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Publicity photo of R.E.M. circa the release of Lifes Rich Pageant in 1986
Since I never wrote anything about R.E.M. back on September 21st of last year (the day they officially disbanded), I'd like to take this day, the 29th anniversary of the release of their debut album, Murmur to do so. Sometime back in '83 (the year Murmur was released) a song playing on WQDR in Raleigh caught my ear. That song turned out to be "Laughing" from Murmur. I know for many people, the first song they ever heard was "Radio Free Europe" (the first single from Murmur) but for me, it was "Laughing", which just goes to show how much times have changed as a commercial radio station was actually playing a deep album cut. Little did I know at the time but they also had an EP out called Chronic Town as well as the original version of "Radio Free Europe" on 45 (which I was finally able to track down last year). From there came their second and third albums respectively,Reckoning and Fables of the Reconstruction, the first album of theirs I ever bought on the day of release, at least going by my often faulty memory. However, it wouldn't be until the release of their next album, Lifes Rich Pageant that I would finally see them in concert. That would have been on November 15th, 1986 when they played Cameron Indoor Stadium on the campus of Duke University in Durham with Let's Active opening. It was Mitch Easter's (who co-produced their first two records with Don Dixon and who was also the leader of Let's Active) birthday which led to members of R.E.M. joining Let's Active onstage for an encore rendition of "Hush", a song made famous by Deep Purple (though it was originally written by Joe South for Billy Joe Royal). Once R.E.M. took the stage it was all over with for me, I was finally seeing one of my very favorite bands in concert for the first time. As memorable as their entire set was, it was the encore portion that really stood out to me. Lead singer Michael Stipe took not one but two dives into the audience from the stage. Prior to the second one, he was being led off of the stage by security but before they could get him to one of the exits he turned tail and ran back out and did a swan dive into the audience. There was also the small matter of their final encore that night, a blistering version of Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" which one of my friends that attended that concert with me still loves to rib me about to this day. See, I wasn't much of a Springsteen fan back in those days and in that time period you couldn't turn on your radio without being inundated with the Boss because of the overwhelming popularity of his album Born In the U.S.A. It was for that reason that I thought they were doing that particular cover as a parody. However, it wasn't until years later when they did the Vote For Change Tour, which also included Springsteen, that I learned they were actually big fans.
So, what is it about R.E.M. that caused me to remain a fan even in the years after original drummer Bill Berry left? I'm not positive if I can answer that as I'm not sure if I even know the answer myself. I do know that what originally attracted me to them was something about their otherworldliness and how they stood out against most of the other music that was popular in the early 80's. There were no funny haircuts, synthesizers or MTV-friendly gimmicks with R.E.M., it was all about Stipe's nearly indecipherable lyrics and the trance-like, hypnotic sound of Peter Buck's guitar. Then came the album covers which were as mysterious as the music itself. It was the puzzling nature of the questions left unanswered that helped to pull me in. There was also the Southern Gothic side of things, the longing in Stipe's voice that spoke to me as a young man in the early 80's. Growing up in a small community in rural eastern North Carolina, I probably only knew of one or two other people that were even into R.E.M., much less that knew who they were. That's why I'll always consider radio stations like WQDR (which changed to a Country format in 1984) as a beacon of sorts. There was just something about the music of R.E.M. as well as their peers in similar bands such as Let's Active, the dB's, Guadalcanal Diary and U2 that spoke to outsiders such as myself. Finally, someone was making music for those of us that felt like we had been cast out from society in one way or another. As I once told my oldest brother Jerry, you guys had people like Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and John Lennon who expressed how you felt in ways that maybe you didn't even understand, my generation had people like Michael Stipe and Bono. They not only struck a chord in me emotionally but they also struck a chord in me in other ways, such as political activism. Never before at a concert had I seen booths for the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace and sign-up sheets for protesting Mobil doing offshore drilling for oil off the coast of North Carolina. R.E.M. weren't solely responsible for causing me to vote for the first time in 1992 but they were definitely instrumental in it. I also may not always see eye to eye with them on political matters but it was bands like them that helped to open my eyes to a world outside of my own through phrases like "Think Global, Act Local". That may seem clichéd in 2012 but in the early 80's it was all very new and quite meaningful to me.
It wasn't until the news of R.E.M. disbanding was made official on September 21st of 2011 that it dawned on me in a big way that this band had been such a huge part of my life beginning when I was a 20 year old in 1983. I've had a lot of other favorite bands and artists over the years but none like R.E.M. I was never able to admit that to myself or others until they called it quits, mainly because I hate being pigeonholed because of just one band but there it is. I'd often cited the Beatles as my favorite but my first memory of them is when Walter Cronkite announced they were breaking up on the CBS Evenings News in 1970. On the other hand, R.E.M. is a band that I grew up with. One that has seen me through very signifciant changes in my life; romances, deaths and marriages. When the news broke that R.E.M. were hanging it up my initial reaction was one of shock but not surprise because it had been pretty clear since the release of Collapse Into Now (which came out in April of 2011) that something strange was afoot. They were refusing to tour behind it, which was really nothing new as they'd done that before around the time of Out of Time andAutomatic For the People but there was something different about it this time. Their longstanding contract with Warner Brothers Records was up and for the first time that I could remember, none of the members seemed to have any plans for R.E.M. beyond the release of what turned out to be their final album. There were also tell-tale signs within the album itself which depicts Stipe on the cover waving goodbye and song titles such as "All the Best". There was also the final cut on the album, "Blue" which featured Patti Smith (one of the band's longtime heroes) making a guest appearance on one of their albums for the first time since she sang on "Ebow the Letter" with Stipe on New Adventures In Hi-Fi back in 1996. None of those signs really meant anything to me at the time as I'd heard it all before. Fans thought they were going to break up on New Year's Eve of 1999 when Bill Berry joked about it during one of MTV's Rockumentaries. Most of us got the joke but many missed that part. Then there was the supposed "goodbye" at the end of New Adventures in Hi-Fi when Stipe sang on "Electrolite", "20th Century go to sleep...I'm not scared, I'm out of here". There's many more examples, even some that go back to their years on I.R.S. Records when fans detected an unofficial countdown in the liner notes. The band weren't even aware of it themselves but once it was brought to their attention, they played it up. Shortly after they announced they were disbanding, a friend asked me if I was still in mourning. Well, I was never really in mourning but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't saddened by the news. Here was a band that had been a very significant part of my life for the better part of the past 30 years and now they were no more. No more excitement surrounding the release of new records, no more concerts (they refused to do a farewell tour and I don't blame them), no more fan club mailings. It didn't really hit me until I read this statement from Peter Buck on their website on the day of the announcement, "Mike, Michael, Bill, Bertis (their manager), and I walk away as great friends. I know I will be seeing them in the future, just as I know I will be seeing everyone who has followed us and supported us through the years. Even if it's only in the vinyl aisle of your local record store, or standing at the back of the club watching a group of 19 year olds trying to change the world." That last sentence brought a tear to my eye and still does. People say that music can't change the world but for a very large chunk of my life, one little band from Athens, Georgia had a very profound effect on mine.
Thank you, R.E.M.
