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Welcome to Talking Heads Wiki!
Please note: this website is currently still early in development, so there may be many changes, errors, and missing content - although anybody is allowed to create an account and expand our information! The website also may not display as well on mobile as it does on desktop browsers, this will hopefully be improved soon.
Using the same MediaWiki technology as Wikipedia, this website aims to be an extensive, reliable, and organized catalogue of information about the band Talking Heads, as well as the many other projects of its members. The goal of Talking Heads Wiki is to make sure that if you want to learn more about the band, or check for a specific detail, everything you need is all nicely contained in one location instead of spread across the internet and hard to find. The website doesn't just include the Talking Heads Wiki, but also the Talking Heads Archive which compiles relevant media (text, photos, videos, audio), and ensures that it's all very accessible and searchable. One of the main goals of this website is to tackle the common issues faced by fans in the community, where they're looking for something they saw months (or years) ago, but they can't remember what website they saw it on and maybe it's not really something they can easily search for, or maybe they have a photo but don't have any information alongside it about what event it was from or what year it was from or who took the photo.
Everything on the wiki and archive should be extensively tagged so that it can easily be found if you remember enough about it. For example, trying to figure out which Jerry Harrison song mentions Martin Sheen? Just search "Martin sheen" in the wiki search bar, and thanks to the lyrics being included it will show up! Trying to find a particular photo of the band in Japan? Just go to the archive and search "Talking Heads Japan"! Want to find out all of the random niche events that had David Byrne as a guest in 2023? There's an article that lists them all! As well as a general collection of information/media, this website aims to keep people up to date about new stuff. You can subscribe to our newsletter emails, with upcoming options to make sure you get all of the news tailored for you and what you want to hear about. Some events don't get much announcement, so people often won't know about what's coming up, like people who didn't know that Talking Heads were doing a Q&A in their city in September 2023 until after it happened, but there's also stuff that can go pretty unnoticed like some Chris Frantz radio appearances or David Byrne as a guest singer for somebody else's concert. This website wants to keep fans up to date on everything, including new releases like the recent Record Store Day vinyl releases and the upcoming Stop Making Sense releases.
There's some further information below that can help get you started on exploring this website. Don't forget, any user can create an account and start editing, adding information the same as any Wikipedia user! If you find something that doesn't work, please get in touch so it can be fixed! If you find information that's incorrect or has typos, please either edit it yourself or let somebody else know so they can fix it.
I hope you find this website useful, interesting, and entertaining! I'm really glad to have worked on it and I look forward to improving the experience within the Talking Heads community!
- Naomi
What is Talking Heads?
Talking Heads was an American new wave band formed in 1975 in New York City. The main four members of the band:
- David Byrne - singer and guitarist
- Chris Frantz - drummer
- Tina Weymouth - bassist
- Jerry Harrison - keyboardist and guitarist
Throughout their career, they also worked with a variety of other artists, such as Brian Eno, Adrian Belew, and Bernie Worrell. These people will all be listed here.
What did they do?
Talking Heads were a very influential band within the post-punk and new wave music scenes, and have continued to influence many later genres and artists. Some of their most successful releases include:
- The song Psycho Killer (released 1977)
- A cover of Al Green's song Take Me To the River (released 1978)
- The album Remain in Light (released 1980) featuring the song Once in a Lifetime
- The album Speaking in Tongues (released 1983) featuring the songs Burning Down the House and This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
- The concert film Stop Making Sense (released 1984)
- The album Little Creatures (released 1985) featuring the songs And She Was and Road to Nowhere
For more details, check out these pages detailing their discography, hits, and influence. You can also check out this list of songs they recorded.
Where are they now?
Talking Heads was officially declared broken up in 1991, and since then the band have reunited for various events in 1999, 2002, 2023, and 2024. Outside of the band, all 4 members have engaged in a variety of other projects, including producing albums by other artists and releasing their own albums.
- David Byrne, currently living in New York City, has released over 10 solo albums (including 2018's American Utopia which led to a Broadway residency from 2019-2022) and regularly works in other art forms such as the musical Here Lies Love, the book How Music Works, and the interactive science-art exhibit Theater of the Mind.
- Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, currently living in Connecticut, have been married to each other since 1977. In 1981, they also founded a side-project band called Tom Tom Club, which had success with its 1981 songs Genius of Love and Wordy Rappinghood, and has released 6 studio albums
- Jerry Harrison, currently living in San Francisco, has released 3 solo albums and focused on a career as a producer in the 90s, and more recently has participated in several companies and toured with Adrian Belew, performing a tour that recreates the 1980 Remain in Light tour.
Check the individual pages about each member for more details about what they've done throughout their career.
What else is there on this website?
Feel free to explore the website in any way you'd like! There's a lot of stuff here, so it's understandable if you don't know what to look for. A lot of the time, it'll probably work like how people often use Wikipedia - where you just use it when you want to go to check something or read about something when it's already on your mind, then you might even fall into tangents going through pages for an hour. On the left sidebar there's a "Random Page" button that might be fun to press if you're bored or wanting to learn more. If you want to know more information about this website itself then see Talking Heads Wiki. If there's any information you specifically want to find, it should hopefully be possible to find it using the search bar at the top. If you want to look through photos, videos, audio, and interviews of the band members then check out the Talking Heads Archive. If there's any information you think is missing that should be added to this website, you're encouraged to create an account and edit it. If you think the website is missing any features it should have, contact talkingheadswiki@gmail.com to suggest it. I'm always eager to get more feedback on what could be changed. Please also get in touch if you encounter any problems with this website. I'm just one person so can't guarantee quick fixes for everything, but I'll try my best to ensure a good experience for people using this site.
Enjoy!
How can I edit/create articles?
If you'd like to contribute information to the website, simply create an account in the top right of the page (you're also recommended to add an email address, just in case you forget your password) and then you can make edits to just about any page, or create missing pages.
Please try to be reasonable and accurate if you decide to contribute. Don't add information that isn't true or relevant, and try to cite sources where possible. For more specific information about the standards, formatting, rules, and recommendations for editing, please read the Manual of Style. You don't need to read all of it, but it's helpful to be familiar with information about a certain section (e.g. the section for People or the section for Songs) before you go editing articles about those topics.