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In the biography of Andrea Kovacs, Visible Light by Michael Lesy, published by Times Books, it reveals that she began chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in 1977 and received her Gohonzon in 1978. It states that when she began to chant she felt as though a hard concrete encasement around her heart cracked open and golden radiant light poured forth. At that moment, the ultra-glamorous and compassionate woman Debbie Cohen, who sponsored her and stayed her life-long friend and mentor looked at her and when their eyes met, she said "That's Buddha". Michael Lesy was so convinced of Andrea's spiritual transformation that as he was viewing one of her photomosaics he nearly fell off the stool he was standing on. Basicly he conveyed his impression that Andrea Kovacs was revealing in her work the electric energy of the universe, and as she progressed her work became more limitless until she became conduit to the omnipresent enlightenment in all things.

In the light of so many subjectively biased books on the Talking Heads why is it that no author nor the band themselves had the courage to locate and interview Andrea Kovacs herself. No direct communication ever made to so complex and catalytic a woman only reveals the need to manipulate and subjugate the amazing power and originality of Andrea Kovacs. From what I know she was an unprecented conceptualist with a 180 IQ, went to RISD at 16, had a cult following that lit candles and preyed to her while she slept,put the fashion crowd in a frenzy, went on to be one of four chosed=n across the country to be accepted to Yale grad school in Photography, where she developed an astounding process using thousands of photographs in symphonic mosaic documenting her life process(1973).She met David that summer and used him insome of her preliminary photo grids. They continued seeing each other after she moved into her loft in China Town when she accompanied him to CBGB in rude black hair and ripped t-shirts, always wearing her heavy black eyemake-up, she set the trend that carried forth to the punks and emos of today. She embraced Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism in 1975 and from then used the automatic photographic process to document the astounding transformation of her life. That transformation was so astounding that Times Books published her biography in Michael Lesy's Visible Light.(1984). David Byrne was mentioned and their relationship described, but it played a very minor part in the profound sentience of this remarkable woman. Once Visible Light was published, she felt free to pursue her heartfelt dream to establish an equine rescue, which she did on a beautiful 23 acre farm overlooking the Smokie Mountains. She has had many articles published on her art and her farm She also raised a young daughter bravely, alone, as Buddhists in the Bible Belt! Whatever Talking Head authors know, they only know through the aberrations of inference. So isn't it time for people still curious about David and Andrea to learn the objective truth?

The most definitive book on David Byrne's motives and influences is actually the biography about Andrea Kovacs, the conceptual artist/photographer who was his love interest, confidente and progenitress of punk fashion and art. That book is Visible Light published by Times Books in the early 80's. The polaroid panel on the cover of More Songs resembled her earliest work, when they were together, however she documented her intense meteoric transformation in complex photo-mosaics that spanned gallery and museum walls upwards of 20' in length ,and became the main subject of Michael Lesy's book.

Gigi Gaston sounds like a thoroughly fun project; wish I'd thought of it! I do think that was Joe Pernice, on an unfortunate (intentional I assume) half-effort take as usually he's stellar.

My question is how do the real bands react to the "face" of their music making all the difference; the singers behind Milli Vanilli and Black Box, John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, the performers that did all the soundtrack for The Soggy Bottom Boys, that kind of thing. Laugh all the way to the bank or mope all the way back to relative obscurity?

I heard the show while I was driving and am home now. I didn't care for the fake Frenchie but I liked the discussion before with Yuval and Ben. I have heard Ben a bunch of times on your show and others and he's always very focused on the topic. It's nice to hear a non-lazy discussion of something like this, though to really unpack it you'd need hours. What about the Fabulous Stairs? What about Paul McCartney's original idea for Sgt. Pepper's? What about Blind Boy Grunt?

“piano as a rock instrument”? Ye gods, have you never heard of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis or Fats Domino? They had hits.

“piano as a rock instrument”? Ye gods, have you never heard of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis or Fats Domino? They had hits.

Re. Talking Heads -- it's an interesting point. They were art students first who initially called themselves, tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek, The Autistics; Byrne esp. was always a po-mo kind of guy, although the Polaroid cover art for More Songs... was borrowed from his lover Andrea Kovacs. Other deft touches: Byrne's dadaistic, Eno-influenced approach to songwriting, and their high-concept "Naive Melody" (an instrument-switching exercise). You could say they started out as a lark but matured into a real and very serious band.

The fake trailer is OBVIOUSLY way too fake. Seems very contrived (though you'd have to grade on a curve for effort.)

I'd prefer to have heard John Lurie discussing his fake nemesis Marvin Pontiac. At least in that case the music is real and tremendous.

- Ben

Gigi Gaston is fantastic. Great stuff. Authors have pen names and persona why not musicians.

Dave

Please don't call the Monkees fake. Nesmith, Jones and Tork were all working musicians before the Monkees' formation.

Additionally, serious musicians like the members of the Lovin' Spoonful and Stephen Stills auditioned to be be in the Monkees!

And really is there any difference between the Monkees only singing on their records when their label insisted sessionmen be on recordings by the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Kinks and Paul Revere?

I'm wondering how Talking Heads fits into this discussion. Byrne, Weymouth & Franz started out as art school students. Watching "Stop Making Sense," I feel like Byrne is more of a performance artist than a musician.

You get the point despite the poor grammar.... cds, t-shirts, tours, etc.

Another point, in the case of Victor Borge and PDQ Bach, both have gone against the grain of classical music as being a "serious" art form. It creates a greater cognitive dissonance than in pop, where humor is more familiar.

The lo-fi recording sounded a lot like a Guided By Voices parody.

There is also more merchandising opportunities with music.

It's because Music has more sex appeal!!!

Re. U2's "Spinal Tap" moment, Muse's Matt Bellamy supposedly got stuck inside a white cone onstage once, although I've yet to see a pic or video of that inimitable moment.

Back on point, XTC invented a fake lost psychedelic 60's group, "The Dukes of Stratosphear," in the mid-80's... and they (the Dukes, and XTC faking it as such) were really terrific!

What about having animated fictional bands? I recently discovered the fictional death metal band Dethklok on Cartoon network that is 100% pure death metal and quite extreme. These guys even have a tour now.

Of course, authors are going to tap into musicians and artistes as inspiration because they're a treasure trove of weirdness. Just hang out around NYC. You can't make up some of the characters you come in contact with. It's amazing for creative inspiration.

Life imitates art -- U2 had a Spinal Tap moment when they couldn't get out of their Faberge egg.

... or is it a way to make fun of musicians' quirks without directly pissing anyone off?

Chris Gaines rules!! (but only in an ironic way).

No one has mastered the "fake musician" better than Peter Shickele - aka PDQ Bach. He's built a whole ouevre around his alter-ego and is every bit as respectable as many of today's serious composers.