Rock legends Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew revisit classic Talking Heads album
Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison's ensemble with guitar giant Adrian Belew (Frank Zappa, David Bowie, King Crimson) play the classic album Remain in Light and other songs with support from celebrated LA punk band X for two shows in San Francisco and Napa.
While singer/lyricist David Byrne would become the visual focal point for the Talking Heads as the band rose to become one of the most popular acts to emerge from the New York City punk scene in the late '70s, Harrison already had substantial experience when he was invited to join in 1977. Teaming with Jonathan Richman in his Boston proto-punk band the Modern Lovers while he was a student at Harvard, Harrison played keyboards in the group as it achieved regional popularity and was courted by multiple record companies
The Modern Lovers recorded demos that would eventually be released as the band's influential eponymous album (the Sex Pistols would cover the song "Roadrunner), but Richman's desire to scrap their original hard-driving, Velvet Underground-influenced sound for a more stripped-down lyrical approach led the band to dissolve in 1974. Shaken by the split, Harrison returned to Harvard to study for his master's in architecture, but within two years was being courted to join the Talking Heads. Formed by Byrne and fellow students he met at the Rhode Island School of Design Chris Frantz (drums) and Tina Weymouth (bass), the band only recorded and released an independent 7" single before Harrison accepted the band's invitation in time to contribute guitar and keyboards to the band's first album for Sire Records, Talking Heads '77.
The group would embark on a remarkable string of collaborations with noted producer Brian Eno (an original member of Roxy Music who went on to an eclectic solo career and produced albums by David Bowie, Devo and others) that introduced funk and African music elements to the band's artful punk sound that reached a zenith on the third and final album they made together, 1980's Remain in Light.
Incorporating additional musicians (including guitar virtuoso Belew), the album featured the propulsive live favorites "Crosseyed and Painless" and "The Great Curve" as well as the future MTV hit "Once in a Lifetime." The band would see even greater commercial success after the 1983 release of Speaking in Tongues, the Talking Heads' first album in several years not produced by Eno, which included the band's biggest chart hit "Burning Down the House." The tour for that record was documented in seminal concert film Stop Making Sense. Still hailed as on of the greatest music documentaries ever made, this year a restored version of the movie played theaters and the complete soundtrack featuring songs cut from the original film was finally issued.
While the Talking Heads would release three more successful albums and appear in the musical comedy film True Stories through the rest of the decade, tensions within the band emerged as Byrne took control of its direction. The band never toured again after 1984 and would announce an acrimonious break up in 1991. Harrison had already recorded his solo debut The Red and the Black in 1981 during a Talking Heads hiatus, and would make more solo and group albums with his band Casual Gods (who had a 1988 hit, "Rev It Up") in addition to producing bands and the 1996 All Talking No Heads collaboration with Weymouth and Franz and a variety of singers filling in for a conspicuously absent Byrne.
Production work with the Brooklyn-based funk band Turkuaz led Harrison to reteam with guitarist Belew for their current project revisiting Remain In Light and other Talking Heads classics. Belew has performed and recorded with a who's who of rock giants over the past four decades including Frank Zappa, David Bowie and King Crimson in addition to his successful solo career.
Belew went from being a high-school guitar hero in his Kentucky hometown to relocating to the southern music capitol of Nashville during the '70s to pursue his dream of becoming a professional musician. He was playing with a regionally popular cover band when he was discovered by rock experimentalist Frank Zappa in 1977 and eventually got invited to Los Angeles to audition for Zappa's group.
Belew would end up playing with the guitar iconoclast for over a year, touring extensively and appearing on the 1979 studio album Sheik Yerbouti as well as the cult concert movie Baby Snakes that was filmed at the New York Palladium on Halloween in 1977. It was during his tenure with Zappa that producer Brian Eno recommended Belew to his regular collaborator David Bowie, who would poach the guitarist for his band.
Belew joined Bowie's band for their 1978 tour, appearing on the live double album Stages and contributing what was becoming his signature unhinged lead guitar to songs on Lodger. While Belew would move on from Bowie's group a year later, he would reunite with the songwriter a decade later, serving as guitarist and musical director on his retrospective Sound + Vision Tour in 1990.
As the '70s turned into the '80s, Belew's activity would ramp up to a constant whirlwind. After being asked to add guitar to songs on the Remain in Light album, he was eventually invited to joined the Heads' live ensemble. Belew toured with the group into 1981 in addition to recording with related side projects including solo efforts by Byrne and Harrison and the Tom Tom Club, a band led by Weymouth and Frantz.
Belew had also developed a friendship with King Crimson founding guitarist Robert Fripp, who would ask Belew to join a new version of the band featuring monster drummer Bill Bruford and bassist Tony Levin. The group would record a trilogy of critically acclaimed albums and tour to rave reviews, writing a new forward-thinking chapter in the story of the revered progressive rock outfit. For the remainder of the '80s, Belew largely focused on his solo career before returning to work with King Crimson for an extended stretch in the 1990s that would continue until 2008. Reuniting with Harrison for the Remain In Light project in 2021 that initially included the full line-up of Turkuaz -- longtime Belew bassist Julie Slick would also join -- the group has performed at a number of Bay Area festivals, delivering incendiary sets at BottleRock in Napa as well as the Mill Valley Music Festival and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass last year. While Remain In Light songs make up a bulk of the set, the band often includes other Talking Head hits as well as selections from Harrison's solo catalog and the '80s-era King Crimson favorite "Thela Hun Ginjeet."
For these two Bay Area shows to close out 2023 at the Warfield in San Francisco and the Jam Cellar Ballroom in Napa on New Year's Eve, Remain in Light will be joined by pioneering Los Angeles punk outfit X. Among the first punk bands to cross-pollinate the aggressive new sound with roots music in the late '70s, the group stands as one of the great American groups from the era and the only one still operating with it's classic original line-up more than four decades later.
Founded by bassist/singer John Doe and rockabilly-influenced veteran guitarist Billy Zoom in 1977, the outfit took shape with the addition of Doe's poetry writing girlfriend Exene Cervenka as co-lead singer and drummer D.J. Bonebreak, who had previously played with fellow LA-punk progenitors the Germs and the Eyes.
X put out it's first single -- "Adult Books" backed with the ripping anthem "We're Desperate" -- the following year on independent label Dangerhouse Records. They became one of the standard bearers for the region with their inclusion on the Yes LA compilation along with contemporaries the Bags and the aforementioned bands the Germs and the Eyes. The band also appeared with those same bands in the seminal Penelope Spheeris punk documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization."
The group's success at mixing Zoom's slashing roots-rock riffs with the poetic lyrics and ragged vocal harmonies of Doe and Cervenka would lead to a record deal with major independent Slash Records in 1980. Produced by onetime Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, the band's first two albums Los Angeles and Wild Gift garnered global critical acclaim and established X as a leading light of West Coast punk.
Their success would continue after a leap to major label Elektra Records in 1982. With Manzarek still on-board as producer, the follow-up efforts Under the Big Black Sun and More Fun in the New World broadened the band's audience while introducing more country elements to their songwriting. While X would continue to record and tour after Zoom departed the band (following the 1985 recording Ain't Love Grand!), later efforts with Blasters guitarist Dave Alvin and his replacement Tony Glikyson would only show flashes of the brilliance heard on the first four seminal albums. The members were also involved in notable side projects including the all-star collaboration with vocalist/poet Chris Desjardins in the Flesh Eaters and the stripped-down acoustic folk outfit the Knitters (both would also feature Alvin playing guitar).
X toured and recorded through the 1990s, but it wasn't until the return of Zoom to the fold in 1998 that the reunited classic line-up enjoyed a resurgence in interest with live performances that often focused only on the powerful songs from their initial output. The band has stuck to touring for the most part save for a live CD/DVD package in 2005 and a digital only Christmas single with two yuletide standards in 2009, regularly selling out its holiday-themed tours on the West Coast that always pass through X's fan stronghold of San Francisco.
In 2017, the Grammy Museum in their hometown hosted X: 40 Years of Punk in Los Angeles, an exhibit that featured artifacts from early in the band's career including original instruments and gear played by X, handwritten lyrics and notebooks by Cervenka and Doe and original concert flyers. More recently, the group teamed with Fat Possum Records to issue remastered editions of the first four classic X albums while Doe collaborated with writer Tom DeSavia on the new book More Fun in the New World, a sequel to their overview of both the band and the Los Angeles punk scene More Fun in the New World.
In early 2019, the band released a two-song single featuring its first new tunes with the original line-up since 1985 to wide acclaim. In 2020, Fat Possum issued Alphabetland, a bracing, concise 27-minute blast of raucous roots rock that serves as a fine addition to the original line-up's classic catalogue. The band played a triumphant set at San Francisco's Stern Grove in 2021, becoming the first punk band to headline the storied venue in its 80+ year history.
Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew's Remain in Light with X
Saturday, Dec. 30, 7 p.m. $39.50-$99.50
The Warfield
Sunday, Dec. 31, 8 p.m. $99-$199
JaM Cellars Ballroom