Tom Tom Club drums up a live album

Tom Tom Club - Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth - know that when they put out a live album, people will give it a lot of extra attention.

After all, husband and wife Frantz and Weymouth were half of one of the best - if not the best - concert movies and live albums of all time when they did "Stop Making Sense" with their band Talking Heads.

However, "Genius of Live" (Nacional), which was released last month and which Tom Tom Club is promoting with a national tour, was never meant to compete with the classic.

"That was recorded at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles with a massive crew and a huge audience," Frantz says, calling from the Connecticut home he and Weymouth share. "This album was recorded at our home in front of a small audience of friends."

"Genius of Live" was recorded to document a lineup of Tom Tom Club that worked well together, at a time when things were more uncertain, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The band wanted to take all the sadness and confusion they were feeling at the time and turn it into something positive and fun, Frantz says.

That good-time feeling has always been part of the Tom Tom Club sound, its mix of funk, reggae, Afrobeat and hip-hop showing how cultures can influence each other to create something new. But the sense of playing on "Genius of Live" seems heightened during the show, as they extend their classics like "The Man With the 4-Way Hips" and "Wordy Rappinghood" to epic, eight-minute-plus lengths.

And, of course, there's the masterful "Genius of Love."

"It's one of those songs that's always fun to play," Frantz says. "We're so happy that the audience reacts to it the same way that the band does, even today. When you write a song, you never know if it's going to stand the test of time."

But "Genius of Love" has stood the test of time for decades, reworked and reimagined by everyone from Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five to Mariah Carey. ("The one that totally surprised me was Mariah Carey's because it had such special meaning to her," Frantz says of Carey's "Fantasy." "It was such a big success. That song helped put our kids through college.")

"We still get such a feeling of transcendence when we play that song," says Frantz, adding how thrilled he was at all the remixes of the song that are included with the "Genius of Live" album, from Latin alternative artists such as Kinky and Ozomatli to world-beat masters like Money Mark.

It was that feeling of transcendence that kept Nacional Records founder and president Tomas Cookman coming back to Tom Tom Club's live album, which originally was released in 2002. And whenever other people heard him playing it, they always wondered who it was.

"He asked us what we thought about it being re-released, giving it a proper release," Frantz says. "We thought that was a great idea."

Tom Tom Club decided to support the new release with a full national tour as a way to look to the future. "We wanted to re-establish ourselves as a really great live touring band," Frantz says. "We still enjoy it, and we want to see a whole lot of old friends and hopefully meet some new ones."

Though Frantz and Weymouth also are looking at producing some new artists and rebuilding their home studio in Connecticut so they can better handle future Tom Tom Club projects, they are still looking forward to performing regularly again.

Frantz says he and Weymouth would love to play with Talking Heads again, though after the band's stormy relationship and its frosty reunion when it was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, that doesn't seem likely.

"When we first started the Tom Tom Club, we saw it as a departure from Talking Heads and we wanted it to be different so it wouldn't be competition," Frantz says. "Talking Heads was the mother ship to us, and in many ways it still is. We would be happy if we could do more with Talking Heads, but we remain very separate. Tina and Jerry [Harrison] and I would be open to do it if David [Byrne] would be interested. What could be better? Maybe someday it will happen."

Until then, though, Tom Tom Club will continue to work on its own "genius of love" and look to create another classic.

A genius for inspiring

Tom Tom Club plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary of "Genius of Love" next year with an extensive tour, but the genius of the band's classic has been celebrated for years by artists as diverse as Mariah Carey and 2Pac by incorporating it into their own music.

Here's some of the best songs "Genius of Love" has spawned:

Mariah Carey, "Fantasy" (1995) - Mariah loops the song's intro and sings over it and lands a No. 1 song, though she makes sure to pay homage by keeping a verse intact. The ODB cameo on the remix takes the song to a whole other memorable level.

Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, "It's Nasty" (1982) - The hip-hop pioneers sample the song's groove and turn it into both the backdrop for the verses and an instrumental hook.

2Pac, "High Speed" (1999) - Instead of the music, 2Pac reworks part of the song's lyrics to become the chorus in his tale, answering the question of "What you gonna do when you get out of jail?" with "I'm gonna buy me a gun."

Busta Rhymes featuring Erykah Badu, "One" (1997) - Busta takes the squonk of Adrian Belew's distinctive guitarwork and layers it underneath a Stevie Wonder melody and then nods to the song in the opening when he asks, "What am I gonna do with Erykah Badu? I'm gonna have some fun."

Redman, "Brick City Mashin' " (1998) - Redman slows down a sample of the groove to a stoner-friendly speed and then rhymes over the results.