once in a lifetime

A spastic David Byrne in a slim dark suit, as if a man from the 50's; swimming across a white screen, an Indian woman, dancing. The images were dissonant to the music: Once in a Lifetime. I was thirteen. It was Top of the Pops, my music edification was in it's second year since MTV blew my world apart into what it had become: a giant musicfest - eating, drinking, sleeping, waking with music. Have to digest as much as possible. Sleep with the radio on, watch every waking moment of MTV. Let the music seep into my pores by osmosis, if possible, just so that I could hear everything, absorb everything at all times. Martha Quinn was queen; she was dating a Dead Kennedy! Music was my lifeforce, it propelled me forward, it brought me to school if only to borrow other people's records and tapes. It brought me out of the house if only to look inside a record store.

I decided too late that I really liked Talking Heads. I'm sure I had loads of chances to see them throughout the 80's, but I never worried too much about it. Then the 80's wound up, and a lot of bands wound up breaking up into oblivion. Then one realises too late all the things one missed, like seeing Byrne in giant suits hopping around on stage and the rest of the band, mixing it up with African rhythms and beats, mixing it up with art and pop culture. I guess I like mixes a lot. Dissonant, I like. Talking Heads = dissonant. But justly so. Working wonderfully so. It's pogo music set to pop, rock and soul. Displaced, escaped, relocated, excluded. And so I excluded it from my concerts I had to watch and was satisfied in the listening pleasure, in jumping up and down in my room to Warning Sign, Wild Wild Life, Nothing But Flowers. I reserved the viewing pleasure to videos, to faces on the side of Burning Down the House, to floating things in And She Was, to big suits on a well-lit stage of a live performance previously taped. I was too busy, too divergent, spread too thin. There was too much to take in. There was college radio, there was MTV's 120 Minutes, there was Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes, there was the comedy of The Young Ones. I was everywhere at once, trying to steal into 18 and over clubs just to watch Henry Rollins doing a three-hour straight performance over at The Channel in Boston, failing helplessly to see Sinead O'Conner at Axis playing with Johnny Marr way before that Prince-penned hit. I was just too busy. So I made sure I had my ears plugged with Little Creatures and True Stories on the daily commute on the T. I didn't have enough compartments in my brain for all the music coming in. I was too focused on some music, and not enough in others. I overloaded, overheard, and overplayed. By the end of the 80's my aural senses were bust, burned out. So were most of the bands I paid too much attention, and as were the ones I didn't give enough to. Music grunged up. It was about being dirty and and wearing long johns and flannel and digging up old Doc Martins, and I stopped dressing.

I'm almost thankful the 90's are over. Grunge wasn't for me, although that Chris Cornell guy's band was pretty good. Also, thanks to boxed sets, I can re-live. Re-live Talking Heads all over again. Hear them and see the videos that were the only way I knew them visually. A 3 CD compliation of music, some previously unreleased or reworked. A bonus DVD of videos. Then I realize, if you ever like a band, if you feel the need to buy their music consistently, even to this day of the free download and can I get a copy of that CD?, you should in all honesty, watch at least one live performance, at least Once In a Lifetime.

11:23 AM | |