Posts Tagged ‘Peter Buck’

R.E.M. – ” The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite ” The Story Behind Every Song On ‘Automatic for the People’

Posted: November 10, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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As R.E.M. were completing work on their eighth studio album, Automatic for the People, in the late spring of 1992, the quartet’s members grew concerned about the final track listing. For the most part, this was a batch of dark songs about difficult subjects. Perhaps a bit of levity, in the form of the buoyant “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” would be welcome in the running order.

“We included this song on Automatic in order to break the prevailing mood of the album,” guitarist Peter Buck wrote in the liner notes for In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003. “Given that the record dealt with mortality, the passage of time, suicide and family, we felt that a light spot was needed. In retrospect, the consensus amongst the band is that this might be a little too lightweight.”

Like the majority of the songs on this album, “Sidewinder” first came to life in rehearsal/demo sessions conducted by the instrumentalists in the band: Buck, bassist/keyboardist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. Following a couple months of promotion for 1991’s Out of Time, the trio holed up in R.E.M.’s hometown of Athens, Ga., and began working on what they had planned to be a big rock record. But the tracks that most intrigued them – and singer Michael Stipe – turned out to be the quieter, acoustic-driven ones, and the melancholy music that would symbolize Automatic for the People started to coalesce.

But amid some of the softer, slower, minor-key stuff was an upbeat boogie, created the same day that the men came up with the music for “Man on the Moon.” Both were melody-forward, but the former seemed to recall R.E.M.’s sunniest moments, such as “Shiny Happy People” and “Stand.” It only became bolder with John Paul Jones’ string arrangement, added after the bulk of the album sessions in Atlanta.

“The other guys gave me this new song that is so beyond ‘Stand’ that it makes ‘Stand’ sound like a dirge,” Stipe has said in 1992, perhaps referring to what would become “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite.” “I mentioned it and they all started laughing. But it sounds like that song ‘The Sound of Philadelphia’ by MFSB. It’s really out there.”

R.E.M’s singer went “really out there” in penning the lyrics to “Sidewinder,” writing lines that list food (“A can of beans or black-eyed peas / Nescafe and ice”) or could be snippets of overheard conversation (“Uou can’t lay a patch by computer design / It’s just a lot of stupid, stupid signs”) or obsess over the tiny details (“There are scratches around the coin slot”).

But that’s not to say that this song isn’t sub-sub-sub-substantial. “Sidewinder” seems to be offering glimpses of a transient lifestyle with the hallmarks of a roadside motel – instant food, strange characters and pay phones. Although Stipe wrote the lyrics, the details may have mirrored aspects of guitarist Buck’s life, seeing as his first marriage was in trouble during the Automatic era.

“I didn’t even have a house,” he revealed in the documentary R.E.M. by MTV. “I was driving around listening to cassettes and staying in $19-a-night motels.”

The “Sidewinder” mentioned in the song’s title is a snake, perhaps a metaphor for the drifting narrator, or maybe it refers to the public phone that is so central to the lyrics. Some old-timey telephones were called sidewinders, because of the coil of cord that wound on the side of the machine.

It’s also possible that in the chorus (where Stipe squeezes nine syllables into the space of four, “callmewhenyoutrytowakeherup”), the “her” that he’s singing about could refer to the phone. If cars, boats and spaceships can be “shes,” why can’t a pay phone be a “her”?

Despite wearing a lighter pallor, “Sidewinder” still ties into one of Automatic’s main themes: youth, or rather, memories of youth. You can hear Stipe laugh as he sings, following the namecheck of Dr. Seuss (because he’s incapable of saying the children’s author’s name as Dr. Zeus). He goes on to sing about the Cat in the Hat and cartoons, in a lyric of which the singer is particular fond.

“Sidewinder” “holds on of my favorite lines ever, in ‘their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream’,” he wrote in the liner notes to Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011. “Cartoon characters never just get sleepy, they always have to have a dream of some floaty kind.”

R.E.M. Automatic For the People reissue

In the recording stage, the song’s working title was “Wake Her Up,” before it was changed to “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” – a reference to the old Tokens’ doo-wop hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Stipe even cops that song’s “eee-dee-dee-dee” intro in the R.E.M. song’s opening moments. The guys had a genuine love for the song, which they had been covering since R.E.M.’s earliest shows, and decided to clear their nod to the pop classic with its songwriters.

“We actually paid them for that,” Buck revealed in 1992. “We didn’t want some guy, down the road, going, ‘You owe me two million dollars.’ So we called them up and said, ‘We’re calling it “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” and the singer kind of paraphrases the line.’ In any court of law, we couldn’t have been nailed. Because the song doesn’t have anything to do with it. But you don’t want someone to feel that you’re stealing from them.”

R.E.M. also promised to cover “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” allowing Stipe to squeal with joy on the B-side of the “Sidewinder” single, thus ensuring the songwriters some royalties. Which is what happened when the band put out the song as Automatic’s third single in the winter of 1993, a few months after the album’s release. It kind of flopped in the U.S. (“Sidewinder” fared well on rock radio, but didn’t match the reaction to “Drive” or “Man on the Moon”), but went to No. 17 in the U.K.

Although “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” has featured on multiple best-of compilations – including 2003’s In Time and 2011’s career-spanning Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage – R.E.M. never played the song in concert. It is one of only two tracks from Automatic for the People to never make it into a concert (the other being “New Orleans Instrumental No. 1”).

“That’s a song that to this day I’m not really sure what it’s about, but it’s a lot of fun,” Mills said in 2007. “We never do it live, but it’s a good record. It’s just one of those songs that never seemed like it need to be done live. We might’ve messed around with it at sound check a couple of times, but it never felt like something we should really try.”

R.E.M – ” Try Not To Breathe ” The Story Behind Every Song On ‘Automatic for the People’

Posted: November 10, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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“Try Not to Breathe” is a pretty bleak command. And, indeed, the second track from R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People is about death. But the song’s title originated with a much more innocuous statement.

During the demo stages for the album, which would come out in October 1992, guitarist Peter Buck was recording the groundwork for a possible new tune on acoustic guitar.

“We were doing the demo, and I had the mic for my guitar right up against my mouth. I was kind of huffing,” Buck said in 1992. “So John [Keane], the engineer, said, ‘You’re making too much noise.’ So I said, ‘OK, take two. I’ll try not to breathe.’ I just meant that I wouldn’t breathe during the take. But Michael [Stipe] heard it and said, ‘Oh, that’s a nice title.’”

Stipe took the idea away and returned with a completed lyric, a scene of someone on their deathbed, told from the perspective of person who is about to shuffle off this mortal coil. The singer came up with a poetic depiction of what this ailing figure would be feeling and thinking. There’s discomfort (“I can hold my head still with my hands at my knees”), but also strength (“The decision is mine”) and acceptance of the end (“I have lived a full life”).

In interviews at the time of Automatic’s release, Buck and bassist/keyboardist Mike Mills talked about the subject of “Try Not to Breathe” as a man (probably because Stipe is male). But the frontman later revealed his deeply personal connection to the song. He was writing about his grandmother. He was reflecting his feelings by imagining hers in what appears to be an internal monologue. She conveys love to her family silently, as thoughts run through her head: “I will try not to burden you / I can hold these inside / I will hold my breath until all these shivers subside / Just look in my eyes.”

Some rock critics and fans marveled at the capacity of a rock singer in his early 30s to write so movingly about an elderly woman. But in this, Stipe might have not only been inspired by his grandmother, but by another songwriter who had a gift for embodying people beyond his years in compositions: John Prine. For a couple years, Stipe had been singing Prine’s “Hello in There” at performances with Natalie Merchant and/or Billy Bragg, bringing an earnest empathy to the song’s portrayal of sad and lonely, elderly folks.

Long before it had lyrics, or a title, “Try Not to Breathe” was one of the first tracks conceived for Automatic for the People. During the final days of making Out of Time in 1990, Buck offered it to be the counterpart to Stipe’s “Nightswimming” lyrics. When the singer opted for Mills’s circular piano idea instead, the guitarist got his idea on tape at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios (where R.E.M. were mixing Out of Time).

The waltzing instrumental returned for the 1992 demo and recording sessions for Automatic, some of which took place at Woodstock, N.Y.’s Bearsville Sound Studios. At that point, the song was nicknamed “6/8 Sailor” for its time signature, then was marked “Passion” when the final touches were added at Bad Animals in Seattle.

“Chord structure-wise, it could be some kind of a mountain ballad,” was how Buck described the track that would appear as “Try Not to Breathe” on the final album. “But then it has electronically altered background vocals and feedback in the bridge, to give it an unsettling feel.”

Like “Drive” before it, this recording crackles in its mix of elements. There’s the roughed-up components (which Buck describes above) and the rattle that seems to be counting down the last moments. But there’s also those long, twangy guitar strains that seem to bend into eternity, drummer Bill Berry’s tasteful tom hits that give just enough to push the song forward, and Mills’ organ overdub, which adds grace to such finality.

If his keyboard playing brings grace to “Try Not to Breathe,” Mills’ backing vocals carry deliverance. Near the middle of the song, R.E.M.’s not-so-secret weapon swoops in to do his best Smokey Robinson. He’s a resplendent echo of the dying woman’s last thoughts: “Something to flyyyyy.” He’s nothing short of an angel, not coming to save the day, but to help make it better. Mills’ vocal performance is what stayed with him, long after he finished work on Automatic.

“A beautiful song, personally one of my favorite backing vocals that I ever did,” he said in 2007. “I felt like John Lennon when I came up with it. It’s very nice to feel like John Lennon even if it’s just for five seconds.”

As the album’s second track, “Try Not to Breathe” establishes the theme of mortality found on half of the 12 songs on Automatic for the People, but it was the first song on the album to deal with death. Musically, it carries over the acoustic foundation and dark sonic aesthetic from “Drive.” It helped define the album as more subdued and pensive, certainly less guitar-forward than much of Green or Document.

“On quiet little songs like ‘Try Not to Breathe’ … the guitar is always there, but it’s a discordant guitar bubbling under the surface,” comments Buck. “Automatic for the People isn’t a real rockin’ album, but I think that’s fine, because there are enough of those around this year as it is!”

Of course, R.E.M. had initially indicated that their follow-up to the blockbuster, but gentle, Out of Time would be a big, rock record. Instead, in the burgeoning era of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, they were offering a death rattle.

“My feeling was – not in a negative way – is that it was kind of a down record with a lot of minor keys,”said Buck in 2017, “and we were at the age when Michael was thinking a lot about mortality, so I didn’t expect it to be a huge hit.”

Yet, Automatic for the People, with the death-focused “Try Not to Breathe” in a prominent position, became a multi-platinum and critical success, displaying R.E.M. at the height of their cultural importance.

R.E.M – ” ‘Drive ” The Story Behind Every Song On ” Automatic for the People “

Posted: November 10, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Before R.E.M. was finished making Out of Time, they had begun crafting Automatic for the People. They just didn’t know it yet.

In December 1990, they traveled to Prince’s famous Paisley Park Studios outside of Minneapolis to put the finishing touches and create the final mixes for Out of Time, which would come out a few months later. The band recorded a demo version of “Drive” on the final day of mixing for their soon-to-be blockbuster release.

“It wasn’t actually in the running for that album,” guitarist Peter Buck said in 1992. “When we’re mixing or doing overdubs, we all sit around with guitars and just play. I put this thing down on tape and then [bassist/keyboardist] Mike [Mills] added some stuff. We thought it might be a good B-side for that album.”

But “Drive” turned into much more than a B-side. Along with two other tracks that can trace their origins to Paisley Park (“Nightswimming” and “Try Not to Breathe”), the sparse acoustic guitar-propelled song eventually would set the tone for the Automatic for the People sessions. Although Buck, Mills and drummer Bill Berry initially tried to fashion a follow-up out of up-tempo rockers – sort of counter-programming after the delicate, pastoral Out of Time – the faster, harder songs had less appeal, both to the instrumental trio of R.E.M. and the band’s frontman Michael Stipe.

The way the group usually recorded was that Buck, Mills and Berry would first create a slate of instrumental demos, and then Stipe would write lyrics to the ones that most intrigued him. Buck credits the R.E.M. singer for plucking the minor-key “Drive” off the scrap heap.

“I had it on a cassette of demos and I always fast-forwarded through it,” Buck recalled. “I thought it was the most boring thing I’d ever heard. Then, all of a sudden, Michael had these lyrics, which defined the song for me.”

It’s ironic that, on the song that would become Automatic’s first track (and lead single), Stipe helps introduce this ballad-heavy record with the line, “Hey, kids, rock and roll.” The rest of the band loved the idea of having rock and roll in the lyrics, but not necessarily in the music, although Stipe maintained he wasn’t being snarky, but paying tribute to David Essex’s “Rock On” (a similarly spare recording featuring the same phrase).

“There were, before punk, a few songs that resonated with me,” said Stipe  in 2009. “One was David Essex’s ‘Rock On.’ ‘Drive’ is a homage to that.”

But “Drive” was more about telling kids to rock – even “around the clock” in a nod to the dawn of the genre. The lyrics appear to be about control, with “elder statesman” Stipe (he was barely over 30 at the time), reminding a younger generation to think for themselves. Certain lines also suggest a political angle. “Bush-whacked” gives you an idea of what Stipe thought then-President George H.W. Bush was doing to the country. “Ollie, Ollie in come free” might reference disgraced military man Oliver North, while also recalling a childhood game. Lost youth would be a running theme throughout Automatic.

“It’s a subtle, political thing. Michael specifically mentions the term ‘Bush-whacked,’” Buck said. “But if you want to take it like ‘Stand,’ that’s cool too. You like to think that you can appreciate these songs on any level you want to. I have a lot of records I listen to when I’m just doing the dishes.”

With the lyrics mostly in place, in early 1992, R.E.M. recorded a more complete demo version of “Drive” at John Keane Studios, a favorite establishment for the band to work in their hometown of Athens, Ga. Before the bulk of the Automatic sessions were to take place in March and April, the group spent a little more than a week in the Big Easy, playing and recording in Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway Studio.

“We did demos in New Orleans at Daniel Lanois’ studio, which is an old, haunted mansion – supposedly haunted – and filled with kind of neat, old antiques, neat instruments,” Buck said in a promotional video. “And [we] did demos there, some of which ended up on the record. ‘Drive’ is a live take from there. Bass, drums, guitar and vocals – all live.”

The demo recording was so alluring – with spindly acoustic guitar, deep bass, thunder-crack drums and Stipe’s rich vocals, set against a mass of empty space – that it became the foundation for the final track. Again, “Drive” was setting the tone for Automatic and the work that was yet to take place in Woodstock, N.Y.; Miami, Atlanta and Seattle in the spring of ’92.

R.E.M. would add to “Drive” during some of those sessions. An overdubbed melodica  appears at the 45-second mark, bringing some sweet to round out the stark, but also serving as the sort of piercing ring you’d hear in the aftermath of an explosion. But in this case, the explosion happens secondary to the aftermath, when Buck’s overdubbed fuzz guitar (plucked with a nickel for blunt force) crashes in like a fire bomb, setting the emptiness alight.

The emotion is not just carried in Stipe’s cavernous voice, but also in the symphonic strings that pair with the melodica about a minute-and-a-half into the song. According to Berry, the band were in Miami when they decided that strings might benefit some of the Automatic material, including “Drive.” As fans of John Paul Jones’ orchestrations as a member of Led Zeppelin, they contacted the multi-instrumentalist, who agreed to arrange and oversee the additions.

“Doing the string arrangements for that album was a great experience, actually,” said Jones  in 2010. “They sent me the demos of their songs, and we went into a studio in Atlanta, with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. They were great songs, something you can really get your teeth into as an arranger.”

The strings lift “Drive,” but also swirl around its primary instruments, sometimes tangling with Buck’s fuzzed-up slashes. What began as a relatively subdued, haunting acoustic number turned into something much more vigorous: a track that built and built and built over the course of four-plus minutes, only to set down gently once more. Scott Litt (who had co-produced R.E.M.’s previous three LPs and would work on this one and the next two) thought that the sort of dynamism on display on “Drive” was a result of the band’s love of Queen.

“The arrangement of ‘Drive’ was, in part, inspired by Queen,” Litt said in 1995. “Pete and Mike are big Queen fans. Queen records, for all their bombast, sounded like each player had a personality.”

In the final stages of work, “Drive” was chosen to be the track that would lead off the album. It would also be the first single to be released from the album, on October. 1st, 1992, just a few days before Automatic for the People hit stores. Once more, “Drive” was setting the tone.

As a song without a chorus, “Drive” was a curious choice for the lead single. Perhaps, R.E.M. thought that that after “Losing My Religion” – a tune with a mandolin riff – had become a pop smash, anything was possible. “Drive” didn’t quite reach those heights, although this dark gem went to No. 28  (and did even better in Canada and Europe), became plastered on rock radio and served as the gateway for fans to Automatic.

The song’s video, featured prominently on MTV, also served as a signpost. Directed by frequent collaborator Peter Care (from Stipe’s concept), the black-and-white clip appeared to take its cues from Anton Corbijn’s crisp band photos found in the Automatic CD booklet, but added an element of danger. Strobe lights flash, a crowd of outstretched arms swells like a stormy sea and R.E.M.’s frontman appears to be taking part in one unpleasant crowd-surf or the victim of an angry mob. Cutaways are made to Buck, Mills and Berry, each blasted with a fire hose, in a strange appropriation of civil rights era images.

Automatic’s music videos became more important for the band’s image following R.E.M.’s decision not to promote the album with a tour (which had also happened the year earlier with Out of Time). However, the band did knock out one show in Athens for a Greenpeace benefit. At the concert, R.E.M. played a handful of tunes from the new record, including “Drive,” which featured a dramatically different approach. Instead of beginning with the haunting acoustic intro like on the record, the performance took the song’s name literally, launching with a pile driver of electric guitar and organ. The live version of “Drive” metastasized into herky-jerky funk-rock workout.

Although the live reimagining was recorded and released on 1994’s Alternative NRG (also to benefit Greenpeace) and became a B-side, most fans were introduced to the high-energy “Drive” during R.E.M.’s performance at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. It’s continued to be the way the band played the song on their massive Monster tour in ’95.

“We’ve played it a lot, it’s been in virtually every show that we’ve done since we’ve put it out, and after a while, you know, you want to give things a little bit of a different treatment,” said Mills in 2007. “The MTV Awards we did, it was fun to do, that was a chance to surprise a whole lot of people at one time. Music is not immutable, it’s organic, and while there are some songs we never change live, that was one that could do with a little moving around.”

The live version of “Drive” was released on the bonus disc of rarities and B-sides that came with special editions of In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003. Despite “Drive’s” status as a hit single, the original recording was left off the main edition, as well as the career-spanning compilation, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011 – out-shouldered by Automatic for the People’s other notable singles.

But it remained a live favorite through to the end of R.E.M.’s performing days, and the band eventually reverted to playing “Drive” in a rendition that more closely resembled the original recording. It was one of five Automatic selections the group performed at their final full concert in 2008 in Mexico City. “Drive” was played early in the show, again helping to set the tone.

R.E.M – 20 Years Ago Bill Berry Leaves R.E.M. 30th October 1997

Posted: October 31, 2017 in MUSIC
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R.E.M. announced on October. 30th, 1997 that drummer Bill Berry was leaving the group, Long-running fans of the alternative rockers took the news hard. After all, R.E.M. were a democratic unit, who had maintained order by remaining friends as their band became more and more popular in the late ’80s and early ’90s. They credited all of their songs to Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe, no matter who created them. And just a couple of years prior to this big reveal, the quartet had infamously claimed that if any member left the band, R.E.M. would cease to exist.

Fans who had taken R.E.M. at their earnest word had to wonder, would Berry’s departure mean the end of the band?. “The first thing he said when he dropped this bombshell on us is if it was going to break up the band, he wasn’t going to leave,” frontman Stipe said. the day after the announcement. Berry concurred: “I was prepared to [stay]. I said it and I meant it.” . The drummer explained that when the group had reconvened in Hawaii to begin working on their new record (what would become 1998’s Up), he no longer felt the same passion for making music that Buck, Mills and Stipe shared.

But, after a multi-week process of denial, anger, sadness and acceptance, it became clear to the other members of R.E.M. that Berry was no longer happy in the band. The 39-year-old was ready to retire and become a hay farmer, trading in his drumsticks for a pitchfork.

“I found myself wandering out to the beach and looking at the waves and stuff while the other guys were inside working away,” Berry said. “I put some things on tape, but my heart wasn’t in it.”

After careful consideration and lots of conversations with his bandmates, Berry decided it was time for him to redirect his focus to something other than music. The drummer, who had always been an early riser, decided to put his energy into his hay farm in Farmington, outside of Athens.

“I’ve been playing the drums since age nine,” Berry said in an official statement from the band. “I’m at a point in my life where my priorities have shifted. I loved my 17 years with R.E.M. but I’m ready to … move on to a different phase of my life.”

The other three members of R.E.M. noticed Berry’s physical and creative absence. After all, he wasn’t “just” the drummer in the band. Since the four guys had founded the band in 1980 in Athens, Ga., Berry had contributed guitar, bass, mandolin, piano and vocals to R.E.M. performances, demos and album recordings. He was R.E.M.’s editor, a voice for getting to the hook and a force against getting too fussy.

And he’d been a significant melodic contributor alongside guitarist Buck and bassist/keyboardist Mills, coming up with the initial ideals for “Man on the Moon,” “Perfect Circle” and “Everybody Hurts” among many other songs.

Other Berry songs included “Driver 8”, “Cant Get There from Here” and “I Took Your Name”. The song Berry was also responsible for toning down the lyrics of the song “Welcome to the Occupation.” Stipe’s original lyric was “Hang your freedom fighters” which, given the Reagan administration’s active support for the contra “freedom fighters” in Nicaragua, sounded very violent and militant, although Stipe himself countered that the line could be taken multiple ways (“hang” as in either “lynch” or “frame on a wall”). Berry’s objection ultimately led the line to be changed to “hang your freedom higher.”

On the final R.E.M. studio album to feature Berry, 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi, he had co-written the appropriately titled “Leave.”

When asked if his uneasy feelings dated back to working on the previous album, Berry said they did not – although it had been a tumultuous couple of years. R.E.M. had been cobbling together New Adventures while they were touring the world in 1995, their first huge trek in six years. It was also the tour that saw three of R.E.M.’s four members land in the hospital, with the most serious circumstance involving Berry.

On March 1st, 1995, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Berry collapsed on stage mid-set, the result of what turned out to be two aneurysms on the right side of his brain. The drummer underwent a successful craniotomy, rested up and made a full recovery. Before long, he was playing golf and back to touring with his bandmates. Even though Berry had survived, the experience had an effect on his future.

“I would say that the opportunity I had to reflect while lying on my back in a Swiss hospital bed,” Berry said in 1997. “I began to sense that my priorities had shifted somewhat and that I was looking forward to maybe a simpler life… with less travel involved.” Mills, who had known Berry since they were teenagers in Macon, Ga, said he noticed that his friend had grown increasingly weary of life on the road. Berry also admitted to having grown tired of being in the media spotlight, doing interviews, existing as a public figure and appearing in videos.

 

In the meantime, R.E.M. moved into a different phase of their career. Buck, Mills and Stipe claimed they would not replace Berry with a full-time drummer, instead becoming a trio that would rely on the assistance of hired hands. The transition wasn’t easy. With Berry’s exit, Stipe entered a depression that carried over into writer’s block. The first recording sessions without R.E.M.’s founding drummer were difficult and didn’t always feature the band members working together. They nearly broke up, almost breaking the promise they had given Berry.

But the dense, electronic tangle of Up arrived just under a year after Berry’s official departure and R.E.M. continued on. A 1999 tour helped them congeal as a three-piece, augmented by drummer Joey Waronker, and touring multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow. Ministry thumper Bill Rieflin would eventually become R.E.M.’s go-to percussionist as they performed and recorded in the ’00s, before calling it a day in 2011.

Although Berry never rejoined R.E.M. on a permanent basis, he did partner with his old band mates on a variety of one-off occasions between 2003 and 2007, usually for shows that did require him to travel too far (i.e. concerts in Raleigh, N. C., and Athens and a wedding reception for an R.E.M. guitar tech). When the band were welcomed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Berry agreed to man the drums at the induction ceremony.

“It’s a great chance to get back together and perform with R.E.M., which I always loved doing,” he said ahead of the performance. “This opportunity also does not require me to climb onto [a] bus or plane to do it again and again for several consecutive months.”

In the lead-up to the ceremony, Berry also made one last recording with Buck, Mills and Stipe – a cover of John Lennon’s “#9 Dream” for a charity album. And, following R.E.M.’s 2011 breakup, Berry and Mills have been known to join Buck onstage to play songs like “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” or “(I Am) Superman” when the Minus 5 (of which Buck and McCaughey are members) come to Athens and play the 40 Watt Club.

Looking back on R.E.M.’s 31 years as a band, it’s difficult not to see the drummer’s exit as one of a few signposts in the band’s career. Coming as R.E.M.’s records were about to stop becoming event releases (as mainstream music tastes were shifting), the departure of Bill Berry is an easy demarcation point for when the band entered a popular and – some would say – creative decline. “They were never the same without Berry” is both a true statement and a lazy criticism.

“It’s the end of an era for us… Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe... and that’s sad,” Stipe said in 1997. “For me, Mike and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn how to run differently.”

thanks to diffuser.

COLDPLAY feat PETER BUCK – ” Free Fallin ” Tom Petty Cover

Posted: October 5, 2017 in MUSIC
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Chris Martin of Coldplay

An outpouring of grief swept the music industry at the passing of Tom Petty , as it was confirmed that Tom Petty died from a cardiac arrest at the age of 66.

The emoting continued at the Moda Center in Portland, Ore., as Coldplay held a minute of silence for the passing of a rock ‘n’ roll legend. They followed the silence with a cover of “Free Fallin’” as they were joined by Peter Buck of R.E.M.

The band joined figures from all over the industry in expressing their sadness at Petty’s passing.

Watch fan-shot videos of Coldplay and Buck’s performance

The BASEBALL PROJECT feat Mike Mills, Peter Buck – ” The One I Love / Texarkana / (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville “

Posted: August 12, 2017 in MUSIC
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Back in June,  R.E.M members Mike Mills and Peter Buck traveled to Norway for the Sun Station Vadso Festival, featuring performances by a series of intertwined bands including newly reformed The Dream Syndicate , Filthy Friends , The Minus 5 and The Baseball Project.

Peter Buck plays in most of those bands, and Mike Mills has rotated in and out of The Baseball Project, a — as the name suggests — baseball-themed band that also features Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate and latter-day R.E.M. sideman and The Minus 5 mainstay Scott McCaughey.

During the Baseball Project’s set at Sun Station on June 23rd, the group performed R.E.M.’s breakout 1987 single “The One I Love,” with Mills taking lead vocals , with Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Taylor who plays with Buck in Filthy Friends — taking on Mills’ usual backing vocals.

During the festival, the band also played the R.E.M Out of Time album track “Texarkana,” which Mills introduced by saying, “Peter and I used to be in a band together a few years ago, and this is a song that we never did.” And, during his own set, Mills, along with Buck on guitar, played the  R.E.M. classic “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville.”

Thanks to Slicing Up Eyeballs

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R.E.M – ” Live At The Olympia Dublin ” 10th Anniversary

Posted: July 1, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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In the summer of 2007, R.E.M. set up camp for five nights at Dublin, Ireland’s venerable Olympia Theatre to explore new material, test out arrangements, and rehearse songs for their 14th studio album, Accelerate, later released in 2008.

The 39 tracks on the 2-disc set, recorded over the course of the 5-night stint, cover a wide range of material from R.E.M’s back catalogue including deep cuts and fan favorites not performed live in years. In a moment of candor upon entering into unchartered territory, vocalist Michael Stipe dubbed it “an experiment in terror,” but “the terror was for nothing “Live at the Olympia” one of the best non-studio records released this year.”

Select songs from the performances would later be on the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia. The album is a two-CD release, and contains a total of 39 songs. In addition, a DVD with a documentary entitled This Is Not a Show directed by Vincent Moon is included.

All this is to say that if you missed a chance to pick up a copy in 2007, here’s your second opportunity to get what’s been called “the best R.E.M. record you never heard.” This must-have release has just been reissued on Craft Recordings and should suit the tastes of both longtime fans and the uninitiated alike.

The 39 tracks on the 2-disc set, recorded over the course of the residency, cover a wide range of material – digging deep into the band’s earliest tracks, and eschewing the obvious hits. This is a must-have for fans of R.E.M.: Aside from the thrill of hearing a legendary band working through raw material, Live at the Olympia offers the chance to re-live a wealth of deep cuts that R.E.M. rarely performed over the course of their career.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Award-winning band R.E.M. is one of the most revered bands to emerge from the American underground. Singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry helped originate college rock during the post-punk scene of the ’80s. The Athens, GA-based group toured relentlessly for the first decade of their career, refining their idiosyncratic blend of brash tunefulness, poetic lyrics, chiming guitars and evocative vocals. By the early ’90s, R.E.M. had become one of the most popular and critically acclaimed bands in the world. With an extraordinary three-decade-long run of creative vitality, R.E.M. have established a powerful legacy as one of the most enduring and essential rock bands in popular music history.

FILTHY FRIENDS – ” Invitation ” Feat Corin Tucker Sleater-Kinney and Peter Buck R.E.M

Posted: June 21, 2017 in MUSIC
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Kill Rock Stars: Filthy Friends: 05/27/2017, SE Portland, OR

Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker and R.E.M.‘s Peter Buck are in a new band called Filthy Friends. Listen to “The Arrival”, the new single from their debut, Invitation. The LP is out August 25th.

Filthy Friends is the sound of music being made free of expectations, free of fear for how it will be received, free of any and all bullshit that has become part of the modern music industry. Filthy Friends is the product of like minded individuals with nothing to prove getting together and making a heroic racket together that finds space for their many influences and interests.

The band is lucky in that regard. Their legacies in the music world are comfortably secured. Lead singer CCorin Tucker has left an indelible mark on the punk scene through her memberships in Sleater-Kinney and Heavens to Betsy. Guitarist Kurt Bloch has logged a lot of hours as the leader of The Fastbacks, as well as serving as a producer/mentor for up and coming Seattle rock groups. Drummer Bill Rieflin has a fine day job as one of the drummers in King Crimson. Bassist Scott McCaughey keeps plenty busy doing studio work and mining the power pop underground with his long-running band the Young Fresh Fellows. As for the other guitarist Peter Buck…if you’re unfamiliar with him, you haven’t been paying attention to the last 30 years of alternative/college/indie rock.

So far, the world has gotten to know Filthy Friends through a nicely scattershot batch of songs: “Despierata,” their entry into the anti-Trump project 30 Songs For 30 Days and the 2017 Record Store Day release featuring their original “Any Kind of Crowd” and a sinister take on Roxy Music’s “Editions of You.” Now this fierce collective is fanning the flames even hotter with the release of their debut full-length Invitation. Yes, it does slip their already released tracks into the mix, but what surrounds those tunes is oh so much more than you could have ever asked for.

The 12-song collection works through a flurry of different moods and styles, genre exercises and joyous experiments. The intricate guitar knots and blasts of bubblegum pop of Buck’s beloved Television are all over the herky-jerky “Windmill.” A mashup of ‘60s downer vibes and rootsy rumblings makes up the marvelous “Second Life” whereas “Come Back Shelley” is all swagger and glitz in the style of a lost glam rock 45. There ain’t nothing this band can’t do with the wet clay of rock music and what they sculpt out of it is pure art.

If you can sense an ease with the way these songs and this band got together that isn’t a mistake. The five Filthy Friends have gotten to know each other well, lo these past few decades. Bloch and McCaughey are both longstanding members of the Young Fresh Fellows. Rieflin and McCaughey were both unofficial members of R.E.M. during the band’s post-Bill Berry years. If that weren’t enough Buck, Rieflin, and McCaughey are also members of the Minus 5 and the Venus 3, bands that have made fantastic records on their own and with venerated singer-songwriters like John Wesley Harding, Alejandro Escovedo and Robyn Hitchcock. With all of them living and working in the Pacific NW, they’ve all gotten to know and love the work that Tucker has done in Sleater-Kinney and with her solo ventures.

The bottom line is that this is a group of musical lifers who, after 30+ years of playing shows both big and small, still get a visceral thrill out of recording a great song or standing on stage. They’d be doing it with the same enthusiasm and authority if they had an audience of 5 or 5,000. Don’t ask much more of them beyond that. We demand far too much from the artists we love. Best to let these kids do what they wanna do and just enjoy rolling around in the muck with them whenever we get their invitation

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R.E.M – ” The Green World Tour ” 26th January 1989

Posted: January 26, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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R.E.M. Poster

On January 26th, 1989, R.E.M. kicked off the Green World Tour at MZA Stadium in Tokyo, Japan. Unsurprisingly, the set list skewed heavily toward the band’s latest album, 1988’s Green: The Athens, Georgia, band opened the show with “Pop Song 89,” and performed eight of the album’s 11 tracks overall omitting only “The Wrong Child,” “Hairshirt” and “Orange Crush.”
The rest of the setlist leaned heavily on 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant (“I Believe,” “Begin The Begin,” “Cuyahoga,” “Just a Touch”) and 1987’s Document (“Finest Worksong,” “Exhuming McCarthy,” “Welcome To The Occupation,” “Disturbance At The Heron House”), with a scattering of older tunes—notably, 1984’s “Pretty Persuasion”—thrown in for good measure.

As the Green tour progressed and traveled to New Zealand, Australia, the U.S., U.K. and Europe throughout 1989, the shows followed a similar template, with tunes from 1982’s Chronic Town EP (“Wolves, Lower,” “1,000,000”) being particularly welcome chestnuts. There were other surprises scattered throughout, of course. Vocalist Michael Stipe occasionally prefaced “World Leader Pretend” with some lines from Gang of Four‘s “We Live As We Dream Alone,” while prior to “I Believe,” he recited lyrics from Syd Straw’s “Future 40’s (String Of Pearls)” or the band’s own rarity “Tired Of Singing Trouble.”
In fact, covers were a staple of the tour: Hugo Largo’s “Harpers,” Velvet Underground’s “After Hours,” George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” Television’s “See No Evil” and Syd Barrett’s “Dark Globe” rotated in and out of the setlist. So did the Golden Palominos’ “Boy (Go),” on which Stipe contributed lead vocals. Perhaps the most well-known re-do, however—likely because it ended up on the band’s 1989 fan club holiday singlewas a rip-roaring take on Mission of Burma’s “Academy Fight Song.”

Image result for R.e.m the green world tourR.E.M. Green World Tour ORG 1989 Concert Program STIPE

The Green tour marked many firsts for the band. For example, the trek featured auxiliary musician Peter Holsapple (late of the dB’s) adding guitar and keyboards, marking the first time R.E.M. expanded beyond a four-piece onstage. Although the band played a mix of U.S. auditoriums, college venues and arenas on 1987’s Work Tour, it stuck to the latter for Green tour, and played larger spaces overseas as well. This was partly due to popularity—Green was the band’s first major label album, recorded for Warner Bros.—and partly out of necessity.
The tour featured the group’s first forays into major video productions on stage, and these took the form of song-appropriate clips (e.g., trees and nature for “Fall On Me”), emphasis projections (words such as “HELLO” and “GOVERNMENT” flashing during “Pop Song 89″) and deliberately detached “participation” banter moments. According to the R.E.M. Timeline, at a March 1, 1989, show in Louisville, Stipe read these three rules aloud: “No. 1: Don’t stand on your seat as you may fall. No. 2 Don’t hurtle missiles or throw things. No 3. Don’t rush the stage as Peter doesn’t like that.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlxnkQ5d8vw

Their first show of several in the year 1989 The Green Tour (Audio Only with photo accompaniment) At this point Green had just hit Gold (over 500,000 copies sold) two months after release, and it would go on to sell over 5 million copies as of 2015. Audio isnt great Quality 5/10 (the audio comes in through the right channel only during Get Up)

Not a spectactular show, and certainly lacking the spectacle of some of their later performances on the Green tour, but it’s still a decent concert. Also, only (mostly) complete R.E.M. show in Japan .

REM live Pop Song 89 Tourfilm 1989

Stage-wise, Stipe did some of the shimmies he exhibited during the videos for “Pop Song 89″ and “Stand” during those songs, and sported a white suit, which drew comparisons to the boxier, large suit David Byrne sported during Talking Heads‘ Stop Making Sense. The attire was camera-ready: In 1990, R.E.M. released the Green tour-focused concert film “Tourfilm” which was filmed over five shows near the end of the tour—and the black-and-white footage of the performances was striking.


On November 13th, 1989—the day after the Green tour officially concluded  R.E.M. performed all of Green and 1983’s Murmur albums back to back, during a benefit show at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. It would be the last time to catch R.E.M. for a while: The Green tour was the group’s last major, extended batch of concerts until 1995’s Monster tour. R.E.M. had spent much of the ’80s on the road, and the band needed an extended break. “We were physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally spent,” Stipe told the Los Angeles Times in 1994. “I thought I would never tour again. The idea to stop touring wasn’t any strategy. It was survival.”

R.E.M. playing live at The Omni in Atlanta, GA on April 1st, 1989.

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

DRESSY BESSY – ” Lady Liberty “

Posted: June 22, 2016 in MUSIC
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Dressy Bessy Kingsized

With many a fine album and such an interesting roster of bands on the Burger Records label, I came across this band and as always its particularly exciting to discover that Dressy Bessy had returned with a band new album titled, Kingsized, after a 6-year long hiatus. Upon listening to the album I was delighted to hear that their sloppy, stroppy approach to high energy guitar pop was in full force and sounding better than ever.

On their previous two albums, Electrified and Holler and Stomp, the band had tried to adopt a heavier and darker tone with mixed success – losing some of their better pop elements in the process. Kingsized works particularly well by retaining some of that beefier sound whilst applying all the pop nous that made their early work so infectious.

The high-tempo opener ‘Lady Liberty’ is a case in point, and a song that illustrates the band’s best qualities and showcases Tammy Ealom’s vocal delivery perfectly. The overall quality throughout is very high and there are half a dozen single contenders on the album. ‘Cup ‘O Bang Bang’ may well be the best of these and features former Pylon vocalist Vanessa Briscoe Hay on backing duties.

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Probably the most significant change on this release is the use of additional musicians on most songs on the album. Peter Buck adds 12 string guitar on a few tracks and Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey contributes keyboards. In particular, it is the use of a handful of backing vocalists (including Wild Flag’s Rebecca Cole) that adds most depth to this album. Ealom has a wonderful voice that is the just out-of-key enough to sound interesting without sounding unprofessional. The additional of other vocals to bolster her delivery works really well throughout.

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