The recent hullabaloo over Accelerate put me in mind of an earlier R.E.M. record. I was twenty-one years old when R.E.M. released New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Two of my best friends, JasN and Lucas, were massive fans: we’d even made a pilgrimage to Athens, to the church were R.E.M. used to practice to retrieve an artifact (even at that time just a crumbling chimney in the parking lot of a cooky-cutter college apartment complex) and when we returned to Starkville placed the brick on a column all its own, just as you would a piece of late-period Picasso sculpture of a sherd of Etruscan pottery.
There was nothing like the leaks of nowadays, when full records and artwork are available, bit by seeded bit, days and even weeks before the drop date. We still relied on phone calls and rumor. But by 1996, when the record came out, we had something even better: WMSV 91.1 in Starkville, Mississippi.
I remember Lucas calling us all together, not quite freaking out but still jittery: we got the new single! I was obviously supposed to know what he was talking about, but listen: I was still collecting Mother Love Bone and Led Zeppelin bootlegs at this point. R.E.M., man—it’s a new single. Patti Smith is on it. Patti Smith!!
That got me. Punk was echoing around my periphery, beginning to suck me in, hard, Zen Arcade and the Germs and X beginning to rattle my cage. People were already calling Patti Smith the godmother of punk, and as far as I know, called her that the day after Horses came out.
What’s it called, twirling the always-tangled cord of my phone in Duggar Hall. Um. Um, “E-bow the Letter.”
I didn’t know what an e-bow was, didn’t care, but I know it sounded stupid and I wasn’t the R.E.M. fan my friends were, anyway. I missed them, same way as if you don’t read Catcher in the Rye early enough, it won’t grab you, or Look Homeward, Angel, or the way the Replacements just sound like assholes on Sorry Ma, not cool, just suburban dicks. The first time I’d ever heard of R.E.M. was Green, and I remembered shattering a copy of it at a party in high school. I hated the sepia-soaked whining pose of Green, loathed “Losing My Religion” more than any other song I’d ever heard. It was as bad as “Dear Mister Jesus,” with slightly better vocals.
Nonetheless, if college taught me anything, it was to keep an open mind. Bands I’d hated the year before were now worn proudly on t-shirts. You never knew. So I gathered with other WMSV kids in Studio B, and Lucas cued up the single.
A sort of viola sounding, drawn out . . . oh, and there’s Patti Smith, moaning like a ghost . . . and . . . well, that was underwhelming. I didn’t know R.E.M., but I knew pop music, and that’s a freaking terrible single, and maybe we all agreed, but my memory says Lucas and JasN stood up for the band, anyway.
Which they should have, by God. If there’s anything I believe in, it’s taking up for your band. If you love a band, you have to be able to do at least the following: name all their records in order, name what label each records was on (Rough Trade, Rough Trade, Sire, Sire), know a good slab of representative songs off each record (even if you can’t remember the precise order or every song—although, God willing, you really should be able to), name the band members for each record (i.e., “Slim plays on Don’t Tell a Soul,” “Chris doesn’t play on Radio City”), name who wrote each song (and which songs the drummer, for instance, sings on) (i.e., “Act Naturally,” “Octopus’s Garden”), know the bulk of the lyrics to each song and what they mean.
Bonus moves: gather the most loved bootlegs, VHS dubs of performances on Letterman, spouse names, sub-par records by band members that you end up convincing yourself are secret genius (Little Steven, I’m looking at you; Tommy, I still love Bash & Pop).
Advanced fans only: cigarette burns to represent your devotion to the band; naming a child after a band, bandmember, song, or record title; a tattoo of the band’s name or prominent cartoon character; marrying a band member out of love for the music (as opposed to just sleeping with them).
R.E.M. wasn’t that kind of band for me. So when a couple weeks later the full record came in, I tried to ditch Lucas when he raved about the album. Seriously—you’ve got to hear this one song. You’ll love it. It’s transcendent.
We were twenty-one and we spent our paychecks in the Blue Parrot on cheese sandwiches and Heineken beer. We put on eyeliner and strung our guitars. We drove cars that puked oil and shined in the sun.
So, grumbling, I sat down, too-slow little guitar figure, dirgey synth, then woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo
Some sort of nutjob car alarm Madchester—what the hell—then, a loopy, drunky Bucky riff, and it’s perfect, and that’s what keeps me, that’s what keeps me, that’s what keeps me down . . . LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND, and maybe, just maybe, I choked up a little bit.
There is nothing more in the world that a drunken little indy rock boy in Mississippi in the middle of the nineties wants more than a ballad. This was mine.
There is exactly one minute of quiet playing at the beginning, before the alarm starts.
R.E.M. – Leave (7:17).
From New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Recorded at soundcheck in Atlanta) Bill Berry, drums + percussion + acoustic guitar + synthesizer : Peter Buck, guitar : Mike Mills, bass + keyboard : Michael Stipe, vocals : Scott McCaughey, ARP Odyssey : Nathan December, guitar : Design by Chris Bilheimer : Michael Stipe
Download “Leave” at Plague of Angels.
As an REM fan (I used to say “hardcore REM fan,” but they lost me with Reveal and Around the Sun; Accelerate is a step in the right direction), “Leave” is one of my favorite REM songs. I remember listening to it in my crappy one-bedroom apartment in NW Illinois. I was in a job I hated, in a town people only went to because they wanted to get drunk or laid. People like me lived there because it was cheap. I stood in front of my bookshelf after setting up the new stereo I had just bought, and I listened to New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I don’t think I moved the entire time. I was enthralled. I felt like I was listening to something personal—much more so on previous REM albums. But “Leave.” Man, the Woo-woo-woo-woo in the beginning and just damn close to everything about it… It summed up how I felt, where I was in my life, and, well, just everything. And when I left town for good, I packed up my car to head even farther north for a new job, the song I listened to as I drove out of town was “Leave.”
This is an amazing tribute to a great song. I had just the opposite experience when New Adventures came out, probably having something to do with being at a tiny baptist college whose radio station played mostly Amy Grant and Michael Smith and thus lacking in vocal REM partisans. I remember sitting in my dorm with MTV on when the video for “E-Bow” came on. Huh! thought I. I didn’t even know there was a new REM out. I actually still really like that song; I went out and bought the cassingle. (I do, however, still hate the REM cassingle policy of that era, where the B-side was an instrumental version of the A-side. “What’s the Frequency Kenneth” was the same way. What, do I need a karaoke version? Do I need some accompaniment music to put in the boom box so I can sing the new REM at church?) This stream of consciousness comment brought to you by house-painting fatigue.
When I was 21, Green was released. In a southern college town in the 80s, REM was OUR band. After an incredible run (many of our friends has seen them when they had only an AP - Chronic Town – and now they had four geat albums in a row) the record was a tremendous disappointment: Stand is one of the worst songs ever. And lyrics printed: has he been singing stuff like this?!?
Anyway, the band became huge and even released some great sonds (Automatic is better than Out of Time) but we never loved them again. Many dropped off forever.
Now, there’s buzz about a new album. I haven’t heard it. But I can say this: just last year I spent a lot of time with New Adventures. It is a very underrated album with a loose, rocking feel. I can’t say how the new album will be, but I can encourage everyone who thinking of buying it to try New Adventures first. I hope it is a bridge from REM’s first indy period to the second major label period to this.
This a REM take from a slightly older generation of REM fans.
I always thought of New Adventures a decent combination of “old” REM (IRS days) and “New” REM (Warners days). Up was the sound of a band struggling to stay together. Reveal and Around the Sun were both huge disappointments. Accelerate is decent. There are some good songs, but it isn’t as good as it could be.
I was 18 and a freshman in college when Green was released (Document had been my REM intro). A friend said people didn’t like it because it was the first time you could understand Michael Stipe. There’s definite truth to that. I avoided Green for a long time—even if the Green Tour was the first time I saw them live (and I still have my tour tshirt). I didn’t buy Green on CD until 1993 or 94—I had a crappy cassette prior to that. But, you know, after some time I really grew to like it and appreciate it.
I just realized I conflated Green with Out of Time. That’s certainly when they first popped up on my radar. I have to admit I had the cassingle of “Radio Song”—also, that I briefly thought I was really “into” KRS-One. Of the pre-Warners work, I really, really like Life’s Rich Pageant—probably because songs like “Swan Swan H” really prefigure the moodier, long-form work on Hi-Fi and Out of Time that I liked.
I had a copy of Chronic Town on cassette (bought at a gas station!) that I used to try and listen to. I never liked it because I couldn’t understand a word. While working on this little article, I made note of what I do own: on cd, Monster (which I dig!) and Hi-Fi (um, and also a special-edition hardbound Monster). On vinyl, Reckoning and Around the Sun (I adore “Imitation of Life”). On cassette, Eponymous and Document. I think I had Dead Letter Office but I lost it.
Song I almost wrote about: my beloved “Strange Currencies,” a pop blues masterpiece.
And as somebody that says they’re not an R.E.M. fan, I sure do know too much about them, and reference them a lot, too. I think that’s what happens when you have great friends that love a band—it rubs off on you.
I sense a post on rehabilitating Green’s reputation in my near flung future. But I second Roland’s call for everyone to go out and get New Adventures. I replaced my cassette copy with a CD three or four years ago and it was like hearing it new again. Good stuff.
Ah, I have them all on CD, of course. Some are normal copies, some are promos (thanks to a friend who was on the editorial staff at Goldmine Magazine), I have a few on vinyl (Chronic Town, for sure, but I can’t remember what else. Possibly Reckoning and Lifes Rich Pageant). I have some of the early to mid-90s singles. And, of course, the Fan Club singles (I lost track of which ones). I let my membership run out several years ago, though. I even have some of the crappy recorded videos. No tattoos. I guess I am not an Advanced Fan. But I sure am a complete dork.
I go back to Murmur and Reckoning being my overall favorites. It’s a toss-up between the two.
Nice one
Here is my recent R.E.M.berances of Things Past
http://outsideleft.com/main.php?updateID=1040
By the way, that brick is still held like a treasure and rests proudly on display, a sure-fire conversation starter.