Talking Heads • Life During Wartime • Live at the Mudd Club • August 13, 1979

Audio:
Talking Heads • Life During Wartime • Recorded live at the Mudd Club, New York City • August 13, 1979

Musicians:
David Byrne – Vocals, guitar
Chris Frantz - Drums
Tina Weymouth - Bass
Jerry Harrison – Guitar, vocals
From an audience recording by Hans Devente (Madtaper)

Video:
The Mudd Club, New York City • August 13th 1979 • From The South Bank Show, Season 3, Episode 4 – a documentary on Talking Heads - originally broadcast on December 23, 1979

“This ain't no Mudd Club…”

Lyrically, Fear Of Music was David Byrne’s vision of an American Dystopia. Songs seem to describe a society at imminent collapse, perhaps even post-apocalyptic, and Life During Wartime exemplified this. “I wanted to write a song about Urban Guerillas, from the point of view of their daily lives, instead of their politics”, Byrne says of it, in the 1979 South Bank Show. This daily life is the litany of woe of an outcast who posits the futility of education, and who eschews the triviality of nightclubs because struggling to survive is all they have time for.

After the two and a half month live hiatus, whilst the band had rehearsed and recorded Fear Of Music, they commenced touring in early June, and included many of the new songs in the shows. However, the show at the Mudd Club seems to have been the live debut of Life During Wartime. It’s not clear why the song wasn’t played live prior to that. Was it being deliberately saved for the Mudd Club show?

The Mudd Club was a nightclub in New York City, which operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for underground music and counterculture events. It was located at 77 White Street, in downtown Manhattan, and was opened by Steve Mass, art curator Diego Cortez and downtown punk scene figure Anya Phillips. Mass claimed to have started the nightclub on a budget of only $15,000. Another important figure on the Mudd Club scene was the doorman, Richard Boch. He has recently written a book about those times, called The Mudd Club, published by Feral House 2017.

Richard was on the door that night in ’79, and has kindly contributed his recollections to the notes for this video:

"Summer 1979, August 13. I was working the Mudd Club door, the evening was starting early at 9:00pm. Daylight had already taken a last fade and the street was empty. But David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison were already inside. The Talking Heads were getting ready to film a segment for the London Weekend Television South Bank Show and the television lights inside turned the dark great walls of Mudd a bright light white. The crowd inside was there by word of mouth and invite only. Onstage, the band were ready. The Talking Heads opened the set with “Big Country” from their 1978 release More Songs About Buildings and Food. Several soings later they launched into “Life During Wartime” from the just-released Fear of Music. Barreling along on a rhythm track laid down by Chris and Tina, the lyrics of David Byrne teetered between realities of a band on the run versus the days of CBGB and Mudd Club with the infamous line, ”I ain’t got time for that now.” Peanut butter also gets a mention. The band, the song and that classic line still resonate nearly four decades past and “Life During wartime” still pounds the beat and rattles the brain."
____

Watching the excellent 1979 Talking Heads South Bank Show documentary, I was immediately struck by just how great the performances and the live footage was.

However, like most music documentaries, we don’t get complete songs, and much of the audio of the performances is obscured by interviews with band members. So I felt compelled to see if more could be made of the material. I figured it out where the footage was shot, and looked for an audio of the show. My search was fruitful, and I was delighted to find an audience recording that could hardly be bettered - crystal clear sound, and only negligible tape hiss. So let’s be very thankful to Mr. Hans Devente (Madtaper) who recorded the show. He was apparently a big fan of the band, taping many Talking Heads shows.

I added some EQ to the audio, and as per my usual self-imposed remit, it was a job of syncing the two sources accurately. The footage of the song was incomplete. One of the ways around that issue was to reuse the crowd footage I utilized in the previous video. So now we have what hopefully appears to be anyway, a complete version of this fine and historic performance.

Hope you dig it!

More videos to follow, so please keep your electric eye on me babe!

I don't own the rights, and I'm not making any money out of this etc. Just a fan making videos for other fans.

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