200 - The name of this band is...

In the works for quite some time, a Talking Heads box set will finally reach the CD racks on November 11. Once in a Lifetime is a three- CD/one-DVD compendium that overviews the legendary David Byrne-led band’s entire career and includes six unreleased tracks, including four alternates: "Uh-Oh Love Come to Town," with steel drums; "New Feeling," with a horn arrangement; "Cities," with an extra verse; and "Drugs" featuring Robert Fripp on guitar, who didn’t play on the album version. Also featured is an unreleased live version of "A Clean Break (Let’s Work)" from a 1977 performance in Maynard, MA, plus an outtake from the sessions for 1988’s Naked, "In Asking Land." "Although rabid collectors may not be totally sated with this," co-producer Andy Zax tells ICE, "as an entry-level piece, it makes a pretty compelling argument for them as a great American rock ’n’ roll band." Byrne, keyboard player Jerry Harrison and bassist Tina Weymouth recruited engineer Bob Ludwig to remaster the songs - including "Wild Wild Life," "Take Me to the River" and the Top 10 single "Burning Down the House" - from the first-generation tapes. Zax singles out the alternate "New Feeling" as one of the more unusual extras: "It’s extremely kinetic; you could almost hear it as a precursor to some of the Latin rhythms Byrne explored in his solo work. It’s quite the curio." More straightforward than the audio discs, which don’t present songs in exact chronological order, is the accompanying DVD - essentially a straight reissue of the 1988 VHS Story Telling Giant. Three extra videos are tacked onto the set - "Blind," "Nothing but Flowers" and "Sax and Violins" - as are some additional video interludes. As for the dearth of rarities, Zax says, "There’s a lot less rare stuff than you would imagine. The number of B-sides released during the Talking Heads’ career is... one," although there is still a lot of unreleased music in the vaults.

in Ice Magazine, Oct. 2003.