When David Byrne and Chris Frantz were students at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1973, they formed a band called the Artistics. The material was punk but not quite, recorded in Frantz’s Benefit Street apartment on a reel-to-reel. The Artistics burned out quickly once Byrne and Frantz left Rhode Island for New York City, where they would, alongside bassist Tina Weymouth, form a band called Talking Heads. 52 years later, an old Artistics demo is being made available for the first time.
The RISD Archives acquired the tape from the RISD Museum in 2023, and the museum acquired it 18 years earlier in a purchase for the Prints, Drawings and Photographs department. According to the library, the tape, which includes the earliest versions of “Psycho Killer” and “Warning Sign,” was loaned to Frantz and Weymouth to be copied and remastered. On Record Store Day this Friday, a vinyl pressing of a new compilation, Tentative Decisions: Demos & Live, will come with a 7″ of “Psycho Killer” and “Warning Sign” (styled as “Warnin’ Sign”), but not “Spin Spin,” which is to remain unreleased.
“We are so thrilled to have such a special piece of music history in our collections and love how the new release project visually reflects the look of the housing for the original recording,” the RISD Library wrote on Instagram. “This collection for Record Store Day Black Friday includes the Artistics material from 1974 alongside 11 additional demo and live tracks recorded by the original trio lineup of the band (Bassist Tina Weymouth alongside Frantz and Byrne) in 1975 and 1976.”
Tentative Decisions: Demos & Live comes out on 11/28 as a Record Store Day exclusive. Read our 2024 cover story on Talking Heads here.
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