Music Arcades: Talking Heads: The Name of this Band is Talking Heads

I've always been a bit wary of eBay. It feels like the kind of thing that could easily draw you in and suck up all your spare time — like gambling or computer games, both of which I've had the briefest of dalliances with. I don't think I registered until 2004. I had a list of about five things I wanted. I got them, and then stopped. Well, more or less: I still keep an eye out for copies of Tom Phillips' Humument, and for a CD copy of the Au Pairs that I know Lucy would really like as a present (though I'm not sure there's ever been a CD release). But apart from that…

Somewhere near the top of that List of Five was a copy of The Name of this Band is Talking Heads, which I never got round to getting in the '80s — and then it seemed to be deleted for about a decade and a half. So eBay let me consummate this pent-up longing, and I got a second-hand vinyl copy of the album in April 2004.

And then, you see, my theory about postponing music purchases — for as long as desire will let you —gains further supporting evidence. For only three or four months later, the release of this expanded CD version was announced.

Yep, you're right, I should have postponed buying that until a better one came along, but somehow I couldn't. I don't know, I figured having it on CD as well would save me from wearing out the vinyl, or something logical like that.

And yet I can't help feeling that what this expanded version gains in comprehensiveness it loses in elegance. Although it might seem like I'm contradicting myself, I'm actually repeating myself again.

Back in February, Gideon Coe announced that he'd be featuring a live album by Talking Heads in his Great Lost Album spot. I fired off an email, viz:

I bet you're going to do Stop Making Sense for the Great Lost Album tomorrow, aren't you? Can I just say that, just as Ringo perhaps wasn't the best drummer in the Beatles, Stop Making Sense is not the best live album by Talking Heads.

On the other hand, if you're doing The Name of this Band is Talking Heads, you will make me eat my words for being so patronising...

Gideon hardly ever replies to emails (wisely), but I got pinged right back with a response (quoted without permission): "New Feeling, a Clean Break and Born under the punches do you? Ahead of the game as ever". I think in the end they went for the more populist Life During Wartime over Born Under Punches, but I had to doff my hat to a radio programme that's so in touch with its inner music snob.