Talking Heads

Talking Heads were a band of smart, self-conscious white musicians intrigued by the rhythms and spirit of black music. They drew on funk, classical minimalism, and African rock to create some of the most adventurous, original, and danceable music to emerge from new wave — a movement Talking Heads outlasted and transcended in their accomplishment and influence. David Byrne and Chris Frantz met at the Rhode Island School of Design, where they were part of a quintet called, variously, the Artistics and the Autistics. With Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, they shared an apartment in New York and formed Talking Heads as a trio in 1975; they played their first shows at CBGB that June. Their music was never conventional punk rock; it was more delicate and contrapuntal, and their early sets included covers of the Sixties bubblegum group the 1910 Fruitgum Company. Jerry Harrison, a Harvard alumnus who had been a Modern Lover with Jonathan Richman until 1974 and had also backed singer/songwriter Elliott Murphy, completed the band in 1977. Talking Heads toured Europe with the Ramones before recording their first album, which included "Psycho Killer," a tightly wound curiosity (and killer song) that Byrne delivered in wild-eyed yelp. The album reached the Top 100, and every subsequent album reached the U.S. Top 40.