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Transcript

Talking Heads: Punk Rock, New Wave, Blackouts, and Psycho Killers · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:20
Speaker 1: story about the band Talking Heads, but it's also the
0:23
Speaker 1: story about a singer and a serial killer. It's a
0:27
Speaker 1: wild story, a story that involves six murders, unsuspecting young people,
0:32
Speaker 1: snuck up on in the darkness and shot in cold
0:35
Speaker 1: blood by a psycho. And it's a story about a
0:39
Speaker 1: singer trying to channel that detached psychotic feeling into song.
0:44
Speaker 1: A story about punk rock, the New Wave, the New
0:47
Speaker 1: York Yankees, the Mets, a garbage strike, and a blackout
0:51
Speaker 1: that brought terror and violence. All that aside, this is
0:56
Speaker 1: also a story about great music, Unlike that music I
1:01
Speaker 1: played for you at the top of the show that
1:03
Speaker 1: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my
1:07
Speaker 1: mellotron called Fears of a Clown MK two. I played
1:13
Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
1:16
Speaker 1: Kiss and Say Goodbye by the Manhattans. And why would
1:20
Speaker 1: I play you that particular slice of Backseat Dark End
1:24
Speaker 1: of the Street Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that
1:29
Speaker 1: was the number one song in America on July twenty ninth,
1:32
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, and that was the day that David
1:36
Speaker 1: Berkowitz kicked off a murderous rampage that terrorized New Yorkers
1:41
Speaker 1: for over a year, a year during which Talking Heads
1:45
Speaker 1: recorded their landmark first album and their signature song, Psycho Killer.
1:52
Speaker 1: On this episode, a singer, a serial killer, the son
1:56
Speaker 1: of Sam and Talking Heads. I'm Jake Brennan and this
2:03
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland snare drum, high hat baseline. It was a
2:42
Speaker 1: groove so loud and so low that you didn't even
2:45
Speaker 1: hear it, You just felt it there in your chest.
2:50
Speaker 1: It's the kind of groove that animates bodies. And those
2:54
Speaker 1: kinds of records, they get the crowd on the dance
2:56
Speaker 1: floor and then they keep them there. These the kinds
3:00
Speaker 1: of records. A Tonya motto spawned at the Peach Tree
3:04
Speaker 1: right now at ten thirty pm, Tony was keeping the
3:07
Speaker 1: tempo at a moderate ninety five beats per minute. By
3:12
Speaker 1: one am, he'd work it all the way up to
3:14
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty bpm as thousands of kids in
3:17
Speaker 1: their late teens and early twenties boogied down. Then Tony
3:22
Speaker 1: gradually relaxed the pace and cooled them all out. By
3:25
Speaker 1: closing time. It wasn't studio fifty four, But in nineteen
3:31
Speaker 1: seventy six, in the suburb of New Rochelle, New York,
3:35
Speaker 1: the peach Tree was as close as it got to
3:38
Speaker 1: that midtown field. Besides, New York City was a cesspool.
3:44
Speaker 1: It was dangerous and it was dirty. The suburbs were safer,
3:49
Speaker 1: and this gig was easier, and based on the pair
3:52
Speaker 1: of brunettes that just walked by, the peach tree was
3:55
Speaker 1: plenty good enough for Tony. Just then, a young guy
3:59
Speaker 1: in a wrinkled button down shirt shuffled into the DJ
4:02
Speaker 1: booth holding a glass of water for Tony. Normally, the
4:06
Speaker 1: DJ booth was Tony's sacred space, no guests and no requests,
4:12
Speaker 1: but he felt sorry for this quiet young guy with
4:15
Speaker 1: the intense black eyes and the wild hair. He always
4:19
Speaker 1: came to the club alone, and he never danced. He
4:22
Speaker 1: just hung at the edge of the DJ booth and
4:25
Speaker 1: watched Tony work. Eventually, Tony took pity on him and
4:29
Speaker 1: showed him the turntables and mixing board tonight. The guy
4:33
Speaker 1: handed Tony's a glass of water and stared over his
4:37
Speaker 1: shoulder at the turntables. Tony tried to fill the awkward silence.
4:42
Speaker 1: He asked the guy if he liked disco. Nah. The
4:45
Speaker 1: guy said he preferred Philly's soul. Tony changed his strategy
4:51
Speaker 1: dy like girls, and the guy's eyes flashed with anger.
4:55
Speaker 1: He just stared at his shoes. Tony felt that it
5:00
Speaker 1: was clear that this guy wasn't a ladies man, but Jesus,
5:04
Speaker 1: he was just trying to make conversation. An uncomfortable silence
5:08
Speaker 1: hung in the air for another minute, and finally the
5:11
Speaker 1: guy muttered goodbye and quickly turned and walked out of
5:14
Speaker 1: the booth, And as he turned the corner, Tony called
5:18
Speaker 1: out after him, Hey, David, catch you later. Meanwhile, twenty
5:28
Speaker 1: miles south, another awkward young man clung to a doorframe
5:32
Speaker 1: in a tiny damp room. A future mix of smells
5:35
Speaker 1: filled his nostrils. Piss, cockroach, spray, Chanelle number five, a
5:42
Speaker 1: combination so thick it enveloped him. All the same, he
5:47
Speaker 1: couldn't leave. He knew what was waiting just on the
5:50
Speaker 1: other side of the door. He could hear the huge dog,
5:53
Speaker 1: panting in the summer heat, nudging at the door with
5:57
Speaker 1: its nose, scraping its claws across the wooden floor. He
6:01
Speaker 1: knew the dog wouldn't let up. Now that it had
6:03
Speaker 1: his attention, and soon he would have to do its bidding. Finally,
6:10
Speaker 1: the young man pushed the door open, and the black
6:13
Speaker 1: dog trotted forward and stopped right in front of him.
6:16
Speaker 1: It looked up with those sad eyes, eyes that were
6:20
Speaker 1: almost human, and for a moment it seemed like the
6:24
Speaker 1: mutt was going to speak. It paused, it circled, and
6:28
Speaker 1: then took a shit right there on the wooden floor.
6:34
Speaker 1: The dog forced its muzzle into his hands, leaving David
6:37
Speaker 1: Byrne with no choice but to scratch the ears of
6:40
Speaker 1: the big sluki hound until it turned and ran back
6:43
Speaker 1: to a man standing at the bar. That man was
6:47
Speaker 1: Hilly Crystal. He ran seebegb this tiny dive on the Bowery,
6:52
Speaker 1: and his dog Jonathan was the club's unofficial mascot. By
6:56
Speaker 1: July nineteen seventy six, not much remained of Hill's original
7:00
Speaker 1: vision of what was once called country, Bluegrass and Blues,
7:04
Speaker 1: hence CBGV. Instead, the club was the epicenter of a
7:09
Speaker 1: new wave of music, powered by bands including Television Blondie,
7:13
Speaker 1: The Ramones, and tonight's headliner Talking Heads. David Byrne and
7:20
Speaker 1: his bandmates Bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Franz hardly
7:24
Speaker 1: looked like a band at the center of the emerging
7:26
Speaker 1: punk sy where the Ramones rocked black leather and shades,
7:30
Speaker 1: Talking Heads wore polo shirts with little alligators on them.
7:35
Speaker 1: Clean cut, nerdy, almost they were, as rock critic Lester
7:39
Speaker 1: Bangs later put it, so uncool that they became cool tonight, however,
7:46
Speaker 1: they were well on their way to becoming cool. Only
7:49
Speaker 1: a year after their first gig as Talking Heads, they
7:52
Speaker 1: were gearing out for their second sold out show of
7:54
Speaker 1: the night. As the line grew outside the club, David
7:58
Speaker 1: Byrne felt tense, nervous. He couldn't relax and the pressure
8:04
Speaker 1: was on in addition to the huge crowd outside. Sire
8:08
Speaker 1: Records founder seymour Stein was inside the building. He had
8:12
Speaker 1: been scouting the band for months. He saw one of
8:15
Speaker 1: their first shows a year prior, and now he was
8:17
Speaker 1: ready to check on the band's progress. The doors opened
8:21
Speaker 1: and the crowd rushed in, and when the band kicked off,
8:25
Speaker 1: seymour Stein was pressed up against the front of the stage.
8:29
Speaker 1: He watched David Byrne twitch in convulse like a man
8:33
Speaker 1: possessed his singing voice was just as jittery, swinging wildly
8:38
Speaker 1: up and down in pitch, but there was something oddly
8:41
Speaker 1: compelling about it. He was intense, he was passionate. In
8:46
Speaker 1: the right hands, he could be the star, which is
8:49
Speaker 1: exactly why Seymour wanted the band for Sire Records. The
8:54
Speaker 1: first song ended and the crowd roared. David waited a
8:59
Speaker 1: moment before step into the microphone to announce their next one.
9:03
Speaker 1: The name of this band is Talking Heads. The next
9:06
Speaker 1: song is called Psycho Killer. While Talking Heads finished their
9:12
Speaker 1: late set back in New Rochelle, Tonyamato watched that pair
9:16
Speaker 1: of brunettes walk out of the Peach Tree too bad.
9:21
Speaker 1: Tony recognized one of them. What was her name? Debbie? Diane? No, Donna,
9:26
Speaker 1: that was it. He was hoping she might stick around
9:29
Speaker 1: a chat, but unfortunately that wasn't in the cards. Tonight,
9:34
Speaker 1: Donna and her friend Jody slipped out of the club
9:36
Speaker 1: and into the bomby night Air. They hopped into Jody's
9:39
Speaker 1: oldsmobile and headed south to the Bronx to Pelham Bay,
9:44
Speaker 1: where Donna lived with her parents. Jody double parked in
9:48
Speaker 1: front of the house. The girls didn't notice the guy
9:51
Speaker 1: who was following them. He pulled his yellow Ford Galaxy
9:55
Speaker 1: to the curve half a block away, replaying the scene
9:58
Speaker 1: from the disco in his mind, he let out a hard,
10:01
Speaker 1: angry laugh. Of course he liked girls, but girls hardly
10:06
Speaker 1: noticed him, just like everyone else, and when they did,
10:11
Speaker 1: it was just to pity him. Even that DJ back
10:13
Speaker 1: at the peach Tree, he was so patronizing. None of
10:18
Speaker 1: them truly saw him. Not really. He was going to
10:22
Speaker 1: fix that starting tonight. Soon the whole city would notice him.
10:28
Speaker 1: He pulled a revolver from his pocket and massaged it
10:30
Speaker 1: in his hands. Somewhere a dog was barking. He tried
10:36
Speaker 1: to block it from his mind and focus on what
10:38
Speaker 1: he was here to do. Make them notice. He opened
10:42
Speaker 1: the door of his forward Galaxy and stepped out into
10:45
Speaker 1: the night. E oldsmobile idle just up ahead, a few
10:49
Speaker 1: feet away. Now he crept up on the passenger side.
10:53
Speaker 1: Suddenly the passenger door swung open. It was Donna. She
10:57
Speaker 1: saw him there waiting for her, his heart pounding, that
11:01
Speaker 1: snub nosed piece in his hands, shimmering under the moonlight.
11:04
Speaker 1: She screamed, who the hell are you? The flash and
11:09
Speaker 1: the revolver was blinding. The shots cut through the night
11:13
Speaker 1: air like thunder. Donna fell to the ground. He gave
11:16
Speaker 1: to Jody in the driver's seat. She looked like she
11:19
Speaker 1: was about to puke. He fired three more shots. The
11:24
Speaker 1: first one tore through her leg. She screamed in pain
11:27
Speaker 1: as blood spilled out into the driver's seat, and then
11:31
Speaker 1: he turned and ran. Doma's parents bolted out of the house.
11:36
Speaker 1: They rushed down to the car, but it was too late.
11:40
Speaker 1: At just eighteen years old, their daughter's life was over.
11:45
Speaker 1: For the rest of New York City, The nightmare was
11:48
Speaker 1: just Beginning April nineteen seventy seven, Manhattan Sun Dragon's Studios,
12:23
Speaker 1: something was bothering David Byrne. The music coming out of
12:27
Speaker 1: the control room speakers was not good, not good at all.
12:32
Speaker 1: David's bandmates, Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz, and their latest edition
12:37
Speaker 1: multi instrumentalist Jerry Harrison, formerly of The Modern Lovers, they
12:41
Speaker 1: all agreed. Listening to this first playback of their song
12:45
Speaker 1: Psycho Killer, they realized that something was off. The cold
12:50
Speaker 1: detached persona that David created so easily on stage at
12:54
Speaker 1: CBGB was no match for the cold detached atmosphere the
12:58
Speaker 1: recording studios. Isolated vocal booth on Tate. David's voice sounded timid, weak, uninspired.
13:09
Speaker 1: He hated it. The track should have been better than this.
13:14
Speaker 1: It was the band's oldest song, one they wrote in
13:17
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four while they were all still art students
13:20
Speaker 1: at Rhode Island School of Design. David came up with
13:23
Speaker 1: the concept after listening to Alice Cooper's shock rock masterpiece
13:27
Speaker 1: Billion Dollar Babies on repeat. Back then, he imagined it
13:31
Speaker 1: as a creepy rock ballad, but Chris added a funky
13:35
Speaker 1: and propulsive beat that took the song in a totally
13:38
Speaker 1: different direction. Tina, who was dating Chris, listened as the
13:42
Speaker 1: guys tried to come up with a bridge. She offered
13:45
Speaker 1: to write something in French, seeing as she was fluent,
13:49
Speaker 1: and soon the song was done. Tina grew up taking
13:53
Speaker 1: music lessons, but at the time she hadn't even picked
13:56
Speaker 1: up a bass yet. Even now, in nineteen seventy seven,
14:00
Speaker 1: only been playing for a year and a half. That
14:03
Speaker 1: was another thing bothering David. After finally signing with Sire
14:06
Speaker 1: Records in November, Talking Head's debut album was going to
14:10
Speaker 1: make or break. If it succeeded, it could launch him
14:13
Speaker 1: into a long career in music. If it flopped, you
14:16
Speaker 1: might not get another shot. Was it really wise to
14:20
Speaker 1: trust their sound to such an inexperienced player. Maybe Tina
14:25
Speaker 1: was the problem, or maybe the problem was Tony bon Gioviy. Yes,
14:32
Speaker 1: that's first cousin to mister living on a Prayer, John
14:35
Speaker 1: bon Jovi, who in nineteen seventy seven was already a
14:39
Speaker 1: big time producer. Jimmy Hendrix, Gloria Gaynor, and most importantly,
14:45
Speaker 1: Tony Bonjioviy produced two Dynamics Soaring albums for the ramones
14:50
Speaker 1: seymour Stein thought that Tony bon Gioviy would be a
14:53
Speaker 1: perfect fit for the Talking Head's debut. From the start, however,
14:58
Speaker 1: it was not a perfect fit. It was a badfit.
15:01
Speaker 1: Tony didn't understand the band's sound. He was dismissive about
15:05
Speaker 1: Tina's playing, he hated David singing, and he spent most
15:09
Speaker 1: of his time bragging about his new private jet. He
15:12
Speaker 1: read airplane magazines while the band recorded, and he left
15:16
Speaker 1: sessions to oversee the creation of the power station studio
15:19
Speaker 1: he was building in Hell's kitchen. When he did pay attention,
15:23
Speaker 1: his attempts to drop knowledge off and backfired. Like right now,
15:28
Speaker 1: the studio was silent as the playback ended. Everyone in
15:32
Speaker 1: the room knew that the vocals were all wrong. Tony
15:35
Speaker 1: casually put down the Airplane magazine and he took off
15:38
Speaker 1: his shades and walked out of the room. When he
15:41
Speaker 1: returned from the studio small kitchen, he was holding an
15:44
Speaker 1: eight inch long butcher knife. He walked up to David
15:48
Speaker 1: and placed the knife in his hand. Look, Tony said,
15:52
Speaker 1: you're a psycho killer right, It's time to get into character.
15:58
Speaker 1: It couldn't be more clear that Tony didn't understand the
16:01
Speaker 1: song at all. He wanted David to scream soulfully like
16:05
Speaker 1: Al Green, instead of delivering a cold monotone like Lou Reed.
16:10
Speaker 1: He wanted a novelty song. The song wasn't a joke.
16:15
Speaker 1: This was David's life. If they didn't get it right
16:18
Speaker 1: this go round, there would not be another. David looked
16:24
Speaker 1: down at the knife in his hand, and the anger
16:27
Speaker 1: boiled up inside of him. He felt like a dog,
16:31
Speaker 1: an animal. He wanted a lunge at Tony, gouge the
16:34
Speaker 1: producer's eyes out, to plunge the knife into his fucking chest.
16:38
Speaker 1: Do it. The voice inside him screamed, do it. No
16:45
Speaker 1: he said to himself as much as he said to Tony,
16:48
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to do that. Then he
16:51
Speaker 1: handed back the knife and stormed out of the room.
16:55
Speaker 1: While David Byrne was trying to channel a psycho killer
16:58
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, of Queens and the Bronx were becoming aware
17:02
Speaker 1: of a psycho killer prowling their neighborhood for real. The
17:05
Speaker 1: shooting in the Bronx in July nineteen seventy six that
17:08
Speaker 1: killed eighteen year old Donna Laia and wounded her nineteen
17:11
Speaker 1: year old friend, Jody Valenti was reported with a meager
17:14
Speaker 1: two paragraph mentioned in the Long Island Press. Similar attacks
17:18
Speaker 1: in October in November garnered a few more articles, but
17:22
Speaker 1: nothing like the headlines that David Berkowitz expected. In a
17:26
Speaker 1: city with over fifteen hundred homicides a year, it was
17:30
Speaker 1: hard to break through, but David Berkowitz did breakthrough, specifically
17:37
Speaker 1: at about seven thirty pm on March eighth, nineteen seventy seven,
17:41
Speaker 1: when he approached a nineteen year old Columbia student walking
17:44
Speaker 1: home in Queen's the books that Virginia of Oscar Richian carried.
17:48
Speaker 1: He couldn't stop the slug from David Berkowitz's gun. She
17:52
Speaker 1: held the books up to try and shield the inevitable,
17:54
Speaker 1: but it was no use. David shot her point blank
17:59
Speaker 1: in the mouth. Virginia's body collapsed in a heap on
18:02
Speaker 1: the sidewalk. David Berkowitz pulled a cap down over his
18:06
Speaker 1: face and took off running. He left behind the thirty
18:09
Speaker 1: five dollars in Virginia's purse. This was the murder that
18:14
Speaker 1: compelled New York City Mayor A Beam to hold a
18:17
Speaker 1: press conference in which he alerted the public that the
18:19
Speaker 1: same weapon, a forty four Bulldog Revolver, had been used
18:23
Speaker 1: in at least two of the recent shootings. A month later,
18:29
Speaker 1: opening day at Yankee Stadium, the tabloid headlines weren't talking
18:33
Speaker 1: about the early struggles of new right fielder Reggie Jackson. Instead,
18:37
Speaker 1: the New York Post and their chief rival, the New
18:40
Speaker 1: York Daily News were focused on yet another brutal killing.
18:45
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was crouching in the shadows, watching a couple
18:49
Speaker 1: as they kissed in a parked car. He felt for
18:52
Speaker 1: the letter in his jacket pocket, the one he'd written
18:54
Speaker 1: earlier that day. It was addressed to NYPD Sergeant Joseph Barelli,
19:00
Speaker 1: who was leading the investigation into the killings, killings in
19:04
Speaker 1: which David Berkowitz was the sole perpetrator, as well as
19:07
Speaker 1: the sole person to know this fact. He continued to
19:11
Speaker 1: watch the couple make out in their car like a
19:13
Speaker 1: man watching a dirty movie alone in a darkened theater.
19:16
Speaker 1: And then he pulled that big forty four caliber handgown
19:19
Speaker 1: from a bag that gave him purpose. The interior light
19:24
Speaker 1: in the car went out, and the couple's heads were
19:26
Speaker 1: silhouetted by the residual glow of a nearby street light.
19:30
Speaker 1: And they were so unaware, so happy, they should have
19:33
Speaker 1: been terrified. David made his approach, slowed his New York
19:38
Speaker 1: power walk to a crawl. He could hear them now,
19:42
Speaker 1: their moans, ecstasy, heavy, petty. The sounds gave him confidence.
19:48
Speaker 1: No wild shots, tonight, no missus. He dropped to his knee,
19:54
Speaker 1: braced his arm and aimed this happy couple would feel pain.
20:01
Speaker 1: He fired four bullets. Each one found its target. His
20:05
Speaker 1: victims slumped in their seats, dead or nearly so. He
20:10
Speaker 1: calmly pulled the letter from his pocket and dropped it
20:12
Speaker 1: in the car before turning to leave. The citizens of
20:16
Speaker 1: New York City didn't fear him, not yet. They called
20:19
Speaker 1: him a killer, but they had no idea that he
20:22
Speaker 1: was so much more. He was the son of evil.
20:25
Speaker 1: He was the son of the devil. He was the
20:28
Speaker 1: son of Sam, which is exactly what the letter said.
20:35
Speaker 1: The cops tried to keep the letter a secret from
20:37
Speaker 1: the press, but the Daily News managed to bribe someone,
20:41
Speaker 1: and the very next day, the paper ran the full
20:44
Speaker 1: text of the letter, along with a massive, bold face
20:47
Speaker 1: headline that read killer to cops, I'll do it again.
20:53
Speaker 1: That headline caught the eye of many New Yorkers, including
20:56
Speaker 1: David Byrne, who spotted the paper as he stepped out
20:59
Speaker 1: of Sun Dragon's studios. As he read the article, he
21:03
Speaker 1: was struck by the letter's cold, detached tone. These weren't
21:07
Speaker 1: the words of a lunatic waving a knife around in public.
21:10
Speaker 1: They were the words of a man who blended in,
21:13
Speaker 1: who wouldn't be noticed until he struck. When David Byrne
21:18
Speaker 1: returned to the studio, he ran into engineer Ed Stasium.
21:22
Speaker 1: He confessed to Ed that he was beyond uncomfortable singing
21:26
Speaker 1: in front of Tony. Ed suggested they wait for the
21:29
Speaker 1: producer to clear out for the day and then finish
21:32
Speaker 1: the vocals when he wasn't around, which is exactly what
21:35
Speaker 1: they did. They pieced together Psychokiller behind their producer's back
21:40
Speaker 1: while Tony talked about Tina's playing ed. The engineer reassured
21:45
Speaker 1: David and the rest of the band that her bassline
21:47
Speaker 1: absolutely made the song and that she was impossible to replace. Eventually,
21:54
Speaker 1: David Byrne found ways to relax, to bring the excitement
21:58
Speaker 1: of the band's live performances to the cold, isolated vocal booth.
22:03
Speaker 1: The psycho Killer was taking shape. Eight or nine other
22:07
Speaker 1: songs were close behind, but now the band was going
22:10
Speaker 1: to have to push pause on the recording. In three days,
22:13
Speaker 1: they were boarding a plane to England. The band was
22:16
Speaker 1: going on tour with The Ramones. So while David Byrne
22:21
Speaker 1: worked on building a buzz for his band's debut album Abroad,
22:25
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz worked on a project that would land him
22:28
Speaker 1: more headlines back home. His letter to the Cops was
22:31
Speaker 1: a success. It massively increased the news coverage of his killings,
22:37
Speaker 1: and now the son of Sam was working feverishly on
22:40
Speaker 1: a follow up, something bigger, longer, more ornate. He took
22:46
Speaker 1: his time writing it, he worked carefully on the calligraphy,
22:50
Speaker 1: the layout. It was a killer press release, or should
22:54
Speaker 1: I say a press release for a killer, which is
22:58
Speaker 1: why Berkowitz sent it to a Jimmy Breslin, the lead
23:02
Speaker 1: calumnist for the New York Daily News, and like any
23:06
Speaker 1: good press release, it promoted an event, another killing to
23:11
Speaker 1: come in July, on the one year anniversary of the
23:15
Speaker 1: Son of Sam's first shooting. We'll be right back after this.
23:26
Speaker 1: We're We're, We're. July nineteen seventy seven. New York's brutal
23:39
Speaker 1: heat wave seemed to be never ending. Ditto for the
23:42
Speaker 1: rotting garbage piled in the streets the result of a
23:46
Speaker 1: sanitation worker strike. If that didn't put you on edge,
23:50
Speaker 1: then knowing that psychos Son of Sam was still out
23:53
Speaker 1: there did. Some days, it seemed like the only bright
23:57
Speaker 1: spot in the city was the New York yan who
24:01
Speaker 1: were starting to rise to the top of the American
24:03
Speaker 1: League East standings just a few days before the All
24:06
Speaker 1: Star break. Yankee Stadium was dark tonight, though with the
24:11
Speaker 1: Bronx Bombers on the road, but across town in Queens
24:14
Speaker 1: Shay Stadium was lit up with the Mets and the
24:17
Speaker 1: Chicago Cubs. Heading into the bottom of the sixth inning,
24:21
Speaker 1: you could almost see the stadium lights from the roof
24:23
Speaker 1: of the Long Island City loft that David Byrne shared
24:26
Speaker 1: with Tina Weymouth and Chris France. David wasn't looking towards
24:31
Speaker 1: Shay Stadium, though, he was looking out across the East
24:34
Speaker 1: River at the buildings of Manhattan. The next day, in
24:39
Speaker 1: one of those buildings, he and his bandmates would head
24:42
Speaker 1: to Sun Dragon and put the final touches on their
24:45
Speaker 1: debut album. Despite the heat, everyone was at a celebratory
24:50
Speaker 1: mood Hamburgers and chickens sizzled on a barbecue grill, Glasses clinked,
24:56
Speaker 1: friends down cold beer and white wine as the group
24:59
Speaker 1: toasted the complete of their record. David Byrne, however, stood alone.
25:05
Speaker 1: His stomach was in knots and the album was nearly done,
25:09
Speaker 1: and that thought was pure agony. What if the record flopped?
25:14
Speaker 1: What if radio programmers refused to play it because they
25:17
Speaker 1: thought it was punk and not new wave, as seymour
25:19
Speaker 1: Stein was insisting, what if they never got to make
25:23
Speaker 1: another record? Suddenly, David watched from the roof as an
25:29
Speaker 1: entire city block went dark, like someone had flipped off
25:33
Speaker 1: a giant power switch, then another, then another. Everyone at
25:39
Speaker 1: the party was pointing across the river as Midtown and
25:42
Speaker 1: downtown also went dark. They watched as the entire city
25:47
Speaker 1: was plunged into darkness. New York finally snapped. The heat,
25:54
Speaker 1: the trash, the fear, and now no electricity. Enough was enough.
26:00
Speaker 1: From Brooklyn to the Bronx, people flooded the streets to
26:03
Speaker 1: vent their frustration. They lift fires, smashed store windows. It
26:07
Speaker 1: was absolute pandemonium. The cops were already stretched to the
26:11
Speaker 1: breaking point with the Son of Sam manhunt. As the
26:15
Speaker 1: rioting spread, they were outnumbered and exhausted. They struggled to
26:19
Speaker 1: restore order. As the sun came up the next morning,
26:22
Speaker 1: thick smoke filled the air throughout Queen's as police and
26:25
Speaker 1: looters engaged in the street battle. Talking heads were huddled
26:30
Speaker 1: around a small television, watching in horror as all this unfolded,
26:36
Speaker 1: knowing that there was a very real possibility that their
26:39
Speaker 1: recording studio could be one of those buildings being looted.
26:43
Speaker 1: Twenty five hours passed, twenty five long hours. Finally the
26:50
Speaker 1: power came back on the phone at the band's loft
26:54
Speaker 1: rang it was ed stasium at the studio and everything,
26:59
Speaker 1: thanks was fine, the tapes were safe. As David Byrne
27:07
Speaker 1: and Talking Heads completed the final mix of their debut album,
27:10
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was contemplating his own final plan as he
27:14
Speaker 1: clung to a doorframe in a tiny, dank bathroom. Outside,
27:19
Speaker 1: he could hear the dog pacing back and forth. He
27:23
Speaker 1: was terrified. Now that it had his attention, he knew
27:27
Speaker 1: that he would have to do its bidding. From the
27:30
Speaker 1: window of his tiny apartment in Yonkers, he looked outside
27:34
Speaker 1: in the yard below. He could see the big black
27:36
Speaker 1: dog staring at him. Its eyes were almost human. It
27:40
Speaker 1: was barking, It was snarling. It looked like it was
27:43
Speaker 1: about to start screaming at him. You fucking loser, you
27:47
Speaker 1: pathetic piece of shit. The world hates it. Why don't
27:50
Speaker 1: you just dieing worm? Do it? Do it now? Sam
27:54
Speaker 1: is hung with Sam wants to hunt. Get out there
27:57
Speaker 1: and kill, kill kill. David covered his ears, but he
28:02
Speaker 1: couldn't drown it out. He grabbed a small rifle from
28:05
Speaker 1: the couch and threw open the window. He fired wildly
28:08
Speaker 1: at the dog below as it ran wimpword back home.
28:14
Speaker 1: August nineteen seventy seven, despite a massive police manhunt, David
28:20
Speaker 1: Berkowitz had successfully killed again, a year almost to the
28:25
Speaker 1: day from his first shooting. No one is saved from
28:29
Speaker 1: son of Sam, declared the New York Post Daily News.
28:32
Speaker 1: Calm Miss Jimmy Breslin pleaded with the killer to surrender
28:35
Speaker 1: in an issue of the paper that sold over a
28:38
Speaker 1: million copies. Nightclubs were empty, lover's lanes were deserted. David
28:45
Speaker 1: Berkowitz had achieved the type of fame a guy like
28:47
Speaker 1: David Byrne could only dream of. With his immortality assured,
28:54
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was now planning to go out with a
28:56
Speaker 1: bang head to a nightclub just like the Peach and
29:00
Speaker 1: knew Rochelle and lay waste the entire crowd, all the
29:04
Speaker 1: party girls in leisure suit wearing guys, machio fucos, all
29:10
Speaker 1: those people who pushed him around, who ignored him, who
29:13
Speaker 1: made fun of him. He was going to kill them all,
29:16
Speaker 1: and if the cops didn't shoot him first, and he
29:18
Speaker 1: would end it himself right there in the nightclub, blood
29:23
Speaker 1: all over the dance floor. He already had one gun
29:27
Speaker 1: in his yellow Ford Galaxy. Now he loaded his familiar
29:31
Speaker 1: forty four caliber bulldog with fresh bullets and placed it
29:34
Speaker 1: in a brown paper bag. He was ready to hunt,
29:38
Speaker 1: and it was just before ten pm. He walked down
29:42
Speaker 1: the steps from his apartment. Outside, there was no one
29:46
Speaker 1: who was pitch black, and with the help of a
29:49
Speaker 1: dim street light at the end of the block, he
29:51
Speaker 1: could make out his car. He walked quickly toward the vehicle.
29:56
Speaker 1: He pulled out his key and slid it into the
29:58
Speaker 1: lock of the driver's side, and he heard footsteps approaching
30:01
Speaker 1: quickly from behind. He turned around to see an NYPD
30:05
Speaker 1: detective running toward him, gun drawn. Two more cops were
30:08
Speaker 1: approaching from the other side. He dropped the brown paper
30:11
Speaker 1: bag to the ground and stuck his hands in the air.
30:14
Speaker 1: Then he slumped his shoulders and looked at the ground.
30:17
Speaker 1: Well you got me, the cop asked him. Who in
30:23
Speaker 1: the hell did he have? Exactly I'm Sam, he said
30:28
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz. The next morning, August eleventh, nineteen seventy seven,
30:36
Speaker 1: the headline of the New York Post read Caught. It
30:39
Speaker 1: sold one point two million copies, almost twice the paper's
30:43
Speaker 1: normal circulation. The New York Daily News responded with their
30:47
Speaker 1: own breathless coverage of the arrest and arraignment, the papers
30:51
Speaker 1: could only hope for a lengthy trial, but instead, David
30:55
Speaker 1: Berkowitz confessed the next day. Although it would be months
30:59
Speaker 1: before he was finally sentenced. For New Yorkers, the long
31:03
Speaker 1: and terrifying summer of the Psycho Killer was finally over.
31:11
Speaker 1: I throw a parking ticket. That's all it took. After
31:34
Speaker 1: a reign of terror that lasted more than a year,
31:36
Speaker 1: left six people dead and another seven seriously wounded. It
31:40
Speaker 1: was a parking ticket that finally did David Berkowitz in
31:45
Speaker 1: in the early morning of July thirty first, nineteen seventy seven,
31:48
Speaker 1: just moments before we shot and killed Stacy Moskowitz and
31:51
Speaker 1: wounded Robert Volente as they sat in a car in Brooklyn.
31:55
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz's own car was ticketed for parking too close
31:58
Speaker 1: to a fire hydrant, and eye witnessed later told police
32:02
Speaker 1: she saw a young man snatch a ticket off his
32:04
Speaker 1: windshield and glare at her, just moments before she heard
32:07
Speaker 1: shots ring out. Eventually, that ticket led police to the
32:11
Speaker 1: yellow Ford Galaxy owned by David Burkowitz, and when they
32:15
Speaker 1: found it parked outside his apartment in Yonkers, it had
32:18
Speaker 1: a gun laying in the back seat and another letter
32:20
Speaker 1: to police detailing his grim final plan. But just because
32:25
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was finally jailed didn't mean the press coverage
32:28
Speaker 1: cooled off. If anything, it intensified. Papers jockeyed for access
32:35
Speaker 1: seeking explanations for how this could have happened. The New
32:38
Speaker 1: York Daily News blamed the LSD that David Berkowitz took
32:41
Speaker 1: as a soldier in Korea. Even the gray Lady of
32:44
Speaker 1: the local press, The New York Times, reported breathlessly on
32:48
Speaker 1: theories that David Berkowitz may have acted together with the
32:51
Speaker 1: sons of Sam Carr. The literal sons of Sam. Sam
32:56
Speaker 1: Carr was the neighbor who owned the black lab that
32:59
Speaker 1: David Burkowitz claimed had ordered him to kill. Stories like
33:04
Speaker 1: that only increased after both brothers died violent deaths in
33:08
Speaker 1: the two years following Berkowitz's arrest. On Friday September sixteenth,
33:15
Speaker 1: the New York Mets finally completed the game against the
33:17
Speaker 1: Chicago Cubs that had been postponed by the blackout, and
33:21
Speaker 1: that same day, Talking Head's debut album, also delayed by
33:25
Speaker 1: the blackout, was finally released. The Psycho Killer was the
33:30
Speaker 1: first single, Seymour Stein's new wave marketing strategy worked perfectly
33:36
Speaker 1: for a band of clean cut art school students. They
33:39
Speaker 1: didn't look like punks, they didn't sound like punks. They
33:42
Speaker 1: were the vanguard of an entirely new sound, and by
33:46
Speaker 1: the following spring, David Burkowitz was found legally sane and
33:51
Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty five years to life, Thanks in no
33:54
Speaker 1: small part to the publicity around the case. Around that
33:58
Speaker 1: same time, the talking single Psycho Killer snuck onto the
34:02
Speaker 1: Billboard Hot one hundred for a five week run, peaking
34:05
Speaker 1: at number ninety two. It was a hit, just barely,
34:09
Speaker 1: but it was enough of a hit to guarantee the
34:11
Speaker 1: band a second album on Sire. They made the most
34:15
Speaker 1: of it. Learning from previous experience, they lined up Brian Eno,
34:20
Speaker 1: formerly of the band Roxy Music and at the time
34:23
Speaker 1: one of David Bowie's musical collaborators, to produce their next record.
34:28
Speaker 1: Finally working with someone who was on their wavelength, the
34:32
Speaker 1: band ditched the standard studio practices of recording in isolation. Instead,
34:37
Speaker 1: they played together in the same room, allowing them to
34:40
Speaker 1: harness the energy of their set in the recording studio.
34:45
Speaker 1: Brian Eno rode the rhythm section of Tina Weymouth and
34:48
Speaker 1: Chris Franz, as he pushed the band into a funkier,
34:51
Speaker 1: more stylistically diverse sound. Their second album, More Songs About
34:56
Speaker 1: Buildings and Food, went all the way up to number
34:59
Speaker 1: twenty nine, largely powered by their Cold Detached, an incredibly
35:04
Speaker 1: funky cover of Al Green's Take Me to the River.
35:09
Speaker 1: The band worked with Brian Eno for three albums in total,
35:13
Speaker 1: including one of their many masterpieces, Remain in Light. Over
35:18
Speaker 1: the years, David Byrne and Brian Eno continued to collaborate
35:21
Speaker 1: on more award winning albums and projects, including My Life
35:25
Speaker 1: in the Bush of Ghosts in twenty eighteen's American Utopia,
35:29
Speaker 1: which charted higher than any Talking Heads album ever did.
35:34
Speaker 1: The power of art is an incredible thing. It took
35:38
Speaker 1: an awkward college dropout and gave him an outlet, a
35:41
Speaker 1: way to communicate, a way to connect to c and
35:44
Speaker 1: to be seen, and it made him a star. Without art,
35:49
Speaker 1: who knows where David Byrne would have ended up. David Berkowitz,
35:52
Speaker 1: on the other hand, found no such connection, no outlet
35:56
Speaker 1: for his rage, for his pain, and because of that,
36:00
Speaker 1: he inflicted that rage and that pain on the world
36:04
Speaker 1: around him. It's enough to make you wonder if he
36:07
Speaker 1: had found his place, could this have been stopped? Could
36:11
Speaker 1: those lives have been saved? Could it all have turned
36:14
Speaker 1: out differently with another chance? Could David Berkowitz have turned
36:19
Speaker 1: out like David Byrne? Or was David Berkowitz simply destined
36:24
Speaker 1: for evil, for violence, for disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and
36:33
Speaker 1: this this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and
37:03
Speaker 1: is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this
37:06
Speaker 1: episode can be found on the show notes page at
37:08
Speaker 1: disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All
37:12
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