Pitchfork

[Posted Friday, September 12th, 2003 02:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Former Talking Heads drummer Chris Franz has announced exclusively to fansite Talking-Heads.net that a comprehensive new box set will be released this November 11th on Rhino Records. Entitled Once in a Lifetime, the set continues to muddle the Talking Heads discography by including exclusive tracks not found on the last Talking Heads compilation, Sand in the Vaseline. Along with the studio demos included on that release, there are alternate versions of "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," "New Feeling," "Cities," and "Drugs" (featuring Robert Fripp on guitar!) as well as "In Asking Land," an outtake from the Naked sessions. So any frustrated completists out there pining for the resin at the bottom of the barrel, here it is, kids.

The real prize here is that the set will come with a DVD version of the band's ultra-rare VHS video anthology Storytelling Giant, expanded to include three videos ("Blind," "[Nothing But] Flowers," and "Sax and Violins") not featured on the original. The Talking Heads' videos have so far been painfully under-seen, and are considered by many to be some of the most inventive and visual in the genre. Not to mention the best choreography-- here's hoping the release of the DVD will bring David Byrne's "spastic preacher" moves back to the dance floor.

The box set comes at a fairly convenient time, since this is just about when any hardcore fans are realizing that the band's brief reconvention at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is on, well, the road to nowhere. There won't be a reunion, but you can have this rehash instead. Here's the full tracklist:

Disc one:
01 Sugar On My Tongue
02 Love - Building On Fire
03 I Wish You Wouldn't Say That
04 Don't Worry About the Government
05 Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town [alternate version]
06 New Feeling [alternate version]
07 Pulled Up
08 Psycho Killer
09 Warning Sign
10 Artists Only
11 Tentative Decisions
12 No Compassion
13 Stay Hungry
14 I'm Not In Love
15 The Book I Read
16 Thank You for Sending Me An Angel
17 Found a Job
18 A Clean Break [live]
19 Take Me to the River
20 The Big Country
21 Heaven

Disc two:
01 I Zimbra
02 Cities [alternate version]
03 Life During Wartime
04 Air
05 Memories Can't Wait
06 Drugs [alternate version]
07 Once in a Lifetime
08 Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
09 Listening Wind
10 Houses in Motion
11 Crosseyed and Painless
12 Burning Down the House
13 Making Flippy Floppy
14 Girlfriend Is Better
15 Slippery People
16 Swamp
17 This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

Disc three:
01 And She Was
02 Stay Up Late
03 Creatures of Love
04 The Lady Don't Mind
05 Road to Nowhere
06 Wild Wild Life
07 Love For Sale
08 People Like Us
09 Puzzlin' Evidence
10 City of Dreams
11 Blind
12 Mr. Jones
13 The Democratic Circus
14 (Nothing But) Flowers
15 In Asking Land [alternate take]
16 Sax and Violins
17 Lifetime Piling Up

Storytelling Giant DVD:
01 Once in a Lifetime
02 Wild Wild Life
03 Stay Up Late
04 Blind
05 Crosseyed and Painless
06 Burning Down the House
07 And She Was
08 Sax and Violins
09 This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
10 The Lady Don't Mind
11 Love for Sale
12 (Nothing But) Flowers
13 Road to Nowhere