Rating: 
Summary: The great Talking Heads biography hasn't been written yet
Review: Talking Heads was my one of favorite bands of the 80s so I was looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately I don't know what to trust in terms of what is accurate or otherwise. How much trouble would it have been to fact check if James Brown actually sang "More Bounce to the Ounce" as Bowman writes? (He didn't. The great funk band Zapp recorded the tune.)I also would have preferred a little more balance in Bowman's reporting. His bashing of Tina Weymouth puts the integrity of his story into question.
Rating: 
Summary: Dad rocks
Review: Talking Heads were not your father's rock band. This book is not your father's kind of rock history.
Rating: 
Summary: An Almost Almost Famous for the 80's
Review: The author hasn't been there, but his research, however intrusive, is quite extensive and sound. David Bowman vividly brings back the era I grew up in, where my tastes were forming and outsider art and exotic music were becoming my means of release. Like the film that I title this review after, it brings back a warm nostalgia for that era, but unlike that film, it doesn't go soft on the warts of the subjects. Unfortunately, there isn't a Lester Bangs character or anyone of that caliber currently to serve as a referee and provide some perspective. Such is needed because of Bowman's tendency--in adhering to the rock mythos of group is formed, group succeeds, group then breaks up in acrimony--to frame Talking Heads as a kind of avant-garde Beatles with David Byrne as Paul and Tina Weymouth as Yoko. Both of them are difficult subjects to interview, but at least there is some balance in Dennis Franz and Jerry Harrison's points of view. Throughout all of this, the name dropping becomes very useful, like landmarks on a road map of sights one hasn't seen in years that just mount up in pleasurable recollections of that odd decade. My one regret of that time is that I never got to see Talking Head live, but this seems to fill the void in terms of getting as close to them as they will allow. This Must Be The Place is where we can see all four of them , as disparate as they are, in that time where they got along just enough to make musical history. And we are all the better for it.
Rating:
Summary: Like a long Vanity Fair article
Review: The book was terribly engrossing and a quick read, though I question some of the information. For instance, how could David have had a tooth he chipped when he was four or five years old repaired when he was in his 20s? The damaged "baby" tooth would have fallen out and been replaced by an undamaged tooth in the meantime. Others have commented on the author's apparent lack of knowledge the music world of that time. (Calling Patti Smith's second album the worst CBGB-spawned album out at the time is ridiculous unless all the other albums were pure genius: while "Radio Ethiopia" is no "Horses," it is intermittently brilliant.) The book reads like it was written by a younger Dominick Dunne, with lots and lots of name dropping. Still, nothing else I know of provides so much information about the band. I listened to Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club and David Byrne albums while reading. It left me missing them. I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Warning Sign
Review: The Heads were probably the most important band to emerge from New Wave, and they richly deserve a serious "life and works" bio. This ain't it. Bowman's book is wretchedly edited and sloppy with facts (not a huge surprise, given the imprint). But what's astonishing, given how big a fan the author professes to be, is how poorly he understands their work and how ineptly he reads the songs. I'll give it two stars only because some of the dish is new and intriguing.
Rating:
Summary: Watch out, you might get what you're after!
Review: There has never been a group like Talking Heads, and never will be again. Their place is rock history is unique and secure. I just hope in a few years when they get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that David and Tina will be on speaking terms again. David Byrne was considered the "genius" of the group, but, being a red-blooded American male I always had my eye on Tina Weymouth (too bad she hated her stay in Tulsa. Come on, Tina, give Tulsa another chance!) This is a fascinating and riveting history, and it was quite a journey from the humble beginnings at CBGB's and touring with the Ramones (another great band, as appealing in their non-artistry as the Heads were in their artistry) to worldwide acclaim. But there are irritations about the book, also. There is too much space given to people I care little about (Twyla Tharp is a prime example), and the author seems to be overly obsessed, in a negative way, with President Reagan. His fact-checker must have ...forgot to show up, otherwise he would have credited "Standing in the Shadows of Love" to the Four Tops, not the Supremes, and he would have not assigned Waco to the panhandle of Texas, since it's right on I-35 between Dallas and Austin. All in all, though, this is a pretty cool book and will remind you of the time when people actually made good music.
Rating: 
Summary: Some interesting things, but you can't trust 'em
Review: There's some insight here into the origins of David Byrne's lyrics, but it's tough to trust anything beyond that. The author can't spell "The Shaggs" or the German group "Can" or legendary Country singer "Cowboy Copas". He regularly misattributes songs to artists who didn't perform them. He apparently considers the B-52's an all-girl group - whether that's just stupid or some sort of slam against homosexuals is unclear. He makes statements about bands like Fun Boy Three (he doesn't get the name right either) being "obscure", despite the fact that they'd had more hits than the Talking Heads in the UK at that point. In short, he seems to know very little about music in general. The book concentrates disproportionately on artistic influences on the band rather than musical ones. It's interesting as one rarely gets that point of view.
On the other hand, I suspect his fact-checking relative to artists is as bad as his fact-checking relative to musicians. Early in the book, he quotes the band members quite heavily, though with a few dozen pages, this disappears entirely. There are hints that the band doesn't like him, with the implication being that all contact with band members is halted relatively early in the process. Much of the book is about the "battle" between Weymouth and Byrne, but it's tough to say whether this was the fundamental crux of the band's problems or not. Despite mentioning it frequently, there's not much substance behind any of it. In short, this is worth a quick glance, but borrow it from your library like I did. Spend the money on a record instead.
Rating:
Summary: Some interesting things, but you can't trust 'em
Review: There's some insight here into the origins of David Byrne's lyrics, but it's tough to trust anything beyond that. The author can't spell "The Shaggs" or the German group "Can" or legendary Country singer "Cowboy Copas". He regularly misattributes songs to artists who didn't perform them. He apparently considers the B-52's an all-girl group - whether that's just stupid or some sort of slam against homosexuals is unclear. He makes statements about bands like Fun Boy Three (he doesn't get the name right either) being "obscure", despite the fact that they'd had more hits than the Talking Heads in the UK at that point. In short, he seems to know very little about music in general. The book concentrates disproportionately on artistic influences on the band rather than musical ones. It's interesting as one rarely gets that point of view.
On the other hand, I suspect his fact-checking relative to artists is as bad as his fact-checking relative to musicians. Early in the book, he quotes the band members quite heavily, though with a few dozen pages, this disappears entirely. There are hints that the band doesn't like him, with the implication being that all contact with band members is halted relatively early in the process. Much of the book is about the "battle" between Weymouth and Byrne, but it's tough to say whether this was the fundamental crux of the band's problems or not. Despite mentioning it frequently, there's not much substance behind any of it. In short, this is worth a quick glance, but borrow it from your library like I did. Spend the money on a record instead.
Rating:
Summary: Some interesting things, but you can't trust 'em
Review: There's some insight here into the origins of David Byrne's lyrics, but it's tough to trust anything beyond that. The author can't spell "The Shaggs" or the German group "Can" or legendary Country singer "Cowboy Copas". He regularly misattributes songs to artists who didn't perform them. He apparently considers the B-52's an all-girl group - whether that's just stupid or some sort of slam against homosexuals is unclear. He makes statements about bands like Fun Boy Three (he doesn't get the name right either) being "obscure", despite the fact that they'd had more hits than the Talking Heads in the UK at that point. In short, he seems to know very little about music in general. The book concentrates disproportionately on artistic influences on the band rather than musical ones. It's interesting as one rarely gets that point of view.
On the other hand, I suspect his fact-checking relative to artists is as bad as his fact-checking relative to musicians. Early in the book, he quotes the band members quite heavily, though with a few dozen pages, this disappears entirely. There are hints that the band doesn't like him, with the implication being that all contact with band members is halted relatively early in the process. Much of the book is about the "battle" between Weymouth and Byrne, but it's tough to say whether this was the fundamental crux of the band's problems or not. Despite mentioning it frequently, there's not much substance behind any of it. In short, this is worth a quick glance, but borrow it from your library like I did. Spend the money on a record instead.
Rating:
Summary: This Is the Place
Review: This book did it for me. Not sure what those "one star reviewers" are yapping about. Inacurate? Maybe, although there are plenty of quotes and thirty pages of notes in the rear. I paged thru the book cuz I remembered something -- the very first quote is David Byrne saying, "Facts don't do what I want them to." Tina is then quoted saying, "You know nothing about us. Everything in here in wrong." A few pages later, the author asks David Byrne if the truth matters in rock and roll. "What's that quote?" Byrne says. "Between the truth and a myth, print the myth." The book is full of plenty of "facts," and myths are clearly labeled as myths. For a guy who knows nothing about the band, Bowman has a lot to say and he says it well. We would do well to remember that to this day no one really knows how bad Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident was (Did it even happen?) -- I go with myth & stories.
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