A NIGHT AT THE CLUBHOUSE, AND A BIT ABOUT WHAT CAME BEFORE
An Oral History of Tom Tom Club Live @ The Clubhouse
As Told by Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz
(Sprinkle Liberally With Laughter, Emoticons, and Exclamation Points)

This album, Live @ The Clubhouse, was recorded on October 14th of 2001 at our home studio, The Clubhouse, on Cock Island in Connecticut. We had wanted for some time to document our live show with this particular line-up of players and songs. So we threw a big party for nearly a hundred people and hired a really good French caterer with a full bar that never ran dry.

The place was filled with people of all ages. Ari Up from the Slits was dancing down front with some other lovely nubiles who were getting whipped by her 5-foot-long dreadlocks. It was a lovely fall day and a little chilly, which was good: we couldn't have stood the heat with so many people packed into one room. Nobody actually jumped in the pool, but a couple of kids did rescue a baby snapping turtle that had fallen in. And we were blessed to not be distracted by anyone actually performing sex acts in front of our eyes while we were playing. It's happened to us from time to time -- so it was all good!

This recording is completely faithful to how we sounded and how we played on that particular day, without a lot of production fuss. Sometimes in a live recording situation, you have to replace an instrument because of buzz from bad grounding or technical problems, but everything worked as it should and everybody played great. Our live sound can be very different from our studio albums. We'd reworked the arrangements to a good many tunes to suit our mood and our style. It's a wilder, looser, more partying sound with plenty of room for improvisation.

The band members for our live shows have changed over the years - the two of us are the only constant. We've been together for thirty years -- we celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary just after Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- and we play our music with love in our hearts. We are locked together like lovers who know each other very well but still manage to surprise each other. There is no tighter rhythm in the world. Ha ha!

Our current band is amazing. Each member brings a distinctive sound to the party. We liken our present line-up to the "seven samurai" because each is so uniquely gifted yet fiercely individual. You'd think such independence would lead to creative conflict, but we're all strong collaborators who know what we want - and how to ask for it with respect for one another.

Steve Scales plays percussion and sings background vocals, including doo wop falsettos, whether we give him a mic or not -- he's that loud! That's Steve's voice you hear in the intro of "The Man With The 4-Way Hips," doing the "F.U.N.K." radio concept. Victoria Clamp sings harmonies or lead harmonies on every song, plus the lead vocal on "Sand." Some people have speculated that we hired Victoria because she's so sexy -- but that's only the half of it. Victoria is a highly accomplished musician. Robby Aceto has been The Club guitarist for almost six years now. His guitar work sometimes sounds nothing like a guitar at all, yet adds fantastic texture and melody. He's an art school graduate -- so he's very adept at using both sides of his brain at once. It's hard to believe that he can extract so many sounds from a six-string guitar using only his fingers, but seeing is believing. Bruce Martin plays keyboards and percussion, as well as doing background vocals. He's a musical wizard schooled in Western and Indian classical composition and performance. Put anything in his hands and he'll figure out a way to play it.

Now, Mystic Bowie, from Negril, Jamaica, is the Rastaman of the group. He sings lead harmonies, background vocals and several lead vocals as well as toasting and playing some percussion. Mystic is descended from the African Maroon tribe whose culture is an unbroken line from Africa. (If you're into reggae trivia, his father is the man they called "Penny Reel," the character in the song of the same title...)

Lastly, Abdou M'Boup, from Senegal, played the African talking drum on "As Above, So Below." We first met Abdou in Paris when he played on our Talking Heads Naked album. Abdou is a Griot -- since he was very small he's trained in the memorization of the complex rhythms and oral history of his people.

When we kick off our tour, we'll have an addition to the band. Along with most of the band members aforementioned, we're bringing Kid Ginseng, teenaged scratcher and electrofunk composer.

We love the touring life! It's great to meet up with old pals and make new ones. We take the party with us wherever we go! If you just stay in one place, the world can seem a scary place filled with bad news and rotten people. But when we travel, we keep in touch with the bigger picture. It's very reassuring to find, once again, that there are many more good people in the world than there are bad. Travel can be like discovering hidden treasure. We took an extended touring hiatus, while our children needed us to be home during the nineties, but now we're making up for lost time. We'll probably spend most of the rest of the year on the road.

Our mission is elation - for ourselves and for our audience. We aim to transport the listener to a better dimension. We want people to feel good about themselves and about this beautiful blue-green planet that we believe IS the Garden of Eden, right here, right now! There's so much suffering in the world…you won't catch us singing songs you can slit your wrists to. Ha ha! We love to rock the party!

People always want to know about Talking Heads! Well, Talking Heads was our baby. We invested our hearts and souls and minds and everything we had into Talking Heads. It was exactly right for its time. We made an ideal marriage of business and art, and set out to change the way people thought about the sound and image of rock and roll, and we're glad we did! We're happy to hear from people who tell us what our music meant to them personally, and we get a kick when we hear our Talking Heads music on the radio or in a film -- or blasting out of somebody's car! But we don't stay stuck in the past, trying to relive it. That would NOT be interesting! What we prefer is keeping the dialog with our audience current. So we write and perform with Tom Tom Club. We keep our sights on the positive for a new purpose. Our instincts tell us to keep moving forward to create a new paradigm for ourselves, one that doesn't rely so much on old 20th-century concepts of rock and roll. Rock and roll idolatry may come and go, but love of music will never die!

We're so lucky! We're living our dream every day. We're committed to living the artistic life. We do the best we can and find ourselves -- while never perfectly satisfied -- in a pretty good place to keep trying to raise the standard. It's the obligation of every artist to continue to make art and we do that. We don't stop!

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: In addition to their work with Talking Heads, Heads, and the Tom Tom Club, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth together produced the Grammy-winning album by Ziggy Marley, Happy Mondays, Shirley Manson, and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, amongst others. They've released six Tom Tom Club CDs, and are among the most sampled artists in modern history -- see following page for the facts.

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Visit www.tomtomclub.com

Tom Tom Club, and Some of Those They've Inspired With Just One Song
(a/k/a A Partial List of Samplers)
Genius of Love

2PAC & the Outlawz's "High Speed"
Almighty RSO's "Badd Boyz"
Ant Banks's "Roll Em Phat"
Ant Capone's "Murder Loc"
AtLaw's "Dose of the Mega Flex"
B Legit's "So International"
Black Eyed Peas' "Who Needs"
Boogie Monster's "Bronx Bombas"
Boogie Monster's "I Like It"
Busta Rhymes's remix for Erykah Badu's "One"
Cam'ron ft Kenny Greene's "Me, My Moms & Jimmy"
Da Blac Hole Of Watts' "Putting Watts On The Map"
Dr. Jeckyll's "Genius Rap"
Dream Warriors' "And Now the Legacy Begins"
Funkdoobiest's "Natural Fun" (aka "I'm Gonna Have Some Fun")
Funky Town Pros' "Genius Is Back"
GrandMaster Flash & the Furious Five's "It's Nasty/Genius of Love"
GrandMaster Flash & the Furious Five's "We Will Rock You"
Hardeman's "All Around The World"
Mack 10, featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard & Buck Shot Shorty, "For the Money"
Mariah Carey's "Fantasy"
Mark Morrison's "Return of the Mack"
Mase w/DJ Clue's "That's The Way"
Mellow Man Ace's "Linda"
Menajahtwa's "I Ain't Nasti"
Mike Gold's "Don't Stop"
Mz. Kilo's "Skills For Real"
NAS's remix for Jaheim's "Just In Case"
Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Fantasy" remix
Poppa Charm & Mr. Ku's "What Cha Gonna Do?"
Redman's "Brick City Mashin' "
RHKingpen's "A Shade of Red"
Rich Little's "President's Rap"
Second II None's "N----z Trippin' "
Smooth's Mr. Lee remixes "Mind Blowin' "
South Central Cartel's "How The West Coast Rocks"
Steve Hardeman's "All Around the World"
Speech's "Jungle Man"
Tha 9 & Co.'s "Life Is Crazy"
Threat's "Give it Up"
Tomboy's "Can I Shake It"
Too Short, E-40, Richie Rich & James A's "Let's Get The Money"
W.C. & The Maad Circle's "Curb Serving"
Wild Pony's "Poppin' In The Club"
XClan's "In the Ways Of Saal"
X-ecutioners "Genius of Love 2001"
Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers' Hank Shocklee Remix "Tomorrow People"