CHRONOLOGY

This is a compilation of various concert footage and a few TV show appearances throughout their prime from 73 until 83. You'll find some really early CBGB club B&W footage of their infancy days, plus some of theior classioc tracks featured in various TV shows like Saturday Night Live or David Letterman Talk Show, or still yet their Montreux Jazz Festival or veven their RnR HoF induction. Of most interest for the progheads is their extended line-up including the excellent Crosseyed and Painless with Adrian Belew in the line-up. As for this writer, I find that only the last third of the DVD is really of interest (starting with Take Me To The River), including the excellent Burning Down The House, which still featured that special lineup (albeit slightly abridged: they were only 6) on Letterman. As for the lengthy booklet, it's a related text, that doesn't really relate to the band's history. Rather it appears like a loosely related essay that I couldn't managed to read past the second page, just browsing the pictures.

Rather interesting a product, but progheads are advised to find and check the awesome Stop Making Sense concedrt and movie, even if Belew had left the band for King Crimson by then.

"A magical marriage of diametric poles - abandon and inhibition, freedom and impingement unto paralysis, lush growth and foregone atrophy, life and death, male and female...always all in the same irrevocably human body." -Lester Bangs

While their music may be thought provoking (thanks Lester), there is no need to over-think this DVD. This release is an outstanding document of the band in their prime embryonic years. Direct and to-the-point with none of the annoying typical fluff structure of many a documentary these days. You get vintage live cuts and television appearances from the mid 70s to early 80s, with the emphasis on early, vital material. This is the genesis of Talking Heads, the time for which they should be revered, not the later stuff which crossed over into the mainstream. This was the band at their artiest and most edgy.

The bonus features are formidable for a change. You get a 35 minute South Bank Show episode from 1979 which is so different than the band documentaries of today. With no narration or sensationalist crap, we get the band jamming on really incredible, fresh music interspersed with the members telling their story. And this isn't just members recalling their bio again. Instead they sit and wax poetic about art and philosophy, they provide a truly intimate and rare look at the inner workings of a band not yet over-the-hill as a truly creative force. We get an authentic sense of their youth and unguarded personality, and unintentionally perhaps we get a case made for introversion and actually thinking before one opens one's mouth.

So much of what passes for popular music today consists of kids who think their rehash is almost as cool as they are personally, or, over-the-hill farts trying to squeeze a few more bucks peddling rock star myths. The Talking Heads:Chronology is what rock documentary should be. Finding a band with a story worth covering, presenting them at their artistic peak with great live footage and period interview segments, and without "critics" babbling over it. In this case such a documentary has met a band who actually have something worthwhile to say. No "rebels without a clue" this time around.

The deluxe edition comes in a nice book form with a long, interesting Lester Bangs piece. If you're a fan or just someone who wants to learn about great rock music, swoop on this release without further delay.