Favourite Albums of 2011 #6: the first album by the Tom Tom Club

Tom Tom Club
[Untitled First Album] [1982]

Many readers will already be aware of this record, the side project album from the Talking Heads rhythm section, joined by their friends and relations. You have probably heard 'Genius of Love', from it, perhaps on Stop Making Sense. Well it's all like that – infectious dance floor beats and naïve vocals, maybe with a slight undercurrent of danger or maybe not. I like it as a piece of uplifting pop perfection.

previous review (with panda)

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2011 Favourite Albums

I have been thinking about what were my favourite new to me records of 2011. And the following are the ones I came up with. A fuller write-up of these will appear soon in the pages of Frank's APA and ultimately on Inuit Panda. Where possible I have linked back to my original reviews of these records.

Jane Weaver
The Fallen By Watch Bird [2010]

My favourite record is this piece of somewhat psychey neo-folk from Jane Weaver, Bird Records supremo. If strange folky sounds are your thing then check this out.

Bo Hansson
Lord of the Rings [1970]

Mr Hansson wrote his own musical accompaniment to the Tolkien-classic back in the past. He seems a bit more interested in the dark and sinister aspects of the great book.

The Flaming Lips
Embryonic [2009]

Some say that the Flaming Lips have become dull and mainstream. They may not have listened to this.

Broadcast & The Focus Group
Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age [2009]

Spooky electronic music from this interesting collaboration, lent a certain poignancy by the recent death of Trish Keenan of Broadcast.

Dean & Britta
13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests [2010]

A series of tunes recorded to accompany showings of Andy Warhol screen tests, some covers and some original. Sonic Boom has some production input and it does all end up sounding a bit neo-shoe gaze, but in a good way.

Tom Tom Club
[Untitled First Album] [1982]

Funky side project band from Talking Heads rhythm section, together with input from their friends and relations. Impossible not to like.

Richard Thompson
1000 Years of Popular Music [live] [2006]

Mr Thompson and his two lady friends perform tunes from the last thousand years, including quite a few pop tunes of the last 100 years. Given that this is Richard Thompson we are talking about, most of these songs are a bit sadface.

Black Mountain Transmitter
Black Goat of the Woods [2009]

This seems to be an Irish-made record, so I am for once doing my bit for Team Ireland. It is like a soundtrack to a low budget 1980s horror film, and all sounds vaguely Lovecraftian. Iä! Iä!

Magnet & Paul Giovanni
The Wicker Man OST [1973]

A collection of original neo folkie tunes and creepy instrumental pieces from the film that made people think twice about trips to isolated Scottish islands.

v/a nlgbbbblth CD 11.14: Níl sé anseo [CD-R]

Mr Nlgbbbblth's offering is a rare example of a CD-R that deserves a commercial release, painting as it does a picture of Ireland in the late 1970s and early 1980s from musical pieces, TV jingles, snippets of news programmes, and so on. Also features priests.

v/a Rajasthani Street Music [CD-R]

This is a version of something due to appear on Sublime Frequencies at some stage. It is a selection of pieces recorded by Mr Seb Bassleer on a trip to India and is delightful to the ear.

Ween
Thom's Ween TOAD [CD-R]

This CD-R from my old friend and quaffing partner Thom has been my introduction to the music of Ween – and I like it.


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The Man With The Four Way Hips

The Tom Tom Club were playing in Dublin. You may remember these people as being the two members of Talking Heads who are neither David Byrne nor Jerry Harrison – Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz. I was undecided about going to this. On the one hand, the music the Tom Tom Club made back in the day is amazing – or at least their first album is. OK, so you do get a bit of lamer white guy getting down with Chris Frantz's vocal contributions (particularly in the live Tom Tom Club track on Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense), but you can't knock the toe-tapping nature of the music. The fear with things like this, though, is that seeing them many years after their heyday will mean you get a band that are a sad shadow of their former selves – tired oldarses going through the motions to top up their pension funds.

That kind of fear kept me from buying a ticket for the concert in advance. However, I had heard good reports on the grapevine about recent Tom Tom Club performances, and check on YouTube suggested that they still have it. So on the day itself I decided that I would go, and was lucky enough to meet someone on the way who had an extra complimentary ticket. So I got in for free – wahey.

I felt obliged to repay my generous friend by buying pints in the bar. This meant that we missed the support band. At the time, this did not concern me, as the rubbish support act at Richard Thomson (see later) had put me off whatever rubbish local act Vicar Street would serve up. However, I later heard a lot of good things about the support act from people who did see them, so I will quickly mention them. They were called Tieranniesaur* and featured a lot of boys and girls hitting things as well as playing more conventional instruments. They seemed to be both avant-garde and fun at the same time – an ideal support act for the Tom Tom Club, in other words.

While waiting for the Tom Tom Club to come on, I couldn't help but notice that the venue was not exactly full. And from talking to other people it seemed like hardly anyone had paid in, which could have proved that we were in for a concert of bored yappers. Yet it was also clear that everyone there was rather excited about seeing the band. The auditorium was filled with a sense of expectation from the people present, who all were hoping that this would be an exciting night out rather than an embarrassing example of a band pissing on their legacy.

And actually, yes, this was amazing. The band are as funky as ever. The line up now is Tina Weymouth on bass and vocals, Chris Frantz on drums and occasional "James-Brown!" vocals, another woman called Victoria Framm on vocals and occasional guitar, some young lad on keyboards, guitar, and percussion, and another young lad (who turned out to be the child of Weymouth and Frantz) on turntables. They played a load of different tunes, not all from the first album which meant that many of them were new to me – but all of them were tracks that you could not keep your feet still to. The place was soon full of people dancing their little socks off and smiling like lunatics.

I am going to have to investigate later Tom Tom Club albums, as the first one does not have what proved to be a complete stomper live – 'The Man With The Four Way Hips'. This led to some discussion – what would it mean to have four way hips? They would go forward and sideways – so that's two, but what are the third and fourth? The vertical axis might somehow be a third, so would the fourth way be an ability to move your hips through hyperspace?

Back to the concert - one thing I was really struck by was how uncompromisingly old the band were. OK, a lot of people are old, but they are usually a bit more restrained than this or else they are frighteningly made up and plastic surgeried. But Tina Weymoth and Victoria Framm were completely unrestrained and yet seemed largely untouched by masklike makeup or the surgeon's knife. And old people do not usually wear tiny dresses and funk out like they did. If you have ever seen Stop Making Sense you will be aware that 1980s Tina Weymouth was one of the great heart-throbs of New Wave – well she still has it, but in a mad for it older lady kind of way**. Chris Frantz, meanwhile, has greyer hair but generally looks surprisingly like he did back then, though he was giving it a bit less of the "James Brown! James Brown!" – maybe with the wisdom of age comes a certain self-consciousness. Which was a bit of a shame, as we were all looking forward to agreeing that the late Mr Brown is still the Godfather of Funk (y'all), and that this information would need to be checked out.

After the show I hung around for a drink or two. And then, in a stunning stroke of good fortune I was leaving the venue just as Tina Weymouth was. So I got to tell her that the show was amazing – which means that now I am her best friend in the world.

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Wordy Pandahood

* Their name comes from main member Annie Tierney, who was in almost famous Dublin band The Chicks, whose unreleased album was produced by the Royal Trux.

** I hope I am not coming across like the kind of gentleman who interviews Helen Mirren.

Tom Tom Club [Untitled first album]

I had somehow never acquired this previously. It is the first album by this Talking Heads side project, in which Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz get to play with other musicians and make strangely funky music. I think this is one of those records that everyone else in the world has already so I will not say too much about it, but it is a fun listen – insistent rhythms coupled with almost naïve sounding group vocals. 'Wordy Rappinghood' and 'Genius of Love' are the two totally amazing standout tracks – to know them is to love them – and possibly the rest of the record is a bit redundant, but these two are definitely worth the price of admission alone.

If you have ever seen Stop Making Sense you will recall the bit in it where Talking Heads are replaced by the Tom Tom Club for one song ('Genius of Love'). You may also recall Chris Frantz's embarrassing white-man-gets-funky vocal additions, about as dreadful a vocal contribution as if the next album by [insert name of kewl rapper here*] were to have your dad on guest rapping**. Well thankfully on this one they managed to give him the dud microphone, so you only really get his drumming.

I get the impression that while people love this album they do not really have that much time for later Tom Tom Club records. I am not quite sure why this is the case – are the later records that bad, and if so why? Maybe Weymouth and Frantz just ran out of creative steam, or maybe they had better collaborators on the first album. Or maybe I am completely wrong, as I have never actually heard later Tom Tom Club records. What do you think?

In other news, I understand that the Tom Tom Club are playing Dublin quite soon… do you reckon this would be worth going to? this suggests yes

wordy pandahood

* I am so behind the curve these days that I genuinely do not know the currently hip rappers.

**Reader's Voice: "My father is actually Chuck D of Public Enemy, so I don't see what the problem is".

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