“A pot to piss in”: Lou Reed almost screwed the Talking Heads over with their first record deal
During the late 1970s in New York City, CBGB’s was where you would hang if you were anyone cool. The stank of old beer, but the unglamorous quarters would soon change the world.
While they didn’t know it at the time, notable bands like Talking Heads, Blondie, Dead Boys, Television, and the Ramones would be later associated as part of the pivotal punk, new-wave, and post-punk movement – all three of which, despite their names, pretty much arose at the same time in the fevered CBGB.
Punk rock had exploded onto the scene in 1977; it marked a darker reprise of the sexual revolution of the ’60s. It seemed like, while there was still hope in the air for some semblance of meaningful change, the attempts to grasp at it were becoming slightly more nihilistic and perhaps more destructive. It was an attitude that was ultimately set into motion by the heroin-chic music of The Velvet Underground.
Talking Heads were a band born from VU’s arty premise, a band that promised something starkly different from what other bands were doing. In a way, they were the most ‘new-wave’ of them all. So, it is no surprise that they would soon cross paths with the snarling Reed, and despite his reputation, it is also no surprise that he was very fond of them.
Chris Frantz, Talking Heads’ drummer, in his memoir Remain in Light, recalls the moment when an enthused Reed (imagine that) met the band and they were subsequently invited up to his apartment. “In the early days of CBGB’s, Lou Reed was practically a regular,” recalled Frantz.
“I had seen him at a couple of Patti Smith shows and a couple of Television shows,” he said of how the more senior star still liked to mix it with the young upstarts at the CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. “It was a thrill to see him there. He later told us, ‘I still notice things,’ and he did. To his credit, he was one of the first and few stars to come to CBGB to check out the new bands.”
It was one thing to see him in the audience at a show supping on a beer, however, and it was quite another to be ambling the stairs to his apartment. Frantz recalls it like a strange, surreal dream. They entered Reed’s apartment, and after being greeted by his then-girlfriend Rachel, a vibrant trans-woman who inspired much of his work, they were offered to sit on his couch, the sole piece of furniture in his bare apartment.
“Lou got up and walked to the kitchen and fetched a quart of Häagen-Dazs ice cream from the refrigerator,” recalled Frants. The VU star was already showing his quirky side – surely ice cream should be kept in the freezer? “He brought it back and sat down again, cross-legged on the bare hardwood floor,” Frantz continues, “when he said out loud to himself, ‘I’m gonna need a spoon for this’.”
Tina Weymouth, the band’s bass player, volunteered to grab him a spoon. She quickly then realised there was only one spoon, and it was blackened. She brought him the spoon, and he still used it to eat the ice cream. Is this what rock ‘n’ roll is?
Lou Reed then proceeded to explain to the band that he thought they were great and that he would like to produce their album. They were overjoyed. Admin was never Reed’s strong suit, so he simply left that side of things for someone else in the morning and returned to his Häagen-Dazs.
“Lou’s manager, Jonny Podell, called us to come see him at his BMF Talent Agency office,” Frantz continues. Things were in motion. “Tina and David and I trekked up to Jonny’s office in midtown near where we had our day jobs. He was a renowned agent for Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and Alice Cooper. His cute-looking secretary told us to go right in. Jonny was on the phone talking a mile a minute and motioned for us to sit. We sat across the desk from him.”
This was their first experience of this ilk and everything felt like a parody. Things were about to edge even closer to a satire in a few seconds. “When the call was finished,” Frantz comically continues, “he took a little vial of cocaine out of his shirt pocket and snorted two hits up each nostril and then, as an afterthought, offered us a toot. We politely declined.”
That somewhat set the tone. Podell began to wax lyrical about Reed, and then about how much Reed loved the Talking Heads, then about how much he loved the Talking Heads, and all of this seemed geared towards his final swift conclusion that he was about to grant them ‘a great deal’. It was not a great deal.
Nevertheless, the band didn’t know that at the time and they were taken in by Podell’s charm. A sense of excitement and awe that Talking Heads may very well be working with the king of New York City’s underground, felt extremely present. However, as young professionals in need a payday, they did have their wits about them and acted cautiously.
The band got in contact with a respectable lawyer, Peter Parcher, who happened to have helped Keith Richards get out of a massive drug bust in Canada only a few years earlier. During the meeting with Parcher, the lawyer passed the contract to his partner, Alan Schulman. He didn’t think too highly of Reed’s supposed guidance.
Chris Frantz recalls that Schulman instantly “recognised a big problem. He said, ‘This is a standard production deal. I would never allow one of my clients to sign this. Lou Reed and Jonny Podell would pay for the making of the record, but then they would own it. They could then sell the record to the highest bidder, no matter what you want.” Whether Reed was in on the swindle or just too busy enjoy ice cream to care was a mystery at this point. But one thing was for certain: this was anything but the great deal Podell had promised.
As Schulman explained, “If you had a hit they would profit and you would get zilch.” But the Talking Heads, naturally, were still keen on getting signed and working with Reed. “I asked if there was any way to negotiate the offer and he said, ‘Look, Lou Reed’s reputation now is when he gets up in the morning, he doesn’t know whether to take the bus or the plane’,” Franktz recalls of Schuman’s colourful response.
The legal assistant continued, “If his heart was in the right place, he never would have offered you this shitty deal in the first place. This kind of deal is the reason that so many R&B artists may have had hit records but still don’t have a pot to piss in. I would walk away and wait for a real record deal with a real record company.’” It was the kind of prompt and purposeful advice that would help steer Talking Heads away from danger.
Talking Heads ended up signing a different contract at a later time. Despite this strange experience, Lou Reed and the band seemed to remain friends after the occurrence owing, in no small part, to the sheer adoration they held for him and, we’d imagine, still do. After all, their mantra was: “Never for money, always for love”.
