Talking Heads were one of the least punky-sounding punk groups when they released their debut single in the summer of 1977.

Punk rock was always a broader church than we tend to remember. Even more so in America, where The Ramones spawned fellow travellers as diverse as Television and Blondie.

And punk bands were never less punky than Talking Heads. At least that’s the way they sounded – clean-cut and geeky, their restrained sound simmering with tense, nervous energy.

I once brought this up with David Byrne when I was lucky enough to interview them, and he was adamant that despite their preppy clothes, and songs
that eschewed angry thrashing and bellowing, their self-taught DIY attitude was very much part of punk.

The band began in the early 1970s when Byrne was studying art at Rhode Island School of Design and formed a two man band called The Artistics with Chris Frantz, one of his fellow students.

Byrne sang and played guitar, Frantz played drums and his girlfriend Tina Weymouth, another art student, drove them to gigs.

That’s the way it stayed until they moved to New York and Weymouth learned to play bass by copying Suzi Quatro records. Byrne reputedly made her audition three times for the job.

Their first gig as Talking Heads was supporting The Ramones at CBGBs in June 1975 and 18 months later they were signed to that band’s label, Sire.

Their first single, Love → Building on Fire, recorded when they were still a trio, came out in March 1977, two months after former Modern Lovers member Jerry Harrison had joined on keyboards and guitar – and seven months before their debut album (on which it was not included) .

With its gently strummed intro, Byrne’s guitar accompanied by twittering birds, it’s typical of their jittery, almost acoustic style in those early days.

Talking Heads never quite fitted in with the filth and the fury of the punkier punk bands to whom we had become accustomed.

Which is why, to my eternal shame, when they made their debut at The Roundhouse in June 1977 sandwiched between the noisy thrashing of The Saints and The Ramones, I spent much of their set talking to friends.

What an idiot I was – though I would get to see them several more times as they evolved into a very different-sounding band.