With David Byrne's neurotic vocals and a blend of bouncing funk, punk and fractured pop, Talking Heads was an unusual band from the start.
But three minutes into their fourth studio album, 1980's "Remain In Light," in tumbled a guitar solo that pushed the boundaries of their sound. Its scattershot bleeps, bloops and bending notes sounded more like Pac Man in the throes of a seizure than any six-string instrument.
Even a listener familiar with the band had to sit up and wonder: What the heck was that?
It wasn't a video game on the fritz, but Adrian Belew, whose squawks and squeals, abstract textures and intricately plucked patterns have defied the limits of guitar music for more than three decades. He got his first big break touring with Frank Zappa in 1977, became front man for progressive rock giants King Crimson, and has played with everyone from David Bowie to Paul Simon to Nine Inch Nails to Cyndi Lauper.
Soon, Belew will add Natick to the long list of places he's toured. His latest project, the Adrian Belew Power Trio - featuring young brother and sister Eric and Julie Slick on drums and bass - stops at the Center for Arts in Natick on Sunday, March 9, during a month-long national tour in support of their new live album, "Side Four."
"I get to play with my hero," Eric Slick, 20, said in a phone interview. "I've been listening to Adrian since I was about 11 years old and I heard a cassette tape of King Crimson's 'Frame by Frame."'
For the most part, the trio is playing a showcase of Belew's work, with about two-thirds of the songs pulled from his solo albums. Much of the rest of their set is made up of King Crimson songs from the '80s and later, Slick said.
But the trio is exploring new territory of its own, debuting an original song, "e," live during the tour. While the songs pull from Belew's catalog, the shows aren't rote performances, but three musicians reacting and playing off one another.
"It's coming from a place that's very personal and fun and playful. We're having fun on stage. You don't see that much these days," Slick said.
"We're having a ball. We're collectively improvising and really striving to do something musically adventurous."
Despite his influence in the music world, Belew is far from a pampered rock God - his near-hit "Oh Daddy" in 1989 featured his daughter wondering when he'd finally strike it rich. The Power Trio is traversing the country not in a private jet or giant tour bus, but in a Dodge Caravan, Slick said. Belew and his wife, Martha, share duties at the wheel.
Though they have performed together since 2006, this is the trio's first long tour together. They first met while Belew was visiting the School of Rock in Philadelphia to advise students, and the owner urged him to jam with two of his former students - Eric and Julie.
"I was freaked," Slick said. "I was very nervous. I still get nervous, but I was very nervous before that happened. It's something out of a book. Opportunities like that don't really come along ever."
Before long, the trio performed together in New York, and Belew invited the siblings to his studio outside Nashville to start learning songs, Slick said.
Slick said he and his sister have been musically inclined since the beginning, using a microphone and two boomboxes to record songs in their Philadelphia living room. "I started playing percussion when I was about 2 years old. She would just kind of sing along," he said. "We would sing songs about how much we loved our mom."
Though Slick said he listens to bands like Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective, his views seem well-paired with Belew, who laments in a video on his Web site that so much modern music is "fashionable crap dressed as artistry."
"I try and stay current with new music, but a lot of it, I can't really tolerate it," said Slick, who spent much of his teenage years exploring classic rock and bands like The Flaming Lips. Now he's often occupied with Igor Stravinsky and Charles Mingus.
The trio breaks away from that "highly choreographed" and "overly serious" music, Slick said. He said the band shares a special, sophisticated sense of communication on stage, and they're working hard. But above all, they're having fun.
"I think what we're doing is very unique and very different," Slick said. "There's a lot of soul in our show."
The Adrian Belew Power Trio plays at The Center for Arts in Natick, 14 Summer St., Sunday, March 9, at 8 p.m. Admission is $37, $35 for members and seniors and students get a $1 discount. Call 508-647-0097 or visit natickarts.org.
David Riley can be reached at 508-626-3919 or driley@cnc.com.
