Musician Jerry Harrison will return to his hometown of Milwaukee this weekend for a screening of the restored version of Talking Heads' groundbreaking documentary, "Stop Making Sense." The film is celebrating its 40th anniversary, but thanks to the 4K restoration, it doesn't look a day over 20.
"Stop Making Sense" will screen at Milwaukee Film's Oriental Theatre on Saturday, Sept. 30 and Sunday, Oct. 1.
Harrison will participate in a live audience Q&A after the 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. screenings on Sept. 30. He will give an extended introduction prior to the 10 p.m. showing. He will give both an introduction and Q&A at the 7 p.m. presentation on Oct. 1.
And then there were 4
Milwaukee-born Harrison started his music career with the Modern Lovers in 1971. The Modern Lovers broke up in 1974.
A few years later, Harrison received a phone call from Chris Frantz, drummer for Talking Heads, saying the band needed a keyboard player. His wife, Tina Weymouth, was the band's bassist and David Byrne was on vocals and guitar.
Frantz and Harrison had connected back when Harrison was in the Modern Lovers.
"Interestingly and sort of fortuitously, Ernie Brooks, the bass player of the Modern Lovers, knew Chris (Frantz) and Tina's (Weymouth) parents," Harrison told Wisconsin Public Radio's "BETA." "And that's how the connection got made."
"And this is just after the Beserkly record ('Rock 'N' Roll with the Modern Lovers') — which were our demo tapes really from 1972 — had finally come out to the public. And I've always said that the Modern Lovers were certainly an inspiration, if not the beginnings of punk rock," Harrison said.
In the mid- to late- 1970s, Harrison made his way to New York to meet the Talking Heads. Harrison helped a family move from Massachusetts to New York in order to get there. Unfortunately, there was no room for his organ in the van.
"So I showed up at their (the Talking Heads') loft with a guitar," Harrison said. "They said, 'Well, we were looking for a keyboard player.' I said, 'Let's just play some music.' And it sounded great from the start. And then I came down and we did a show at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club where they actually had a sax player play with us — another experiment they were thinking of."
Harrison officially joined the Talking Heads in 1977.
"There was nothing else in the world like them," Harrison said. "And then when I played with them, it just seemed the simpatico nature of it was meant to be."
What does Harrison think his work as guitarist, keyboard player and a backing vocalist added to the sound of Talking Heads?
"I thought what they were doing was already brilliant and wonderful. And so I just wanted to make it a little stronger, a little fuller. There were places where having another instrument could help sometimes smooth transitions between different sections of the song. I think that their in their early songwriting, they took a cue from the visual arts," he said.
The origin of 'Stop Making Sense'
Fast-forward to 1983. Talking Heads are touring to promote their fifth studio album, "Speaking in Tongues." Then the band decides to shoot a concert film over the course of three nights at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.
"I think it's important for everyone to understand that what is filmed is really what we did every night," Harrison said.
The film was directed by Jonathan Demme, who was a commercial film director known for "Melvin and Howard," and produced by Gary Goetzman.
"(Goetzman) thought that our show would be a perfect one to film, and through some fortuitous sort of mutual friendships, we ended up meeting each other and he kind of came to us as if I want to film this," Harrison said.
"We just loved (Demee's) enthusiasm and it was obvious he was really a music lover," he added. "And if you go to his other films, like 'Something Wild,' he always gives the music a chance to be loud in this film. If he's going to bother to have a song in the film. He really uses it as more than the background of the scene, but as closer to the foreground as setting the stage and the fabric of the scene."
And then there were more
In 1980, Talking Heads expanded. Harrison brought in: Bernie Worrell, keyboards; Alex Weir, guitar and vocals; Steven Scales, percussion; Lynn Mabry, backing vocals; Ednah Holt, backing vocals.
"It was wonderful. First of all, they were all terrific musicians, and since I was the one who went out and hired the 1980 band, I always felt that the band's success was my success," Harrision recalled.
"And I think there were times where we often gave some of the more fun parts to the additional players so that they would feel excited and give it their all every night. I think that if we had given the boring parts that need to be there, I don't think we would have got such great performances. And I think that we could all sit back and enjoy the success that the entire band had because that was our doing," he said.
The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody wrote that "Stop Making Sense" is the rare concert movie that is itself a work of art.
"I think the fact that we conceived it and David (Byrne) gets the lion's share of the credit as a visual and narrative and staging experience along with the music," Harrison said.
"And so therefore, it was a complete artistic statement. And the art is the music we made. It was the complete package. The other side of it is, is David (Byrne) used very, very simple and very often lighting that could have been practically done from 100 years ago."