Few bands can boast a per­for­mance so image-defin­ing as the one the Talk­ing Heads pulled off in Jonathan Dem­me’s Stop Mak­ing Sense. Giv­en its phys­i­cal metic­u­lous­ness, its seam­less edit­ing, and its refined aes­thet­ic sense — qual­i­ties rarely pri­or­i­tized in rock con­cert films — its place in the zeit­geist seems well earned. But that pic­ture opened in 1984, when the band had already released its most wide­ly respect­ed albums, and when they had only four years to go before effec­tive­ly dis­solv­ing. Live in Rome, which you can now watch uncut on YouTube, cap­tures the Heads in 1980, a less estab­lished moment in their his­to­ry. David Byrne and com­pa­ny express the same kind of off-kil­ter ener­gy on dis­play in Stop Mak­ing Sense — the enthu­si­asm of punks who also hap­pen to be musi­col­o­gy nerds — but here they express it in a sim­pler, more tra­di­tion­al­ly “rock con­cert-ish” set­ting.

Talk­ing Heads enthu­si­asts, note that Live in Rome fea­tures the group’s full “Afro-Funk Orches­tra” line­up. Addi­tion­al­ly, you’ll see on gui­tar a cer­tain Adri­an Belew, who would begin fronting King Crim­son the fol­low­ing year. (As he might, in anoth­er real­i­ty, have front­ed the Heads them­selves; in our real­i­ty, he turned down an offer to take Byrne’s place.) The songs not heard in Stop Mak­ing Sense include “Stay Hun­gry,” “Cities,” “I Zim­bra,” “Drugs,” “Hous­es in Motion,” “Born Under Punch­es,” and “The Great Curve.” No die-hard fan will feel com­plete­ly sat­is­fied with this con­cert, of course, until some­one remas­ters it on Blu-Ray with a com­plete sur­round sound mix. But if you sim­ply need a hit of a pack of art-school rock­ers unlike any oth­ers Amer­i­ca has pro­duced, this Remain in Light-era hour mer­its a per­ma­nent book­mark. H/T Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed con­tent:

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

David Byrne Inter­views Him­self, Plays Sev­en Char­ac­ters, in Fun­ny Pro­mo for Stop Mak­ing Sense

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

For most chil­dren the word “play­ing” brings to mind things like wif­fle­ball or hide-and-seek. But for a very few tal­ent­ed and ded­i­cat­ed kids it means Mozart, or Mendelssohn. Today we bring you four videos of famous vio­lin­ists play­ing when they were incred­i­bly young.

Itzhak Perl­man, age 13: “When I came to the Unit­ed States, ” Itzhak Perl­man told Pia Lind­strom of The New York Times in 1996, “I appeared on The Ed Sul­li­van Show as a 13-year-old and I played a Mendelssohn Con­cer­to and it sound­ed like a tal­ent­ed 13-year-old with a lot of promise. But it did not sound like a fin­ished prod­uct.” In the clip above, Perl­man plays from the third move­ment of Felix Mendelssohn’s Con­cer­to in E minor dur­ing his debut Sul­li­van Show appear­ance in 1958. The young boy was an instant hit with the audi­ence, and Sul­li­van invit­ed him back. Encour­aged by his sud­den celebri­ty, Perl­man’s par­ents decid­ed to move from Israel to New York and enroll him in Jul­liard. But despite his pre­coc­i­ty, Perl­man mod­est­ly asserts that he was no child prodi­gy. “A child prodi­gy is some­body who can step up to the stage of Carnegie Hall and play with an orches­tra one of the stan­dard vio­lin con­cer­tos with aplomb,” Perl­man told Lind­strom. “I could­n’t do that! I can name you five peo­ple who could do that at the age of 10 or 11, and did. Not five, maybe three. But I could­n’t do that.”

Anne-Sophie Mut­ter, age 13:

One vio­lin­ist who cer­tain­ly was able to per­form at a high lev­el at a very ear­ly age was the Ger­man vir­tu­oso Anne-Sophie Mut­ter, shown here per­form­ing the Médi­ta­tion from the Jules Massenet opera Thaïs with Her­bert von Kara­jan and the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic in 1976, when she was 13. Mut­ter began play­ing the vio­lin at the age of five, and by nine she was per­form­ing Mozart’s Sec­ond Vio­lin Con­cer­to in pub­lic. Kara­jan took her under his wing when she was 13, call­ing her “the great­est musi­cal prodi­gy since the young Menuhin.”

Jascha Heifetz, age 11:

Jascha Heifetz was indis­putably one of the great­est vio­lin­ists of the 20th cen­tu­ry. His father, a music teacher, first put a vio­lin into his hands when Heifetz was only two years old. He entered music school in his home­town of Vil­nius, Lithua­nia, at the age of five, and by sev­en he was per­form­ing in pub­lic. At nine he entered the St. Peters­burg Con­ser­va­to­ry, where he stud­ied with Leopold Auer. In this very rare audio record­ing from Novem­ber 4, 1912, an 11-year-old Heifetz per­forms Auer’s tran­scrip­tion of Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart’s Gavotte in G from the opera Idome­neo. It was made by Julius Block on a wax-cylin­der Edi­son phono­graph in Grünewald, Ger­many. Heifetz is accom­pa­nied by Walde­mar Lia­chowsky on piano. At the end of the per­for­mance the young boy’s voice can be heard speak­ing in Ger­man. Rough­ly trans­lat­ed, he says, “I, Jascha Heifetz of Peters­burg, played with Herr Block, Grünewald, Gavotte Mozart-Auer on the fourth of Novem­ber, nine­teen hun­dred and ten.” A week ear­li­er, Heifetz made his debut appear­ance with the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic. In a let­ter of intro­duc­tion to the Ger­man man­ag­er Her­man Fer­now, Auer said of Heifetz: “He is only eleven years old, but I assure you that this lit­tle boy is already a great vio­lin­ist. I mar­vel at his genius, and I expect him to become world-famous and make a great career. In all my fifty years of vio­lin teach­ing, I have nev­er known such pre­coc­i­ty.”

Joshua Bell, age 12:

The Amer­i­can vio­lin­ist Joshua Bell began play­ing when he was four years old, and made his debut as a soloist with the Philadel­phia Orches­tra when he was 14. The video above is dif­fer­ent from the oth­ers, in that it does­n’t present a pol­ished per­for­mance. Instead, we watch as the leg­endary vio­lin teacher Ivan Galami­an con­ducts a les­son in 1980, when Bell was 12. Bell spent two sum­mers study­ing at Galami­an’s Mead­ow­mount School of Music in the Adiron­dack Moun­tains of upstate New York. In the video, the elder­ly teacher works with Bell as he plays from Pierre Rode’s Etude No. 1.

Thanks to The Wall Street Jour­nal, you can endure box­er Man­ny Pac­quiao singing a ver­sion of John Lennon’s 1971 peace anthem, Imag­ine. It’s pret­ty painful, not quite as painful as tak­ing a Pac­quiao punch, but painful nonethe­less. We float­ed it on Twit­ter (fol­low us here) and we were quick­ly remind­ed that Pac­quiao is hard­ly the first per­son to butch­er The Bea­t­les. (No real knock on him, we’re just hav­ing some fun here.) So we start­ed pulling togeth­er your favorites. What are the worst Bea­t­les’ cov­ers you’ve ever heard — ones so bad, they’re good? Let us know in the com­ments or on Twit­ter, and we’ll start adding them to the post.

In 1968, William Shat­ner, rid­ing high on his Star Trek fame, released his first music album, The Trans­formed Man. It fea­tured poet­ry mixed with pop lyrics and a near­ly blas­phe­mous ver­sion of Lucy in the Sky with Dia­monds. It’s here that the cheese began.

Also in 1968, the young come­di­an Bill Cos­by released Bill Cos­by Sings Hooray For The Sal­va­tion Army Band!. The par­o­dy album starts with Cos­by singing a semi-seri­ous ver­sion of Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band. It was a high point for nei­ther the come­di­an nor the band.

Tel­ly Savalas — you know him from Kojak — sings George Har­rison’s Some­thing in a very lounge lizard kind of way. So awful it’s awe­some.

Michael McK­ean (This is Spinal Tap!) offers up this: Mil­ton Berle singing The Yel­low Sub­ma­rine. It was­n’t one of The Bea­t­les’ best songs, let’s admit it. But Berle did­n’t exact­ly ele­vate it. Uncle Miltie’s record­ing was made in 1968 (do you see a trend here?), not long after the ani­mat­ed Yel­low Sub­ma­rine hit the­aters.

From her 1966 album Way Out West, old time movie star Mae West sings Day Trip­per. Rec­om­mend­ed by @tonymolloy.

Sean Con­nery talk­ing his way through In My Life. And amaz­ing­ly George Mar­tin is respon­si­ble for this.

You can’t talk about so-bad-they’re-good Bea­t­les cov­ers with­out giv­ing a nod to Wing. The Hong Kong-born singer, now based in New Zealand, has record­ed a full album in her out-of-tune singing style. Is it par­o­dy? Is it seri­ous? Who knows. Her album can be had here: Wing Sings the Bea­t­les

Elva Ruby Connes Miller, oth­er­wise known as Mrs. Miller, cov­ered numer­ous songs dur­ing the 1960s, includ­ing A Hard Day’s Night. Her voice was com­pared to the sound of “roach­es scur­ry­ing across a trash can lid.” More recent­ly, this clip was fea­tured on EarBleed.com … for pret­ty good rea­son. Good find Daniel.

And now the male answer to Mrs. Miller, the immor­tal Tiny Tim and his ver­sion of Nowhere Man.

Here is Ger­many’s answer to Wing.  It is Klaus Bey­er’s remake of Back in the U.S.S.R.

This is from “Ban­da Plás­ti­ca de Tepetlix­pa.” Accord­ing to leg­end, John and Paul went to Mex­i­co, to a town called Tepetlix­pa, where peo­ple received them as dis­tin­guished guests. Local brass bands start­ed play­ing the Bea­t­les’ music and moved the singer-song­writer duo to tears. Some time lat­er, the Tepetlix­pa band record­ed Adios a Los Bea­t­les (Good­bye to the Bea­t­les), a 10-song trib­ute to the genius­es from Liv­er­pool. Jaime Orte­ga has more back­sto­ry in the com­ments sec­tion below.

@Brian_M_Cassidy asks: Is this what you’re look­ing for? Indeed it is. The Red Navy Singers, Dancers & Musi­cians sings Let It Be, dur­ing the final days of the Sovi­et Union.

We would­n’t want to leave France out. Here, Les com­pagnons de la chan­son sing Le Sous-Marin Vert. Thanks Pierre.

And final­ly pulling up the rear, The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Male Voice Choir sing When I’m Six­ty Four. H/T Olidez

On March 19, 1965, the Bill Evans Trio stopped by the BBC stu­dios in Lon­don to play a pair of sets on Jazz 625, the now-leg­endary pro­gram host­ed by the British trum­peter Humphrey Lyt­tel­ton. The combo–which fea­tured Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Lar­ry Bunker on drums–played two sets, includ­ing most of the songs from their just-com­plet­ed album, Trio ’65. The two 35-minute pro­grams (shown con­sec­u­tive­ly in the video above) take us back in time to see and hear one of the most bril­liant and influ­en­tial jazz pianists of all time, at work in a tight­ly inte­grat­ed trio.

Set One:

1. “Five,” by Bill Evans
2. “Elsa,” by Earl Zin­dars
3. “Sum­mer­time,” by George Gersh­win
4. “Come Rain or Come Shine,” by Harold Arlen
5. “My Fool­ish Heart,” by Vic­tor Young
6. “Re: Per­son I Knew,” by Bill Evans
7. “Israel,” by John­ny Carisi
8. “Five,” by Bill Evans (reprise)

Set Two:

1. “Five,” by Bill Evans
2. “How My Heart Sings,” by Earl Zin­dars
3. “Nardis,” by Miles Davis
4. “Who Can I Turn To?” by Antho­ny New­ley and Leslie Bricusse
5. “Some­day My Prince Will Come,” by Frank Churchill
6. “How Deep is the Ocean?” by Bill Evans
7. “Five,” by Bill Evans (reprise)

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learn­ing to Play Jazz

Thelo­nious Monk, Bill Evans and More on the Clas­sic Jazz 625 Show

The Fla­men­co gui­tar grew up in Andalu­sia, the major province in south­ern Spain, where it became inte­gral to the cul­ture dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry. The mod­ern fla­men­co gui­tar (a first cousin of the mod­ern clas­si­cal gui­tar) is typ­i­cal­ly made with two of three woods — spruce on the top, and cypress or sycamore on the back and sides. When put in the hands of the right luthi­er, the gui­tar can become a thing of beau­ty. Case in point: This art­ful video by Greek film­mak­er Dim­itris Ladopou­los brings you inside the work­shop of Vasilis Lazarides, who spe­cial­izes in mak­ing high qual­i­ty fla­men­co gui­tars by hand. (Vis­it his gui­tars online here.) 299 hours of blood, sweat, tears and love go into mak­ing each fine gui­tar. But you can watch it all hap­pen in a mat­ter of three min­utes, with the music of Edsart Udo de Haes pro­vid­ing the sound­track.

If elec­tric gui­tars hap­pen to be your thing, you can also watch Fend­ers being made in 1959 and 2012.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch FLAMENCO AT 5:15, a Life-Affirm­ing, Oscar-Win­ning Doc­u­men­tary About a Fla­men­co Dance Class

Hear Metallica’s “Noth­ing Else Mat­ters” Cov­ered in Unex­pect­ed Styles: Gre­go­ri­an Choir, Cel­lo Ensem­ble, Finnish Blue­grass, Jazz Vocal & More

On Mon­day, we post­ed the Artist Series, short pro­files of var­i­ous aes­thet­i­cal­ly-ori­ent­ed cre­ators by the late Hill­man Cur­tis. Today, please enjoy what feels like the jew­el in the Artist Series’ crown, despite not offi­cial­ly being part of it: Cur­tis’ pro­mo­tion­al doc­u­men­tary on Bri­an Eno and David Byrne and their col­lab­o­ra­tion on 2008’s Every­thing That Hap­pens Hap­pen Will Hap­pen Today.

Cur­tis inter­views Eno and Byrne in their sep­a­rate work­spaces, cap­tures their con­ver­sa­tions about parts of their songs, and even — pre­sum­ably in keep­ing with the album’s do-it-your­self pro­mo­tion­al spir­it — lets them pho­to­graph one anoth­er. He also shows them doing what they do best when not cre­at­ing: cycling, of course, in Byrne’s case, and look­ing pen­sive­ly through win­dows in Eno’s.

In none of these nine min­utes do Byrne or Eno per­form any­thing. Cur­tis does­n’t need them to; he taps instead into the com­bi­na­tion of artic­u­la­cy, clar­i­ty, and idio­syn­crasy that has earned them near­ly forty years of sta­tus as cere­bral pop­u­lar music icons. Just as the ear­ly eight­ies’ nascent sam­pling tech­nol­o­gy gave Byrne and Eno a new frame­work with which to think about music when they record­ed My Life in the Bush of Ghosts togeth­er, the abil­i­ty to send sounds over the inter­net and exten­sive­ly mod­i­fy absolute­ly any record­ing after the fact shaped the con­struc­tion of Every­thing That Hap­pens Will Hap­pen Today.

The result­ing pro­duc­tion legit­i­mate­ly earns the crit­i­cal­ly abused adjec­tive “dream­like” — have a lis­ten to the track “I Feel My Stuff” above — and the feel of Cur­tis’ video aligns with the feel of the album, using unblink­ing gazes and drift­ing track­ing shots that would­n’t feel out of place in an Apichat­pong Weerasethakul film. If you still want to see these guys actu­al­ly play some­thing, watch Ride, Rise, Roar (trail­er here, clip below), Cur­tis’ con­cert film of the Songs of David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Tour.

Relat­ed con­tent

Bri­an Eno on Cre­at­ing Music and Art As Imag­i­nary Land­scapes (1989)

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

Sketch­es of Artists by the Late New Media Design­er Hill­man Cur­tis

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.