You know that line about how cliches are cliches because they’re true? And how great songs are overplayed because they are great? Well that holds true here for sure, and the cool thing is, if you go spend $3.00 at a used record store, like I did on a copy of 1974′s ‘Caribou,’ then listen to ‘Sun’ 200 or so times, no matter how close-minded you are, eventually you’ll come across the next song on the record, ‘Ticking,’ which might be just as good:

60: How did you discover the Talking Heads? What song did you hear first? What made you decide to play their music?

Charles Otto: “When I was in high school, I went on Napster and downloaded some Widespread Panic tunes at the suggestion of a friend. I only liked one song, and I showed it to my dad and he told me, “I know this song, it’s Burning Down the House.” The real hook for me was hearing The Name of this Band is Talking Heads in college. The addition of Adrian Belew to their lineup for that album killed me. I had never heard anything like it. It wasn’t until after college that I decided to start the band. I saw a Zeppelin Tribute and a Thin Lizzy Tribute in two days, and saw how much fun they were having. The idea struck me, that because the original bands had so many albums and so many years of development under their belts, playing their entire catalogue could make for a very well-rounded and exciting show. And the Talking Heads seemed like a good choice for me, since I felt confident I could pull off most of the guitar work. I wasn’t planning on singing, but I didn’t find anyone else that was very convincing, so I worked on it myself.”

60: How much of a mindset change is it to play in your other bands versus this one? What would you like people to know about your other bands?

Charles: “I have one other main band that I spend all my time on, called Savvy. It is funny to me that I feel much more free to express myself in the Heads Tribute, since my original songs tend to be a little more rigid and planned, while a lot of Heads music allows us to stretch out as musicians. There are certain liberties that the Heads took with songs, changing them from one show to the next, which we also take, and it’s very fun for everyone involved.”

60: Are there other Talking Heads Tribute bands you know about? How come only the classic rockers get them?

Charles: “I’ve heard of a couple. Start Making Sense is on the east coast, and their Byrne guy sounds just like the original. I don’t think it is exclusively classic rock bands that work well with tributes. I love the James Brown Tribute in Chicago, Get Up with the Get Downs, and there is even an Amy Winehouse Tribute called House of Winehouse. I’m still not sure if this one is a joke or not, but they did win Best Local Tribute Band in Chicago’s newspaper, The Reader.”

60: What is your favorite talking heads song to listen to? By contrast, what’s your favorite to play live? Or are they the same? What was the hardest to learn?

Charles: “The hardest songs to learn are the early stuff because his vocals and lyrics are OUT THERE. Faceless imagery, jaunty rhythms, I have really had a hard time putting my finger on all of it. I eventually get it though. Best example is “With Our Love.” All the phrases are so very similar, but they all need to be exactly right to rhythmically hold the song together.

Favorite song to listen to and play is the entire album Remain in Light. God that album is good. We recently recreated that album 2 nights in Chicago. It took 20 people on stage, 3 months of my time rerecording each song so I could assign parts to people. It was all worth it, it was probably the best two days of my life. There is audio from those shows on our Myspace now.”

60: Do you think the Talking Heads will ever get back together again? What do you think of their solo work?

Charles: “I don’t speculate on that. I will buy a ticket if they do. I think they are all getting really really good at writing songs. They are still evolving, and I’m glad to hear and play all of that. We play a Tom Tom Club song or two, and have about 7 Byrne solo songs under our belt right now. Good stuff.”

—

We’re grateful to Charles for his time, and we encourage everybody to go see his band this Wednesday. I forgot to ask him to pick his favorite sixty seconds of Talking Heads music, so here’s a song from their last album that could use a little more attention:


Talking Heads - Blind
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It’s from Billy Idol, who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his songwriting abilities. He was on a big tear for a while there, with albums full of cleverly written songs with surprisingly sophisticated arrangements. Everyone knows “Rebel Yell,” “Cradle of Love” and “To Be a Lover,” but check out “Mark of Caine,” “Shock to the System” someday, or my current favorite, “All Summer Single,” from 1986′s Whiplash Smile.

It doesn’t jump right out at you, the opening keyboard sounded a bit dated even then, but as it slowly simmers along and adds some nice guitar texture, you start to get swept up into the moodiness of it all. Billy should really do an album of Elvis covers someday, if he wants to get back in with his former mall set of fans, he’s got the voice for it. The lyrics are intentionally vague and impressionistic, but his voice captures the restlessness and yearning of someone just looking for some simple piece of mind. Or something.

The kicker for me, though, and our daily slice of heaven, comes after the last chorus, when he lets Steve Stevens ride the end of the song out with a repeated melodic guitar lead line. If I embedded this properly, the youtube clip below should start right then:

OK so, Ween. Loved them since my old buddy introduced me to the Mollusk while driving around Arizona heading to a Wu-Tang Clan show. I won the bet as to which two members wouldn’t show up – Method Man and ODB. At one point we were driving by this big mountain and a storm cloud that looked like a fist swallowed up the mountain just as the climax of “Buckingham Green” came up, and I was hooked for life.

So now I drag everyone I can to see them every chance I get. 1 of the 3, at Red Rocks with the Flaming Lips opening for them – was transcendent, the other two just OK but that happens when you wing it as much as they do. Anyway now we’re 2 for 4 cause this show was fucking awesome. Everyone and everything was clicking, and when Gene nailed all the high notes on “Freedom of ’76″ about six songs in the crowd lost their mind collectively cause everyone knew it was gonna be a great night. And it was. Anyone who doesn’t recognize Dean as one of our modern day guitar heroes is a moron, it’s hard to find a band that steps into and blends so many genres and makes them their own so forcefully, and the songwriting is uniformly great, even when they dig out some old thing they wrote as teenagers.

They’ve also got great taste in covers, check out this video from near the end of the main set, an excellent version of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance:”

As Uncle Ted would say, “No Shit!” Also, “What kind of music is this? SOUL MUSIC!”

(photo taken by, and from, “ninefongs” on the Ween Forum. Hope that’s OK!)

Got a full-time job writing for AOL Radio Blog. Super-nice people, so far my only complaint is that I had to write about Bruce Springsteen without using the phrase “washed up, overdramatic, preening, posing, affected speaking voice blowhard.” Got some work with the Cleveland Scene.

I also went to a ton of concerts. Working backwards, the most recent was Dead Weather at the Fillmore in Detroit, which might be my favorite rock venue right about now – great old theater, lovingly maintained, great marquee, great views, nice cushioned seats up in the balcony for the old men (oh yeah I turned 40, too) and it was cool not hot.

I saw Dead Weather last year on the tour for their first album, which I thought was fully cool but not really a revelation. Their new record Sea of Cowards is much better. Like Prince, it’s not that they’re doing any one thing in a new way but they just combine it all uniquely and forcefully. So we all expected this tour to feature a tighter and stronger band and they didn’t disappoint. The novelty of “Hey, Jack White’s the drummer!” has worn off, with lead singer Alison Mosshart more than holding her own as frontwoman, and guitarist Dean Fertita taking a more active role on stage. (The bass player just hung back, somebody had to..)

Jack would pop in with lead vocals or step out for the occasional song on guitar, but it felt like a natural part of a more confident, unified group. And really, all this before is just an extended way of saying this all kicked much butt. Check out this video from that very same show, of the song “Hustle and Cuss:”

The show was sold out, and the trip was totally worth it. The six-piece band played a short, smartly paced set that welcomed the crowd into its company early and then gradually built everybody up until they were ready for the frenzied finale of their two biggest ‘hits,’ “That Kind of Man” (below) and “How You Like Me Now.”

The main thing I want to say is that I really hope The Heavy get to tour here more often, because as good as they were, you can tell that if they got a bigger stage, more time (and maybe a back-up singer) they could really blow your mind. When you see a band like this, you think “it’s so easy, why doesn’t everybody do this?,” but clearly it’s not because there aren’t nearly enough bands like this around for my liking.

Also, here’s a big article I worked on: Top 100 Classic Rock Songs of All Time. I didn’t rank them, the listeners of AOL’s on-line radio stations did, but I wrote the comments.

By the way, don’t sleep on Neil’s last album. Some people knocked it for sounding a bit tossed-off, but I like it’s looseness. Here’s a video for my favorite song from the record, “Fuel Line” in which you’ll see (after a commercial, sorry!) Neil driving around rocking out to his own music:

So far, Tom Petty announced a big sale with no ticket fees, which could be him just being cool like he did when he fought high record prices. Then the Dave Matthews Band, who suck, made a pretty smart move by announcing they would take next summer off, giving their fans extra incentive to go to this year’s shows. Now Christina Aguilera’s summer tour has been postponed till next year because of “future commitments” (what exactly could take up your whole summer and still be easily forgotten?), and Limp Bizkit, also terrible, is moving their tour out of amphitheaters “because we hate chairs.” Finally, the Lillith tour announced a 2-for-1 ticket sale, probably because they relied on the brand name instead of packing in a few more marquee names, and, in a move that aroused a little suspicion in my conspiracy-theory heart, U2 postponed a bunch of their summer dates because apparently Bono lost his ability to walk on water or hurt his back or something. Now, you think he couldn’t find a doctor to sign a note for him to keep them from losing tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, IF this tour isn’t selling well?

My point? Don’t have one. Except that it seems a lot of summer tours are being downsized or postponed before the summer even starts. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with concert attendance this year.

And here, for no real reason, is ‘Fight from the Inside,’ a Queen song I didn’t know about until the other day. It’s from their classic News Of The World album, but it’s an deep cut featuring bassist Roger Taylor on lead vocals. I didn’t know Freddie let the other guys sing, but this is pretty darn good, especially the guitar: