July 7-8 1983 – STOP MAKING SENSE

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 House at 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.