Talking Heads
Boarding House
San Francisco, California, USA.
16 Sep 1978

KSAN FM broadcast > TDK D90 (unknown generation but low to my ears) > CD-R > Audacity [Speed decrease – on side 1 – ONLY] > CD Wave > TLH > FLAC

01 Intro
02 Big Country
03 Warning Sign
04 The Book I Read
05 Stay Hungry
06 Artists Only
07 The Girls Want To Be With The Girls
08 The Good Thing
09 Love > Building On Fire
10 Electricity
11 Found A Job
12 New Feeling
13 Pulled Up
14 Psycho Killer + DJ
15 Take Me To the River
16 I’m Not In Love + DJ
17 No Compassion + DJ

This has a lovely warm, vibrant sound.

When I first heard the pre-FM version of this recording, I was initially impressed. That soon turned to
disillusionment with that recording…it was so sterile! The base recording has less of a ‘live’ feel than
some Talking Heads live recordings…actually one similarly sterile recording is the December 1977 San
Francisco FM recording.

No matter…this off-air tape version sounds a lot better to me – and perhaps to you too.

I was glad to find the tape again…I’m lucky to have it! Got it off someone back in the early 90’s. On
the one and only occasion that I decided to take my uncle’s dog for a walk with a Walkman, I played this
tape. Upon crossing a small bridge over a stream, the dog got excited – probably upon seeing another dog.
I stumbled, and while I didn’t fall in – the Walkman did. A friend asked why don’t I try to go back and
get the Walkman the next day…I said, well it won’t work anymore, will it? “The tape might…”, and my
friend reminded me the water was shallow.

And so it did work! My uncle laughed when I told him the story at a later date, and that the tell tale
distortion in the tape came around the ‘take me to the water’ bit in Take Me To The River! 🙂

It sounds remarkably good. Even the DJ announcer is a joy to listen to. The mild hiss and radio broadcast
helps give it an ambience and ‘feel’ the pre-FM version lack (again, in my opinion – you may disagree). Psycho Killer…actually despite its huge popularity never a big favourite for me…but here it has the bite the
frosty pre-FM version lacks!

No processing has been carried out, bar speed correcting side 1. Oddly that ran too fast, while side 2
did not – I did check carefully against the pre-FM version of this show to do this. There is the odd fault
or fade in the brightness (a bit like a long tape dropout), but I did not attempt to repair this, I thought
leave it to the experts in this case.

If this is for you – enjoy.