Mystic Bowie's 'Talking Dreads' show adds island vibes to Talking Heads lyrics + 3 more concerts to see

Mystic Bowie learned to love Talking Heads music growing up in Jamaica, then got a chance to play with two members of that legendary band in the Tom Tom Club. Now Bowie is touring his "Talking Dreads" show that combines lyrics from Talking Heads songs with his own reggae and ska music.

See below for the story of the show that will play Saturday in West Yarmouth, plus here are three more concerts happening this weekend:

► Bluesman James Montgomery, a fixture on the New England music scene since the early 1970s. will return Friday, June 17, to the Music Room, 541 Main St., West Yarmouth. https://www.musicroomcapecod.com/james-montgomery.

►Three-time Grammy Award winner and 11-time nominee Steve Earle will play his Americana music Saturday, June 18, at Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road, North Truro. He'll play with his band the Dukes and guests The Whitmore Sisters. www.payomet.org.

►The "Happy Together Tour" at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 21, will bring the bands the Turtles (also the evening's musical hosts), Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, the Association, the Classic IV, the Vogues and the Cowsills to the Cape Cod Melody Tent, 21-41 Main St., Hyannis. https://melodytent.org/events/an-evening-with-happy-together-tour/

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Mystic Bowie brings whole new vibe to Talking Heads music

Life can be full of surprises. Just ask Mystic Bowie and he’ll name a few that have happened to him, like the time he was given guitar lessons from a curly-haired man on a beach, only to find out years later it was the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia.

“It’s kind of strange but cool the direction life can take,” Bowie says as he recounts his experiences leading up to his Talking Dreads show on June 19 at the Music Room.

Talking Dreads is Bowie’s reggae- and ska-infused homage to one of his favorite bands, the Talking Heads. He takes the lyrics made famous by Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, moves them away from the frantic and paranoid pop of the popular ‘80s band, and applies them to laid-back island vibes.

Instead of simply doing the songs as written like a typical cover band, Bowie has made an effort to create his own rendition of the songs with his native Jamaican sound.

“When I added the reggae to (the songs), it was almost like a completely different story,” he says about the meaning behind the Talking Heads’ music. “It was like instead of telling a Talking Heads story, I was now telling a Mystic Bowie story.”

Joining the Tom Tom Club

Bowie has the added pedigree of being a former member of the Tom Tom Club, the side project of former Talking Heads band members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. Both, Bowie says, gave him their blessing when he told them his idea to record an album of Talking Heads songs as reggae tunes.

“They both said ‘Mystic, you should do it 100%,’” he says. Bowie says he also had the support of Seymour Stein, co-founder of Sire Records and former vice president of Warner Bros. Records, who signed the Talking Heads, as well as the Ramones, the Pretenders and Madonna.

For Bowie, his road to becoming a member of the Tom Tom Club and playing Talking Heads songs was unexpected.

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His introduction to music started back home in Jamaica, where he was a teenage member of the Maroons community playing mento — Jamaican folk music — and calypso at hotels and eventually in Peru, Mexico and the Bahamas.

Bowie describes himself as a “huge Talking Heads fan” because Island Records owner Chris Blackwell, who founded Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas where Tom Tom Club recorded, “would flood Jamaica with Talking Heads music.”

“The musical part of Talking Heads was so rhythmic, so it caught me right off the bat because Caribbean music is very rhythmic,” Bowie says. “And the gimmicky childish sound and styles and David Byrnes’ voice and listening to his stories in the songs was very unique and very different than the average rock and roll coming out of America.”

When 15-year-old Bowie performed in the Bahamas, he would sneak out of his room to hang out by Compass Point Studios and see what was going on.

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Compass Point Studios was a hotbed for major music acts in the ‘70s and ‘80s, where not only the Tom Tom Club recorded, but also the Rolling Stones, U2, David Bowie, and the Talking Heads, among many others. AC/DC’s “Back in Black” album was made there.

“That would blow my mind,” he says. But the real shock would come about a decade later, in 1992, when he was scheduled to perform at a Mardi Gras festival in New York City and didn’t have a backing band. A producer involved with the show told Bowie he’d get him one.

“He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. My friends are going to be the backing band for you,’” Bowie recalls. Those friends turned out to be Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth.

Bowie hit it off with the two former Talking Heads members and was asked to join Tom Tom Club. He says he later took over as lead singer when then-lead singer Charles Pettigrew of “Would I Lie to You?” fame became sick and could no longer sustain it. Bowie remained in the band for 20 years, appearing on Tom Tom Club’s 2000 studio album “The Good, the Bad, and the Funky.” He remains close with his “brother and sister” Frantz and Weymouth.

“It was pretty sweet, man,” Bowie says about playing alongside musicians he used to listen to as a child. “It was amazing and kind of surreal.”

Talking Dreads

When Bowie decided to take his love of Talking Heads music and combine it with the sounds of his home, the now Connecticut-based artist decided he would need to go back to Jamaica and record it there if he wanted it to sound authentic and “100% Jamaican.”

Bowie rounded up a who’s who of reggae musicians, including singer Freddie McGregor, guitarist Ernest Ranglin and saxophonist Dean Fraser. The only non-Jamaican participant was Cindy Wilson of the B-52s for that New Wave connection.

“I tried to bring in all of these high-profile people I idolized as a child whom I used to open for,” he says.

Bowie would send copies of the new songs to Frantz and Weymouth during the recording process to get their take on the material while still in the studio.

“I set a goal,” Bowie says. “I wanted to make sure that if you take away the lyrics, I want the music to be as original as possible but bring in some of the Talking Heads melodies. And I also wanted to give 1,000% respect to the original contents and the way they’re put together.”

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The result was 2018’s “Mystic Bowie’s Talking Dreads,” an album that has continued to be a bedrock for Bowie’s solo recording career.

Bowie says the music of the Talking Heads “takes a completely different life when you add a reggae feel to it.” He cites the Talking Heads’ “Love/Building on Fire” as an example.

“(Byrne’s) thing was the tension of he didn’t know who to trust, but for me, the way I interpret it in my version, comes to ‘As long as you love me, I’m there for you,’” he says.

A Talking Heads reunion?

Part of the catalyst for Bowie’s desire to create Talking Dreads came about from itching to get onstage and play Talking Heads music after getting his hopes dashed numerous times from failed reunion offers being made while he was in Tom Tom Club. The Talking Heads disbanded in 1991 and have only performed together once since then, in 2002 at the group’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.

The way Bowie saw it, he was already in Tom Tom Club and if there was a Talking Heads reunion, he’d be included in it as a backup singer.

“I’m like ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this’ and Chris and Tina and Jerry Harrison, they always say yes to these offers because the offers are not a small amount — I’m talking about $13 million — but every single time an offer would come in, David Byrne would say no,” says Bowie. “But you never know. I never give up hope.”

For now, he’s content playing his version of the songs in a way only he can for audiences like the Cape Cod one at the Music Room.

“I always tell folks to come with energy because you’re going to need it,” Bowie says. “We’re a high-energy band. You can sit, but I guarantee you won’t be sitting for long. Come with your dancing shoes on.”

How to see Mystic Bowie’s Talking Dreads

When: 9 p.m. Sunday

Where: The Music Room, 541 Main St., West Yarmouth

Tickets: $35-$65

Reservations: https://musicroomcapecodtickets.com/; https://talkingdreads.com/

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Mystic Bowie's 'Talking Dreads': reggae, ska, Talking Heads lyrics