I realize things have been a bit slow around here lately. I’ll be live-blogging the Republican debate tonight. Here’s Song of the Week, a day early. Also too, feel free to consider this an open thread.
R.E.M., “Radio Free Europe” (1981)
I’m going to try being vaguely relevant just for a change of pace. I was plain surprised to hear the news that R.E.M. is hanging it up I figured by this point they were planning to just take it to their graves. Now they’re gone I’m casting my mind back
a long way. I remember well the offbeat wake-up call of that first single, though I couldn’t say at the time what struck so strong about it, and then the EP that built on that, and then Murmur, and so on and so forth. I admit I loved them beyond all sense at points, got tired unto the death of them at others, but they were always worth checking any time they came along with something new. Will miss them now, that’s for sure.
From Murmur: “Talk About the Passion”
More stuff at Can’t Explain.
tworivers
Fables is their best record IMO (love the murkiness of the production, and the songs are pretty great throughout).
As for their best song, I know most people would disagree with this, but I dig Life and How to Live It. Sounds great when you’re driving down the highway
schrodinger's cat
How many debates are they going to have? Why debate when you agree with each other?
BTW according to Balloon Juice’s favorite blogger, Elizabeth Warren is a Democratic Chris Christie, that left me scratching my head.
Big Baby DougJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
Who is our favorite blogger, Steve Benen?
Lojasmo
I love all of REM’s first three albums. After that, it was hit or miss for me. Automatic for the people pretty much blows.
trollhattan
@Big Baby DougJ:
I figured s/he meant Sully. :-P
Also, too, HP have evidently lost their fracking minds.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/faster-forward/post/report-whitman-to-replace-apotheker-as-h-ps-ceo/2011/09/22/gIQAEOAznK_blog.html?hpid=z3
Also, also, too, pollution prevention saves, not costs money.
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2011/09/21/report-health-benefits-of-obama-epas-air-pollution-rules-would-far-outweight-their-costs/#comments
schrodinger's cat
@Big Baby DougJ: Andrew Sullivan of course.
schrodinger's cat
@trollhattan: You are right and I am a girl.
ETA: Or I could be Tunch, for all you know.
Elizabelle
Driver 8
West of the Fields.
Not too many lyrics with “Elysian” in them.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat:
You beat me to putting that one up.
Checked in on Andrew for the first time in 10 days, saw that “Chris Christie = Elizabeth Warren” and fled.
Blogs we mock, tell it.
Comrade Javamanphil
Borrowed a cassette tape of Murmur and Reckoning from a fellow student as we travelled around the USSR in 1985 as teenagers. Pretty much changed everything musically for me. Didn’t follow REM much in the 90s though. “Welcome to the Occupation” and “Gardening at Night” are two favorites rarely mentioned.
James Gary
My R.E.M. moment was discovering, around 1986, that even though I only knew the basic (open) guitar chords, I could pretty much figure out (by ear), and play, at tempo, *all* the songs on the first three records.
I can’t even begin to express how massively empowered I felt at that moment. Even though I did not go on to become a professional musician, a universe of possibilities had suddenly opened up for me.
JPK
@Comrade Javamanphil: I like “Gardening at Night” quite a bit — I was actually looking for the original EP version of it on YouTube.
shortstop
Nicely put.
And I was so young when Murmur came out and captured me that I am probably having some egotistical mourning of self along with being sad to see them go. Sort of a musical grieving over Goldengrove unleaving.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Andrew Sullivan sez, Dave Weigel is comparing her videos to Chris Christie’s. Oddly enough, I’m not aware of Prof Warren chewing people out for raising awkward questions.
Elizabelle
OT, and this guy is not REM quality, but this “Starbucks Song” made me laugh.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2011/09/21/2052357/youtube-video-goes-venti-after.html
Back to REM: fitting they didn’t do a farewell tour — sounds like their values — but I would have liked to say goodbye in person.
No one else like them with a catalog like theirs.
Maybe Elvis Costello with his various bands …
Seems Dire Straits had fewer songs, and more pop-like excursions …
David Marotta
Sitting Still, 9-9, Driver 8, Find the River, Don’t go back to Rockville, Harbor Coat
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Plus she is not an obnoxious 300 pound boor, the last time I checked. Dave Weigel may have said it, but Andrew Sullivan seems to have linked it approvingly in his blog, so I guess he agrees.
BGinCHI
Something really interesting is going on in the new Decembrists record.
No, not just their lyrics, which are always good. It’s the guitar. Chris Funk has a Rickenbacker and he’s using it. His playing on this newest record (The King is Dead) is right out of the Peter Buck tradition, following the Byrds.
I’m amazed at how closely Funk hews to the REM model.
Listen for it.
Sentient Puddle
Points for using the Hib Tone version of the song.
James Gary
Andrew Sullivan sez, Dave Weigel is comparing her videos to Chris Christie’s.
He is? I can hardly wait to read Brad DeLong’s comments on Matt Yglesias’s assessment of Steve Benen’s thoughts on the situation.
MikeJ
Here’s what I posted on cleek’s post because I’m too lazy and sweaty right now to rewrite it:
I first saw them at Graham Chapel at Wash U on the Reckoning tour with the dB’s opening. For the encore the dB’s came out and Holsapple taught Buck Television’s See No Evil on the spot.
I lived in Memphis when they recorded Green at Ardent. They’d show up at the Antenna and ask who ever was playing if they could do a set, but you never knew when they’d show up. I had a friend who was in a local band called the Penetrators who had REM and the ‘Mats both ask to borrow the stage in the same summer.
I had started hanging out at the Antenna because I had interviewed another band, and they put my 16 yr self on the list. They used to cover Radio Free Europe, and I’d guess that was my first exposure to REM. (The singer of that band went on the engineer SY’s Washing Machine and a bunch of other stuff.
I also saw 3/4s of them at the 40w the year of the first Lollapalooza. My friends and I drove to Atlanta for the show, I demanded the side trip pilgrimage to Athens, and we got lucky. Vic Chesnutt was opening for Robyn Hitchcock. Both acts started their sets as solos, both had the REM boys join them. I was close enough I could have ripped the prismatic skull sticker off Peter Buck’s black Ric. Lollapalooza was good, but was sort of an anticlimax for me.
There were other stadium shows sprinkled in there, and while they were fun, they weren’t the same as the little shows. REM will always be one of my faves. The band and their music are associated with pretty much every part of my life from teenhood on.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: You want the Funk; give up the Funk?
Elizabelle
Fireplace and Oddfellows Local from “Document”
REM is my desert island band.
Stefan
@shortstop:
I didn’t discover REM until some years after they’d started, so for me will “Murmur” will always be the soundtrack to my freshman year at college, sitting on the couch late at night with my friends. I hear those Peter Buck guitar chords and it’s like I’m there again though I never actually will be….
Ah youth! Ah beauty!
MikeJ
@Stefan: High and arguing over lyrics?
“We will gather throw up beer” in Sitting Still is one that I remember somebody offering up.
Spaghetti Lee
I do love some REM. Not old enough to have a nostalgic connection though. The whole Document album is great, and I loved Around The Sun more than most.
shortstop
Since this is an open thread: Will any jury convict me if I sharply poke a pro-death penalty acquaintance in the snoot after 1) he relates about a dozen “facts” related to the Davis case, 2) I gently correct him since his info is objectively wrong on all counts, and 3) he responds with “I simply disagree, that’s all”?
@Stefan: Are you younger than I am? I guess you are by a few years, come to think of it. Oh, Klaus, sie sind ein kind.
Stefan
@MikeJ:
Well, one of these. We never argued over the lyrics — we just let them wash over us….
Stefan
You know, I never knew what the damn words meant, but I do know how they made me feel.
Stefan
@shortstop:
I always find “Go fuck yourself” to be a fairly effective retort.
James Gary
“We will gather throw up beer” in Sitting Still is one that I remember somebody offering up.
There’s definitely an “…it” sound at the end of the line. I always heard “We could burn it in the cyst/We could gather, throw a fit,” which, to me, had overtones of some secretive Southern speaking-in-tongues cult ritual.
You can Google “Sitting Still REM song meaning” for others’ interpretations, which are probably equally valid.
schrodinger's cat
[email protected]
So did you finally wear seersucker in NY? Was it for a wedding, I forget.
The Dangerman
@James Gary:
Chicks dig the
long ballguitar player?One of my favorites: early (like Stipe with really long hair early) Wendell Gee.
kth
In hindsight it seemed as though they had mapped out a business strategy: get the critics on board with the quirky stuff (Chronic Town, Murmur), get the college dorm/frat early-adopters with the country/folk-tinged stuff (Reckoning through Life’s Rich Pageant), then go full arena (Document through Monster, the end of the line for them popularity-wise). If you were marketing a band to be enduringly popular, to sell lots of records over more than a decade, it seems to me that’s how you’d do it.
Not that I’m alleging cynicism, just that art and commerce are as unlikely to be diametrically opposed as they are to be positively aligned. And I make this conjecture as an unabashed fanatic for all of the IRS sides, and much of the late 80s stuff as well.
Stefan
@schrodinger’s cat:
And once again, you can’t wear seersucker after Labor Day north of the Mason-Dixon line.
What are we, farmers?
OGLiberal
BGinCHI,
The reason that sounds like Peter Buck is because it is Peter Buck. He played guitar on at least three os the songs on the album, the best ones. “Calamity Song”? “Down By The Water”? That’s Buck himself. Apparently he’s living in Portland these days.
Also hearing rumors that what you’re listening too might be the last Decemberists album. The lead guy – can’t remember his name – is talking about writing novels and other stuff.
Nancyboy
@BGinCHI: Nobody checks album credits in this download era, but Buck played on that Decemberists album.
@JPK: “Gardening At Night” (CT version).
Matt in HB
I don’t recall where I got it, but I vividly recall listening to Document for the first time. I was still in High School, some time in the late 80’s, late 1987 maybe. I listened to it the whole way through maybe four times. It took up most of my afternoon just listening and relistening to that CD. It’s a pretty straight forward jangly guitar rock album and I’d heard The One I love and End of the World on the radio, but it was a revelation. Welcome to the Occupation and Exhuming McCarthy are still favorites that I will stop what I’m doing and just soak in.
Although I like Green and Out of Time well enough, REM is almost exclusively those first four albums in my mind — the soundtrack of a fine piece of my youth.
Wag
Saw them at the Rainbow Music Hall in Denver summer of ’84. A mysterious sound with Stipe’s murmurin vocals that complelty captivated me. Saw them a few times off and on over the years, last time a couple of years ago at Red Rocks on the Accelerate (best album in years) tour, but it was never the same as the first few times. REM will always be the soundtrack for the mid 80’s.
I also recall driving across Utah blasting Murmur on the stereo, going to visit my girlfriend who was doing her Masters thesis in Zion NP. She was living in a funky Mormon town named Rockville. Given the ensuing divorce, I should’ve listened to the advice and not gone back.
shortstop
@Stefan: Get hold of yourself, pal! You’re about an inch away from maudlin! I mean, it’s not like I’ve spent portions of the last 36 hours sentimentally emailing lifelong friends with memories of all the things we did to an REM soundtrack.
JPL
Doug is going to live blog the debate? How many drinks to you need before doing that? ugh…
JPK
@Nancyboy: Thank you! I didn’t recall it as a live version but such is the nature of my memory these days, alas.
kth
oh, and “Green Grow the Rushes” from Fables
Elizabelle
Doug: I really like the “Can’t Explain” blog. Great stuff.
JPL
I know I could go to Fox news online to find out but this is less offensive.. what time is the debate?
also, too.. i don’t have cable so I expect Doug to paraphrase anyway he wants.
James Gary
@The Dangerman:
Indeed they do, although in a roundabout way that’s too complex to detail here. I will say that Peter Buck was a role model because he was sort of an anti-guitar hero–always staying out of the spotlight and playing fairly simple (although very cool) parts.
I loved “Wendell Gee” too…I was sort of crushed recently when a Pitchfork reviewer dismissed the song as “R.E.M.’s most mawkishly sentimental moment” or some such.
SteveinSC
Holy shit, Obama’s coming out against the fucking Republicans and about the Boner into McConnell bridge and you think that is slow? Shit, we’ve been waiting for this for three fucking years and you call that slow? Plus the republican clown show on the teevee for laughs and the US v Canada at 11:00. Obama on fire, Jamaican ribs, beer, a clown show and US soccer. Now that’s what I call a fun evening.
Cris (without an H)
What’s wrong with you?
Wag
I’m at work and can’t you tube, but check out REM’s Passiac show. the entire show is up on you tube. Great quality vintage early ’80s REM
schrodinger's cat
@Cris (without an H): He has run out HWs to grade.
Cris (without an H)
Okay, goddammit, I finally signed up for a stupid twitter account. I know I can follow @johngcole without signing up, but I figure there’s no real harm in joining the collective.
trollhattan
@schrodinger’s cat:
If ye indeed be Tunch, thy mousing skiz run well beyond biting they little heads off, nibbling on they tiny feet.
JPK
@Elizabelle: Thank you!
punkdavid
@Lojasmo:
Ouch. Automatic For The People, while not the same sound as the early albums, is a truly gorgeous record, deep and dark and nostalgic. Nightswimming just tears my heart out every time I hear it, or even say the title of the song.
As for the first three, maybe I’m a weird one, but the only one of those I ever really connected with was Reckoning. Murmur, which I know all true R.E.M. fans revere, has never clicked with me. I’m not sure what I’m missing.
My favorite is Life’s Rich Pageant, and my favorite song is “These Days”.
The Dangerman
@James Gary:
Too complex for Balloon Juice? Oh, dear.
Enjoy the debates tonight; I don’t know when the next one is (hasn’t there been one every week now for a while), but this should be the last one without Sarah. I wouldn’t be surprised if she announced tonight.
Nancyboy
@JPK: It wasn’t live. Sorry wrong C&P link. Here’s the actual “Gardening At Night” (there are at least four versions of that song).
OGLiberal
I love “Voice of Harold”. Anybody can read the liner notes of a gospel album over music. But Stipe is able to totally mimic his vocal stylings on “Seven Chinese Brothers” while reading from something he just happened to pick up in the studio.
Also prefer the Hib-Tone version of “Radio” and “different vocal mix” version of “Gardening”.
First time I saw them was in Philly in ’89 with Throwing Muses, another one of my favorite bands, opening up. That was at the Spectrum. Never had the pleasure of seeing them in a small venue.
Elizabelle
@JPK:
How cool that you’re here.
You remind me to dig out my remaindered copy of “How to Be Alone”, found (improbably) in some dollar store in a tiny North Carolina town. Never read it yet, but it was like finding a diamond when you weren’t even looking.
JPK
@Nancyboy: Oh yeah, that sounds right! Thanks.
JPL
btw.. Thad won’t be there tonight since he dropped out
Who is Thad you ask, I don’t have a clue. They all look or talk alike anyway.
trollhattan
@JPL:
Mittens’ gonna treasure the votes of Thad’s family and close friends, that’s for sure.
redshirt
Pop Song ’89 is an under rated classic – and a great song for new guitar players.
Also, word above to the IRS out take and B side album. “Voice Of Harold” is a trip!
JPK
@Elizabelle: It’s great if you like Franzen. I just finally got around to Freedom and really loved it, partly because I’m originally from the Twin Cities and I thought he really got the time and place right.
The Dangerman
@punkdavid:
Agreed; Nightswimming is great, but Ignoreland may be my fav from that disk.
Elizabelle
@punkdavid:
Trivia fact re Murmur, just found while wiki-ing Michael Stipe:
Strange to think of those two albums up against each other.
John O
For those who haven’t seen it, Jon Stewart’s interview with Mitch Daniels was classic.
Stewart did about 5 things you never see a Talking Head do, among them be unfailingly polite. He admitted he was in the economic class that would get “hurt” by the Obama proposal, for one.
BGinCHI
@OGLiberal:
@Nancyboy:
OK, that’s what I get for listening in MP3 and not reading anything about that record.
Well, at least my ear heard correctly.
Oh, and Colin Meloy’s sister is Mailie Meloy, the writer, so there’s some talent in that family for sure.
OGLiberal
Their first major TV appearance on Letterman was fantastic – you knew they were something special. I was barely a teen but a Letterman watcher and was shocked that a musical guest was playing two songs. They played “So. Central Rain” before it had a title. Stipe was so shy back then that Dave spent all his time talking to Mills (one of the best backing vocalists ever) and Buck while Mike sat in the back on the drum riser with his head down. I knew of the band already because of MTV, back when they played not only music but music you couldn’t hear anywhere outside of college radio.
piratedan
man I drop the dime on this song three threads back and I don’t even get a h/t, you’re killin’ me Doug, killin’ me I tell ya!
out of all their stuff (and I have a good deal of it), I always have a strange warped affection for Monster
@OGLiberal…. I felt the same way when I heard Driver 8 and Radio Free Europe on the college radio station @ UNC. Couldn’t hear it anywhere else and it helped promote the feeling that I had gone thru the looking glass when I went to school.
Elizabelle
@JPK:
“The Corrections” was a revelation, although unsettling because was reading it (in the hospital, some days) in immediate aftermath of my mother’s stroke. (She recovered.) Was wondering for some months if we were dealing with Alzheimer’s too. (Answer: dementia, still mild but encroaching)
shortstop
@JPL: Your dismissive attitude does a grave injustice to stunning talent like this.
Mark S.
Anyone here into Parks and Recreation? Season premiere tonight, if you don’t feel like watching Willard, Goodhair, and Crazy Eyes.
JPK
@Elizabelle: The Corrections is really great (I still don’t know his first two). It sounds like it had personal resonance for you. Glad to hear your mother pulled through!
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
because this is balloon juice and we are about due for a contrarian opinion, this is the best REM record
MikeJ
@OGLiberal:
About the same time they appeared on a Nickelodeon talk show for kids. I *think* Linda Ellerbee might have been the host, but there was definitely a live audience.
Oh, thanks internet. Here it is.
MikeJ
@MikeJ: And the interview too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60WYma8jc9M
lamh34
posted with no comment. just food for thought.
Killer spared from death hours before execution
JPL
@shortstop: I had no idea..thanks. It’s unfortunate that he can no longer bring his guitar on the campaign trail for pres.
shortstop
@MikeJ: Hysterical…I’m crying with laughter at Stipe’s self-conscious writhing while the kids in shades and headbands bounce up and down in front of him.
Stefan
@shortstop:
No. It’s not like that at all, is it?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
One of their crew got married 5 years ago and the party was in a tiny bowling alley up the road. They played 7 songs on another bands equipment and it was really really fun.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
And here they are minus Stipe with Zevon.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
And Stipe, Merchant and Billy Bragg right before the Berlin Wall came down, not the best version but Hello in There is a great song.
Mike in NC
R.I.P., R.E.M.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh34: Dude seems awfully white…. Just sayin’.
MikeJ
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): I seem to recall some tension after that was recorded. Like Zevon was ready to hit the road and tour the HLG and the REM guys were saying, no, it was fun, but we’re not the vehicle for your comeback, we already have a band to be in. A shame to see bad blood between people you respect, but understandable.
Battleship Chains from that album is pretty good too.
shortstop
@JPL: No, but we’re fortunate he remains in Congress, where he can quote Led Zeppelin at length on the House floor at agonizing length and to no apparent purpose, then put out a press release about it.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@MikeJ: I’ve mentioned before that, in spite of his genius, after reading his book Zevon was as lowlife a motherfucker as ever was. I hope they did tell him to jam it.
James Gary
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
I wasn’t going to go off-topic like this, but the early 1990s was just FULL of brilliant records…R.E.M.’s “Automatic For The People,” The Orb’s “…Beyond The Ultraworld,” Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville,” Smashing Pumpkins’ “Siamese Dream,” and (as you noted) “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.” (Not to mention records by Belly, Bettie Serveert and Frank Black, etc. etc.) It really was an amazing time for music, or maybe I was just young.
lamh34
@lamh34: @Omnes Omnibus:
BTW, this is from 2008 I think, but its only what 3 years ago. It’s interesting in the very least, because the idea that the dude’s execution was stayed because he was a “model” inmate, as was Mr Davis, and yet unlike Mr Davis, there was no “reasonable” doubt that he killed the victim, nor, it seems, was there any new evidence or recanted statements unlike Mr Davis. Of course, the alleged victim was not a police officer in the white guy’s case. and this guy pleaded guilty, Mr Davis who maintained his innocence refused to admit guilt because he claimed to admit guilt for the crime would in essence say he actually committed the crime….the mind boggles.
OGLiberal
@piratedan: Jealous. I went to school on Long Island where my college radio station’s most popular shows were its Irish Folk and Polka hours. (drew a lot of advertisers) The college bars played Rob Base, Billy Joel, Journey and Meat Loaf. If you were lucky you might bump into Dee Snider at the supermarket or catch a Blue Oyster Cult (yeah, no um lauts…too lazy to Google, copy and past) show.
I always dreamed of studying in Chapel Hill catching Superchunk at Cat’s Cradle in their early days, before they made it big. OK, they never made it big but they started and still run one of the best indie labels out there, now home to a Grammy winner.
piratedan
@lamh34: obviously he didn’t suffer from a particular skin pigmentation issue
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@lamh34:
so what they are implying is, that if you will beg for your life, but bow to the prosecutors, the investigators, the system, and admit you are guilty, to make them feel better,and are appropriately contrite in doing so, they may spare your life.
as long as you don’t bother their conscience a bit….
fucking fascist motherfuckers.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@James Gary: The music of your youth burns a place in your head and heart that can’t be replaced. When I moved to Athens they were just taking off and, while I liked them, they were kids to me. Living here has given me a real appreciation for their music and them as people but their music will never replace Motown, the British Invasion or the Psychedelic Sound.
James Gary
If you were lucky you might…catch a Blue Oyster Cult (yeah, no um lauts…too lazy to Google, copy and past) show.
It could’ve been worse. BöC were/are awesome, especially on their first three records. Sly/elliptic lyrics, plus genius minimalist/referential music. They really were the Pavement of the early 1970s, or at least as close as it was possible to get at the time.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@James Gary:
its hard to separate the two, even now that i am old, but i think music was really really good(some of course) in the early 90s. but i admit the possibility of nostalgic bias.
MikeJ
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Which is funny because the lazy way to describe REM was always, “what if The Byrds had kept recording?”
piratedan
@James Gary: James I think every generation has a few signature albums, bands that are just ahead of the curve… in my time it was The Cars self titled release, Blondie’s “Parallel Lines“, Elvis Costello’s “My Aim Is True” plus “This Year’s Model“,and Nick Lowe’s “Jesus of Cool” and as always, ymmv. ;-)
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@MikeJ: I walked into the first show I saw in 85 and I thought they WERE the Byrds. I think that is another funny thing. When you are a teenager you almost by definition listen to people a bit older than you. I really didn’t know much about the Boss or Petty until the late 70’s. The Petty Live Anthology covers “Oh Well” by Fleetwood Mac before they became a girl band, “I’m In Love” by the Wickett Pickett, and I’m A Man by the Yardbirds. His music was the same as mine.
OGLiberal
@James Gary: Oh, no dispect for that BöC but I was there in the late 80s/early 90s, well past their prime.
Also, there was a rumor that Debbie Gibson was going to attend my school before she decided to focus on her music career.
One a positive note, Chuck D went to college and DJ’d at the school a few miles from mine. So it wasn’t all bad. And I worked backstage security at Jones Beach during Lollapalooza ’92, meeting and hanging out with members of Soundgarden and Ministry.
handsmile
OGLiberal (#68) et al
Last night the Guardian posted an article “The best of REM on video” that includes the Letterman appearance, as well as others from throughout their career: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/sep/22/rem-popandrock
Watching their performance of “Radio Free Europe” reminded me of what a stunningly beautiful young man Michael Stipe was. And the sheer exuberance of Buck’s and Mills’ playing!
My first REM show was in the summer of 1983 at the Paradise in Boston; the last at the Hartford Coliseum in 1995 just before the release of “New Adventures in Hi-Fi.” Several others in between. I really cannot estimate just how many hours of my life have been spent listening to REM’s music over the past twenty-eight years. I fully expect that total will be added to over the next (hopefully) twenty-eight years.
True story: in the fall of 2010, at a Chelsea art gallery in New York City, Michael Stipe and I found ourselves alone admiring a work of contemporary sculpture. We fell into a fairly lengthy, easy-going conversation about the work and other modern and contemporary artists, subjects on which he was rather well-informed. (It’s my profession). As I would have collapsed into a gibbering fanboy, I never did acknowledge my recognition of him or expressed my abiding admiration for his music.
Thanks to all above who have written of their own experiences with/appreciation of REM’s influential music making.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
nc state at cincinnati, its going to take me til halftime to figure out who i should be rooting for, under this “conference pride” bullshit the sec started.
James Gary
@OGLiberal:
Oh, no dispect for that BöC but I was there in the late 80s/early 90s, well past their prime.
Ah…their late-period “Spinal Tap” phase. “Puppet Show Plus Blue Öyster Cult.”
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@handsmile: It’s a local sport to be cool around him and not bug him. I’ve felt sorry for him at parties because people give him so much space that he ends up isolated. The best talk I ever had with him was when we were in the same beat up station wagon going back to the Broad River Outpost after a canoe trip.
4jkb4ia
I have the disadvantage of Rolling Stone having pronounced REM cool before I was old enough to discover them for myself. So essentially they were always there. Maybe they looked around and realized that they were a nostalgia act now.
“Losing My Religion” does mean something to me–it is enough of a big shot that you would not think of even Cole getting on its lawn.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@4jkb4ia: Read what they said, good way to find out.
handsmile
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): (#104)
Well, that tale certainly trumps my encounter with the man. That’s a ride well worth dining out on. :)
Just curious: why the change from Red (as in “Stuckin…”) to Black (as in “Raven”)? No answer is really expected, but it’s related to my puzzlement why a number of regular BJ commenters change their handle.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@handsmile: My handle at FDL for years was Raven (my dear departed cocker spaniel). When I came over here I didn’t want any hangover from there so I changed names. There are regulars here that figured it out and I realized it didn’t make much difference. I may drop the stuck when Temporarily Max Magee switches.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
So you are saying it is permanent?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Omnes Omnibus: I dunno, no one ever asked me about it. I assume it don’t mean nuthin.
Flamin up on the supreme court upstream huh?
Raven
let’s see how it looks
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Looks like it. I might sit in on it for a little, but then I need to get some paperwork done for tomorrow.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m afraid to say anything lest I get a 38 cal vasectomy!
MikeJ
OK, my last REM story for a while: As I mentioned upthread, they recorded Green in Memphis. Some months later when the album came out they toured and played the Mid South Colosseum, a venue that held I dunno, 15-20k. Of course those in the know went straight up Madison to the Antenna club (which held 144 according to the fire marshal) after the show, hoping for a reprise of the shows we had seen in the summer. I was sitting at the bar when sure enough, Mike Mills walks in, sits down next to me and orders a beer. I said, hey great show, I really loved it, blah blah. He said thanks, what’s your name? Mike. Hey! Me too!
I never had an in depth conversation with any of them, but the half dozen back of the barroom pleasantries over the years were always nicer than the horror stories you hear about people meeting the people they admire.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@MikeJ: They are good fucking people. I’m sure somewhere someone had a bad experience but the body of evidence is heavily weighed in their favor.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Omnes Omnibus: I changed my name back and it won’t let me post.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): You can’t win for losing…. I never drank with anyone from REM, but I did have a beer with Paul Westerburg once. That is, he and I were have a beer at the same time and I muttered something about a good show and he muttered something about thanks.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
You hated them first.
Turgidson
110+ posts and no mention of Laughing as one of REM’s very best songs? I’m dumbfounded.
MikeJ
@Turgidson: Nothing compared to the live covers of Roadrunner.
EconWatcher
When I was going through my divorce, I used to play Leaving New York” every time I drove my car. Fit my grieving, morose mood perfectly. Can’t listen to the song now; it takes me back somewhere I want to leave behind.
4jkb4ia
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
That’s ambiguous. You don’t want to thank all your fans and say, “We are a nostalgia act”. But part of the reason they decided to retire is that they were doing the greatest hits album–so you could see that they perceived the natural last chapter in the REM story or they looked back on their career and decided they couldn’t do anything new.
4jkb4ia
@105: OK, I did ask John to believe I was in my right mind, which is not advanced by this sort of thing.
JenJen
I was busy as hell all day today. President Obama visited my fair city, there was some GOP debate, shit went down at the UN, and yet the news that REM had called it quits was the only thing that really hit me today.
God. Just listening to DougJ’s offered “Radio Free Europe” makes me feel young again. REM moves me, they’ve always moved me, and they’re a part of my life. So many of their songs through the years play like a soundtrack to me. I think I’ll nostalgia-trip and cue up “You Are The Everything.”
What a great fucking band. Maybe the greatest American band; that would be a fun conversation to have.
Jebediah
No cool REM encounters, but I did see them at UMASS late 80’s. Fantastic show, which ended with Stipe doing “Moon River” acapella, with just two green spotlights behind him throwing a huge shadow on each wall of the room. An absolutely beautiful “Moon River.”
And also, yes “Voice of Harold” is great!
Skip Intro
Murmur was my favorite album for a long time.
Blue Galangal
I saw REM in the fall of 81 when I had just started college. I grew up with them, and so did my kids. I’m still in the first stage of grief.
Stefan
@JenJen:
Hmmm…that would be an interesting conversation. There are a lot of bands that are commonly accepted as “the best band ever/of their time/of our lifetime” etc., but virtually all of these are British and Irish: the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, Zeppelin, Floyd, U2, etc. There are uncommonly few American bands which make the list.
JenJen
@Stefan: I agree with the bands you listed, but yeah, it’s always struck me that “greatest bands” lists are highly populated with British bands, and of course U2. And U2 is the only post-60’s band that ever tends to show up on those lists.
I think R.E.M. can hang with all of those bands, but if we want to talk about the greatest American bands, I’d throw R.E.M., The Beach Boys, and if they remain on their current trajectory of greatness, Green Day, just to name a few.