A couple of weeks ago I had a great conversation with Rod Waterman, a friend from my university days, which we recorded and I managed to convert into a podcast and share here. I hope these chats and recordings will become a regular thing. One of the things we talked about was Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz's autobiography, or memoirs, or whatever you want to call them, Remain in Love, which came out last year.I think our discussion about the book was one of the most interesting parts of our one hour chat.
I was only halfway through it at the time while Rod had finished it. I said it was one of those books that you didn't really want to get to the end of, so I was rationing it, a couple of chapters a day to cheer me up every morning at that point in time.
Well I'm done and I'm actually pleased I'm done because it's a book which finishes exactly where it needs to. Just after the band's induction into the Rock Hall of Fame, with the fabulous slap of a score being settled in the most satisying manner possible. For this book is one of the greatest acts of score settling in music memoirs that I've ever read. I won't tell you what happens in tat last chapter but it certainly must have been immensely satisfying for Frantz to write.
First of all, Remain in Love has been written by Frantz to settle scores for himself and his long term love and wife Tina Weymouth, Talking Heads bassist with the band's voclist David Byrne. The whole book comes back again and again to this central theme. As Rod put it, 'and then David Byrne did this terrible thing,' With the tenacity and rigorous determination of a top class Prosecution Lawyer, Frantz comes back to this and adds another of Byrne's crimes to the list every couple of pages. By the end of the book you can't really hold much hope of a Talking Heads reunion any time soon. I can't see how it could possibly happen really.
As Rod said, Frantz is a sly one. Clearly a very charming man and I'm sure excellent company, he tells the story of a phenomenally important band incredibly well. For any Heads devotee it's all here. How Frantz and Weymouth met and fell in love at art school in New York in the early days. How they got together with Byrne shortly afterwards and their times perfecting their art at CBGB's and their initial tour of European with The Ramones and on from there to becoming a truly global concern and making and touring some of the best albums ever made.
Frantz is a generous soul, giving credit where it's due, recounting the good times, and they are mostly, good times in incredible and impressive detail. But he's not willing to let things go and when he feels that he, and more importantly Weymouth has been wronged he goes into battle in incredibly chivalrous manner.
There's much else to enjoy and admire here. What it's like to go on tour with Johnny Ramone a deeply mean and dysfunctional bully, and someone without the remotest interest in European culture, cuisine or history. Frantz tells the tale but manages to rise above it all and make it seem funny from this remove rather than something that needs to be dwelt upon.
Also there's the stuff about how Eno sided with Byrne and tried to marginalise the rest of the band and minimise their clearly considerable contributions to Talking Heads phenomenal achievement. This, most of all is the raison d'etre for Remain in Love's existence. To make it clear once and for all that Talking Heads were a band and no one member's contribution was any more significant or fundamental than anyone else's. If it's necessary for Frantz to do so by not saying a single positive thing about his former bandmate and the group's vocalistand public face in 350 pages, then so be it.
You can't help but wonder what Byrne and Eno in particular will think of all this. They really don't come out of the whole thing looking good in any respect. Perhaps they will put something in print in response to Remain in Love at some point. Perhaps we need Jerry Harrison's autobiography at some point to balance things out a bit. But this is a real treat. As good as any music memoir I've ever read frankly. All from the man right at the back of the stage. Chris Frantz. The funky drummer.
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