I’m a researcher trying to do some “projects” about the greatest concert film of all time, Stop Making Sense.
Every event is in some ways connected to all the events that came before, and all the events that will come after. So what are the boundaries of Stop Making Sense? Where does Stop Making Sense begin?
I look to the researchers that inspire me for guidance.
Mark Lewisohn, author of the most comprehensive reference books and biographies of the Beatles, begins his research a couple of generations before the birth of the individuals that formed the Beatles, tracing their immigrant ancestors’ paths to Liverpool.
In his multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro gets into some environmental/geological shifts that took place over millennia, but for the most part confines his study to seventy or so years of Johnson’s maternal and paternal ancestors.
Mark Malkoff hosts the Carson Podcast and has tried to speak to every person ever connected to Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.
My research process has not yet delved this far back, but I am taking three cues from these inspirational researchers.
Mark Malkoff emphasizes “the power of asking.” In his view, polite perseverance is the key to discovering knowledge. He asks everyone he can if they’ll talk to him.
Robert Caro’s research philosophy is “turn every page.” Coming out of his journalism background, Caro insists on inspecting every available document, looking to discover any nugget of insight.
Mark Lewisohn, on the fiftieth anniversary anniversary of the Beatles recording their Get Back project, set out to “re-experience” the project. Throughout the month of January 2019 he listened to each day’s recordings from 50 years before.
This summer marks the 40th anniversary of Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues Tour. The final shows of which were filmed and became Stop Making Sense. The planning of this tour is as good an origin-point of the Stop Making Sense story as any. I have managed to acquire 40 of the 57 concerts Talking Heads performed on that tour, totalling almost 80 hours.
My plan is to re-experience that tour inasmuch as possible, and share my findings and thoughts, and maybe learn how to build a website in the process.
Today is June 1st 2023. It is 40 years since the Speaking in Tongues album was released. It originally came out on a deluxe edition and regular edition vinyl and an extended cassette. More on all of these versions later.
Today is also my 53rd birthday. More on this later.
Of course, I was 13 years old when Speaking in Tongues came out. I was not cool enough to rush out and get it the day of release. Instead I spent my 13th birthday here.
Talking Heads appeared in the episode of Late Night with David Letterman on July 8 1983. The 8th fell on a Friday, and this was a 90-minute long episode. Monday-Thursday episodes were 60 minutes long. Letterman had only recently started airing occasionally on Friday nights, after NBC’s cancellation of SCTV, the legendary sketch comedy show.July 7-8 1983
Talking Heads performed Burning Down the House and I Zimbra, and Letterman interviewed Byrne for one segment of the show. The band consists of the same lineup that were touring as Talking Heads in 1982 plus one additional member. David Byrne, Chris Frantz,Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, Dolette McDonald, Steve Scales, Alex Weir and Bernie Worrell. Lynn Mabry, Sly Stone’s cousin who had worked with Bernie Worrell in the Parliament-Funkadelic mob, as a Bride of Funkenstein, joins McDonald on backup vocals.
At some point either before or during the Speaking in Tongues tour, Ednah Holt (late of Larry Levan’s garage house scene and the Ritchie Family) took over vocal duties from Dolette McDonald. McDonald would join the Police on their Synchronicity tour for the rest of the year.
The choreography for I Zimbra lies somewhere between their 1982 and 1983 performances. Although Burning Down the House exhibits some of the choreo that would appear on the upcoming tour (i.e. vocalists gesticulating to themselves on the “my house” lyric), many of the signature moves (Weir and Byrne running on the spot) are not yet present. Given that this is the end of the first week of July, and that the first official tour date would be August 1st, I’m guessing that their rehearsal space was booked only for the whole month of July, and that they had been working for less than a week prior to the Letterman performance. It’s also worth mentioning that Byrne does not wear “the suit” for this performance. Given how useful in promotion the Letterman appearance was at this time, it would’ve made sense to wear this memorable costume if it was available. It seems safe to assume that either it wasn’t yet finished or hadn’t even been commissioned yet. Although Byrne has been consistent in saying that he conceived the costume in Japan during the previous 1982 tour, no one has detailed the specifics of when this concept was applied to the Speaking in Tongues tour.
Letterman’s show was a breakout hit and he became a media darling, with Emmy nominations and a cover story in Rolling Stone magazine soon after the Late Night debut. Although the Talking Heads segments are available on YouTube, the entire episode is sadly not. The other guests were Grace Jones and Brother Theodore. The Toronto TV guide listed John Candy, but I don’t think he actually appeared. July 8th’s Brother Theodore segment is in the middle of this video. I’ve been unable to obtain the rest of the episode. Although I loved the show in the early eighties, I never really enjoyed Brother Theodore.
If you’ve never seen an entire early-period Late Night with David Letterman, I recommend watching at least one (preferably starting at 12:30 am) to get a flavor for how odd and unpredictable the show could be. Here’s a fairly representative episode from just a couple of months before.
So did 13-year old Ted stay up and watch Talking Heads on Letterman? I don’t remember doing so. I certainly recall staying up many a Friday night to watch SCTV in the same time slot. And I think that I was already watching Letterman when I could. But if I had noticed John Candy as a guest I would’ve tried to tune in. But I wasn’t yet a huge Talking Heads fan. I had heard Once in a Lifetime, and seen its music video (on SCTV and elsewhere). I liked them, I knew they were cool. But so was Thomas Dolby, Split Enz, Kate Bush, etc…
So why does this post cover July 7 and 8, when the Late Night appearance was shown Friday July 8 8th? Because the show was recorded the evening of July 7! Through much of his career, Letterman liked his long weekends so would frequently tape the Thursday and Friday episode on Thursday night. Letterman archivist extraordinaire Don Giller confirmed that this episode was taped on the 7th for me. You can read about Don’s amazing activities here and here.
I asked Don about this possibility, because while researching 1983 I came across this advertisement.
This was in the July 6-12 Village Voice (an alternative free weekly paper that used to be the source of information for many New Yorkers). Apparently Talking Heads would be otherwise engaged on July 8th.
So what is this ad all about? Meet Talking Heads? Celebrate the videotape? Why is there only an address (254 East 2nd St) and no name for the place?
Well it turns out that this address was once a legendary nightclub called “The World.” There’s a great article about it here. In the article, David Byrne recalls “We shot the video for Burning Down the Houseat what became the World. I believe it wasn’t open yet.” Chris Frantz says, in his memoir, that the video was made at the World nightclub (p. 311). Interestingly, the audience shots in the final video look more like stock footage from some sort of stadium show, than a bunch of cool East Village club kids. So why was the public invited? Still a mystery…
The “plot” of the nightclub sequences seems to be some sort of battle between dark universe Talking Heads and our-universe Talking Heads. Most of the alternative Talking Heads have few other credits. However, Rockets Redglare (1949-2001) played the dark universe Jerry Harrison.
Redglare was a famous (infamous?) denizen of the East Village with a really impressive filmography. He’s got small but incredibly memorable roles in Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law. He’s the cabdriver in Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan, the hotel clerk in Penny Marshall’s BIG, and also appeared in films by Oliver Stone and Martin Scorcese. A lifelong heroin addict (his bio is intense), Redglare was well-known as a heroin dealer when he lived at the storied Chelsea Hotel. He was the last person to visit Sid Vicious’ and Nancy Spungen’s room, before her death, so this has led some to speculate that he was the actual murderer, but there is apparently no evidence to corroborate this. When Redglare was ill in the late nineties a powerful, if difficult, documentary was made about him that is unfortunately difficult to find nowadays. Try your local library or ebay for the DVD.
Of course, there’s more to the Burning Down the House video than the nightclub footage. A number of Facebook sleuths have located and documented the actual house featured in the music video. Historic Film Locations has the best post and documentation. Brian Pelican, a commenter, says that his old house was the neighboring property and that’s where cameras, projector and electrical were set up. It’s on Myrtle St. in Union New Jersey. It’s a very short street, just off of the I-78. It’s worth having a look at the street view on Google maps.
I haven’t tracked down the dates that footage was shot, but I guess that it was around July 9 or 10. I will deal with the street projections footage in another post later on, specifically dealing with projections.
…getting back to 13-year-old Ted. If he wasn’t watching Talking Heads on Late Night with David Letterman, what was he doing on July 7-8 1983? He was basking in the glow of his first brush with fame!
Facts:
The Late Night with David Letterman was taped on July 7 but aired on July 8 1983.
The band performance segments of the Burning Down the House video were recorded on July 8 1983 at 254 East 2nd St. NYC. More to follow.
The burning house in the video was in Union New Jersey.
Suspicions:
The rehearsal space was probably booked for the month of July. More to follow.
The big suit did not yet exist.
Ednah Holt had not joined the band before July 7. More to follow.
Dolette McDonald had not left the band yet. More to follow.
Choreography for the tour was not yet fully developed by July 7. More to follow
I’m obsessed with the movie,Stop Making Sense. It is, subjectively, my favorite movie of all time. Objectively, it’s one of the best movies of all time (not just one of the best “concert movies” or “rockdocs.” I’m trying to figure out the cause of this movie. What makes it great? How did it come to exist? How did it come to be so great? Obviously, EVERYTHING that came before led to this movie. But I’m trying to only get real detailed about the year or so before it was made. I’m at the research stage. One day this Project will form into a book, podcast and/or something else.
I’ve spent much of June 2023 trying to nail down Talking Heads activities of June 1983. There are a bunch of things that have generally been assumed to have occurred, that I’m trying to verify with documentation. But, why is documentation important?
Well, it might not be. While working on Stop Making Sense Project, I’m also in library and archives school. One of the issues archivists deal with is the imposition of colonialist values on indigenous ways of knowing. In many North American traditions, truth is passed on orally and embodied in the minds and hearts of elders. Paper records, such as deeds and treaties, are frequently tools of manipulating knowledge to the benefit of colonizers. For this reason, and others, documentation ought to be considered only as one step in the process of knowledge gathering. It ought to be weighed against comprehensive oral histories and other ways of knowing as well.
I’m planning on entering my oral-history era of Stop Making Sense Project soon. Frankly, I’m nervous about this part of the process, so I’ve been trying to pick the least famous key contributors to the film to talk to first. I keep approaching people for interviews and they say “who else have you talked to?” or “who’s your publisher” and I get intimidated. So this anxiety means I’ve been slow to move forward on this stage of the Project. If you are interested in being my booker, or you were involved in any capacity on Stop Making Sense, please reach out to me. I would love to talk to you.
But this is the background research era of Stop Making Sense Project, and I’m looking at records and documents. So if documentation is so subject to manipulation, what good is it? There is an old Chinese proverb that says something like “the faintest ink is better than the sharpest memory.” I know what you’re thinking. “Really? Ancient Chinese proverb? Yeah, right. That’s something people say but never have any evidence of.” So I tried to fact check it with a basic Google search. This is only a MetaFilter source, but these people seem to know what they’re talking about. If you’re a scholar of Chinese imperial literature and can shed some light on this, please reach out.
At best, I think documentation provides evidence for specific “facts.” Facts in themselves are neither knowledge nor truth. They are simply a kind of data. They are one factor in making sense of something. If it seems odd that I’m trying to make sense of Stop Making Sense, that’s fair. I would only add that “facts don’t do what I want them to.”
So, what facts am I chasing? Specifically, I’m trying to document the release of the “Burning Down the House” single, the production and release of the “Burning Down the House video, the timings of the release of the cassette, standard edition and the deluxe editions of the Speaking in Tongues album, the East Village Tower Records in-person signing and, most significantly rehearsals, for the upcoming tour.
Firstly, Wikipedia asserts that the album was released on June 1st, without any citation. Rock journalist Lisa Robinson’s syndicated column had asserted (in mid-April) that the album would be released May 25th. A report in the Austin-American Statesman from one week later says that Rauschenberg’s cover has caused delays.
June 11 1983, the cover of Billboard refers to the “forthcoming album” by Talking Heads.
June 15 1983, Variety says the “new” Talking Heads limited edition album is list-priced at $12.98, the regular edition is listed at $8.98, the cassette has extended versions and that the band is planning an August tour.
June 15 1983, Variety also reports that Saratoga Performing Arts Center is re-jigging its summer lineup, with Talking Heads performing on August 5th 1983.
June 15 1983, Variety also reports, in a confusingly-worded article, about summer concert revenue expectations, that “Premier Talent” is the agency booking Talking Heads.
June 18 1983 Billboard is reporting the album as a “top add” for radio play, but is still not listing it on the sales charts.
Variety reviewed the album on June 22
The album enters the regular Billboard Top 100 chart on June 25 at position 77.
Although industry magazines, Billboard and Variety both have many articles about the “explosion” of CDs, there are no mentions of Speaking in Tongues.
So here are the FACTS gleaned from these documents:
-the three Speaking in Tongues releases were probably between May 25-June 15. I have not found any confirmation of a specific date. It seems clear, given that it was a “top add” to radio playlists that stations had promo copies by late May. I was unable to find advertisements for the album being sold in record stores before the beginning of July.
-The regular cassette and LP editions of the album were $8.98 list price. The 50,000 limited editions were listed at $12.98.
-Concert dates were already being booked in early-mid-June.
-Premier Talent was Talking Heads booking agency.
-the album entered Billboard’s chart at number 77 on June 25th.
-I’ve been unable to unearth firm documentation of rehearsal information. More to follow.
-there is no documentation of the “Burning Down the House” single or music video in June. More to follow.
-there is no documentation of the Rauschenberg/Byrne signing event at Tower Records in NYC. In fact, there’s no documentation of Tower Records in NYC at all. More to follow.
