Here’s another rabbit hole @Gargumma and I went down (during the Pandemic) discovering some definite ERRORS in the “Murmur I.R.S. Vintage Years edition” liner notes. Thought it would be worth sharing here…
Settle in for a LONG one…
The liner notes from “MURMUR IRS Years” re issue don’t list a LOCATION for “9-9” or “Gardening At Night”, but does say BOTH are b-sides of the “Rockville UK 12in”.
The liner notes DO list a source for “Catapult” as Seattle June 27, 1984, AND says it was the b-side of the “Rockville US 7in”.
I suspected these were from the Boston July 13, 1983 show, but needed to check. I do own a physical copy of “Return of the Rickenbackers” on vinyl that is a recording of the Boston July 13, 1983 show. So it should have been easy to see if any of those came from that show. However, those 3 songs are not on that vinyl version…
On my R.E.M. hard drive, I have a version of the Boston '83 show with 24 tracks that says it’s source was the WBCN FM broadcast straight to DAT by someone named Matt Field and then was “transferred and mastered” by Bill Koucky on Mar 10, 2009.
So I did a comparison listen to these vs the live tracks from “Murmur IRS Years” re issue…
“9-9” and “Gardening At Night” is DEFINITELY the same recording (some Michael ad-libs in various places are identical) so I would FOR SURE say these are Boston July 13, 1983.
Ok great! At least we know where those were recorded!!
Here’s the ERROR…
As said earlier, the “Murmur IRS Years” liner notes claim that “9-9” & “Gardening At Night” are from the “Rockville UK 12in”. I actually DO physically have that 12in on vinyl. Here’s what’s weird… The sleeve of the 12" says “9-9” & “Gardening At Night” are from the El Dorado, Paris, France April 20th 1984!!! NOT from Boston 1983!!!
Now to be fair, the “Murmur IRS Years” re issue liner notes never SAID those tracks were Boston. It just said they were from the “Rockville UK 12in”. BUT as stated above, my ears, and Michael’s ad libbing, proved that the “Murmur IRS Years” tracks are IDENTICAL to the Boston 1983 recording I have…
So NOW the question is: Are the sleeve notes on the “Rockville UK 12in” wrong, OR are the liner notes from “Murmur IRS Years” re issue wrong??
I took a listen to the “Rockville UK 12in” tracks and they are DEFINITELY NOT the same as the tracks on the “Murmur IRS Years” re issue. Therefore the liner notes in the “Murmur IRS Years” are WRONG on these 2 tracks!!
Period. Over. Done. WRITE IT DOWN.
I was happy to also find out (prove) that the “9-9” & “Gardening At Night” on the “Rockville UK 12in” ARE indeed from Paris April 20, 1984 just as the sleeve states. I verified this by comparing them to two different recordings I have of that date. Someone in the audience and Peter keep saying “Dogs?”, Michael says “NO!”, Peter says “Dogs?” again and then Gardening At Night starts.
I DO have to discredit something (else) from Gary Nabors “Remnants” book with this information though…
When discussing the “Rockville UK 12in” he says… “This single is very popular among collectors, and would probably be even more so had it not been for the 1992 reissue of the two live tracks on the remastered Murmur CD” (the IRS Years version)
Gary Nabors of course was just going by the information given by IRS in the “Murmur IRS Years” re issue liner notes, and accepting it as true, but I’ve proven IRS was WRONG about where the tracks came from.
Bad information existed BEFORE the internet!!
SOoooooooo… If that’s all wrong, and proven, WHY should we believe what they say in the liner notes of the Murmurs IRS Years reissue about the live version of “Catapult” either??
It’s DEFINITELY NOT Boston 1983 that the other two are from. (Once again due to Michael ad lib)
On my hard drive I have a Seattle June 27, 1984 recording that says it’s a “Rapid Eye Movement Release: Nov '04” with front and back artwork and 2 paragraphs of show notes that say “the show was recorded by the band for possible live album release but was shelved”.
HOWEVER, according to the R.E.M. TIMELINE (R.E.M. Timeline - 1984 Concert Chronology) this recording I have is missing “Driver 8” and “Catapult” (2nd & 3rd song played)… So no help there…
The R.E.M. TIMELINE notes also say “recorded for NBC’s The Source radio show, this show is available on many bootlegs, including “Boston 1984” (sic), “Blue”, “Pleasant Dreams”, “Rock and Roll Stars” and “We’re Blinking Just As Fast As We Can”.”
I DO have a CASSETTE bootleg (yes, I still have about 75 R.E.M. bootlegs on cassette. Many are duplicates of things I now have electronically, but I can’t make myself throw them away after spending hundreds of hours collecting/trading them) with the title “Rock and Roll Stars” that says it’s Seattle, June 27, 1984, and it the track listing DOES have “Catapult”. BUT I took a listen to it (damn cassettes suck) and unfortunately it does NOT contain “Catapult”… It just goes from “Moral Kiosk” to “Hyena” just like the Rapid Eye Movement recording and there’s a pretty obvious “cut” in crowd noise between the two, so I’m guessing “Driver 8” & “Catapult” were cut out for whatever reason on that bootleg.
Which means Gary Nabors 1993 book is wrong on the track listing for “Rock and Roll Stars” as well, or maybe my cassette copy was from a different source and I just “named” it that…
I have no other recordings to verify with.
Therefore I CANNOT CONFIRM if “Catapult” from “Murmur IRS Years” re issue is from Seattle 1984 or not…
We have to believe IRS in the liner notes I guess? (bad policy)
I do not have a US “Rockville 7in” vinyl to compare to. (where the liner notes SAY this came from)
Does ANYONE have a Seattle June 27, 1984 recording that DOES have “Catapult”??
And/Or the US 7in of “Rockville”?
So I can put this to bed!