A long time ago, in a record store far, far away — well, not that far, but it WAS decades ago — I walked out of Cymbaline Records on Center Street with three albums: The Pretenders, The Ramones “Rocket to Russia” and something called “Talking Heads ’77.” I had no idea those three would forever be part of my desert-island collection. (You know the drill: You’re hypothetically stuck on a desert island with only a volleyball to talk to, so what records do you take?) The Talking Heads were like nothing I’d ever heard before.
They were lumped in with punk, but there were no screaming guitars or punky angst. So how to describe The Talking Heads? I recently went right to one of the sources: Founding member Jerry Harrison, who played keyboards and lead guitar in the band. In a phone interview, I talked to Harrison about the band’s early days, how they grew into one of the biggest bands in the world, and what led to their legendary concert film directed by Jonathan Demme, “Stop Making Sense.
” The film will be shown at the UC Santa Cruz Quarry Theater July 13. And Harrison will be playing the Talking Heads’ “Remain In Light” track-by-track, along with some other tunes from his old band, on Aug. 16.
Harrison agreed that their first album was unique. “We got that a lot,” he said. “It was a unique time for music.
When we first came out, a lot of people had no idea what our influences were. Then we covered (the Al Green classic) ‘Take Me to the River�.
