ITEOTWAWKI – Regular Guy

My Last R.E.M. Show

brian — Sat, 12 Jun 2021 01:02:58 +0000

(I have probably written about this before, but I don’t care)

When I was in my seat (or, more accurately, standing in front of it) at Merriweather Post Pavilion 13 years ago tonight, I had no idea it would be the last time I saw R.E.M. in concert.

The show came at a crazy time for me. I was super unhappy at work, but had significant responsibilities for a huge event happening the day after the concert. I couldn’t turn off work mode until an hour or so before the first opening act took the stage. In the long run, the distraction probably helped.

I spent the show surrounded by strangers like I did for several other shows. My wife didn’t enjoy the band so I never really planned on having a concert buddy. I had bought two tickets and gave one to my niece, but her brother also had an extra ticket so she hung out with them.

I didn’t mind. While I will talk incessantly about the band, I sometimes just like to be alone with their music. I get so into the shows that I don’t need anyone I know around me.

The set lists for this tour – I would obsessively follow what had happened on previous nights – gave me great hope for something special. They had dappled in Sitting Still, Pretty Persuasion and 1,000,0000 among the songs from Accelerate, plus songs that had become concert staples.

My greatest dreams didn’t come true. The songs they dropped in were fine – Little America, Rockville (hilariously featuring Peter fucking it up massively) and Pop Song 89 – but didn’t meet the bar I had set.

So I left the show a little bummed even though I had a great time. It certainly didn’t meet the level of the 2003 show when my friend Dave Lifton and I walked out of the Patriot Center in a daze from that performance and screamed in joy. (James and Caroline were there too, but I distinctly remember Dave’s reaction after the show and forgot to mention them. James shamed me on Twitter so I have added this.)

When they broke up three years later, I definitely looked at the show in a different light.

Instead of missing a song from Murmur, I remember the time I was singing along to the pre-chorus to These Days, and the guy in the seat in front of me turned around and double high-fived me since I knew all the words.

Instead of lamenting that Worksong was the opener for the second or third time I saw them, I marveled at the spring of Worksong/Living Well/Bad Day/Kenneth in the first four songs.

I remember Mike shrugging as Peter apologized for messing up on Rockville – he skipped the pause during the “waste another year” part after the first chorus. The band caught up and made it work.

I remember Peter seemingly telling Johnny Marr the chord changes when he joined the band for Fall on Me and Man on the Moon.

The show is definitely a favorite memory for me. In the end, I got to see R.E.M. live. All the rest is just gravy.

11 June 2008 - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
support: The National, Modest Mouse
set: Finest Worksong / Living Well Is The Best Revenge / Bad Day / What's The Frequency, Kenneth? / Drive / Ignoreland / Man-Sized Wreath / Little America / Hollow Man / Walk Unafraid / Houston / Electrolite / (Don't Go Back To) Rockville / Pop Song 89 / Horse To Water / The One I Love / Driver 8 / Until The Day Is Done / Let Me In / These Days / Orange Crush / I'm Gonna DJ
encore: Supernatural Superserious / Losing My Religion / Mr. Richards / Fall On Me / Man On The Moon
notes: Johnny Marr guests on guitar on 'Fall On Me' & 'Man On The Moon'.

ITEOTWAWKI: Garbage Time

brian — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:04:17 +0000

I finally broke down and bought the (supposed) final album from R.E.M. I say supposed because Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011 may be the last project the band works on together in the studio, but I really doubt the business entity that is R.E.M. will never release anything ever again.

I’ve blogged before about Peter Buck’s fascination with bootlegs and demo tapes – a passion not shared by Michael Stipe – and think nostalgia and money will eventually coax some more live shows or hidden studio offerings out into the marketplace. At least I hope so.

But just in case they never commit anything to vinyl or CD or MP3 again, I bought Part Lies recently. To be honest, I had gone to Amazon to buy something else and really wanted to get free shipping so I added the CD somewhat reluctantly. I will probably reference the liner notes more than I play the discs. Each song has some explanation from the band with each member weighing in on whichever songs they felt like.

Some of the stories shed no new light, but others gave those nuggets of minutiae that I love. This piece from Time checks in on each song and shows why the liner notes rock as the reviewer tracks immodest statements from Stipe within the notes. Not only that, but he does pull the curtain back on a few song inspirations/meanings. I had no idea they really considered not putting “Radio Free Europe” on Murmur. Since the song had helped catapult them to success as a single, they didn’t know if they wanted to release it again. But they did and the differences between the original (fast) version and the one most people have heard from the album indicate, to me at least, the ability the quartet had even in their earliest days.

I also enjoyed the nuggets, mostly from Buck, about who wrote what song. The quick and easy description of how he and Bill Berry put together “Driver 8” makes me like the great song even more somehow.

On the downside, they threw three new songs on the end of the album. I have heard (and was unimpressed by) “We All Go Back Where We Belong” when it was first released and doubt I will intentionally hear it again. I haven’t heard the other two songs and feel no compulsion to ever do so. I’d rather hear yet another live version of “Rockville” or “Gardening at Night” so I hope Buck is getting antsy about breaking open the vault.

ITEOTWAWKI: Not Feeling It

brian — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:42:20 +0000

In a couple of weeks, R.E.M. will release what it calls a definitive retrospective on their 31-year career, “Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, 1982-2011.” The band’s website has started a number of initiatives to promote the release of the 40-song collection. They have a “Song of the Week” with various performances of a signature tune, including covers. They have videos for “We All Go Back To Where We Belong,” one of the new songs which will be released. They are pulling out all the stops.

I don’t really care very much. I mean, I will buy the album. Not right away, but I will get it because the 20-something versions of Sitting Still I currently have on my computer just won’t cut it. I know I already have the one which will appear in the collection, but this just means it might show up more often in Shuffle Play.

But on the whole, meh. I’m not that bummed that they broke up, but I wish they had waited a while before releasing such a blatant money-grab. To be honest, the only real anticipation I have is for the liner notes which hopefully will include some more cool stories to clutter my geeky brain.

ITEOTWAWKI: Getting There from Here

brian — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:59:30 +0000

Obviously, I have thought way too much about the R.E.M. breakup this week. A few friends contacted me to say that I came to mind when they heard the news, which is touching, but I’m not distraught or anything. Since most albums in the past 10-15 years have been hit or miss, I’m not that bothered they won’t be returning to the studio. I’m more disappointed that I have probably seen them live for the last time – and that show wasn’t as great as I had hoped.

Anyway, the news has since come out that the band came to the decision while working on (another) greatest hits collection, titled “Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011” and scheduled for a November 15 release. Unlike the last two greatest hits albums, this will span the band’s whole career instead of splitting the songs between the I.R.S. era and the Warner brothers era. The album will reportedly have some stuff they finished since “Collapse Into Now” came out.

That makes me wonder if they really did start working on something else, realized they didn’t have what it took to put a whole album together (probably based on an accelerated timeline from the record company) and decided to just end things. The theory of record label politics playing a role in the end has already been floated by murmurs.com founder Ethan Kaplan, who also used to work at Warners and begs the question: was this dissolution more contractual than creative?

I don’t think they will re-form or anything, but I wonder if they have something up their sleeve. Peter Buck admitted a couple of years ago that “(a)s far back as 1982 we have live 16- and 24-track tapes, and we have a bunch of shows that sound pretty cool.” He admitted there wouldn’t be a treasure trove of live shows coming out, but as they worked on what would accompany the Reckoning re-issue a couple of years ago, he said he wished the band could share their early history with their fans.

We’re already sifting through stuff from 1984, ’85, and there are also filmed elements… We’ve discussed putting all that stuff up on the web site, ’cos we’ve got copies of every performance that was ever filmed, and there’s a lot of ’em. I’d love to get all that stuff out there. The live thing is such an important element of who we were, and if you only know us from the records you’re missing out on more than half of what we were about. I’m sure the record company would have a nervous breakdown if they heard me talking like this, but it’s not the earning money thing that concerns me as much as the band entering history in as representative a way as possible. Come on, let’s see the weird Dutch TV performances with us lip-synching in make-up!

But when a band like Weezer (and I am sure others) makes CDs and digital downloads of their shows available through their own site, I wonder if we might see something like this from R.E.M. in the future. Commissioning the mastering and release of shows through REMHQ.com sounds like a lot less work than doing what a record company tells you to do and would make the die-hard fans happy. I’m sure there are all kinds of legal reasons that might make this dream of mine impossible, but it’s at least worth consideration.

If they do it, I think they should start with the tape of their first concert in April 1980 which I like to think is hidden somewhere in Peter Buck’s collection of bootlegs. If I’m dreaming, why not dream big, right?

ITEOTWAWKI: Modern Day Prophet

brian — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:53:08 +0000

When the earthquake hit the East Cost on Tuesday, I made a joke in reference to the lyrics to “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Now that a hurricane is bearing down on the East Coast, I’m beginning to think that Michael Stipe’s word play is more than a coincidence.

He nailed the earthquake and hurricane. He’s railing about the influence of right-wing politicians and activists. He’s even foreseen recent decisions by some colleges to crack down on fraternities and drinking.* I went to a birthday party last week where there was cheesecake. So I’m going to hunker down, light a candle (maybe a votive), get some jelly beans and keep my eye peeled for four guys whose initials are all L.B. If I dream of knives, I know the end is coming. You know what? I’ll be fine if Michael is the prophet we’ve been waiting for.

* – I discovered recently that part of the second verse is usually transcribed as “Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no fear cavalier.” but in reality is “Watch O’Neil crush rush, uh-oh, this means no beer, Cavalier” in reference to former University of Virginia (the Cavaliers) President Robert O’Neil instituting a ban of alcohol on campus (including fraternity rush). Sadly, I have listened carefully to a bunch of live versions and am pretty certain that’s the correct lyric. R.E.M. played at UVA in the midst of this situation, a year before they recorded “Document.”

ITEOTWAWKI: Wait Almost Over

brian — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 13:35:02 +0000

I didn’t realize until now that I hadn’t posted at all about the upcoming re-release of “Lifes Rich Pageant.” The new version comes out on July 12 with a bonus disc of demos from March 1986. The “Athens Demos” are previously unreleased, but let’s hope they are also previously unheard, just like the demos from the Fables re-release last year.

R.E.M. has allowed so much stuff to reach fans via bootleg, I am always skeptical that I will pop in one of these bonus discs and find something I had never heard before. They managed to surprise me last year so I will withhold judgment now.

I really liked seeing this release highlighted in Entertainment Weekly” this week. They noted that the demos featured a version of “Wait,” a savvy move by the magazine. This song has banged around bootlegs for years with only one studio version I know of ever existing. That one was pretty rough so I hope this is a more polished mix.

“Wait” ranks as one of those moments I kind of wish the band had embraced earlier. When they played the song live, it had an infectious beat with Michael Stipe’s sister Cindy and Magnapop singer Linda Hopper singing background vocals in this version, which rounds out a manic second set of a 1981 show at Tyrone’s in Athens. This is the fun side of R.E.M. which needs more exposure. Hopefully they captured that in these demos.

ITEOTWAWKI: Stop Thinking So Hard

brian — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:03:03 +0000

I have thought about posting a review of R.E.M.’s new album “Collapse Into Now” a bunch of times since its release in early March. Lord knows I have listened to the album a bunch of times. The problem is, I have also read and listened to other people’s reviews and didn’t feel the need to add my two cents worth.

So this is less my review of the album and more my review of the reviews and where they sit in relation to my review. In other words, just a mess of thoughts pouring from my head.

The album has met with fairly good reviews, but many have the same undercurrent – the band can and has done better. I’m unabashed in my love for the band so I don’t compare each release with their other work. Therefore, I don’t really find these reviews useful.

My good friend Dave Lifton said something along the lines of “it sounds like R.E.M. covering R.E.M.” The Sound Opinions radio show/podcast had a similar take, saying the band had covered the same groun previously in a much better fashion.

So? Yeah, I like the stuff with Bill Berry much better, but that doesn’t prohibit me from enjoying and appreciating these songs on their own. This isn’t like sports where time visibly diminishes the skills of the participants and renders their later contributions useless. It’s not like being derivative is something new for the band.

“It’s the End of the World” is “Bad Day” re-packaged. “Burning Down” rescued the remnants of “Ages of You.” “Imitation of Life” relies mainly on the same chord progression as “Driver 8.” They have built their career on covering the same ground with brief forays into a magical territory that mesmerizes those who are not ardent followers of the band.

So just as they turned off their art school friends in college by including “Hippy, Hippy Shake” and “Route 66” in their early sets, they are cheesing over the musical cognescenti who don’t realize that “Losing My Religion” and the songs on “Automatic for the People” are the exception not the rule.

Stop worrying about whether you have heard the lyrics of “Mine Smell Like Honey” expressed in a similar way in another song and just soak in the excitement of the beat. I don’t really care if people like it. Just come up with a better reason for why I shouldn’t like it because when you start criticizing a band for sounding too much like themselves, maybe you’re the one who is treading on well-worn territory, not R.E.M.

ITEOTWAWKI: Best Songs Covered By R.E.M.

brian — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:02:08 +0000

In anticipation of the release of “Collapse Into Now” next week, Paste Magazine took a unique look at R.E.M.’s legacy by posting a list of the 20 best cover versions of the band’s work. I loved this piece because I had not heard many of them, and they managed to have audio for about half the list.

Even though I listen to the awesome podcast Coverville a lot, popular R.E.M. covers are not that easy to find. The anonymity of the efforts on the Paste list underscores this even though many of them are amazing.

While listening to those songs and bugging Brian Ibbot from Coverville to do another R.E.M. cover story, I started thinking about a different angle: What are the best covers R.E.M. has performed?

The official studio albums released by the band have only included two covers, but their B-sides and bonus tracks – some of them compiled on “Dead Letter Office” – give me plenty to choose from. I cannot fully choose from their yearly Fan Club Christmas release because I only belonged to the club for a year or two and have not heard most of them. I will, however, pull from bootlegs I have heard from the band’s early years.

So here goes with my 10 favorites.

Superman: Hearing this song played at college parties in 1986 played a huge role in my introduction to the band. I know they kind of shy away from it, but the song really is a fun little jaunt which showcases a lot of what makes R.E.M. so awesome. Watch them perform “Superman” in 1986 with one of the song’s writers from the group The Clique.

There She Goes Again: As I got deeper and deeper into R.E.M. in the late 1980s, I read a lot about how much The Velvet Underground influenced them. I knew little about VU except that it was Lou Reed’s band so bought some of their stuff. What an education. It took me a while to figure out how such a dark band inspired R.E.M., which first made its name as an upbeat live act playing poppy music. But they owned this song in the early years, often playing it live and releasing it as an early B-side.

Crazy: Peter Buck has often talked about how he felt humbled when he heard the original version of this song by fellow Athens band Pylon. I can’t see how anything could make anyone think the original exceeded anything R.E.M. ever did, including this cover, which appeared on “Dead Letter Office.” Here’s a live version.

King of the Road: Tacked onto the end of Dead Letter Office after an upbeat number which was created as an unofficial commercial jingle for Weaver D’s, the soul food joint which inspired the title for “Automatic for the People,” this is a hidden gem, right down to the fact that Mike Mills doesn’t seem to know tape is rolling.

Moon River: A version of this appears tacked onto the first re-release of “Reckoning,” but I have heard Michael Stipe do an a capella version on some bootlegs. It’s mesmerizing.

First We Take Manhattan: I had never heard of Leonard Cohen until R.E.M. recorded this for a tribute album in the early 1990s. They really do a nice job putting their own touch on this song while opening the eyes and ears of people like me to the legendary performer.

Favorite Writer: Linda Hopper’s relationship with the members of R.E.M. pre-dates the band’s formation so it seemed appropriate to have her on stage to sing this song first performed by her band Magnapop when the R.E.M. toured Holland (where Magnapop is based) when supporting the 2003 release of “In Time.” The band then released their own version as a bonus track on a single, but I love the version with Hopper.

Yellow River: Included as a bonus track to one of the singles from “Reveal,” this 1970 song by The Christies shows off some fun guitar work and Mike Mills’ sunny vocal. I wish more people knew about this.

Love Is All Around: Mills again takes the reins here, this time on a sweet number from The Troggs. He semi-explained in a solo appearance years later that Stipe is not a fan of the ban, which may be why the bass player handled the lead vocal. This song probably got most of its R.E.M. notoriety because they did it in their first appearance on MTV’s Unplugged in support of “Out of Time.”

Baby Baby: One of the few Christmas Fan Club singles I received. You’ll notice a trend here as Mills handles the vocals of a British band from the past, this time The Vibrators. Just fun.

Little Girl: I only have heard one version of this Syndicate of Sound cover, from the epic April 10, 1981 show at Tyrone’s. You could totally see this as an early R.E.M. song, and it totally works when you imagine them playing in front of a group of college kids dancing around.

There are a lot of other songs which could have slipped on this list, like their version of Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic,” early concert songs like “Shakin’ All Over” and “Route 66” or the many other Velvet Underground songs they did, but I had to cut things off somewhere. I also recommend the Hindu Love Gods album, which is the musical part of R.E.M. along with Warren Zevon. Their version of “Raspberry Beret” kills.

ITEOTWAWKI: Getting Closer

brian — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:56:15 +0000

One of the reasons R.E.M. continues to fascinate me is their commitment to openness. They seem genuine and honest when they sit down and discuss how they do what they do. They don’t put on airs even though Stipe can be pretentious, it’s not in a condescending way. At least not to me.

That’s why I love this video (sorry, I can’t embed it) they did for MSN.com about the upcoming album. They discuss motivations and how they record and play parts of a bunch of songs. They lift the curtain back as much as any other group will. Each little piece like this gets me more and more excited about “Collapse Into Now.”

And to continue that, let’s enjoy something I can embed – a live in studio version of “Mine Smell Like Honey.”

ITEOTWAWKI: Disappointed

brian — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:42:40 +0000

The trickle of information about R.E.M.’s upcoming album Collapse Into Now continues. The first single is out and another “lyric video” for a new song has popped up. But the real news comes from an interview Mike Mills gave to a radio station in Los Angeles.

How did you come to the decision to not tour with this record?

For touring with us, we tour because we want to play. We don’t tour to support a record. We don’t tour to get our name out there. We tour because we like to play. To tour when your heart isn’t in it would be a real bad mistake for us. 2008 was a long hard year on the road and we’re just not feeling it right now. We go with our instinct. Our two biggest selling records ever, we didn’t tour on them. So maybe some of that magic will rub off on this one too.

Whenever people criticize R.E.M., I try to remind them that albums are not the sum total of a band’s legacy. You have to look at the entire body for work – live and in the studio – to truly judge a group. R.E.M. started as a bar band and continue to put on amazing live shows. Even when they tour after a bad album, they still can shake the paint off the walls of a live venue.

I can understand what Mike talks about in regards to “not feeling it.” The youngest of the trio (Michael Stipe) recently turned 51. They retain solid popularity in Europe so a tour for them pretty much has to go internationally to make sense. They can’t just pile in a van and play the places they want to anymore. They answer to a lot of people.

That doesn’t stop me from wishing I could see them pair “Mine Smell Like Honey” (lyric video posted below) with “These Days” in the middle of show to demonstrate how they have not lost a step. I just hope they get their butts back in the studio fast so we can see them in 2012.