_**Talking Heads - Mudd Club, New York City, August 13, 1979**_ This ain’t no Mudd Club! Oh wait, it is in fact the Mudd Club. Following up the Eno post yesterday, here’s a tasty audience recording of Talking Heads in August of 1979 playing the short-lived Soho club they immortalized on “Life During Wartime.” In fact, this tape may very well capture the live debut of several _Fear of Music_ tunes; that classic LP had just hit shops a week or two prior. Historic, yeah, but also just a very good time on 77 White St., with David, Chris, Tina and Jerry all sounding extremely road-ready after spending much of the previous two years on the road across the Big Country (and beyond). Many of Talking Heads’ CBGB peers had already come and gone by this point, but the band was just getting started — even though things were looking downright apocalyptic at the end of the 1970s. Of course, maybe they’re more apocalyptic now … Byrne is, after all, out on the road again as we speak, playing “Life During Wartime” every night, its paranoiac vibes hitting way too close to home. The sound of gunfire off in the distance? I’m getting used to it now. _**Jonathan Lethem**_ _**:**_ The scary thing about “Life During Wartime” is how deeply the singer’s tone has accommodated itself to the prophetic, doomy groove. The singer narrates from a future — the song’s, the album’s, the band’s, your city’s — you weren’t wholly certain you wanted to glimpse, at least not in 70 millimeter Panavision, recording equipment you hadn’t realized this band had packed. Too bad, you’re enlisted, by virtue of identifying, already, with his hard-won preparedness, his flayed-nerve expertise. Maybe the song got away from you before you could jump, but it took you aboard as well.

Virtual Memories Show 653: David Leopold “Hirschfeld and Sondheim are two men of the theater who have theaters named for them.” Curator and archivist David Leopold rejoins the show for …

Amid dire circumstances for local theater companies, 11 directors, playwrights and actors offer a remedy.

35 years later, the album’s accompanying concert film is seeing a revival – but of what, exactly?

David Leopold's new book features theatre caricaturist Al Hirschfeld's Stephen Sondheim illustrations in a poster format.