This is one of those albums that was quite out of proportion in its importance in my early listening habits to what it seemingly was in its place in the grander scheme of things. Likely down to two factors for me; i) the critical hot stock that Talking Heads and David Byrne in particular enjoyed in the UK music press in 1981/82, and ii) the curiosity factor of an extended duration cassette version that featured way more music than the standard vinyl album version.
Not that I had bought this when it first came out – no, the first exposure to this odd little cassette was courtesy of my good friend and frequent contributor Lieutenant 030 and Aberdeen City Library’s music lending department. For whatever reason – perhaps just good taste on the part of their music curator – not only did they have a copy of this album, but had chosen to obtain the extended duration complete score version, which at this time could only be found on cassette.
The music itself was a fascinating mixture of what at the time I was familiar with – which was Talking Heads’ ‘Remain In Light’ and the David Byrne/Brian Eno ‘My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts’ collaboration. So, I was lapping this album up, what with it landing somewhere betwixt the two.
The straight-ahead up-tempo/funky Taking Heads adjacent songs such as ‘My Big Hands (Fall Through The Cracks)’, ‘Big Business’, ‘What A Day That Was’ and ‘Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open)’ were obvious enough in their already familiar appeal – so much so that these were drafted in to the Talking Heads live sets of 1982.
Meanwhile, more ambient mood pieces are to be found such as ‘Light Bath’ and ‘The Blue Flame’, and when you read through the credits for the album familiar names from ‘My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts’ are to be found such as Brian Eno and John Chernoff, in particular, no doubt all contributing to the shared DNA, not least with the significant co-writes on the music with the latter.
‘Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open)’ I had also picked up as a 7” single, which features an edited version of the song on the A side and ‘Leg Bells’ on the flip side, packaged up in an attractive picture sleeve design. It had proved too tempting to pass by in the ‘reduced’ price sale selection of 1-Up in Aberdeen, though it is a curiously under-powered piece to punt as the flagship single for the album perhaps, I keep on expecting to hear a more muscular bass element to boost its otherwise anaemic arrangement.
The ‘complete score’ has since been re-issued on CD and even a Record Store Day vinyl edition – but, it’s not quite as ‘complete’ as the original cassette – look at the numbers; the cassette cover boasts of ‘73 minutes of music on cassette’, while the later CD edition have a run time of 68 minutes.
The one to avoid.
please do not be put off by this title. The Catherine Wheel is one of my all time favourites from the Talking Heads family of releases (in fact one of my all time favourites, full stop) but i was spoiled in that i only had the complete score of it for many, many a year on cassette as detailed above. Recently I was looking at getting a more durable version of the complete score, i was seriously considering the Record Store Day release but the asking price of it was putting me off of it (at time of typing this it still hadn’t come down to a more reasonable price). So the next thing to look for was a cd release of it, whether it was just laziness on my part, lack of time or just a case of “there’s a copy at a good price, that will do” i don’t know but I went onto Amazon and found a copy (which did have a 4 star rating). The item duly arrived and in no time it was inserted into the cd player and the opening notes of Light Bath was filling the room nicely and i was transported back to 1981. His Wife Refused came on and this is when my whole listening experience took a sudden decline. For those of you who are new to this release the majority of tracks segue into each other which helps you get lost and immersed into the whole album. This version doesn’t do that. Each track has a 2 second seperation so that tracks will suddenly stop, silence, and then start up again as it segues into the next track. After a few tracks my enjoyment was totally destroyed, the cd was removed and plans were made to return it to Mr Bezos. I re-looked at the Amazon page for it and although it states that it is a Warner Bros Records release (7599274182), it does have a slight warning in the Product Description [Note: This product is an authorized CD-R and is manufactured on demand]. The booklet (or insert) also says that “This package does not include the original booklet”, and as mentioned in the main article the disc only had a running time just shy of 69 minutes, including all of those 2 second bouts of silence. A lesson has been learned, I know that I will eventually get another copy of it, I just need to be patient.
The one to avoid can be found here.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Score-Broadway-Production-Catherine/dp/B000002KNC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3CBCHB0SE3J46&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.jEafEmoMIuXMvxVquEuYSdn_AOrzfrVmsm2utBtAgNDeHQTAjnFAO0-OBkduNh4-SlqMuRWODSDCs8UGDAQ3lMnaRlNRfAVI5G7azyWi8lY.97w7hbwXjuPJbuBTe-Vv_Yz_58ZgUNONGUGyDEXhR34&dib_tag=se&keywords=david+byrne+the+catherine+wheel&qid=1752562497&sprefix=david+byrne+the+catherine+wheel%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-1
And the Discogs entry for it (yes, it does have one) is at.
https://www.discogs.com/release/30725126-David-Byrne-The-Complete-Score-From-The-Broadway-Production-Of-The-Catherine-Wheel
Now, that I didn’t know – thanks for the warning! There are a few ‘on demand’ discs I’ve come across – definitely a ‘buyer beware’ situation here.
Intriguing as always – based on the full recording available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aIGSsVsSeM :
Red House is ~60s longer
Eggs In A Briar Patch is ~20s longer
Cloud Chamber is ~30s longer
Combat is ~30s longer
Big Business is ~30s longer
Dense Beasts is ~55s longer
Five Golden Sections is ~35s longer
Voila!
Thanks very much, Bob – excellent detail!