Tom Tom Club Return With Tour, 'Genius of Live' Reissue

Fear not, folks in the "flyover states." Tom Tom Club may have canceled shows in Cleveland, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago and Toledo, as well two cities in Canada, cutting short what was to have been an extensive September tour, but the dance-rock band will make up the dates next year.

"What happened was we were advised by our management team that we should revisit the sort of center of the country in 2011, when we sort of re-establish ourselves a little better," drummer Chris Frantz tells Spinner. "So we're going to be playing both coasts and doing television. We've been asked to do a number of TV shows, and we're going to also be doing some dates in France after that."

Frantz and his wife, bassist Tina Weymouth, formed the Tom Tom Club in 1980 while on break from their day jobs with Talking Heads. While the offshoot group is beloved by Heads heads and music fans of a certain age, Frantz has his sights set on the younger set -- kids who might not even remember Mariah's Carey's 1995 hit 'Fantasy,' one of the countless hip-hop and R&B tunes built on samples from 'Genius of Love,' the standout single from Tom Tom Club's self-titled debut.

"There are a lot of kids out there that might have heard of Tom Tom Club, but they're not really that familiar with it, especially in what I would call the Heartland," Frantz said. "So we're basically trying to reestablish ourselves in a way that makes sense and not just go willy-nilly here and there. It's always tempting when you have an agent to book a whole lot of dates, but when we sat back and thought maybe some of these dates don't really make sense for us at this point in time. Maybe next year would be better."

This month's truncated tour will serve to promote 'Genius of Live,' a two-disc set comprising a 2002 live album and a bonus collection of 'Genius of Love' remixes. Frantz said the idea to revisit the live record -- recorded at the band's Clubhouse studio and art space in Fairfield, Ct. -- came from Tomas Cookman, a longtime friend and head of Nacional Records.

"Tomas called -- this is a real old-fashioned music-business story, but I love this type of thing -- he called up and said, 'I'm playing your live album, and people keep poking their head in and saying, "Who's that? They sound really badass,"'" Frantz says. "'What would you think if we rereleased your live album?' And Tina and I thought about it for 20 seconds and said, 'Great idea!"

Tom Tom Club's 'Genius of Live' reissue is due out Sept. 28.