Jerry Harrison's Casual Gods

Jerry Harrison's Casual Gods - Live At The Town & Country Club, Kentish Town, London  - 1988 - NoLabel

Four tracks from a live gig by Jerry Harrison's Casual Gods at The Town & Country Club (Now known as the HMV Forum), Kentish Town, London on 21st May 1988. If you like Talking Heads and/or The Modern Lovers, you will not surprisingly find many similarities in style from Jerry and his band. Sound quality is only fair, but there aren't too many live recordings available from this great band. Check out Jerry's "The Red And The Black" album @ JERHAR/TRATB

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

1. "Rev It Up" - Jerry Harrison/John Sieger/Ernie Brooks - 5:48
2. "Man With A Gun" - Jerry Harrison - 8:34
3. "Life During Wartime" - David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth 6:44
4. "She Cracked" - Jonathan Richman 6:36

MUSICIANS

Jerry Harrison - guitars, keyboards & vocals
Chris Spedding, Alex Weir - guitars
Rick Jaeger - drums
Bernie Brooks - bass
Bernie Worrell - keyboards
Roberta Freeman, Joyce Bowden - vocals

ABOUT JERRY HARRISON

Born in Milwaukee, (21-Feb-1949), Jeremiah Harrison initiated his musical training in the fourth grade, intermittently pursuing piano lessons while also briefly studying clarinet and saxophone. Throughout high school he kept active with a variety of bands, and this activity carried over into his three years at Harvard, where he formed the outfit Albatross with roommate Ernie Brooks. Albatross disbanded in mid-1969, but Harrison continued his partnership with Brooks in Catfish Black and briefly in The Eagles. Harrison's career as a professional musician was finally launched in 1971 as a result of his association with Jonathan Richman -- although it was prevented from getting properly underway until several years later for this same reason. Shortly after their first meeting at a party in Cambridge, Richman invited both Harrison and Brooks to join The Modern Lovers, but -- despite support from John Cale and interest from both Warner Brothers and A&M Records -- the singer's difficult behavior prevented any releases from materializing during the band's three year lifespan. This lack of recorded output did not prevent The Modern Lovers from establishing a dedicated following through their live performances, and a posthumous 1976 album culled from sessions produced by both Cale and Alan Mason (seperately) proved to be a significant influence on the emerging punk/new-wave scene.Upon the dissolution of The Modern Lovers, Harrison joined up with songwriter Elliott Murphy for the album Night Lights (1976) and its associated tour; brief tenures with a handful of other bands followed, but ultimately he chose to resume his study of architecture at Harvard. His schooling was soon interrupted a second time by an invitation to join Talking Heads, and after completing one more semester Harrison was lured, once and for all, into the life of a professional musician. By the time of his membership, the trio configuration of Talking Heads had already established themselves on the New York City club circuit and released the single Love Goes to a Building on Fire on Sire Records; but it was as a four-piece that the band's popularity expanded to an international scale, particularly with the release of their debut full-length Talking Heads: 77 and the single Psycho Killer. Three more albums were released by the onset of the next decade (More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979) and Remain in Light (1980)), each of which served to increase the band's reputation amongst both critics and fans. During a break from band activity in 1981, Harrison recorded his first solo effort The Red and the Black, an album which featured contributions from guitarist Adrian Belew, former P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell and vocalist Nona Hendryx (all participants in the expanded Heads line-up that had recorded Remain in Light). The release was not given as much attention as his bandmate's extra-curricular projects (David Byrne's Catherine Wheel score and his Brian Eno collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's album as Tom Tom Club), and it would be six years before the appearance of his second solo album Casual Gods (1987). The interim between the two was primarily filled by his work on three further studio albums and two film projects with Talking Heads, although 5 Minutes -- a one-off recording with Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins working under the name Bonzo Goes to Washington -- was issued in 1984. During this period Harrison also launched a parallel career as a record producer, helming sessions for The Blind Leading the Naked by The Violent Femmes, Milwaukee by Elliott Murphy, and producing several tracks for the Jonathan Demme film Something Wild (all three of which took place between 1985 and 1986). After the release of the Talking Heads' final album Naked in 1988, the focus of Jerry Harrison's activities shifted to his production work (although a third solo album Walking on Water and its associated tour were realized in 1990). In the 90s his credits (and industry standing) as a producer grew to considerable proportions through involvement with platinum-selling releases by acts such as Live, Crash Test Dummies, The Verve Pipe, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. His extensive resume also included albums by Poi Dog Pondering (Volo Volo, 1991), Black 47 (Home of the Brave, 1994), Fatima Mansions (Lost in the Former West, 1995), Rusted Root (Remember, 1996) and Bijou Phillips (I'd Rather Eat Glass, 1999). A short-lived musicial reunion with Frantz and Weymouth came about in 1996 when the three formed The Heads, a project originally intended as a Talking Heads reunion and then altered when Byrne refused to participate; consequently, the group's sole album No Talking, Just Head made use of several replacement vocalists ranging from Debbie Harry to Andy Partridge. A proper reunion of the full band did eventually take place (although only for a single evening) on the occasion of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Harrison has since continued to concentrate on his career as a producer for other artists, in addition to maintaining his role as Chairman of the Board for Garageband.com (an internet music resource he co-founded in 1999). © 2010 Soylent Communications http://www.nndb.com/people/431/000052275/

BIO

Although he's hardly a cult persona, Jerry Harrison has failed to be recognized as a crucial figure in the history of punk rock, a portion of the music which influenced it, and the styles which had grown out of punk more than 15 years later. Best known as the keyboard player and occasional guitarist of Talking Heads during the 1980s, Harrison had begun his career ten years before, playing with Jonathan Richman's seminal Modern Lovers during the early '70s. He recorded several solo albums while on occasional hiatus from Talking Heads in the '80s, but when the band disintegrated in the late '80s, Harrison resumed his busy production schedule, working with some hot alternative acts. Born in 1949 in Milwaukee, Jerry Harrison began playing with bands while in high school, and continued his work after graduation, while he studied at Harvard during the late '60s. By the beginning of the decade, Harrison and bandmate Ernie Brooks were encouraged to form a band by local Boston friend Jonathan Richman. Named the Modern Lovers, the group moved quickly and recorded demos in 1972 with John Cale. Finally released in 1976, the songs proved to be a major influence on underground bands in New York; the Modern Lovers had broken up by that time, though, with Harrison going back to Harvard to teach. In April of 1976, however, he attended a Talking Heads show in Boston and convinced them to let him join. The band signed to Sire just one year later, and became one of the most intelligent alternative bands of the '80s, recording an astounding variety of material and even earning several pop hits. During an extended Talking Heads vacation during 1981, Harrison recorded his first solo album, The Red and the Black. The album was recorded with Bernie Worrell, Nona Hendryx, and Adrian Belew — all of whom had appeared on Talking Heads' Remain in Light. Three years later, he released a hip-hop single on Sleeping Bag, recorded as Bonzo Goes to Washington. His second full solo album, however, appeared three years later. Casual Gods had a similar feel to his debut, with loose funk-rock grooves and an open-ended song structure (which suited Harrison's vocals well) but boasted more tuneful songs. Talking Heads was effectively disbanded by that time, and Harrison had already begun producing in 1986, with the Bodeans and Violent Femmes. During the '90s and early 2000s, Harrison became an important and respected producer, working on popular albums by Live, Crash Test Dummies, the Verve Pipe, No Doubt, and the Von Bondies. He also helped launch garageband.com, an Internet resource for independent musicians. His playing was limited during these years, though he and fellow Talking Heads alumni Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz recorded as the Heads (No Talking Just Head, 1996). In 2002, Talking Heads played together again, if only for one night, to celebrate the band's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. © John Bush © 2010 Rovi Corporation. All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifrxqe5ld0e~T1