Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Musician who fronted Talking Heads, scoring new wave hits like "Psycho Killer," later working in film, art, and neuroscience, winning an Oscar, Golden Globe, an
On the island
Eight records
She gave a memorable speech at the Women's March. Really amazing speech. And you listen to the song. It's a good song and you realize she's got something to say in the song as well. She's very aware, very conscious. It's a pop song, but it really does have something to say. And you thought, okay, this is this is worth cheering.
I wouldn't say it was a great favorite of mine, but years later now I can look at some of the melodies I've written over the years and I go, oh, there's a real Celtic influence in some of the melodies I've done. They follow the same kind of melodic arc as this song.
It has elements of, yeah, intentionally kind of elements of being like a children's song, but it's actually about, yeah, you think you're going to do fine if you okies are heading for California, but if you don't have the money, you're not going to make it.
I remember hearing this song performed by the birds. I didn't know at the time that it was a Bob Dylan song. And this was a pop hit. And from the very beginning, from the opening sound, I thought, wow, this is really different. The sound was like nothing else I'd heard. And that and other things that I was hearing kind of tells you as a kid in the suburbs that there's another world out there. There's things being made that are made for us, whoever us is, and I have to go and find them.
To me, this music, it was an emotional, pure id outburst, but it was also very clever and consciously and creatively done. The name of the song is I Want to Be Your Dog, which, although there's nothing particular in the song that says this, you realize there's a hint of kind of another kind of sexual world that's being implied here. So that's another thing when you go, what's he talking about?
Parliament Funkadelic was kind of the more outrageous theatrical, philosophical aspect of RB at that time. It made you realize that there's all sorts of possibilities that pop music, dance pop music, funk, it can talk about things in a way that's kind of sly and funny, but also saying something quite profound.
I started listening to a lot of Latin music and at one point I went bin diving in Rio and got this record by a guy named Tom Zay. There's elements of Brazil folkloric music and Brazilian pop music all mixed together in a way that to me said wow. So this is one where he got the instruments playing what in music would be called a hocket technique. where different musicians are playing different notes on different instruments. And then eventually Mr. Zay comes in playing some power tools.
Stand on the WordFavourite
It's a gospel song called Stand on the Word: The Joubert Singers, but it's mixed by Larry Levan. Larry Levan was one of the great DJs at Paradise Garage in early days of club music. And what's interesting is that gospel music, if you listen to the lyrics, it's yeah, it's like. Do what the Lord says, which is probably not the kind of ideas you would be putting forward in the Paradise Garage. But musically, it all fits.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:45What was your premise for picking your eight discs today? What did you want them to illustrate?
I picked things that are kind of little stepping stones in my life, my life in music. Things that I heard as a child, things that influenced my musical decisions, my musical awareness. So it's these are not current favorites. These are things that kind of take me back to my childhood and then almost up to present day.
Presenter asks
4:28Can you describe your father and mother to me? First of all, your dad.
Uh okay. They were uh I would say or this I kind of figured this out later a mixed marriage. Dad's family was Cath Catholic, mum's family is sort of Protestant, Presbyterian, etcetera. … Yes, yes, which I didn't realize so much at the time. And I started asking them about it later, and I thought it might have had something to do with why they left. But dad had studied engineering in Glasgow, and Glasgow did not have a lot of work at that time. The shipyards were little by little closing down, the steel, this and that. There's not a place where you could see a lot of future in that. So a lot of American companies, in this case Westinghouse, were reaching out and offering trained people like my dad. They were offering a job.
Presenter asks
13:25The keepsakes
The book
Oliver Sacks
It's really difficult. I'm just going to be very practical and take along the one I haven't finished reading yet, Oliver Sacks' new book, The River of Consciousness, I think it's called.
The luxury
In the last couple of months I've been discovering the uses of fish sauce used in a lot of Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese.
A lot of people ask me, if you were so shy, how could you possibly get on stage? Well, that was what I was just about to ask you.
And to me, it seemed self-evident. It seemed like, well, if you're really shy, you have to get on stage because that's the only way you can make your presence felt, or make your ideas known, or announce the fact of your existence. You can do that because it's an artificial situation, and then you can retreat back into your shell right after.
Presenter asks
17:12Do you believe in such a thing as pretentiousness, and do you think it has a role in creativity?
Um, Yes, it's given a bad rap. It gets a bad rap. It gets a bad rap. And I think if it's done in the right way, you can deal with big questions. And that's the best part of pretentiousness, is just feeling free to try something else.
Presenter asks
23:18It's reported that you split up amid much acrimony. Do you regret that it ended that way?
Yes, I wish it didn't end the way it did, although I think musically we ended on a good note. But personally, yes, it was not done very cleanly or honestly yeah, a bit of a mess.
Presenter asks
29:20When you were a parent, how did you get on with that? There's a lot of very conventional elements to being a responsible parent. Could you do it?
Oh, could you do that? Yeah, I could do it. But there was a conflict. Probably no surprise. It was at some early on period where you're confronted with all the responsibilities of being a parent and pushing a pram around and things like that. I thought, oh, that's not me. I can't be pushing a pram around. But I did, but at the same time, it was kind of like, grip your teeth and push the pramp.
“I would say by example. They played music around the house. Dad was an amateur painter. Things that you could say were influenced by, say, Matisse or Gauguin or this kind of thing. The funny part was, being a Scot, if he found a nice frame, he would take a saw and cut off part of the picture to fit the frame.”
“If you're really shy, you have to get on stage because that's the only way you can make your presence felt, or make your ideas known, or announce the fact of your existence.”
“I'm most of the time completely unaware of it, although I'm aware that people sometimes find it amusing or strange. And I've gotten to the point now where I'm not intimidated by that, which is, I guess, a good thing.”
“I wish it didn't end the way it did, although I think musically we ended on a good note. But personally, yes, it was not done very cleanly or honestly yeah, a bit of a mess.”
“My greatest achievement is my daughter, which is true. But you wouldn't want to say that. No, because every parent would say that. But if it's true. It's true. And it's also so mysterious and magical. You know, coming from me, she could have been such a mess. But she's not. She's not a mess, and she's very happy. And what more could you want?”