Favourite 10 Talk Talk songs - my reply to a query from Toby Benjamin

Just prior to Christmas I received a message from author Toby Benjamin inquiring about 10 favourite 10 Talk Talk songs. He mentioned he would select some of it for a post he was going to do for his Spirit of Talk Talk page and honestly I was happy to oblige, but honestly, it wasn't a fair question. Narrow it down to only 10 favourites? Unpossible!

Here is the post where some of my Peanut babble made it mainstream. Woot! Thanks to Toby for the opportunity to stretch my writing chops a little bit over the holidays! :) Below this is my entire unabridged submission to Toby. 

It’s My Life - Hands down, my favourite because it was the first song I’d ever heard by them and it was this song that made me (many years later) decide to find out more about their other releases. Also as much as I hesitate to admit this, it was No Doubt that reminded me about this somewhat long forgotten song in my ill-gotten Napster-made library and made me go looking to get a better (read: official) copy of it. 

Runeii - On first listen this was the song that made me start the track over again because it was so subtle and quiet and clearly every note, sound and pause was meaningful and I knew my full attention was needed. 

Today - My love of Talk Talk made me many good online friends in the last few years. My friend Lorraine (in Australia , I’m in Canada) found this 7” single and randomly decided to gift it to me. It is one of the first actual physical piece of Talk Talk merchandise I owned. Living in Another World - I’ve always loved the power start to this song that set the high energy for the rest of it. Also the climax of the song where Mark sounds like he’s almost shouting. (God only knows what kind of tales you tell). 

Life’s What You Make It - This is the 2nd song by the band that I knew of. But it was different enough that it was a few years before I realized these were the same guys that wrote ‘It’s My Life’ I’ve always loved that about Talk Talk. Their albums sound different. Their albums are very much like those lined up school photos your mom has of you from kindergarten to university. They sound like that to me, except a wide gap from junior school pics (The Party’s Over and It’s My Life) high school (the Colour of Spring) university thesis (Spirit of Eden) and post doctoral (Laughing Stock) … sorry for being so wordy.  

The Rainbow - What a solid opener and definitely the moment I realized what Mark was going on about in his early interviews when he described Talk Talk was more like a jazz quartet. 

Candy - Same as ‘Have You Heard the News’ I have heard the ReAction version and I think I like them better. But I love that even then they were making sure they weren’t background music. The change in tempo, that marching drum beat, in the last half of the song jars you to attention. What happened there? Amazing. 

It’s Getting Late In the Evening - When I first heard this song (knowing it was a B-Side) I was immediately surprised it wasn’t a B-Side for a Spirit of Eden single. The same goes for ‘For What It’s Worth’. Both beautiful songs. 

Time is Time - My favourite non-single track off the album. It just sounded perfect. I couldn’t explain more than that. 

Taphead - I’m not sure why my brain connects this song to Mark’s solo track ‘Westward Bound’. Probably the guitar. I can’t explain why I like this song yet. But I do. I'm happy to listen a few more hundred times and come back with a more cohesive explanation someday.

(This one goes to 11) The Colour of Spring - You said Talk Talk but I love this song very much. It could have worked as the title track for that album. But it seems like such a perfect start to the last offering we were ever going to have from Mark Hollis. It was delicate, with that right amount of measured power behind his voice. I remember reading he said his voice was like one of the instruments and I think it really is here. Thanks Toby and hopefully you’re to use some of my babble. 😃

Blog P.S: There were actually 13 in my list, with Rustin Man Night in Evening City and .O.Rang Moratorium rounding out the final two, but I stopped short of writing anything about them because I felt that they were going to be left out anyway. 

 

 

Gonzai Magazine - Talk Talk Revisited - a 6-Part Article Series (en français) by Gwenaël Breës

The Reaction - Aylesbury Friars - September 2, 1978 - Mark Jordan

 

So it is with much surprise and much delight that I have become a footnote in an article about Talk Talk.

My new and amazing friend Gwen who directed this beautiful movie about Talk Talk called In A Silent Way has embarked on writing a six part series about Talk Talk.  I have been bestowed the title of "Shadow Archeologist" by the author. I am absolutely ok with this and will eventually design a certificate or diploma to hang in my office. 

Links for the article below (in French):

In a Silent Way - https://www.facebook.com/inasilentwayfilm/

The Introduction - https://gonzai.com/talk-talk-revisited/

Part 1 of 6 - https://gonzai.com/talk-talk-revisited-1-6-mark-hollis-en-reaction/

Part 2 of 6 - https://gonzai.com/talk-talk-revisited-2/

Part 3 of 6 - https://gonzai.com/talk-talk-revisited-3/

Part 4 of 6 - https://gonzai.com/talk-talk-revisited-4/

Part 5 of 6 - Pending

Part 6 of 6 - Pending

In a Silent Way (de Gwenaël Breës) - Trailer VOSTFR from Dérives asbl on Vimeo.

Stuff I'm Listening to #67 - Three kinds of "Candy" - Talk Talk and The Reaction

For the past couple of days my vinyl sensei @Threadpennyvinyl's been posting about Talk Talk's song 'Candy'. Officially, the song hails from their debut album, 'The Party's Over'. She noted an interesting counter-factual that reminded me 'Candy' had been planned as their debut single. Perhaps things would have gone differently for the band. But without bending the laws of time and space, and lacking the time circuits and flux capacitors to properly construct a TARDIS or Delorean Time Machine, we'll never know.

Last night she subtly pointed out the differences between The Reaction's version (lyrically speaking) versus Talk Talk's release. My mind geared up and decided, I'm going to write a blog post! It's NaNoWriMo after all. And while I just don't do well with things like that, getting off my butt to write anything which I'm willing to post publicly is always a challenge, fun, and exciting. Any writing exercise I get done for myself is good exercise. 

The original intention of this post was to prattle on about the how valuable demos are for fans of any band. They're usually made as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible (because what real struggling band do you know actually has money?) and meant to get them in the record company's door and signed. Years ago, I heard one of U2's demos where Bono must have been barely 15, a voice not quite cracked yet, on Alan Cross' Ongoing History of New Music (It's a wonderful show and I highly encourage anyone with an interest in learning about the backstories of new alternative music to have a listen). It was an eye (ear?) opening moment and a really good glimpse of what we all knew was to come for U2. Surprising for me because I had no idea Bono and the Edge had known each other for that long!

Personally, I adore demos. They're going to be the band at their very amateurish best, unrefined and full of energy. You're hearing conception in these demos. It's quite amazing, especially when you look at the scope of what the band will eventually become. The Reaction, Mark Hollis, Talk Talk. Their demos leave me speechless. To hear Mark Hollis so young and untouched by the music business is definitely a feast for the ears.

Speaking about demos being cheap, I need to relate the tale of my hometown band, the Barenaked Ladies. They made their demo for $1. We had a thing called Speaker's Corner, where, for $1, you could record a two minute video in a booth and once a week, they'd pick the highlights into a half hour show. It felt like Public Access Television deconstructed (think Wayne's World, Mike Myers being another Scarborough alumnus), but in Vine video length. Barenaked Ladies piled into this slightly larger than a phone booth thing and recorded their song 'You Can Be My Yoko Ono'. They waited until the weekend for the show to air. They recorded their piece and went off to the record company to show off their demo. The rest is clearly history.
  
As usual, I have digressed. 

So... Because of Threadpenny and a blog post by Dervswerve about the song (which I fully admit, I read last year back when Talk Talk was shiny and new for me, then decided maybe I should give this track a listen as I only had downloaded the singles from this album at that point), I had gone in to listen to the song again, all three versions that I have with an open ear.

Going chronologically backwards, let's start with the album version first. 

Quick note: All YouTube links are audio only. Please... please, let me know if the links go dead and I'll do my very best to find new ones. 

Talk Talk's official relase of the song from their debut album 'The Party's Over'

Here is producer Colin Thurston's cleaned and polished version of this song. At this point, the song had gone through two bands worth of tweaking and Colin made it as New Romantic ready as he could. A ballad worthy to sit with the other moody synth-pop staples of the time. Kudos to Simon Brenner for his synthesizer work here. You cannot beat Lee Harris and Paul Webb as a rhythm section. Instrumentally, this song is perfect. But to me, Mark always sounded a little flat, (not off key! but...) as if he's already sung this song too many times. It's a great piece, nonetheless and if you hadn't heard the other versions, you wouldn't hear the flatness I'm talking about. Almost as if the business had already started pissing him off and grinding him down a little. 

Talk Talk's demo - featured on their 'Asides and Besides' album

Now here is the demo, from Talk Talk. Fortunately they released this officially on their 'Asides and Besides' album so you need not worry about hissy bad quality tape recordings here. Slightly faster than the album version but mostly the same. Mark's not as flat here. All the emotion behind the song is much more pronounced here. But I think he's still holding back.

The Reaction's demo - unreleased

So when I started working on collecting the music I liked, it became pretty clear there was a specific style of music I gravitated towards. Anything ska, mod or punk was going to be my cup of tea. Here is the demo that Mark Hollis' first band, The Reaction, pumped out. Mark's younger here and channeling all the energy of the mod revival/punk. If you ever needed to hear this song at it's rawest, here is it. This is, vocally speaking, my favourite version.

This pack of candy comes with a 25% bonus - The Reaction's LIVE performance of Candy

 
It is with some surprise, when I started traveling through the Internets earlier today, that I should find this. I went out just to satisfy my own curiosity that there were no other versions of the song that I might have missed in order to write my directionless and rambling post today. I'm not sure how I missed this. The YouTuber posted it in May. I'll assume that I was being inundated by too much stuff all at once when he uploaded it for the world. There were a total of 6 views when I discovered it. Sad really. Seems a lot of people missed this.

I tend to steer away from discussing live versions of songs. They're all going to be different from one another and different from the demo/album/single. It also depends on how the musicians were feeling that night. Being a one time audience member, you're likely not going to notice if a performance was slightly off. But this being the only recording I've ever heard of The Reaction, well... Damn. It's pretty effing good! It's on par with the Reaction demo. Mark Hollis, as usual, is able to pull off a live performance that more often than not, overshadows the original album version (in this case, the demo). 

Oh, for good measure, here's a pic of the Reaction performing at the Aylesbury Friar for no more reason than I really like this picture. 

Photo by Mark Jordan. Found at the Aylesbury Friar's website.  From L to R (George Page (guitar), Bruce Douglas (bass), Mark Hollis (vocals, guitar), Gino Williams (drums)

Stuff I'm Listening To - Special Happy Birthday to Lee Harris Edition

Artist: Talk Talk

Title: Today

Lyrics: 
Cover me with shades of disbelief
Can happiness be someone's else's dream
Numbers call to spell my name
Move about as values change
Catch me if you can but don't delay

Why?: Happy birthday to the super talented and super adorable drummer Lee Harris from Talk Talk and .o.rang. I'd go on, but nobody needs (nor wants) to hear me gush about Lee Harris. Nobody needs to see me revert back to my 14 year old self.