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  1. And the same thought has been creeping up on me in the last week – been listening to “The Name this Band Is Talking Heads” live Album. Their peak I believe.

  3. The Rolling Stones –
    Dartford, Cheltenham, Ealing, Richmond to ‘Let It Bleed’.
    Early 60s to late 60s.
    Singles and EP r ‘n’ b group, NOT ‘band’.

    Anything with a tongue logo, T-shirt, baseball hat, view from three miles away in a stadium, or any record only available in stereo, released with any other number than 6 as the third digit of the year, or without Brian, or at least the ghost of Brian on or near it, need apply…..indeed, it can piss right off.

  5. My favourite band ever are of course Pink Floyd, and why wouldn’t they be? And it occured to me the other day that yer Floyd never recorded a cover version on any of their albums. Not one. Not even on the live albums. I was wondering if any other really successful band or artist can claim the same? I can’t think of one, but I’m sure you can.

      • As far as I can recall, there are no cover versions on any of the studio albums, but then they did the “oldies medley” in the middle of “Turn It On Again” when they performed live (and is on some of the live albums) – a selection of 60s should classic (+ Karma Chameleon !)

    • Having gone through the thread, I am dismayed to see no mention whatever of the Dan. Admittedly they did knock off one or two covers throughout their career, but bearing in mind that Donald Fagen famously spent decades suffering from a combination of writer’s block and stage fright, it’s not a bad effort really.

      Anyhow. Favourite band? That’ll be Steely Dan, then.

      • I would probably also go with Steely Dan if Elvis Costello and the Attractions doesn’t count as a band which I thin it should do. Listen to Live at the El Mocambo to hear how exciting they were.

  6. My favourite band ever are Depeche Mode. They also have never recorded a cover version that they have put on an album.

    They have done 3 one-offs that aren’t on any album – Route 66, Moonlight Sonata and So Cruel (U2)

  10. My favourite band du jour is Suede – only cover version I can recall off the top of my head was “Brass In Pocket” put out on the NME’s 40th anniversary album “Ruby Trax”. Worthwhile tracking down. Decent. If for nothing else to hear Billy Bragg doing the Three Degree’s “When Will I See You Again?”

    • There are frustratingly brief snippets of them covering Bo’ Rhap’ and A Day in the Life in dubious corners of tinternet (ahem). More legitimately, they did a live version of Rent but Neil Tennant was on it so is that really a cover version? Who can say?

  12. My favourite band would be Van der Graaf Generator. A heritage band who got back together and continue to move forward, rather than living on past glories…gloriously unpredictable gigs (how far forward will they go? How far back?).

    Not much love for ver VdGG here, even among the prog heads…..maybe because they didn’t record any covers…

  13. Who’s my favourite band? Oh, tough one. I don’t really have a favourite …

    Only kidding – that honour belongs to Stiff Little Fingers (I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it before?)

    Cover versions?
    One on every album in their original incarnation – including “Love Of The Common People” on Now Then, which they decided not to release as a single after Paul Young expressed an interest in doing so.

    The first album after reformation didn’t include a cover version, but did include some of the last recorded work by Lee Brilleaux and Rory Gallagher

  14. I think I’m right in saying that Squeeze, one of my favorite bands, recorded only one one cover version in their career (Bobby Womack’s “Looking For a Love”) which was only available in the “Six of One” box set.

  15. Pardon the indulgence ….
    I was inspired to put together “my favourite band” personal history – ie the band or artist that I would have declared to be “my favourite” at any particular time in my first 30 odd years when I was obsessed with music, to the exclusion of important things like relationships and career paths.

    1963 – 1972 – Beatles (of course. I have an original 1968 Hey Jude given to me as a present).
    1972 -1974 – John Denver. (Hey, I’m 12 years old. Give me a break).
    1974 – 1975 – Pink Floyd. (DSOTM blew my thirteen year old mind.)
    1975 – 1976 – ELP. (Bought all the albums one summer. Cant stand them now).
    1976 – 1978 – Genesis. (TOTT started it all but I became a Gabriel era fanatic. Killed when Hackett left and punk happened).
    1979 – 1980 – Joy Division. Saw them in 79 at Eric’s in Liverpool. Loved them (never cared for New Order in quite the same way.)
    1980 -1981 – The Jam
    1981 -1984 – Talking Heads. Started with the South Bank Show and Fear of Music. Peaked with Speaking in Tongues. Ended before Little Creatures.
    1984 – 1988 The Fall joint champions with Tom Waits
    1988 -1991 – REM
    1991 – 1994- Massive Attack
    After that things get too messy and I started caring less. Of all these Talking Heads has best stood the test of time.

  16. That movie with Meryl Streep and Rick Springfield ..Ricky and the Jets has
    Bernie Worrell on keys in her band. Man has he aged -reminded me of Gil Scott Heron.

    Then again I suppose it was the late eighties when I saw him with the Heads.

  17. They were my favourite band, probably around 81-82. Went off them a bit when Speaking in Tongues came out which, for me, was a pale shadow of the previous 2 albums.

    They didn’t make another great album and I eventually grew somewhat weary of Byrne’s frankly extremely limited vocals.

    Never saw them live, but did witness many superb solo Byrne gigs.

    Don’t think they have aged too well, again mainly due to Byrne’s mannered and annoying vocal style.

  18. They were one of the very best live bands. I saw them at the Hammersmith Palais in 1980 and Wembley Arena in 1982. I would put the Wembley gig in my all time top 3 gigs list.

    • I saw Talking Heads live:

      3 February 1978 – Civic Hall, St. Albans
      9 December 1979 – Pavilion, Hemel Hempstead (the day that I passed my driving test, if anyone’s interested)
      2 December 1980 – Hammersmith Odeon

      All three were five-star flat-out-brilliant gigs.

      I believe Kaisfatdad was at the Hammersmith Palais gig (the night before the Hammy Odeon show), so you could’ve bumped into him, Alias!

        • 1978 certainly was the “Supported by Dire Straits” tour.
          When Dire Straits came on, there weren’t many people in the audience at the Civic Hall, as I remember. But they played an excellent set, and by the end they got some really warm applause. I never imagined that they were going to be world-dominatingly huge, but I did think they were a good little band. I still like and occasionally play the first Dire Straits album, as a matter of fact.

        • Incidentally, did any Afterworder catch Talking Heads on their very first tour of the UK, supporting the Ramones?
          The tour started on 12 May 1977 at the Rock Garden in London and concluded on 6 June back in London at the Roundhouse.

          • Yup. I may have told the tale before but I was social secretary at Leeds Poly when we promoted a date on that tour. It was in the same week as the Clash/Subway Sect tour so we hosted a week of punk with discos and local bands. I sold a Ramones/Talking Heads poster for that gig last year through Bonhams for £1000 and a Clash poster for £950. They had been in storage for most of the time so I decided to part with them and use the cash for food and bad records.

            • I saw them at Stratchlyde Uni in ’77. Talking Heads were magnificent; much beefier sound live than was subsequently recorded on their first album.
              The Ramones (whose first album I’d bought on import) were so stupendous that they completely wiped the floor with TH.
              I’ve been made aware that name-dropping particularly annoys one dullard on here, so I’ll continue. While dancing frenziedly to the Rams, this short, older, quite attractive woman in front of me kept turning back to look at me and give me a beaming smile. At the end of the gig, while I was still gazing in wonder at the empty stage, she approached me and asked if i’d enjoyed the gig. ‘Loved it’, i told her. ‘Would you like to meet the band?’ ‘Most definitely’. ‘Well, just stay here with me.’ ‘Fair enough’. We chatted away and, once the place had been cleared, out came the Heads and the Ramones. I chatted for a long time with both Dee Dee and Joey who told me their influences were not only the obvious British Invasion ones, but also Herman’s Hermits and The Bay City Rollers. I have to admit that I thought they were indulging in some NY snark, but they were deadly serious. The short woman came back and we carried on chatting. She turned out to be the co-manager, Linda Stein, wife of Seymour. We got on phenomenally well, to the extent that, on the spot, she invited me to come on the road with them for the following week. I was guttted to have to turn down the offer to run away and join the circus. If I’d been working in Glasgow that week, I’d have called in sick in a heartbeat, but, annoyingly, I was working on an assignment in the Borders for that week and also had responsibility for driving a few of my colleagues to the job. It was a heartbreaking offer to have to turn down.
              Linda and I kept in close touch and I saw her and them in Scotland again and then in London over the next five years. I became close to her and Dee Dee, in particular.
              She had a fantastically warm, open, feisty and funny personality and I’ll never forget how stricken I was when I read of her murder.

              • @ianess Can you refrain from continually insulting me in passing while posting on various threads on here.

                If you are trying to drive me away from posting on here, it won’t work.

                And note that I have addressed this to you and not the cowardly way you bury insults in other posts hoping that I stumble upon them and hopefully upset me.

                Please stop.

                • If you can’t take it, stop dishing it out yourself. That also includes your moronic habit of appending ‘Up!’ to any post disagreeing with me, which itself smacks more of ‘bullying’. (For some reason I imagine you saying this a la Arthur Mullard)
                  No point in whining and playing the ‘victim’. Nothing ‘cowardly’ about my approach- I’ve no fear of taking you on.

                  • Another insult, you really are something else aren’t you.

                    As for the up thing I was agreeing with the poster which is allowed as I understand it, it’s not always about you.

                    You are a bully as the constant insults show, which are designed to do one thing I think.

                    Shame on you.

                    • It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me whether or not you post your Student Grant banalities. Again, stop whining. If you have a pop, expect it back with interest.

          • Only time I saw Talkinh Heads live they were supported by Jonathan Richman, great show but from memory very short. Although I think it was supporting their second album so they didn’t have a big catalogue to choose from . David Byrne solo gigs rate as some of the best gigs I have seen.

      • Interesting that you went to see them in St Albans. A couple of years ago I was invited to the private view / launch party of an exhibition of the punk and new wave scene in St Albans at one of the museums. The entertainment included a guy playing guitar and singing . He was on the scene and he played covers of songs by bands that played at presumably the same venue. I remember thinking that it must have been great to have seen Talking Heads at a small venue.

        Today it seems astonishing now that bands like Talking Heads came over from New York and played at places like Hemel Hempstead.

        • A couple of mates and I drove to St Albans for that gig. I have a vague memory that the Beeb filmed the gig as I have an even vaguer memory of seeing the back of our heads bobbibg along near the front of the stage. OGWT?

          • As far as I know, the gig filmed for the OGWT was the Hemel Hempstead show in December 1979 (incidentally, the date I gave above for that gig was wrong. It was 3 December 1979, not the 9th.) I can certainly remember TV cameras being there at the venue. The footage is at the bottom of this page:

            http://talkingheadsconcerthistory.blogspot.se/2012_12_04_archive.html

            To my knowledge, the St. Albans gig in Feb. 1978 wasn’t filmed by anyone.

            The Hemel Hempstead Pavilion wasn’t the most most glamorous venue in the world, but it attracted a surprising number of decent bands. I saw Costello (at least twice), the Buzzcocks, Subway Sect, the Ruts, Richard Hell, the Selecter and the Specials. The atmosphere at that venue was always ace, for some reason.

        • I’d like to have seen that exhibition in St Albans – if it was about the local punk scene then a band I was in would certainly have been mentioned.

      • They were indeed. And to be honest they didn’t impress me too much even then although I did like the Edge’s guitar playing.

        Were you there too? Three AWers to-be in the same venue.

        Your story about Linda Stein was amazing. You got the chance to go on tour with that lot and had to say no!

        “Gutted” can’t even begin to describe how that must have felt.

  20. I saw them roughly the same time as duco: 2 Feb 1978 Barbarella’s Birmingham, 1 September 1979 Edinburgh Rock Festival and 2 December 1979 Birmingham Odeon. After that, the only UK gigs they did were in London and I didn’t go.

  21. Groups who have released at least five albums, even the weakest of which is pretty damn fine:

    The Beatles
    Roxy Music
    Steely Dan
    Talking Heads
    Pet Shop Boys
    Massive Attack
    Radiohead
    The White Stripes

        • Six, actually. But I think only four of them (the first three and the last one) qualify. Unless you count the mighty Sci Fi Lullabies.

          While we’re in the Bundesrepublik, I’m pretty sure Can should be on this list.
          Pere Ubu – that’s another.
          Led Zep.
          Public Image Ltd (though we’re stretching the definition of “band” here)

    • I’ll go along with XTC and a few of the others already mentioned. Based on the rules – at least 5/no duds, some for me although admittedly they have to float your boat in the first place…

      Crowded House – Crowded House, Temple Of Low Men, Woodface, Together Alone, Time On Earth, Intriguer
      Odds – Neopolitan, Bedbugs, Good Weird Feeling, Nest. Cheerleader
      Toad the Wet Sprocket – Bread And Circus, Pale, Fear, Dulcunea, In Light Syrup (probably my favourite, and it’s the B sides and rarities album), Coil, New Constellation

      And REM don’t have an actual dud to their name, and that’s across 15 albums.

  26. Depeche Mode’s career so far is five DAMN fine albums bookended by four good albums either side.

    Oh go on then, I’ll tell you…they’re Black Celebration, Music for the Masses, Violator, Songs of Faith and Devotion and Ultra.

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