Casual Gods
TALKING HEADS
Jerry Harrison (Jeremiah Griffin Harrison) was born in Milwaukee in 1949. He was one of the original members of The Modern Lovers and was both guitarist and keyboardist for the new wave group Talking Heads formed in 1974.
While Harrison was an architectural student at Harvard University, he worked with Jonathan Richman in The Modern Lovers. He was introduced to Richman by his friend and journalist Danny Fields. Joining in the beginning of 1971 and recording their first album in 1972 but the album was released only in 1976. He left in 1974, gave up architecture and joined Talking Heads.
Solo albums of Harrison include ‘The Red and the Black’ (1981), ‘Casual Gods' (1987) and ‘Walk on Water' (1990). His string of singles includes ‘Five Minutes’ (1984), ‘Rev it Up’ (1988) and ‘Flying Under Radar’ (1990). Talking Heads disbanded in 1991 and as a result Harrison moved onto producing and worked with numerous artists including The Von Bondies, General Public, Violent Femmes, No Doubt, Crash Test Dummies, Of A Revolution and Black 47. Recently he worked with The Black and White Years, Bamboo Shoots and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
Group formed in New York City in 1974; original lineup included David Byrne (vocals and guitar), Chris Frantz (drums), Tina Weymouth (bass), and Jerry Harrison (keyboards and guitar); Byrne and Harrison have also appeared and recorded as solo artists since 1981; Frantz and Weymouth additionally formed, appeared, and recorded with group Tom Tom Club, 1981—.
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Addresses: Office—c/o Sire Records, 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank CA 91510. David Byrne—Indey Music, c/o Overland, 1775 Broadway, New York NY 10019.
The movie "True Stories" was released in 1986. It was directed, scored, and partially scripted by Byrne with music performed by Talking Heads and a variety of ethnic groups. Time called "True Stories" the "most joyous and inventive rock movie-musical since the Beatles scrambled through Help." By this time, the group had come full circle. They had started out with a message that disparaged a culture driven by television and the mediocrity of news weeklies; then, ten years later, they were celebrating the ordinariness and banality of the American way.
"True Stories" takes place in an imaginary town populated by characters whose stories are drawn from tabloid headlines. Stereo Review carried this description: "In the film Byrne narrates slices of the lives of peculiar Texas townsfolk with names like Lying Woman and Computer Guy. They wear tacky outfits and tacky hairstyles and live in a tacky but friendly environment, a panorama of shopping malls and other consumer monuments separated by vast empty landscapes."
The soundtrack album features the original Talking Heads quartet playing pop songs based on a range of American music styles. New Republic observed that "instead of synthesizing Western and non-Western elements, the band moved in wholesale appropriations of American popular music . . . " and that "Byrne's voice had been purged of its trademark anxiety; instead of his controlled hysteria, he was actually crooning his lyrics." But Talking Heads refused to stand still or limit the direction or their music. By 1988 they had been to Paris and recorded Naked with a host of African musicians.
Talking Heads found their own unique voice amid the screams of the new wave rock revolution. Their sound has evolved to one with great appeal to listeners in search of inventive music. As Rolling Stone observed: "If the essence of rock & roll is white kids trying to be as cool a black kids, then Talking Heads effected the most rarefied cultural synthesis of the Seventies, a fusion of git-down street rhythms and collegiate sensibilities heady enough to spawn a generation of imitators on both sides of the Atlantic."
Albums:
Talking Heads, 1977.
More Songs about Music and Food, 1978.
Fear of Music, 1979.
Remain in Light, 1980.
The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, 1982.
Speaking in Tongues, 1983.
Stop Making Sense, 1984.
Little Creatures, 1985.
True Stories, 1986.
Source: Tim LaBorie
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