REM: Classic or dud?

By calling Monster "cupboardy", that's not a diss, it's just how I feel about it. It feels like a, well, like a monster under the stairs. When they rock out and Stipe crows his heart out it sounds like he's been locked in his dressing room and is going out of his mind. By comparison, Out Of Time and Hi Fi sound almost infinitely spacial, like REM are playing in some enormous cornfield. Automatic For The People sounds like it was recorded in an elegant stately home - grand pianos and works of art and infinity pools and stuff... I guess a lot of the album art/video imagery helps to sustain a lot of this, which is strange as I always considered them to be one of the worst bands for album covers in the world.

A fair assessment of the sound. I think that 'cupboardy' or sculpted sound suits the paranoid and perverse mood of Monster though. The open, live sound of NA is refreshing though - it's just that the rockers are lesser songs.
The airiness motif is interesting... a comment on the band's gradual dissolution, or a broader interest in the experience of (post)modernity - all that is solid melts into air... Maybe a bit of both.

To be honest though, I'm kind of pissed that they will be tossing in even more obligatory new songs on this forthcoming hits comp.

Does this break-up mean the band won't be putting any more effort into its reissue series?

kind of imagine more effort will be put into it? wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of career spanning set in the works.

There is, partially anyway, they are putting out a best of set that spans both IRS and WB eras of the band.

I've been spending too much time on this concert chronology site this morning:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~darryl74/index.html

Looking at old tour dates, the first time I saw them (below) was about a month after Chronic Town was released. My memory was that it was more circa Reckoning, but by then they were playing bigger theater shows. Also saw an outdoor festival in '83, and then never again.

22 September 1982 - First Avenue Club, Minneapolis, MN
supporting: The Hypstrz
set: Gardening At Night / 9-9 / Pilgrimage / Wolves, Lower / There She Goes Again / Sitting Still / Romance / 1,000,000 / Pretty Persuasion / Catapult / Moral Kiosk / West Of The Fields / Radio Free Europe
encore 1: Perfect Circle / White Tornado / Ages Of You / Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)
encore 2: Skank

That site makes me feel old, old, old.

This was a good one:

24 April 1981 - B&L Warehouse, Athens, GA
supporting: XTC

"E-Bow the Letter" as first single probably did more harm to R.E.M.'s cred with Warner Bros than anything else.

22 September 1982 - First Avenue Club, Minneapolis, MN
supporting: The Hypstrz

God those guys are EVERYWHERE

i posted a little thing about R.E.M. breaking up on facebook, and then my sister replied with:

"My former boss was an original member of the early band when they were here in St. Louis area. He decided to leave and go to med school. Soon after they started gaining notice and then made it big. I made fun of him all the time for that."

is there any way that this is possible? i mean...the boss is either full of shit or somehow mixing up r.e.m. with another band (O.A.R.?), right?

maybe he was in Oh OK with Matthew Sweet and Stipe's sister

Since when were REM ever based out of the St. Louis area?

Never. Even Stipe, who moved around a lot as an army brat, was never in St. Louis afaik.

O.A.R are from Columbus, Ohio, so that's not it either.

other possibility, maybe the boss meant that he was an original member of the band in Athens, and my sister remembered that as St. Louis?

I guess the real question is, were there original members of R.E.M. other than Stipe/Mills/Buck/Berry?

I remember reading that Mills and Berry had been playing together before meeting up with Stipe and Buck, maybe they had a previous band this dude jammed with? Still don't get the St. Louis thing though.

"God, why does she think i was in REM!? I was in REO Speedwagon!"

I'd love to see a list of all the bands that shared bills with REM. XTC, obviously, is a keeper. How often, it at all, was REM the opener on bigger bills?

Saw Radiohead (promoting The Bends) open for REM on the Monster tour in Baton Rouge. Radiohead were much, much better than REM.

Has anybody linked the Salon article?

http://www.salon.com/news/music/index.html?story=/ent/music/2011/09/21/remembering_r_e_m

"I congratulate R.E.M. on breaking up; that's what bands are supposed to do."

"God, why does she think i was in REM!? I was in REO Speedwagon!"

lol, but watch it, University of Illinois in Champaign lays claim to those guys, no St. Louis

Who comes from St. Louis?

Nelly

The Urge

Miles Davis.

Z S's sister's boss was in them all

iirc Michael Stipe went to high school partially in Collinsville, IL (where I went a few years of high school, and which is just 25 min away from STL), and hated it so much that he denied ever having been there. At least that was the constantly repeated rumor among the goths and stoners I ended up running with sophomore year.

t.s. eliot is from st. louis--maybe he meant that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvG6LeGWU2g

Uncle Tupelo comes from St. Louis, more or less, and they have direct connection to R.E.M.

I seem to recall Mills and Berry played together in bands in Macon before moving to Athens.

So boss either played with Stipe with a band in high school in Illinois (if Stipe was in any bands in high school, he's erased the history) or commuted 638 mi to Macon to jam with REM's rhythm section in the late 70s, is what we've got so far.

Saw Radiohead (promoting The Bends) open for REM on the Monster tour in Baton Rouge. Radiohead were much, much better than REM.

― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, September 22, 2011 5:55 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

Saw that tour too, in Nashville, thought both bands were pretty great. But I was more surprised by Radiohead, since I hadn't heard The Bends yet and didn't know what to expect.

First time I saw R.E.M., on the Document tour, 10,000 Maniacs opened. They had just released In My Tribe, and were really good. So I give R.E.M. high marks on the opening-band front.

Here's a good page for checking such details (sorry if it's already been linked):

http://www.remtimeline.com/

I checked back on those two early shows I saw--nobody opening in '83, the Dream Syndicate in '84. I liked the Dream Syndicate back then, but I swear I have no recollection whatsoever of having seen them.

didn't the Go-Betweens open for them on some dates of the '88 tour?

i believe the minutemen were set to open on a big REM tour right when D. Boon died :(

btw listening to reckoning right now, this holds up amazingly well

seems like they always had good taste in openers in the 80s -- feelies, minutemen, go-betweens.
when i saw them on the monster tour luscious jackson opened.

ugh – Radiohead opened for them in mid '95.

then Thom Yorke sang Patti Smith's bit in "E Bow The Letter" and added harmonies to "Be Mine" at the Tibetan Freedom Concert.

i think i saw them in mid-95. we had bought tix for the show w/ sonic youth listed as the opener, but the aneurysm thing happened and the show was postponed. and SY were out by then -- and LJ was in!

Looking at those '80 shows, they opened a few for Gang of Four. That's a classic mismatch for me, although I'm sure R.E.M. themselves were big fans.

IIRC, Wilco & Mercury Rev opened on the Up tour.

Never got to see them live. The time I cared most was the post-Monster tour and all three Chicago shows sold out almost instantly, I got shut out back in those olden days of calling the local Ticketmaster outlet.

from that REM timeline --
1 November 1995 - The Forum, Los Angeles, CA
support: Luscious Jackson
set: I Took Your Name / What's The Frequency, Kenneth? / Crush With Eyeliner / Drive / Try Not To Breathe / Binky The Doormat / Wake-Up Bomb / Losing My Religion / Bang And Blame / Undertow / Strange Currencies / Revolution / Tongue / Man On The Moon / Country Feedback / The One I Love / Pop Song 89 / Get Up / Star 69
encore: Let Me In / Everybody Hurts / So. Central Rain / Departure / Driftaway / It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
notes: Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac playes guitar on Everybody Hurts

toootally forgot about lindsey buckingham! weird.

Saw them once on the Green tour, and Indigo Girls opened.

notes: Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac playes guitar on Everybody Hurts

ok waht

it's LA, baby! that kind of thing happens all the time.

xpost Early R.E.M. and Gang of Four are not totally unlike one another. I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKVCwP486I&feature=related

Or especially:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y675-eb3QOU&feature=related

yeah was gonna say, them opening for the police is a bit more of a stretch.