FEAR OF NORMALCY: TALKING HEADS GET FUNKED (AND LIKE IT)

I first met David Byrne and his very serious band of Talking Heads in 1976. That was before their first album had been released, and the trio were making a living as regulars at CBGB's on the Bowery, their button-down, clean-cut demeanor a peculiar, intriguing contrast to more primitive punk types. While the band's cherubic drummer Chris Frantz and ethereal bassist Tina Weymouth were easy on the eyes and ears, lead singer and guitarist David Byrne was the real Talking Heads focal point.

He was a nut, or so you could believe, staring at the way his face twisted as he sung his songs, the lines infuriatingly incomprehensible to outsiders. Tall and wiry, with conservatively cropped brown hair, Byrne wore a haggard, vacant look on his face sparked by wild eyes that cast him in a Tony Perkins psycho" role. He may have ac ieved internal deliverance via his ^ut the audience was never nervr>ncKmei in *act in the midst of a nervous breakdown.