Most Surprising Album in Jerry Harrison's Production Discography

oh my god I forgot about Stroke 9. one more late-nineties number-band to remember for when I'm trying to remember them all at once

sounds like a great children's book idea

shit I voted General Public before I saw Le Butcherettes, which seems even more out of place w/ the rest of this stuff (I saw them open for Social Distortion)

The unformatted nature of this list provides a wealth of surrealist word salad.

the Naked Violent Femmes
Beautiful World Big Head
Roaming Mammals Billy Goat
Live On Kenny
Eat Glass Bijou
Ghost Garden Creeper
My Head The String Cheese

Of course I can parse most of them (having been alive at the time), but I pity the 23rd century music historian who might happen upon this list and have to figure out where the album title leaves off and the band name begins.

All that Kenny Wayne...

makes jerry a blue boy

I wish he'd produced all of Return to Saturn. "New" is one of the few great songs they released post-Tragic Kingdom.

I know nothing of Big Head Todd and the Monsters beyond the fact that their lead vocalist appeared on an episode
of The Real World many years ago and supposedly slept with one of the cast members.

It's almost awe-inspiring to me how a guy with such an impeccable musical pedigree can spend last 30(!) years working exclusively with so many utterly no-account doofuses. "We really loved the sound of those mid-period Stroke 9 records, and so we knew Jerry was the guy we had to call." Incredible.

I wish he'd produced all of Return to Saturn. "New" is one of the few great songs they released post-Tragic Kingdom.

― beamish13, Thursday, October 8, 2020 9:55 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

return of saturn >>>>>> tragic kingdom, which has phenomenal singles and pretty fallow album tracks

"new" is great tho

the Von Bondies album is solid

I think it's weird that he's spending all this time doing Kenny Wayne Shepard and String Cheese Incident albums and then just last year pivots to Le Butcherettes.

None of these are surprising, because none of these are albums I have either heard or want to hear, which is exactly what I would expect from a "produced by Jerry Harrison" credit.

Throwing Copper gets my vote. It was my favorite album as a fourth grader so it's hard for me to be objective about it, but I think it holds up pretty well. Return Of Saturn is great too.

return of saturn really shouldn't be here imo, except for "new" it's a glen ballard joint

Josh, you have definitely heard some of these. to post otherwise is just outrageous.

i also don't understand why you'd expect jerry harrison to produce albums you've never heard. he was a beatle after all (shout out to U Talkin' Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head podcast).

I've heard songs from some, but swear to god I've not heard any of those albums.

Forgot about that Poi Dog production

xpost And as I posted on a TH thread, the band was truly greater than the sum of its parts. I don't think there was anything about Harrison in particular that would have attracted me to a project. THs are one of my all times, but for a Beatles comparison, I still think of them as, like, three Ringos and a George.

Where’s that one Psychefunkapus album?

LOL, that's literally one I *have* heard!

Oh shit, the Surfin' on Jupiter guys?

voted Crash Test Dummies

It's like his intention was to ensure that the cut-out bin would remain perpetually stocked.

lol

Lolx2

So much terrible music, I can't in good conscience vote for any of it.

From the Femmes wiki:

Members of the band said they were unhappy with the choice of Harrison as producer, with Ritchie saying, "We knew Jerry and he'd seen us live and, uh, he didn't like it... And when I heard the reasons that he didn't like it, well, they were the reasons why we do like it! We didn't think he was right to produce music as weird as ours." Gano further claimed that Harrison had been suggested by Warners, "solely on the basis that he lives in Milwaukee, because we'd stipulated to them that we had to record there. This was outrageous from their point of view.

Weird, somehow I didn't know he was from/in Milwaukee.

He’s now the only Head on the West Coast. He’s lived in Malibu for some years

he tried to release an album under the moniker "The Only Head on the West Coast" but David Byrne sued.

Voted for Fatima Mansions because I own it and adore it and had NO IDEA Jerry produced it! It's so un-Talking Heads, that's for sure.

OAR ewww

would be fun to slip one absurd album into this list to see if fresh eyes could find it

would have made for a much better poll tbh

a new poll genre

1994 four Blues Traveler

who finds it?

1997 Whatever and Ever Amen Ben Folds Five

2007 Courage to Grow Rebelution

all of these pass

What was that artist you all got worked up about years ago, Denny Vertigo?

Maybe even Denny Lethargy.

LIGHTNING CRASHES,

1998 Hard to Swallow Vanilla Ice

responsible for an awful lot of dross from the 90's, Jesus. ugh.

2002 An Awful Lot of Dross From the 90s Jesus. Ugh.

It's like that one Spy cartoon of Dan Aykroyd's desk with his Accept Box overflowing with scripts alongside an empty Reject Box.

He's the Rick Rubin of acts that want to be forgotten as quickly as possible.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Harrison was foisted on the Fatima Mansions by their record label, who wanted them to crack the US market. The album is a punchy hard rock effort with the usual vicious lyrics, but apart from three or four great tracks it's fairly forgettable by their standards. It also has a slightly monotonous uniformity of sound which isn't there on their other records, which are all really varied and jump from genre to genre (something which is very difficult to pull off but the Mansions managed it).

I found this quote by Cathal Coughlan about Harrison from the time (1994):

“He’s an amusing kind of a man, but it was always very evident that he comes from a slightly different background to the one that I did, and I never lost sight of that fact. He understood a lot, but there were some music references that were completely lost on him, and some of them were about American music as well.”

Why would anyone be surprised by No Talking, Just Head (of all these albums)?

Yay, Mansions!

I'll agree with Jon's point about uniformity of sound - that was the goal, after all. But I disagree that it's "fairly forgettable". All of their albums sort of blend in my head until I play them and their widescreen white hot anger burns bright.

You won't encounter a bigger Mansions fan than me, and Lost In The Former West would probably have sounded brilliant if it had been released by almost any other 1990s rock band. I just think that while it certainly has some real moments, it's not a patch on Viva Dead Ponies or especially Valhalla Avenue, that's all.

By all accounts they were on their last legs as a unit while recording it, which if true is an echo of what happened to Microdisney in the late 1980s. Coughlan put out the Bubonique album a year later and his own solo debut a year after that, which suggests that by 1994 he had already mentally checked out of the Mansions for various reasons.

Huh somehow missed that he produced God Shuffled His Feet. I've only heard a few albums on this list but that one is surprisingly good

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm has always been earworm comfort food for me, but I have never brought myself to listen to the entire album or anything else by them.

I have never heard of Cathal and/or Microdisney/Fatima Mansions until exactly an hour ago and I'm suddenly extremely obsessed

Microdisney are phenomenal. Do you know Sean O'Hagan? He got his start there as well...

Oh yes, I know his stuff... never been a fan! always preferred Stereolab without him and never cottoned to the High Llamas. I love all the Cathal-related stuff I listened to this morning, though! Fatima Mansions isn't on Tidal but I just was Youtube playlisting it and was delighted, Cathal has a proto-Falkous vibe or something. Haven't figured out if I agree with his politics yet ha

Hands up, who are the three ilxors that voted for the same String Cheese Incident album? I wouldn't have been surprised to see them get a joke vote or two, but three for the same album?

it's true. kenny wayne arguably as surprising but suffered some vote splitting.

failed to keep the herd moving in one direction

or failed to herd the flock in one direction, sorry

Big interview with Jerry in the new TapeOp. Seems like a nice, thoughtful guy, too bad he seems to think sales are what make an album a success.

Intriguing. I will read that. I should note that Frantz's memoir and interviews DO seem to dwell a bit on how:

(a) Byrne habitually stole credit for communally written material.

(b) LOL it's ok because Tom Tom Club sold a lot of records. Also ha ha samples.

I haven't delved into Jerry's side of this. But I will admit that Chris is both morally right (dude, just because you're the frontman/singer doesn't mean you get all the credit) and factually right (Tom Tom Club DID sell an awful lot of records).

At the same time, they're all globally famous and pretty rich. There is a limit to how much I want to hear about them as victims, thxbye

I never know how rich musicians are in an era when streaming accounts for income. I guess Frantz + Weymouth saved their Heads dough and/or invested well?

I found the jus'-folks tone of Frantz's memoir often irritating tbh.

Royalties from "Genius of Love"? Production points on mediocre records that nonetheless sold well enough for the era, getting while the getting was good? Real estate?

Harrison is in a different category, given the list at the top of the thread. He must have made a mint from "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" alone.

jus'folks? OK, perhaps true overall but near the end of the memoir...

(SPOILER ALERT)

(SPOILER ALERT)

(SPOILER ALERT)

Chris is on a yachting vacation in the Caribbean with his loving family. and needs to temporarily jet away to attend rehab for cocaine. And everyone knows, and it's totally cool, because hey, stuff happens.

Let it be said that I have been personally enriched by these people. Their art has defined most of my life since May 1986. My eldest sister was graduating from high school. I was a freshman sitting in the bleachers. She'd lent me her cassette copy of "Little Creatures" and my Walkman sent forth the following words: "And she was lying in the grass." I was hooked forever. One of their songs is among my open-mic mandolin standards.

At the same time, I have never interrupted a Jamaican yachting vacation to charter a plane to go back to New York so that I could go to a cocaine rehab session.

YMMV, carry on

being a Belew fan I thought about trying to catch Harrison and his REmain in Light show when it comes back to the bay area, but watching some live videos I don't think it's for me. Belew and Harrison are fine, but the backup singers I can do without, and they have a bassist sing a fair number of the songs (and Harrison sings a lot, which I wasn't expecting).

I wonder if Jerry got a decent check for Virtual Reality in Ready Player One

Bill Bottrell's OST check for Send Me on My Way is probably much larger bit less noticed amongst the Michael Jackson deposits.

ommaway

Rusted Root Neologisms

Frantz seems like kind of a bitter guy

(a) Kinda, albeit in a genial way and (b) Can you blame him for a tinge of bitterness?

We as a borad continually dwell on stories about domineering frontpeople robbing credit from their alleged sidepeople. And we are often on the side of the sidepeople (cf. recent Police and Beatle discussions).

Frantz does dwell overmuch on it, yes. And it will be sad if he's 80 years old and still dissing Byrne in this sideways way.

But the dude has the germ of a point, yes?

I only blame him for shouting in an oscar the grouch voice "Who dat? Who dat? Now who dat tryin' to be bad? Your mother!" during an otherwise enjoyable performance.

I found the jus'-folks tone of Frantz's memoir often irritating tbh.

A lot of people fit that description, as YMP says, including one other guy…hey wait!

Byrne's solo catalog might be thoroughly mediocre, but he's released a dozen or so albums, a couple of them good, a couple great. And had plenty of other projects and collaborations and tours. And won an Oscar. And got nominated again this year. Even generously giving the scales a tip in favor of the first Tom Tom Club album, if Frantz had something to prove, he would have done so by now.

Regarding Jerry’s net worth, David Bowman’s mostly excellent but distractedly VERY anti-Weymouth opens with a description of him building a new home in Malibu.

Doesn't that book also say he earned "Monopoly Man money" from the albums he produced by Live (i.e. wheelbarrows of cash)?

Yeah I think Jerry and Chris and Tina have generally done fine, cashflow-wise. If there were a neglected Head who was languishing in poverty and waiting for some restitution, maybe that would feel like a severe injustice.

As it stands, I can safely regard any extant core Talking Heads acrimony as arguments among millionaires.

If I were going to get morally exercised about anything, it would be the external magicians who made the excellent Stop Making Sense-era "extended" band so fucking awesome. Let us now sing the praises of: Lynn Mabry, Ednah Hole, Steve Scales, Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir.

If THOSE people haven't been sufficiently remunerated and praised, imma fight someone. I feel like Chris and Tina and Jerry will be fine.

sorry Ednah Holt

Believe Bernie might have had bigger problems getting compensated for his P-Funk-related activities iirc.

I hope Bernie is doing fine, of course. Dude is solid.

That said, my guess is he won't be writing a book in 20 years stewing about how David Byrne hogged his credits 40 years ago or whatever.

I am generous with my advocacy and with my sympathies. I feel like Byrne's contributions to the culture have been adequately recognized. I am generally optimistic that his bandmates will be generally okay (despite some understandable prickliness). Until I hear otherwise I will optimistically assume that their collaborators and sidepersons have gotten, or will get, their due.

p.s. I think we can all agree that the expanded Heads lineup was among the greatest supergroups ever, and that their work will be eternal. I love minimalist punky early Heads too, but the expanded Heads sound is among my favorite things ever.

Let us imagine that malevolent aliens showed up and demanded a reason why they should not obliterate or planet. Let us further imagine that they want to see a representative cultural product that encapsulates the best we have to offer. I would probably play them an Ella and Louis record first, and Stop Making Sense second.

Tina and Chris will plaything aliens Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom

Will play for

Bernie Worrell died in 2016 my friends

At the same time, I have never interrupted a Jamaican yachting vacation to charter a plane to go back to New York so that I could go to a cocaine rehab session.

How Trump will begin his nomination speech in 2024.

Volo Volo by Poi Dog Pondering is a great album. Never realized JH produced it.

Too coherent. Xpost

My high school bandmate is playing percussion on this tour ... I'm inclined to see it for that reason. He said the first leg in the fall was a blast.

Isn't the bassist from Belew's band? She's great.

I had a friend who was in Poi Dog. Don't recall any JH stories, mostly the one about Nick Lowe buying them pints in a pub or him sleeping in and missing out on Prince's pancakes at Paisley Park.

Re: Worrell, oops, my bad. Sorry. RIP.

Oh yeah, I seem to remember something about Jerry telling them he wished that David B would put the band back together.

Isn't the bassist from Belew's band? She's great.

julie slick? she wasn't with the band in the videos I saw from the tour last year but I don't know about this time.

Yeah, she's in the band now.

I guarantee Bernie got fucked out of money by George Clinton