Not going to happen for any reason at all with Byrne. He doesn;t get along with them and doesn't feel he owes them anything. They have no desire to work with him again, beyond doing reissues as they've always done. Byrne apparently feels that American Utopia" was a greater career peak, and is probably very happy that he did it on his own terms (ignoring the fact that it was 1/2 TH songs). He currently has the solo respect/semi-stardom he's always wanted. He's as nostalgic for Talking Heads as Paul Weller is for the Jam. What probably will happen is a new regrouping of the Heads/Tom Tom Club with Belew and Cool Cool Cool. Based on the current tour it could be very good indeed.
I think some are reading far too much into the promo. Why did he go get the suit? Erm, because it's an iconic moment from the movie?!? As for Byrne having new music he might want to play with them - why does he need them other than a name-check? Besides, Byrne's ego is a large part of why they split, as Chris Frank mentions half a dozen times in his bio, so do you really think their getting together to record some of his new songs is feasible? Of course, I could be wrong, I know plenty of people would like a reunion. Having caught the original show back in the day, that's a memory that will last me a lifetime. There's no going back to that. And if Chris and Tina, Jerry, and Byrne have any new music - record it on their own record and let us have three new releases. This is especially true of Jerry who I feel have a lot of unfinished business in his solo career.
A while back I did a quick comparison. To me it sounded like the extended CD still uses the polished mixes of most of the songs that were on the original album, but “What a Day That Was” and “Psycho Killer” appear in mixes more like what’s in the film (it’s obvious with “Psycho” because the drum machine part is completely different). I’m not sure if the added tracks match the film mixes exactly but they do sound more like live performances than the tracks that were mixed and overdubbed for the album.
If they’d shown Byrne carrying the suit on his bike to a rehearsal space where Chris, Tina and Jerry were waiting, then I’d believe it was supposed to signal a Talking Heads reunion. Since the promo ends with him dancing in the suit by himself in his apartment, I’d say it’s not about anything but the movie.
From Chris Frantz' book, it seems like Byrne wanted to get out of Talking Heads a long time before he actually did. Anything's possible, but it seems like a real stretch that he would now be nostalgic enough to want to get the band back together.
FWIW, Jerry Harrison was on Bob Lefsetz's podcast and was evenhanded about Byrne. Harrison's had a hell of a career outside of Talking Heads, and outside of music. Here's his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-harrison-a181299/
It's nice to have these as extras, but I don't think they do anything for the movie but make it longer. It's been a while but my recollection is that neither song really adds much in the way of visual interest, though "Cities" does fill in a gap in the "building the band" narrative of the first section.
Big Business/I Zimbra is quite visually elaborate, but it wrecks the pacing of the film and also serms kind of anticlimactic coming on the heels of Once in a Lifetime.
Oh, I guess I need to watch it again… maybe my memory is affected by seeing it on lo fi video. “Big Business”‘ isn’t a great song either, though it’s just part of a medley here.
Agree that neither "Cities" or "Big Business/I Zimbra" are essential to the film or soundtrack, but I appreciate having a more complete document of the 1983 shows in general, and adding those two songs back into the running order does that. Also, "Cities" is a top 5 Talking Heads song for me!
Big Business is actually one of my favorites from Stop Making Sense. That chunky spy guitar riff gets me every time! By the way, did the Heads play "Pull Up The Roots" at the Stop Making Sense venue? I heard a live bootleg performance of the song from the 1983 tour which was pretty great; a properly recorded live performance would be awesome.
I love the camera work on “Cities”, especially where it tracks along down the line from Alex, to Tina, to David, to Lynn and Edna in one continuous shot. I’m guessing that was probably shot during rehearsal since the camera would completely obscure the audience’s view (which it seldom does in the film). And as mentioned above, it provides a proper introduction to Alex Weir, who is a major “character” in the film.
If anyone saw the Speaking in Tongues tour -- how close were the shows to what you see in the film? I know a lot of the lighting in the filmed performances was specifically designed for the movie, so the regular shows must have looked somewhat different from that point of view. But did they do all the same stuff on stage?
David Byrne has said there wasn't much variation: Available footage of other shows largely confirms this: https://youtu.be/Vs8kd_WKh1w https://youtu.be/eHeotBlr5rQ https://youtu.be/zzPXePG_TY8
They only played "Pull Up the Roots" at three shows. Most of the other stops on the tour included "Building on Fire," "Book I Read," "Big Blue Plymouth," and "Houses in Motion." These were NOT performed during the SMS shoot. Lots of great info here: Talking Heads Concert History
I agree with the overall sentiment, but disagree that Byrne’s solo work wasn’t co-mingled with his Talking Heads output. They did three songs from The Catherine Wheel on the Speaking in Tongues tour and two of them, Big Business and What A Day That Was, were released. True Stories is a not-a-soundtrack album to the Byrne film. Naked basically points the way directly to Rei Momo. I can understand why someone would hear a good chunk of Byrne’s solo work and think he hadn’t moved too far away from the Talking Heads sound, because the Talking Heads sound covered everything from punk to post punk to funk to pop to world music. I saw Byrne somewhere in the late 00s/early 10s IIRC at Radio City Music Hall doing an evening of Byrne and Eno songs, so basically all Talking Heads and maybe one My Life in the Bush of Ghosts song. It was fantastic, his band was tight and loose in all the right places, he was clearly having a blast, and I suspect he’s just going to keep on doing his own thing till the end. And more power to him. As for Stop Making Sense, I saw it for the first time in a theater for the 1999 reissue. Everyone in attendance got up and danced in the aisles. It was amazing and turned my love of the band up to 11. I can’t wait to take my son to see this reissue.
