B52 Retrospective

I did a quick SFO turnaround to attend a conference in Monterey. Here is something that was a bit of a drag: Getting up at 3AM to catch a 6AM flight out of SFO.

I had my own, private B-52 retrospective running in my mind. In 1978 artists I liked a lot included Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Nick Lowe, Patti Smith, Graham Parker, Television, and so on. When the first B52 album came out and I heard “Dance This Mess Around”, I was there. That Chris Blackwell minimalist-yet-slick production knocked it out of the park. I discovered the groove. While noodling around at Bearsville, the second album brought “Dirty Back Road”, which reached life-anthem status for me to the degree that later, while living in San Francisco, I’d have the lyrics (entered as UNIX nroff source and then printed) taped on my office door at Ampex. Around `81 David Byrne produced “Mesopotamia” and led off with “Loveland”. Loveland, 60 Central and driving around the city in my stupid 5L Capri with the unbounded optimism of youth is a fond nexus of memories from that great time.

Wayne's World (FPGA2008 Monterey)

Heather and Shep (FPGA2008 Monterey)