Tom Tom Club Totally Explained

Everything about The Tom Tom Club totally explained

The Tom Tom Club is a New Wave band founded in 1980 by spouses and Talking Heads alumni Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz.

Biography

Although originally established as a side project, the Tom Tom Club enjoyed early success with hits such as "Genius of Love" and "Wordy Rappinghood", which were taken from their self-titled first album which was released on Sire in the US and Island Records elsewhere in 1981.
   "Genius of Love" has been sampled or reinterpreted by many artists, including rapper Redman, Funkdoobiest, and Mariah Carey in her hit single "Fantasy". "It's Nasty" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was one of the early rap versions of the song - however, the sample was re-recorded by a live band, as was common practice at the time. Another version, "Genius Rap" (1981), by Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde was the first version.
   Early pressings of their first album featured short versions of "Genius of Love" and "Wordy Rappinghood" but to capitalise on the club success of these songs, Island reissued the album with the full 12" versions in 1982. A new single "Under the Boardwalk", which was the group's second and final UK hit, replaced another song "Booming and Zooming".
   The following year, the group released a follow-up, Close to the Bone, which was similar in style to their first album but didn't fare as well despite songs such as "Pleasure of Love" and "The Man With The Four Way Hips". The album was released on cassette and vinyl only, and never reissued on CD. The original vinyl was put out in six different colors.
   The Tom Tom Club appeared in the Talking Heads concert film, Stop Making Sense in 1984, performing "Genius of Love".
   There was then a four-year gap until the band's next album, the first version of Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom. By this stage, the band's deal with Island had expired and Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom was released outside the US on Fontana. The album saw the group adopt a more conventional rock song with a harder edged sound and a hint of menace in the lyrics of some songs.
   The group's line-up was also solidified along more conventional commercial lines. Whereas the previous two albums had been recorded by a loose collective of a dozen musicians, the Tom Tom Club was now reduced to the trio of Weymouth, Frantz and Weymouth's sister Laura Weymouth.
   There were, however, a number of prominent guest musicians on the record including Lou Reed and Talking Heads' frontman David Byrne on a cover of Reed's "Femme Fatale". The fourth member of Talking Heads Jerry Harrison also featured on some tracks.
   As with Close to the Bone, the album wasn't a commercial success although "Suboceana" received some radio play, mainly in the UK. The album was the first Tom Tom Club album to be issued on CD and the Japanese CD version featured an added bonus track, the b-side "Devil, Does Your Dog Bite?" which was also featured on the soundtrack Married to the Mob. "Suboceana" was also remixed for dance clubs by house music pioneer Marshall Jefferson.
   The following year, in a bid to recapture the attention of the US market, the group and Sire decided to issue a radically altered version of the album in the US. The US version of Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom replaced four songs with four others, one of which "I Confess" was a total overhaul of the original album's "Mighty Teardrop". The running order of the rest of the album was shuffled while the artwork was revamped. However, the changes had little effect on the album's US commercial success.
   In 1991 Chris & Tina built "The Clubhouse," a painting and music studio, over their garage near Cock Island, Connecticut. In 1992 they released the fourth Tom Tom Club album, "Dark Sneak Love Action" which included a cover of Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing."
   The group's next album, The Good the Bad and the Funky was released in 2000 and featured cover versions of Donna Summer's "Love to Love you Baby" and Lee Perry's "Soul Fire". Among the musicians on The Good the Bad and the Funky are Jamaican singer Mystic Bowie, Pettigrew and Toots of Toots and the Maytalls. The album's release was followed by one European, and several American tours.
   In 2002, Frantz and Tina Weymouth, along with their former Talking Heads bandmates, were inducted at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
   A complete live concert was released in 2003 on the double CD Live @ the Clubhouse, recorded at Tom Tom Club's regular hide-out studio, the Clubhouse in Connecticut in front of an audience of fifty guests.
   Tom Tom Club has been doing incidental live shows since.
   In 2007, the band released a special Christmas single called "Mistletunes", containing two specially recorded Christmas songs: "Il est Ne" and "Christmas in the Club", which features Mystic Bowie and scratcher/turntableist Kid Ginseng. The single was released by Dutch indie label La La Land Records, which was founded by the former Tom Tom Club merchandise crew.

Discography

Albums

Tom Tom Club (1981)
Close to the Bone (1983)
Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (1988)
Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (US version) (1989)
Dark Sneak Love Action (1991)
The Good, The Bad, and the Funky (2000)
Live @ the Clubhouse (2003)

Chart singles

Year	Title	Chart positions				Album
Year	Title	U.S. Hot 100	U.S. Modern Rock	U.S. Main. Rock	UK	Album
1981	"Wordy Rappinghood"	-	-	-	7	Tom Tom Club
1981	"Genius of Love"	31	-	24	65
1982	"Under the Boardwalk"	-	-	-	22
1989	"Suboceana"	-	10	-	-	Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom
1992	"Sunshine and Ecstacy"	-	15	-	-	Dark Sneak Love Action

Further Information

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