Some Songs Considered - Posts Tagged 'R.E.M.'

February 26, 2010

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“9-9 (Live at Florida Atlantic University, 1984)” - R.E.M.
(Words/music: Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, originally available on Murmur, I.R.S. 1983)

(This post originally ran as a guest post on A Post Punk Tumblr’s Top 35 or So Songs of the 1980s late last summer, not because “9 - 9” specifically was one of the best songs on Tristan’s list, but because Tristan was kind enough to ask me to write a guest post. I linked to it but never ran the text of it on this blog, and with all of the new people reading this blog I thought today was as good a time as any to run it. It was originally shared with the studio version, but tonight is shared with a solid bootleg from the Reckoning era).

The paradox of music is that it’s simultaneously a shared experience and a highly personal one. Whether it’s being part of a crowd at a concert, discussing a single with friends, or giving a head nod to someone wearing a shirt of a familiar band, music unites us. It’s also the sounds of solidarity – the company on those nights where we want solidarity yet don’t want to be alone with our thoughts. While our relationship with music draws on both sides of this relationship, music discovery tends towards the social side. Specifically, it’s hard to “stumble” on music from another era without an introduction. For example, I count a bunch of records from the postpunk era among my favorites, but I discovered them many years later. Some of these records came through friends’ recommendations, but a lot of my musical discoveries seem like the results of a personal journey. Still, retracing my steps now, I’ve realized that while it often seemed like a personal and solitary process discovering to music, I wasn’t alone.

Thinking back, even if I didn’t have a cool older sibling to pass on records from bygone eras, some of my favorite bands helped “guide” me to these albums. In the mid-1990s, when I started becoming obsessed with music, I had no idea what the term “postpunk” meant, but I loved R.E.M. and started working my way through their discography. As I became enamored with their albums, I started devouring every interview, biography, and review I could find, taking note of the records and artists they mentioned repeatedly. This was my introduction to a lot of the bands I’d love like Television, Gang of Four, and Patti Smith. As I developed this personal relationship with R.E.M., I developed a sense of trust that led me to other records. I largely have R.E.M. to thank for my love of Marquee Moon, Entertainment, and Horses (in addition to Reckoning and Murmur and the other half dozen R.E.M. albums I adore).

I ended up taking to these records because I heard a lot of the same things that I loved in those R.E.M. albums, in particular the first couple discs. “9–9” from Murmur leans heavily on these influences. Listening to it now, I hear the same wiry guitar lines that stitch together Marquee Moon ringing through Peter Buck’s Rickenbacker. Michael Stipe’s rapid, free-associative lyrics feel like they came from someone who spent hundreds of hours with Patti Smith LPs. Mike Mills and Bill Berry creep into the front of the mix just like the bass and drums on my favorite Gang of Four songs. Before I owned any of these albums, I spent hours listening to Murmur, and in a way it prepared me for these other records. My time with songs like “9–9” gave me a running start toward a lot of records I now adore, and I have the boys from Athens to thank for pointing me in that direction.

More on R.E.M.: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

February 1, 2010

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Living Well is the Best Revenge (Live)” – R.E.M.
(Words/music: Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe, available on Live at the Olympia, Warner Brothers 2009)

Earlier today, Yahoo! Sports Kelly Dwyer wrote an unexpected treatise on fandom. I encourage you to read his post not only if you’re a sports fan, but if you’re a passionate fan of anything. Dwyer, a life-long Chicago Bulls fan, looked back at his obsessive fanaticism during the end of the Bulls’ dynasty and subsequent recession into mediocrity. His advice is to maintain joy even in the most critical moments. “Nothing’s guaranteed save for the joy you create,” Dwyer writes, and the more I thought about what he wrote, the more it made sense beyond the world of sports. Even if there aren’t championships to win or lose in music (and let’s be honest, the Grammy’s or Billboard #1s aren’t equivalents), there’s the same gamut of emotions when a favorite band missteps or disappears, whether it’s betrayal or disappointment or depression. To be a fan is to open yourself up to heartbreak as much as it’s to open yourself up to euphoria.

As a fan, I have the longest and strongest allegiances to R.E.M.. They were one of the first bands I obsessed over, and remain the band I return to the most often. They are the most played band on my Last.fm profile by several hundred plays. Over the past decade and a half, I’ve seen the band’s popularity recede and return gently. Their output over this period runs the gamut from surprisingly charming to crushingly disappointing, to the point where I started to write the band off around the middle of the last decade. This is what made 2008’s Accelerate such an important album – one that revived my faith in the band and brought me back to long-forgotten corners of their back catalogue.

When the band toured in support of the album in 2008, I bought tickets to three different shows, none of which were in my home state. I ventured to Massachusetts and came within 30 feet of the stage. I braved a torrential downpour and near-brush with lightning in Long Island. I took several days off from work to take the train down to Philadelphia and even bought scalped tickets just to move up a couple dozen rows. Despite the time and money invested, I didn’t question my decision because deep down, I knew the fleeting nature of this moment. Somewhere deep in my brain I knew that the band might never sound this good again (and the jury’s out on that, hopefully I’m wrong), but rather than dwell on the tour as the band’s swan song, I wanted to be in the house for every possible second I could. To this day, I have notebook pages full of thoughts from these shows, dozens of blurry pictures, and archived downloads of every bootleg I could find. I’m even on YouTube ruining a perfectly good video of “Begin the Begin” by singing along too close to the camera. All of these artifacts bring me back to the sheer joy of seeing one of my favorite bands perhaps at their best moment during my fandom.

“Joy” is the operative word here, and it’s the key to being a fan. As Dwyer suggests, there will always be imperfections (not to mention the lingering feeling that what goes up must come back down). These are valid parts of fandom yet shouldn’t preclude the reason for being a fan in the first place. In reference to these moments, Dwyer says, “So make them work for you. Don’t ever let up, and question everything, but make them work.” It’s easier said than done, especially when disappointment sets in. Still, I’m brought back to the end of Michael Stipe’s speech accepting R.E.M.’s enshrinement in the rock and roll hall of fame. Stipe shares that his grandmother interpreted the band’s name as an acronym for “remember every moment,” and I can’t think of a better definition of fandom than that.

More on R.E.M.: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

November 4, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“The Yankee Flipper” – The Baseball Project
(Words/music: Scott McCaughey, available on The Baseball Project, Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails, Yep Roc 2008)

I’m the first to admit that I take baseball for granted. I don’t watch as many games as some of my friends, yet I’m always sad when there isn’t a game to watch. I guess at this point in my life it’s one of those things that makes me happy just knowing that it’s there. If I don’t always watch a game (and this year, watching Mets games wasn’t always a relaxing decision), I still like seeing Baseball Tonight or catching scores on the radio. Even if I’m not actively watching games every night, I feel better knowing that somewhere a baseball game is going on.

So when I heard that Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn, and Peter Buck (among others) collaborated on an album of baseball themed songs, I immediately wanted to hear it. These songs lace together the type of power pop Wynn and McCaughey usually create with stories pulled from baseball lore. In particular, “The Yankee Flipper” immediately stuck out because I remember watching Jack McDowell pitch for the White Sox and Yankees in the 1990s. It turns out that the night before McDowell’s infamous incident where he flipped off Yankee fans, he was out drinking with McCaughey, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, and Dennis Diken from the Smithereens. McCaughey claims that the story is true, and given McDowell’s own musical pursuits it’s entirely believable. It’s also one of the few instances on The Baseball Project, an album culled from recalled moments of fandom, where the fans in question had an influence on the game itself. Sure, it was ultimately McDowell’s lousy performance (and short fuse) that led to his back page infamy, but it’s also an instance where some diehard fans felt partly responsible. I’m sure that the rock boys felt bad that their friend experienced the backlash (just imagine what that would have been like in the YouTube era!), yet McCaughey feels responsible without ever feeling remorse. After all, it makes him a part of one of our era’s more colorful footnotes.

So tonight, as the Yankees appear on the verge of putting baseball to bed for the winter, consider this a salute (not necessarily the same salute as Black Jack, unless you’re a Philly / Boston fan) to baseball and a reminder that spring training can’t come soon enough.

More on The Baseball Project: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

February 26, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Crazy” – Pylon
(Words/music: Pylon, available on Hits, DB Records 1989)

I know the music of Pylon for two distinct reasons. The first was hearing R.E.M.’s cover of “Crazy” on their Dead Letter Office collection when I first got into R.E.M.. I remember loving the collection of B-Sides, in part because it contained the 1981 Chronic Town EP (which I also had on cassette tape from a department store’s going out of business sale, not know the scarcity of the artifact), but also that it contained a lot of really catchy songs – in particular, the track “Burning Hell” and a lot of the cover songs. I knew that “Crazy” was a cover only through reading the track notes in the CD (and, also, from reading a bit about Pylon in the R.E.M. oral history Talk About the Passion). Otherwise, it seemed like a more upbeat version of an early R.E.M. song – a mysterious sounding verse in Stipe’s trademark mumble, and the catchy chorus sounding out through Peter Buck’s jangling guitar. I can remember making a R.E.M. mix tape for friends and putting this song at a prominent position early in the tape.

I finally heard some of Pylon’s music directly when the DFA reissued their Gyrate album (I was also able to pit up the Hits collection – essential listening in my book). Of course, I immediately went to “Crazy” so that I could hear the original version of this song that I loved. I was struck at how faithful the cover was – the same riff runs through the song, granted it’s played by late guitarist Randy Bewley darker and with less reverb. Vocalist Vanessa Briscoe sings in a more confident manner than Stipe (perhaps because Stipe made up some of the words, according to Pylon’s drummer Curtis Crowe). Throughout the music collected on Hits, Briscoe toes the line between letting her band take center stage and becoming the focal point in the songs. She commands a strong presence (in a way that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O does) but is content enough to share her spotlight with her bandmates by disappearing behind their taut rhythms and focused songs, only to storm back to center stage moments later. It’s the kind of music that makes me simultaneously happy and sad – I’m glad that I’ve discovered one of the true American post-punk gems, even if I kick myself a bit for waiting the better part of a decade before seeking it out.

More on Pylon: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

January 20, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Cuyahoga (Live in Mansfield, MA – 13 June 2008)” – R.E.M.
(Words/music: Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, originally appears on Lifes Rich Pageant, IRS 1986)

When I saw R.E.M. this past June, Michael Stipe offered this song to Barack Obama. The choice is interesting because aside from the opening lines (as his dedication suggests), it doesn’t seem like an obvious choice; if I were to have guessed which song they dedicated, I would have probably guessed one of the more recent Bush-fueled political rants (like the ho-hum “Final Straw”) or one of the more overtly political songs (like “These Days” from the same album). The ban even played “I Believe” (key line: “and change is what I believe in”) in South America the night of his election. Sure, the song references the polluted Cuyahoga river - a cause that the environmentally friendly candidate would emphasize with, buy it still seemed like an odd choice (one I didn’t complain about that night, however, as it’s one of my favorites).

Thinking about it months later, I’m immediately drawn back to the lines that Stipe highlighted in his introduction – “Let’s put our heads together / and start a new country up.” It captures the sentiment of Obama’s “change” mantra as well as his message of unity. After watching the sea of humanity in Washington, D.C. this morning, it seems that his message of unity, hope, and yes, “change,” enticed millions of Americans. Appropriately, Obama’s inaugural address hit on the theme of working together – it’s not Obama or his party creating the “new country,” but everyone in America. It’s a refreshing change of message for someone like me, who has heard nothing but partisan dogma for almost a quarter century of life.

So as I thought about this earlier today, it seemed more and more appropriate. After all, many of R.E.M.’s songs blurred the lines between the personal and the political, as the Obama administration at least begins by stressing the individual’s role in government. “Cuyahoga” isn’t just about the death of a river, but about the narrator’s personal memories attached with the river. The song’s filled with “we” and “our,” to the point that the Cuyahoga is less a call to recycle more but a symbol of a proud and highly personal past that’s been corrupted (as the river now “runs read over it”). Even more importantly, the song focuses on gathering friends and moving towards reclaiming their pride rather than lamenting the death of their icon. It’s an appropriate song to dedicate to a man who wants to promote community, even at the national level.

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PS – Even though R.E.M. is one of my favorite bands (and, if pressed, probably the most important band to me), this will probably be the only post on one of their songs (I might pick one more at some point, but that would be it), in part because of Matthew Perpetua’s wonderful Popsongs 07-08 project, where he writes about these songs with eloquence and insight that I could only dream of possessing. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that this site (along with the other excellent work he does on the web and in print) is a major inspiration for what I want to do over the next eleven and a half months. Here’s a relevant quote from Matthew’s entry on “Cuyahoga” from July ’07:

“Cuyahoga” may be a lament, but it’s also one of the most optimistic politically themed songs in the R.E.M. songbook. Even better, its optimism is not cheap and facile. The lyrics make a point of acknowledging the fact that we need to collaborate and work hard for change, because without that effort and emphasis on community, we stand to lose so much.

More on R.E.M.: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

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