21 replies to this topic

[bflood]

Does anyone know who played the little slide bits on Man on the Moon?  Was it Peter, Bill or a guest?  I have never heard Peter play slide before, though I sure he could do it in a pinch.  This has always bugged me, because it was never replicated live.

[JohnnyJLawless]

Normally, i'd say John Keane, but if memory serves, MOTM was a last-minute song, so maybe they just laid it down pretty much straight away after Bill did his famous lean to reach his beer and came up with the chord change! When I was a kid I had that big, thick Automatic songbook, and there were so many different guitar parts for MOTM; like backward strums on a Les Paul running through a Mesa/Boogie, etc. Peter is certainly capable of playing it, but if it is slide, i'd say John Keane.

[bflood]

Yeah, John Keane did play quite a bit of slide and pedal steel for the band around this time.  A very good possiblility that it was him.

[Ryan011235]

Thought I remembered a quote from Peter in an old Guitar World magazine about even touching a slide after Duane Allman being sacrilegious, so I searched for it and here's what I found on some random site (it's down under the Automatic For The People section). Looks like Peter played the slide part.

http://nostalgiamusi...01_archive.html

Also, John Keane isn't referenced as an additional musician in the album credits.

[tursk]

the only guests on the record according to the cd book are - apart from the string players - knox chandler on cello and scott litt on harmonica and clavinet on "sweetness follows" and "ignoreland" respectively. my guess is that the slide bits are played by peter. i think that there is some mandolin audible on MoTM too, especially during the pre-chorus (hey andy bit).

actually i`ve always been very interested on who has done excactly what on which r.e.m. songs as all of the guys (well, except michael) can play almost anything. we can see it from some liner notes - bill played the tiny, but important piano bit on "near wild heaven" for just one example, mike has played a lot of keyboards and guitar, peter has played every stringed instrument there is. remarkable moments on automatic should include the facts (or should i say rumours) that peter didn`t do anything on "find the river", mike didnt do anything on "sweetness follows", bill and peter didnt do anything on "nightswimming" of course - and bills most prominent non-drum contributions are, i guess, the vocals on "try not to breathe" (i think he sung the heavily processed "i have seen things you will never see" part, which is almost a second lead in the chorus) and bass on "star me kitten" - he played bass on it during the monster tour at least; also the lower backing vocals on the chorus of "find the river".

i`d really love to see a full list, song-by-song of this album with all the band members playing credits actually.

[Sweden]

tursk, on 04 January 2012 - 03:44 AM, said:

the only guests on the record according to the cd book are - apart from the string players - knox chandler on cello and scott litt on harmonica and clavinet on "sweetness follows" and "ignoreland" respectively. my guess is that the slide bits are played by peter. i think that there is some mandolin audible on MoTM too, especially during the pre-chorus (hey andy bit).

Yep, the mandolin is there also throghout the versus.

Quote

actually i`ve always been very interested on who has done excactly what on which r.e.m. songs as all of the guys (well, except michael) can play almost anything. we can see it from some liner notes - bill played the tiny, but important piano bit on "near wild heaven" for just one example, mike has played a lot of keyboards and guitar, peter has played every stringed instrument there is. remarkable moments on automatic should include the facts (or should i say rumours) that peter didn`t do anything on "find the river", mike didnt do anything on "sweetness follows", bill and peter didnt do anything on "nightswimming" of course - and bills most prominent non-drum contributions are, i guess, the vocals on "try not to breathe" (i think he sung the heavily processed "i have seen things you will never see" part, which is almost a second lead in the chorus) and bass on "star me kitten" - he played bass on it during the monster tour at least; also the lower backing vocals on the chorus of "find the river".

i`d really love to see a full list, song-by-song of this album with all the band members playing credits actually.

I would have liked to sometime write a book, or even just an article, on their recordings, instrumentation and instrument choices, who-played-what etc. Doubt it's ever gonna happen though...

Scott mentioned some keyboard stuff that he did in the interview bluemookie did with him:

"What stuff have your recorded on R.E.M. albums that perhaps fans don’t know you played? For example, when fans hear piano, most will just assume Mike played it. Are there instruments or just certain guitar bits that you would like to clear up? Did you play bass or any other instruments on the albums?

There are probably very few prominent piano bits I've done, because Mike is so much better at it than I am! I played the piano on "So Fast So Numb", also organ, live on the same take (that was one of a number of New Adventures songs that we recorded the basic track at a sound check on the Monster tour). I did some weird experimental piano bits on Collapse Into Now, you know, laying a bunch of pencils and drumsticks on the wires of the grand piano to get a unique sound. That kind of stuff might only be noticeable on headphones, and probably wouldn't recognize what instrument it was when you hear it, which was sort of the point.
As I recall, off the top of my head, other songs I played some piano on: "Sad Professor", "Low Desert", "Electron Blue", "Falls To Climb", "Airportman", "The Lifting", and I played electric Wurlitzer piano on "Lotus", "Suspicion", "The Apologist"."

[bflood]

Ryan011235, on 03 January 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

Thought I remembered a quote from Peter in an old Guitar World magazine about even touching a slide after Duane Allman being sacrilegious, so I searched for it and here's what I found on some random site (it's down under the Automatic For The People section). Looks like Peter played the slide part.

http://nostalgiamusi...01_archive.html

Also, John Keane isn't referenced as an additional musician in the album credits.

Wow, thanks for posting that link.  That certainly answers my question and it is a great interview to boot!

[fredrik]

Ryan011235, on 03 January 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

Thought I remembered a quote from Peter in an old Guitar World magazine about even touching a slide after Duane Allman being sacrilegious, so I searched for it and here's what I found on some random site (it's down under the Automatic For The People section). Looks like Peter played the slide part.

As there ARE slide parts in earlier songs too (maybe most notably Finest Worksong) we can assume that Peter does it when he has to...
On NAIHF I think he left it to Nathan December.

[Sweden]

fredrik, on 04 January 2012 - 10:19 AM, said:

As there ARE slide parts in earlier songs too (maybe most notably Finest Worksong) we can assume that Peter does it when he has to...
On NAIHF I think he left it to Nathan December.

And on OOT (at least Country Feedback) it was John Keane.

[fredrik]

Sweden, on 04 January 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:

And on OOT (at least Country Feedback) it was John Keane.

Right. But that's a pedal steel guitar, not a regular guitar played with a slide.

[Sweden]

fredrik, on 04 January 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

Right. But that's a pedal steel guitar, not a regular guitar played with a slide.

Indeed!
(As I said, I like nerdy instrumentation debates!)

[tursk]

Same here!

Album-wise, all should be quite clear with, say, NAIHF and Out Of Time as those albums have all credits fully outwritten in the liner notes. I suspect that on the earlier IRS albums it was pretty standard and everybody played the instrument we know they are most often associated - Peter - guitar, Bill - drums and Mike - bass. With some notable exceptions of course - we know Bill played a toy piano on Perfect Circle (and Don Dixon played the bass on that one if i remember correctly, although he is not credited as a player on the album at all).


but lets move on to Monster for example, which poses a question - where does Bill play bass on the album? That`s what wikipedia says (not sure how much the wiki can always be trusted). Let me speculate: ^R.E.M.

• <sup>Bill Berry – drums, percussion, bass guitar (my speculations: Tongue; You; I Don`t Sleep, i Dream ??), backing vocals</sup> (Bill`s vox most prominent on Tongue, lets remind us, it was during the high falsetto part he was singing in the chorus that the poor guy got The Headache of `95)

• ^{Peter Buck – guitar, Farfisa organ (on Let Me In)}
  
• ^{Mike Mills – bass guitar, piano, organ (Lots of them by him as always), guitar (Let Me In), vocals}
  
• ^{Michael Stipe – lead vocals}

Sometimes i`ve  wondered why Bill didn`t do that much singing in his later-R.E.M. years as he did earlier. Well, then again, probably they just didn`t need the harmonies that much anymore with all the overdubbing, orchestras and Stipe`s voice sort of reaching his peak in the 90s. When you play with just a guitar and a bass and a drum set like they did in the early days, then one additional voice is always pretty much worth, like an extra instrument.

These are really of course nerdy speculations that dont make in the and any sense at all nor do they make any song worse or better, but worse thoughts can happen when you`re an old fan.

[welliwonder]

Yes the slide on MOTM is very simple and Pete Buck would have had no problems playing it , as opposed to the John Keane pedal steel work which is always very accomplished

[bflood]

One of the best things about the song Laughing is Bill's prominent backing vocals at the end.

[fredrik]

welliwonder, on 05 January 2012 - 02:21 AM, said:

Yes the slide on MOTM is very simple and Pete Buck would have had no problems playing it , as opposed to the John Keane pedal steel work which is always very accomplished

Btw: the live version of Begin the begin with Keane on pedal steel is imho the very best one.

[JohnnyJLawless]

bit low for mandolin, sounds like a bouzouki

[Sweden]

JohnnyJLawless, on 07 January 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

bit low for mandolin, sounds like a bouzouki

What are you talking about? MOTM? Pretty sure that at least what's heard in the pre-chorus is the mandolin. Verses perhaps more doubtful but I don't get a bouzouki feeling either. Could certainly be both on there, I guess.

[JohnnyJLawless]

Sweden, on 07 January 2012 - 03:33 PM, said:

What are you talking about? MOTM? Pretty sure that at least what's heard in the pre-chorus is the mandolin. Verses perhaps more doubtful but I don't get a bouzouki feeling either. Could certainly be both on there, I guess.

apparently there is both bouzouki and mandolin on there. I hear a bouzouki, 100%

[JohnnyJLawless]

you can hear it as a mandolin but with a more 'wobbly' sound, the strings vibrate a bit more

[beatadrum]

tursk, on 05 January 2012 - 12:52 AM, said:

• <sup>Bill Berry – drums, percussion, bass guitar (my speculations: Tongue; You; I Don`t Sleep, i Dream ??), backing vocals</sup> (Bill`s vox most prominent on Tongue, lets remind us, it was during the high falsetto part he was singing in the chorus that the poor guy got The Headache of `95)

I'd say Bill didn't do bass on any of the rock tracks, simply because they were all recorded 'live'. For You, the basic 'demo' track made it all the way to the final cut, something about it being initially taped in mono iirc.

If Bill did bass at all on Monster, it would be on a song someone else did drums on, one without drums as a key element when recording or with a drum machine. Bass ordinarily would be laid down with the drum track. Certainly REM's usual recording style was bass, drums, guitar and guide vocal before the Green era and Monster was to be a return to that, recording live.

So Tongue would be a possibility but even then, drums seem pretty key to it and live it was Peter on bass - to me most likely to have been PB that did the bass track for Monster.