
The book took me awhile to read, but was entertaining. If you are a fan of the Talking Heads it is definitely worth a read. It is also an interesting read if you are interested in hearing information CBGB in the late 70’s, Compass Point Studios/Island Records, or the “Stop Making Sense” film.

I always loved the Talking Heads, and this book had many little known facts about the band. Very interesting, and informative. Thanks Netgalley for this ARC!

I finally finished reading Remain In Love, the book by Chris Frantz, drummer for Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club. Man, I did not like this book at all. I can pretty much summarize this book by the 3 main themes that run through the book. Let me save you the trouble of reading 400 pages.

1. Chris Frantz is totally over the top in love with his wife Tina Weymouth and has been since they were both at Rhode Island School of Design.

2. He really hates David Byrne and doesn’t try to sugarcoat how he feels like he was mistreated and lied to, and DB was not the genius behind the band.

3. He’s white and privileged.

I think if I had read this book a month ago, the 3rd theme would not have stood out as much. Chris Frantz is from a small town in Kentucky and boy does it show in his perspective of things. I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of Talking Heads. I like a few songs but I’m more of a casual listener than a fan. I wanted to read this because I was interested to read about CBGB’s in the late 70s. All Chris Frantz does though is shit on Joey Ramone about how awful a person he was and talk about how David Byrne stole lyrics and writing credits from him. Reading this did not make me a fan.

The first 70 pages or so are all these mundane stories about his friends growing up. He’s like your granny who tells you all about these people she knows but you couldn’t care less about. I almost stopped reading because it was such a slog. I really didn’t need to know about all the different apartments that he lived in while he was at RISD!

The most interesting thing about the book? I found out that I stayed in the same hotel in Amsterdam as they did on their first tour of Europe. Cool, huh?

his autobiography is written by Chris Frantz, a musician who is notable for having been in the bands Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, for being married to Tina Weymouth for 43 years, and an intense and severe dislike of David Byrne.

To be fair, Frantz spends considerable time in this book writing about why he liked Byrne enough to be in a band with him for a few years, but having read this book (and seemingly not communicated with Byrne about writing it), I must say, it seems like dealing with Byrne was a prolonged nightmare; at the very least, the book is so sprinkled with Byrne-related anecdotes—most of which are indicative of Byrne’s destructive ways—that I get why Frantz would want to exorcise it all by writing about it. On the other hand, I’d love to speak with Frantz and find out why he’s writing about all of that in the way he has, more than four decades after having formed Talking Heads with Byrne (and others).

'I had the great fortune to not only be a founding member of one of the most unique and exciting rock bands of all time, but to do so alongside the love of my life, Tina Weymouth. Together with David Byrne, and later Jerry Harrison, we created a new paradigm we called “Thinking Man’s Dance Music.” The name of the band was Talking Heads. We found inspiration in the bands we loved—the Velvet Underground, David Bowie, James Brown, Al Green, Otis Redding, Booker T and the MGs, Kool & the Gang, the Stooges, and the psychedelic garage bands of the sixties—but we didn’t sound like anyone else. We didn’t copy anyone’s style. And no one could copy ours.'

That claim is true.

Talking Heads came a very long way in a very short time, and if one believes what Frantz writes in this book, it’s quite obvious that lyrics and music were largely a band effort and not what’s written in the album-credits section.

This book reminds me a lot of Stephen Morris‘s book, Record Play Pause, which is about his life growing up and playing drums in New Order. In Remain in Love, there’s a bit about Frantz’s growing up, and I’m glad that he settled for short paragraphs with quite rudimentary info:

'At school I was happy to have some excellent and challenging teachers. Several come to mind, like David Britton, a graduate of Middlebury College, who skied, rode a motorcycle, and taught English, including a course called Adolescent Rebellion. The latter was of great interest to me. We read Aldous Huxley, Ken Kesey, James Baldwin, Tom Wolfe, Allen Ginsberg, John Knowles, J. D. Salinger, Eldridge Cleaver, and Malcolm X. My parents were mystified by some of these selections, especially by a book called Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing by A. S. Neill, about a progressive “free” school. But they were pleased with my enthusiasm.'

Some of the info could have been edited out, in my opinion. For example:

'I had a very interesting French teacher named Antoine Cordahi, an Egyptian Jew who had fled Nasser’s regime to come to the USA. Mr. Cordahi was something of a dandy who wore black silk suits with purple shirts and Beatle boots. He also taught Music Appreciation, which I loved. This was the first time I heard Debussy, Satie, Herbie Hancock, and the first rock opera, Tommy by the Who. The course was a real turn-on.'

Sure, I get it, those things had some kind of relevance to Frantz, but context should have existed to serve a higher meaning; I’d much rather have read about his ideas about things, his inner thoughts that shaped his life, his family circumstances.

There’s something to be said about musicians who have been seasoned by decades of being interviewed.

He does write lovely things about Tina, his wife:

'One night I screwed up my courage and knocked on Tina’s door. Her apartment was only a block away from mine, so I made up the excuse that I needed some dog food. Tina was sweet and kindly offered me some. I said thanks and good night. When Tina closed the door, I stood there with Lucy wondering how to say what I had really wanted to say. I knocked again. When Tina opened the door I confessed, “I didn’t really come here for dog food. I came here tonight because I want to sleep with you.”

Tina looked at me with big blue eyes, smiled, and said, “Chris, I like you, too, but you know I already have a boyfriend whom I love very much. I couldn’t do that!”

I paused and finally said, “Well, I’m a very patient guy. If for any reason that doesn’t work out for you, I’ll be waiting.” Tina said, “We’ll see,” smiled again, and closed the door.

Whew. I had never been what you’d call a smooth operator with the ladies, and now my heart was pounding. As I walked back to my place with Lucy, I felt a great sense of relief having made my real feelings known to Tina. She had not completely shot me down. There was hope.'

The early days of Talking Heads made way for far more collaboration than what came subsequently.

After writing ‘Psycho Killer’:

'The next song written during this early period was called “Warning Sign.” The song was built around a drumbeat I was playing in rehearsal one day.

Much later, when we recorded this song for Talking Heads’ second album, More Songs About Buildings and Food, David added the words in parentheses and took credit for writing the entire song. It appears that he had forgotten that I wrote these words and when I confronted him, he said he would correct the credits on future pressings.'

This is where warning flags start to show up. I thought the two paragraphs above indicated that something bad would turn up later, and it did, much like a relationship that turns sour, especially when one part starts talking badly about the other behind that person’s back.

If we—for a moment—focus on the other stuff that the book contains, there’s some reminiscing of what New York City used to look like.

'Did I forget to mention the dead bodies? It was not unusual to have to step over or around a body that was no longer breathing as you walked down the street. Most of these corpses were men who drank themselves to death or toppled out of a flophouse window. The long history of the Bowery is one of crime, misadventure, debauchery, desperation, and death. Pickpockets and thieves hung out in every bar. People were drugged, robbed, and kidnapped. Muggers lurked in the shadows. It was a challenging scene for some nice kids from the suburbs like us. I had to keep telling myself that I would never end up a bum and, if things got bad, my family would surely look after me.

But there was another side of the Bowery. I could walk down the street and bump into Debbie Harry in one of her kooky thrift shop outfits. Debbie and Tina were like roses in a rattlesnake nest. Our friend from RISD, the designer Stephen Sprouse, lived just a block away in the same building as Debbie and her boyfriend, Chris Stein. I could cross paths with Johnny Thunders and his girlfriends of the moment, wondering why he looked like such a mess and yet his girlfriends looked so fine. Robert Rauschenberg lived and worked one block over on Lafayette Street in an old orphanage he had bought and restored. It still had the painted mural of young orphans on the side of the building. Ornette Coleman had a loft and rehearsal space on Bowery. The gorgeous gap-toothed model Lauren Hutton had a place near the corner of Bowery and Bond. Willem Dafoe was living there, too, as did Robert Mapplethorpe, the conceptual artist Vito Acconci, the pianist Charlemagne Palestine, and the feminist writer Kate Millet. The poet John Giorno, who we met at RISD when he did a reading from his book of poems, Cancer in My Left Ball, had lived on Bowery for years. In 1966, William S. Burroughs moved into his “Bunker” in the same building and Mark Rothko painted his Seagram murals there. There was a huge artistic community, not that it was ever visible from the outside.'

Frantz writes of a highly experimental, lively, lovely, mixed, and inspirational environment. He delves into CBGBs where he and fellow bandmates see artists like Television, Blondie, and Lou Reed play and decide they want to be in on that shit.

'One time I walked into the Tin Palace for a drink and saw Mick Jagger sitting alone at the bar wearing a huge quilted pimp-style newsboy cap. I did admire the Stones. He was high as a kite. The jukebox was playing Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” and Mick was singing along at full volume but changing the lyrics to, “Blowing me softly with his lips. Blowing me softly . . . with his lips.” I decided I would wait until another time to introduce myself.'

'As we cleared the stage to make way for the Ramones, Hilly said we had passed the audition. I heard Johnny Ramone, the guitarist, say to him, “Yeah, they suck, so they can open for us. They’ll make us look good.”'

Yeah, Johnny Ramone has never come off as a sympathetic person; I remember The KKK Took My Baby Away, a brilliant track by Ramones, having been written by Joey (the singer) as a response to Johnny ‘taking’ his girlfriend. Johnny was a republican who supported Ronald Reagan, so that’s where the KKK side came in.

CBGBs was some place:

'They say Wayne County—later Jayne County, after she transitioned— played CBGB first and that may be. Wayne grew up in Georgia and still had a strong Southern accent. Her band was first called Wayne County & the Backstreet Boys and later changed to Wayne County & the Electric Chairs. She had a wild sense of humor and had been part of the downtown underground scene for years. She wrote songs that were almost parodies of rock songs and were vulgar in the extreme. My favorite was “(If You Don’t Want to Fuck Me, Baby) Fuck Off.”

She taunted the homophobes and everyone else at CBGB. One famous night when Tina and I were watching, Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators was heckling her and she said that if Handsome Dick didn’t stop he would be sorry. Handsome Dick continued to yell obscenities at the stage and Wayne stepped forward and swung her microphone stand like a battle-ax onto Handsome Dick’s neck. That was the end of the heckling.

An ambulance was called and Dick was carried off to the hospital. Dick survived and later, in CGBG style, a benefit concert was staged to help with Handsome Dick Manitoba’s medical bills. I’m pretty sure Wayne County was one of the performers.'

Talking Heads’ time with Andy Warhol seems to have been lovely.

'Later, Andy would even do a radio commercial for us, saying “Buy The new Talking Heads Record and tell them Warhol sent you” and he continued to be a fan of our band, although he sometimes mistakenly referred to us as the Talking Horses. He was the most famous and quite possibly the greatest artist of our time, yet he always treated us like we were way more important than he was. He was there for many of our shows in New York, too, and I felt very fortunate to have spent some time in his Factory.'

Talking Heads were nerds; they were deeply into arts, music, and wore clothes that their parents might have given them.

'Ramones were a different band. Not only did they appear in uniform but their demeanour was entirely different. Talking Heads grew up middle class. Members of Ramones were victims of abuse, had sold themselves to men for money, and were deeply addicted to drugs.'

Talking Heads loved Ramones and very quickly jumped at the opportunity to open for them during their first European tour:

'As we arrived at the airport, I saw Dee Dee Ramone very carefully getting out of a cab and then walking painfully, with the help of a cane, to the terminal. I asked him what had happened and Dee Dee said, “Oh, Connie Ramone stabbed me! She stabbed me in the ass!” Connie, as mentioned earlier, was Dee Dee’s girlfriend at the time and evidently they’d had a fight.

While I was making a stop in the men’s room, Dee Dee came in, followed by Monte. They were having a bit of an argument. Monte said, “Give me that cane, Dee Dee!” and Dee Dee said, “No, Monte! No! Leave me alone!”

As I washed my hands, they had a scuffle, and Monte eventually prevailed, grabbing the cane away from Dee Dee. He unscrewed the handle and proceeded to pour all kinds of painkiller pills and downers into the toilet, while Dee Dee looked on in horror. To be fair, he did let Dee Dee keep enough painkillers to last through the flight, and by throwing the rest away he probably saved Dee Dee from being arrested at customs in Switzerland, where they were no doubt wise to hollow canes. Swiss customs were notoriously vigilant and hard on rock stars.'

As stated, Johnny Ramone was a real bitch:

'When the time came for Talking Heads to go onstage, David, Jerry, and Tina needed to tune their guitars. There was only one strobe tuner for both bands to share and Tina went to look for it. Johnny Ramone was sitting at a table with the tuner in front of him and when Tina asked for it, instead of giving it to her, he said in a loud whine, “Somebody bring me my guitar!”

There was no response and the dressing rooms were not very large so Tina, who was not afraid of Johnny, suggested, “Why don’t you go get it yourself?”

Tommy Ramone came over to Tina and said, “Don’t talk to him like that. He’ll hit you.”

One of the crew must have had a talk with Johnny after that because we got the tuner moments before we went onstage and everybody was able to tune up. Neither Tina nor I were afraid of Johnny. The other Ramones were cool, but he was not. He was a classic bully.'

On the other hand:

'Johnny was still angry at us about our love of art, history, and culture. He said so as if this was ruining his life. I just looked at him and said, “Johnny, this tour will be over soon. Let me just say, in spite of all your bad moods, we are very happy to be here with you guys and one day you will realize that we are the best opening act you have ever had or ever will have.” Johnny would never be what you would call a nice guy, but years later, after some punk kicked him in the head, fractured his skull, and put him in the hospital, his attitude improved and we actually became friends.'

'The Ramones rocked the crowd so hard that the kids didn’t want their show to end. When it did, we heard cries of “Revenez sur la putain de scène! (Get back on the fucking stage!)”'

Also, nay, Manchester:

'In Manchester at the Electric Circus, the kids wore black plastic “bin bags”—what we in the USA call garbage bags—over their clothing like ponchos, and we wondered if this was a new punk fashion statement. We found out soon enough that the bin bags were protection from a disturbing new trend in the UK known as “gobbing.” Gobbing was the act of spitting high into the air with the goal of landing the gob somewhere on the band onstage. In the bizarro world of punk rock, gobbing was considered a sign of approval. It was something new and ultra punk. The more a band was loved, the more they were gobbed upon.

We got our fair share of gob, but when the Ramones hit the stage there was a veritable blizzard of gob. I felt badly for the band, but even more so for the crew who had to wipe the drums, guitars, and other gear down after the show. Besides being just plain gross, the gobbing was a real health hazard. Joe Strummer from the Clash got hepatitis from being gobbed at. After the show we talked about how punk had become a kind of ugly club and wondered how much uglier things could possibly become. The Punk movement was really picking up steam.'

Even though Talking Heads really evolved by incorporating African rhythms and sounds into their music, churning out complex and very different soundscapes than most of their peers, Frantz recants stories of hanging out with or just playing with other musicians.

Even though there’s a billion anecdotes here, they’re sometimes very entertaining:

'Back in the dressing room, the great Charlie Mingus was getting ready to play. He was getting old and not feeling very well. I introduced myself and reminded him of a gig of his five or six years earlier at the Encore Club on Walnut Street in Pittsburgh, where I was working a summer job as bartender. It was a jazz brunch and my job was to keep the Bloody Marys flowing. Charlie and his band were playing and some ladies in the back were talking very loudly. Charlie cut the band and asked, “Will you all please keep it down over there? We would appreciate that.” The ladies quieted down and the band started playing again.

This was some serious jazz, you know, not background music. Then the ladies started talking over the music again. It sounded like a hen house. In between songs, Charlie looked over at me and said, “Pass me one of those Bloody Marys.” Charlie took one sip, leaned back, and threw it across the room, where it landed with a big red splash right in the middle of the noisy ladies’ table. The room went very silent then, and the band resumed its set. Charlie looked up at me with a smile, slowly shook his tired head, and drawled, “Oh, yeah.”'

Some parts of the book intertwine musical success with the pains of working with David Byrne:

'One of the first tracks we cut was a rocker called “Life During Wartime.” This track grew out of a funky bass part that Tina created during a day off from touring on an otherwise-unproductive one-day recording session in New Orleans at Allen Toussaint’s Sea Saint Studio. Gary knew Allen’s manager, Marshall Seahorn, and got us a very reasonable rate, but we didn’t have our mojo workin’ that particular day—except for Tina. She and I remembered her bass part and when that tour was over she worked on it in our loft while I worked up a drum part. We presented this groove to David and Jerry, who then came up with their parts.

The entire song, including the vocal melody, is based on Tina’s part. It’s also interesting to note that, though he did come up with fantastic lyrics, David later credited himself as the sole writer of the song. This happened to us all the time with David. He couldn’t acknowledge where he stopped and other people began. This song about urban guerillas became the hit of what would become the album Fear of Music.'

There’s quite a lot to be said about Talking Heads’ songwriting process and from how many places they drew inspiration:

'The album begins with a song called “I Zimbra.” The basic track was recorded as an instrumental. There were no words yet. This particular track with it’s Nigerian High Life influences and the way it came into being though jamming was the template for composing our next album, Remain in Light.

When I say the influences were from Africa, that is for sure. But none of us were African. We were rock musicians who were looking for a way out of what had become a very predictable formula for playing and performing rock and roll. The African music we liked had the energy and the passion of rock and roll, but with one big difference. It was not based on Chuck Berry licks. I played my most minimal drum part ever, consisting of only bass drum and high hat playing a funky disco beat. I did this not only because I liked funky disco, but because I was loathe to tread on Tina’s, Jerry’s, and David’s beautifully intertwining guitar parts.

Dance music, or “Disco,” was wildly unpopular with the punk set, but we never shared this feeling. This song was a giant breakthrough for us, and not a style that I think anyone outside the band had anticipated. We just needed some lyrics. Eno also saw this song as an important move forward for us and suggested we use a sound poem by Dada poet Hugo Ball called “ Gadji Beri Bimba.”

Hugo Ball, a German poet who wrote the Dada manifesto and founded the infamous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, had performed this poem there in 1916. We adapted parts of the poem to chant over our recorded track:

Gadji beri bimba clandridi Lauli lonni cadori gadjam A bim beri glassala glandride E glassala tuffm I zimbra Bim blassa galassasa zimbrabim Blassa glassala grandrid A bim beri glassala grandrid E glassala tuffm I zimbra Gadji beri bimba clandridi Lauli lonni cadori gadjam A bim beri glassala glandride E glassala tuffm I zimbra…'

There’s a lot on how the schism between Byrne and Frantz/Weymouth grew, e.g. by Byrne refusing to tour and touring issues, not to mention how Brian Eno seems to have become a diva, e.g. by requiring that he only travel to the USA via Concorde.

Regardless of whether that’s true or not, Talking Heads died. For a while.

Frantz and Weymouth started Tom Tom Club that had multiple successes, notably the tracks Genius of Love and Wordy Rappinghood, which propelled Tom Tom Club into focus with the growing hip-hop movement.

There’s also the production of Happy Mondays in Barbados:

'The following day, we waited for the band’s gear to be delivered from the airport. While we were hanging out, trying to get to know each other and understand the band’s Mancunian accents, we heard screaming from outside the studio. The studio was very private, surrounded by sugar cane fields and located way back from the main road.

What the ruckus was about was that Mark “Bez” Berry, the band’s dancer and maraca shaker, had been doing donuts with his newly rented open-air Jeep in the sugar cane field and flipped the car, which landed right on his upper arm, shattering it and nearly cutting it off completely. Somebody brought Bez into the studio lounge while we tried to get an emergency doctor on the phone. I remember Tina staying with Bez and trying to hold his arm together while everyone else tried not to freak out. Tina was a steady presence no matter what was happening.

His arm looked really, really bad. Eventually, an ambulance arrived and took Bez to the hospital. When he returned later that evening his arm was held together with some contraption resembling the Brooklyn Bridge. Of course, Shaun wanted Bez’s painkillers.'

All in all, this is a book that’s filled with anecdotes and other types of fragments, all glued together by two things: Frantz’s love for Weymouth and his severe dislike of Byrne. I recommend it for reading if you want a fairly terse glib insight into Talking Heads and to read gossip about celebs.

A funny book. Enjoyable story but written in a very naive, gauche way. That said, a story which need to be told and, clearly, David Byrne is not bandmate material.

The best thing I can say about this book is that it made me revisit the Talking Heads catalog. That is a lot of good music. The writing is bad. There are a lot of seemingly superfluous details. The author tries to put the best spin on things (except David Byrne) and this slant just wore me down. Despite my interest in the band, this book was a slog.