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This interview with Chris Frantz is 1)highly entertaining and 2)gives me the chance to fill my internet niche of defending the taskmaster bandleader against his more lovable bandmates https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/talking-heads-drummer-chris-frantz-memoir-david-byrne-reunion-odds-1023773/
Like...what am I supposed to find objectionable here, exactly? This idea that bandleaders have some kind of moral obligation to keep the band together when it's obviously a spent force or do profit-taking reunion shows is just bizarre to me
And the bandleader who gets the MOST shit for this, Robbie Robertson, was in a situation where not only was the band obviously done but 3/5ths of the members had serious-to-world historic substance abuse problems (while with the TH it was just Byrne wanting to move on.)
Anyway, Northern-Light/Southern Cross and Naked are both very uneven but respectable albums by bands in clear decline and Robertson and Byrne seem to me obviously justified in ending it there (label obligation outtake things aside) if they wanted to.
And of course, you can't win -- if you make your peace with your estranged bandmate(s) and become a professional touring act, as Jagger did with Richards, then you get derided as mercenaries and sellouts.
Myself, I don't have a problem with either choice; I don't think there's anything wrong with bands continuing to tour after their recording primes. But I don't get the idea that bandleaders have some kind of moral obligation to stay in bands that aren't working for them anymore.
I will grant that because of the stupid economics of the music industry, where songwriters get the lion's share of the money from recordings, makes some of the bitterness understandable. But (as Frantz concedes) because of "Genius of Love" money isn't an issue for them.
Anyway, it was a great band but I don't think Bryne was wrong that it had said what it had to say, and if he didn't want to tour with people he didn't get along with anymore solely for the money I frankly admire him for it (irrespective of who are the nicer people in general.)
I need to write this up more fully when I've had a chance to re-watch both docs but the idea that Richard Manuel stopped getting writing credits because Robertson was a power-hungry monster or something is deep, deep denial
