Before I start pontificating about the new song(s) that were discovered on the world wide web today I thought I would offer them here for all my web viewing friends the links to those songs.
First, it's NPR's All Songs Considered which provided a nice stream of 'Oh My Heart' the latest song to make it into public viewing from 'Collapse Into Now'.
Second, it would be a nice 30 second sample of the first single from the album, Mine Smell Like Honey, which can be found on Amazon.
Third, it would be the first b-sides from Mine Smell Like Honey that can be found on Noi Tanmer (REM Nation backwards) which happen to be 'A Town Called Armadillo' and 'Zullu'. (Hat Tip to Chris Sikich).
UPDATE: The B-Sides claimed in this post turned out to be a hoax. My apologizes for this unacceptable error.
That would be me.
Unfortunately, the live concert recording stuff has taken a backseat to other activities and failed to notice the number of great concerts that are being shared right now on Dime. It would appear that the folks at JEMS have opened their vaults and provided a plethora of great shows.
JEMS for those that do not know, stands for High Quality in the R.E.M. live recording scene, and thus anything that comes from them can be accurately listed as "Gold Standard".
I would imagine that several of you have already been downloading these shows, however, I would suggest for those of you that haven't to check these out.
1989-03-16 San Diego, CA
1989-03-15 Inglewood, CA
1985-10-29 London AUD - JEMS master recording excellent sound
1983-09-30 Athens, GA SBD - Master cassette transfer from JEMS archives
1989-03-14 Oakland, CA AUD - JEMS master recording
1989-03-13 Sacramento, CA AUD - JEMS master recording
1986-10-03 Portland, OR AUD - JEMS master recording
1986-10-01 Oakland, CA AUD - JEMS master recording
1986-09-27 Santa Barbara, CA AUD - JEMS master recording Rock
1985-10-28 London AUD - JEMS master recording, excellent sound
1986-01-20 Athens, GA SBD - Master cassette transfer from the JEMS
1984-10-08 Ann Arbor, MI AUD - JEMS master recording
1985-08-10 Detroit, MI AUD - JEMS master recording
A couple months ago, the song Radio Free Europe was chosen by the National Recording Preservation Board to be put into a vat of vinegar and preserved so that generations and generations after our own can still enjoy this awesome song. From the amount that I have followed the National Preservation Board, they try to capture various elements of our culture that have made an impact, which is not always by the number of units that were sold but the changes they invoked.
Studio 360 put up a small podcast regarding the song and to be honest their fact-checking left much to be desired. One, Mike Henry, who stated he was a station manager at a radio station in Athens that helped make Radio Free Europe popular discussed a meetup between himself and Jefferson at one of R.E.M.'s first club gigs ever. Of course there are a couple inaccuracies with this story. First off, Jefferson did not meet R.E.M. until three months after their formation and was not their manager until almost a year after they had formed. Secondly, the song that was played on the website was not from one of the initial gigs of the band but rather from April 10, 1981 and by this time they had played Tyrones on a host of evenings.
10 April 1981 - Tyrone's O.C., Athens, GA
set 1: Rave On / Burning Down / A Girl Like You / Get On Their Way / There She Goes Again / Pretty Persuasion / Body Count / Different Girl / Action / Narrator / Hey Hey Nadine / Baby I / Permanent Vacation
set 2: Radio Free Europe / Sitting Still / Dangerous Times / All The Right Friends / Shaking Through / Little Girl / (Don't Go Back To) Rockville / Windout / Gardening At Night / Wait (w/Lynda & Cyndi Stipe) / Schéhérazade / Lisa Says / Mystery To Me
encore: White Tornado
Mr. Marrone released his response.
If you are still expecting R.E.M. to release flawless A-1 quality work, essential not only within their own catalogue but, by extension, within the rock music canon, you are, my friend, delusional.
No, Discoverer and It Happened Today are not mind-blowing works of pure genious. But they're halfway decent, which gives them a slight edge on George Harrison's highly acclaimed Cloud Nine album, despite the classic first single, I've Got My Mind Set On You, which admittedly, set the world on fire. And that gem of a record came out a mere 25 years after the Beatles first unleashed Please, Please Me unto the world.
And Leonard Cohen released ‘I’m Your Man’ 21 years and The Future, almost 25 years after his first album was released. Bob Dylan’s ‘Love and Theft’ came out almost 40 years after his first album. What is your point?
At what point do you say goodbye and not buy tickets for the tour, the collecting of the singles, the countdown of the album, .etc, a thing of the past, and respect the older work of R.E.M. and move on?
I’ve done the tour thing several times. I have watched Stipe shimmy up onstage but at what point do I have to hang it up? If they tour this time around do I go? At this point, probably not.
You are incorrect if you think that I am expecting a perfect album but at the same time the band itself set some pretty high standards and I am biased, I am not objective. I can take either one of those songs released in the last couple days and immediately compare it to the entire back catalog, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses on display. Most of all I am trying to gain something from it, gain something that makes me want to listen to the song over and over and over again and not just give the band a polite “Golf Clap”.
I question whether this blog will still be relevant in three months; if I shut the entire thing down in respect to the band that I remembered if the album’s not up to snuff.
Although I do promise you that if that day were to happen the title of the last story should be “That’s It’s I’m Shutting Down Remring”.
I read the term ‘Alt-Rock Godfathers’ when discussing R.E.M. in a recent article about their new album “Collapse into Now” (available Spring 2011) that made me want to reach for my journal and start keeping tabs on all the different descriptions this band of 30 plus years has encountered. Maybe I have fun with how R.E.M. is deemed in the 21st century with their legacy and how it is viewed in the music community. I also think you learn a little bit by what people are saying and how it is described.
It is funny that 12 years ago, their first album without Bill Berry (Up) was released to little fanfare, although it turns out this album still sits among my favorites of theirs without the man behind the drum kit. The album was muddy and disjointed, and at the same time very endearing, like Fables of the Reconstruction. It saw a band in turmoil stop the ‘Bandwagon’ on a dime and come out with an album that was not typical ‘R.E.M.’ Drumkits? They worked. Airportman? Great opening track. Falls to Climb? Yes, Peter was right that the mandolin version of this song was not as good. It's an album about feeling lost and easily succeeds in proving it's point.
The last 12 years have focused from the fans perspective of coming out with that “Great R.E.M. Album”, the kind they made in the 80s or 90s that cemented them on top of the yearly lists for best albums as if the name R.E.M. had just been permanently etched up there. I seem to read or begin conversation like “I love R.E.M but the last 10 years have been pretty dull.”
Somewhere along the way they lost themselves. Maybe when they write their stories about their lives they will not look directly inward but blame a bad turn, or maybe it was just the environment in general.
And so we are focused on another album coming up this spring and fans like myself have to start worrying about whether it is something that I will be wearing out my iPod with or something that will collect electron dust in the back of iTunes.
As I sit here and write this I collectively say to myself that I care. I have cared enough to say when something sucks, when something is not quite right, when something becomes pedestrian and I ache to listen to Murmur or Lifes Rich Pageant because well, they just simply rocked.
Of course, I am just like any other selfish fan out there, sorta playing the Tea Party role. It is all about “Me”. Of course I am being a bit facetious but the fact of the matter remains that I want them to come out with the Great American Rock and Roll album once again for my own pleasures. The rest, as they say, will sort itself out.
I admit it is a difficult task as my own bias is my worst enemy. Comparing any new album to the likes of Murmur is a huge monkey on your back.
If you have not heard already from the articles in both Spin and Rolling Stone is that the new R.E.M. album will feature guest vocals from Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith and Peaches. At the outset of hearing this news I feel much more confident that there is not a rapper on this album, something that just did not mesh right with the sound that R.E.M. was making.
The interesting feature of some of their choices is that they chose the Punk Godmother in Smith and protégé in Eddie Vedder, a symbolic shout out that yes, the artists that paved the way for today’s buzz clips are trying to once again be the buzz.
They have chosen to change the way that they write music. I think in the process of making music, they got lost. It became too predictable and too mundane. Songs like ‘How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us’ was a spur of the moment creation in the studio and a great track at that. This process of Peter and Mike writing songs and having Michael listen to the instrumentals and write tracks seemed to run its course. Something had to break with the process and the failures of ‘Around the Sun’ and what we see is a band that is not trying to “Mail It In” as they would say but work against their own stubbornness and figure out the solution in a different manner, one where they might not actually see the end in sight. And I admit that might be a scary scenario at times but it is also this tension, which I believe creates that element of surprise.
But lets face it, for a band like R.E.M. to make another classic R.E.M. album to match something like Automatic or Murmur creates a relevance for them that is not matched much in the music business today.
In tweeting with Jordan (www.athensmusicjunkie.com), she still has that desire to see the band live a couple more times before they hang it up. Obviously there is a true ethereal effect of seeing a band live that will attract any ‘Music Junkie’ , especially one that lives in Athens.
Conversely, I have argued to the latter that a classic album will be more enduring for their legacy than another tour.
I have had this discussion as well in with others regarding bands of the 80’s and 90’s can still rake in the ticket sales with tours. There will always be a base of fans that will want to see R.E.M. live and hear the hits. There are very few bands/artists, however, that can claim classic albums in three decades. Consider for a moment that ‘Collapse into Now’ hitting 9.2 on the Pitchfork scale or having a score of 87 on Metacritic.
Before we all start hyperventilating and calling this the album of 2011, I just point out the odds that great albums don’t grow on trees. But as a fan this is what I hope for. A show is a 2-hour live experience. An album is an experience that can become part of your life.
The 21st Century has provided R.E.M. with 3 (un)forgettable albums to add to their canon. When one retraces R.E.M.’s career, these albums will not be supplanted at the top of their best albums. This is not to say that there have not been some genuine nuggets of greatness.
Some of this might surprise. Honestly, I have never had a huge fondness for Reveal and while Around the Sun might have some of the worst tracks in the R.E.M. canon it also has a couple gems worth repeating as does Accelerate.
Since we have about another six months between the completion of their work on their follow-up to Accelerate and it being officially released, lists like this will have to do.
10. Mr. Richards – (Accelerate) - Before we were accusing our American President of being exotic, un-American and harboring thoughts of turning America into a Muslim paradise, there was a time when our former Administration was too busy getting into trouble. ‘Mr. Richards’, who I don’t think is meant to be an actual person plays the role of anyone that uses their position in an unethical manner and the song succeeds in bringing this point home.
9. Hollow Man – (Accelerate) - I have always felt a connection to this song and it was an indication of me for R.E.M. to get back to basics and write a good clever pop song, something that I thought had been missing in their canon for quite awhile. While I do not mind the rambling experimental stuff, the stuff that sounded like pop came off as flat (Aftermath, Boy in the Well, Imitation of Life).
8. Final Straw – (Around the Sun) - R.E.M. posted a version of this song on their site before the release of Around the Sun in response to the actions of our former President Bush in respect to the Iraq war. I thought what really worked about this song was the emotion in it’s simplicity. It harkened back to the days of Out of Time/Automatic with it’s starkness and harsh lyrics by Stipe.
7. I’ve Been High – (Reveal) - ‘I’ve Been High’ has that sincerity of a love song but I also argue in some of the comments that Michael Stipe has made suggesting that this song would be a hit were misguided. My personal opinion is that the song borders on being “Too Sweet”. Stipe sounds great on this but the overproduction of the song just doesn’t feel right. I would love to see Stipe do even more electronica, I just don’t think that this is the one. He should focus more on his voice being an instrument.
6. Horse to Water – (Accelerate) - After a couple albums of ‘Lite Rock’ R.E.M. focused on the guitar on this album and to me this is the standout track regarding that aspect. Short, quick and sweet and a nice treat.
5. The Worst Joke Ever – (Around the Sun) - I would agree with Stipe’s thoughts on this track in that it was one of the best one’s on Around the Sun. Complicated and sad I feel it’s often forgotten on the forgettable Around the Sun. Part of the problem is that the delivery on Around the Sun is lacking. The live version on the Olympia disc is much stronger.
4. Man-Sized Wreath – (Accelerate) - What I always appreciated about this track was that it was the closest to matching the power of the earlier Life’s Rich Pageant/Document (ala These Days, Exhuming McCarthy, Begin the Begin). And although the song cannot hold any of the jockstraps of these songs that I just listed, the songs strength is providing
3. Sing For the Submarine – (Accelerate) - Stipe stands behind the pulpit and retraces his steps through various songs in the back catalog trying to eliminate some of the fears he sang in the past and offers “Hope and Change”. The song is a diversion from the garage rocking Accelerate and offers a moment of reflection by Stipe into the future.
2. High Speed Train - (Around the Sun) - This song has always held an shroud of mystery behind it and for that I appreciate it. Noting from this list, I believe that the tracks listed so far from Around the Sun
1. Around the Sun – (Around the Sun) - This song has always offered hope in our political/social arena with so much fear, and bat shit craziness that I would admit it’s been played more than a couple times in a row by yours truly.
Honorable Mention: Living Well’s the Best Revenge, I’m Gonna DJ, The Lifting and Beat a Drum in no particular order.
Honorable Mention Part 2 (Songs written in the 20th Century, covers and other rarities): Bad Day, Permanent Vacation, All The Right Friends, Favorite Writer, Fascinating, #9 Dream, Airliner, Redhead Walking and Magnetic North.
Admittedly, I find myself reflecting too much on my younger days with R.E.M. which is why I write this.
Over the past 100 years, R.E.M. has only been a band for about 30 of those years and in those 30 years they spent the last 10 years on a treadmill. Yes, I can understand there are a few of you out there that like Reveal and Accelerate is a good record for a mid-level band but not R.E.M. So when a DVD is going to be released which is going to focus on music in their last album, it’s not something that I immediately jump up and purchase.
For those that are not aware, a DVD of R.E.M.'s performance on Austin City Limits, will be released on October 26, 2010. This performance was taken during a point when R.E.M. was “at a pivotal point in their career” says ACL producer Terry Licona.
You can say that again.
The problem with albums like Accelerate is that they are easily forgettable amongst the vast 30 year history of the band. So getting another “Concert Video” from them during this period almost feels like burnout. Out of the 17 songs, 9 of them are off Accelerate and the rest are constant reminders of their concert setlists for the past 10 years or so. I watched it initially but found the entire endeavor slightly boring.
Moreover, video, at least for R.E.M. works so much better when it is archival footage. We have so much video of Post-Berry R.E.M., which occurred right around the dawn of the internet age that one would almost forget that he was a bandmember. Right now, that early footage feels so much different than the “R.E.M. by Numbers” videos that we have seen, although the Olympia Video was quite nice for it’s artistic merit and the entire collection was a much more worthy venture considering that they included every unique song title that was played on their 5 day “This Is Not A Show” Show.
Now of course, I should not be so hard on the band as I would imagine that this DVD is being pushed more by, Austin City Limits, a reputable public television enterprise here in the states. However, being that I am a subscriber to PBS currently, shouldn’t I get my free DVD and tote bag?
In an era where we are inundated with information and can go to YouTube to pleasure ourselves, bands have to consistently be reminded that you cannot just put out crap and expect the people to buy it. I am curious if they are going to try to pawn this show off during one of their PBS fundraising pushes considering that this is going to be broadcast on November 27th, which I suspect to be when they do a fundraising drive. There is part of me that would find the sales pitch made by the PBS announcers amusing.
This will not stop me from making a yearly subscription to PBS, because it’s viewers like me that appreciate quality programming such as the program that I am currently watching.
Demos, are the rough draft of any essay, the first run through before the final product is turned in. Often they are filled with fractured sentences and half thoughts as the words in question are still being juggled around in our brains.
For fans of music, demos can often get an early clue into the songwriting process. Typical folks that enjoy these types of things also question liner notes, weird quotes and other statements and well we get off on a particular chorus that is not all the way developed or a verse that is completely different than the version on the album.
My introduction to demos was not actually listening to them but hearing about them via Peter Buck who discussed briefly the validity of “Bootlegs” way back in 1988 on the nationally syndicated show Rockline. There he discussed some of his favorite bootlegs, including “Chronic Murmurings” when he noted that this was special in that it had a version of Bertis Downs and Jefferson Holt doing the vocals for “Windout”.
Chronic Murmurings is just one of the plethora of Demo Bootleg collections available as for R.E.M., demo sessions had been leaked for every album up through Out of Time, with the exception of course of Fables of the Reconstruction.
For R.E.M. this would be the first time the band has released a full-fledged “Demo Sessions” for any album. While there have been songs that have appeared as B-Sides from time to time, this is a true departure.
The demo sessions that are included on the Fables of the Reconstruction 25th Anniversary Re-release include sessions that they did in Athens, Georgia before they left for England to record with Joe Boyd, who recorded such acts as Nick Drake, Richard Thompson and Fairport Convention.
Demos have always had a long and storied history for any popular band. As the band would pass around an early tape of their music, that tape would multiply and eventually end up on some underground bootleg release.
As a longtime fan that has a plethora of their early live shows, my initial feeling was that this would not work. What would be the point of having a set of demo recordings when no short of seven of these would be right off the Reckoning tour. There could not be all that many secrets for half of these songs. Right?
Second, sometimes Demos do not work all that well on an album setting such as this when the songs do not deviate significantly from the album versions. For example, Gardening at Night was recorded during the Reckoning sessions much slower than the version that was on Chronic Town. In doing so it offered something unique that could be placed on an album and believe that it would succeed. Same with the “As Yet Unreleased” version of Catapult that was recorded by Stephen Hague. And while the band of course hated this version and the song, it would be nice to see this song officially released.
The Fables Demos that were recorded in Athens contain all the Fables tracks as well as ‘Bandwagon’, ‘Hyena’ and ‘Throw These Trolls Away’ aka ‘When I Was Young’ which contains similar lyrics to that of ‘I Believe’.
There have been a plethora of posts in terms of the quality of these bootlegs. On the surface, the bootlegs sound pretty outstanding, minus the hiccups in the final engineering of the product. As mentioned earlier, most of the songs on this demos cd produce “Clipping” which is the “Shearing” off the tops of the audio files, which, for the listener creates a high end static sound. This is much more of a problem for listening with headphones vs. speakers, which might crowd out that static. However, it still persists.
Some questions linger whether this was on the master recording itself or just an effect that happened in the mastering/engineering process, however, that question is mute. If this static did exist on the master tapes there is plenty of wizardry that could have been accomplished to take it off, which makes it essentially shoddy work, which is a shame.
Secondly, I would make the argument that these demos are pretty much for diehards only. The appeal of the live concert vs. the demos is, in my opinion treating the subject matter, the album, in different contexts.
For an album such as Murmur, the Larry’s Hideaway show gave listeners both some insight into their early shows as well as showcased the differences between their live sound and the studio work. And while Reckoning was much more stripped down a record, the Aragon Ballroom show included in that deluxe edition showcased the urgency of their sound. Make no mistake, R.E.M. barnstormed this country and sold fans not just on their critically-acclaimed albums but a solid if not outstanding live show from a band that put all they had into every show. Fans would travel up and down the east coast, following them from venue to venue, gathering a small but eager fan base.
The Fables package with the demos, decides to reconstruct this album from the top down. It’s moody atmosphere and production value has been a topic of hot conversation among fans wondering if the “Muddiness” was a preference or an effect of recording across the pond.
Many of songs for Fables had already been performed during the Reckoning tour, which allowed the band to flesh out their live sound and refine it along the way. For example, Driver 8’s original lyrics were “The walls constructed” vs. “The wall were built up”. Other songs included a crazy version of Wendell Gee performed on MTV’s Cutting Edge, which was first performed on acoustic guitar and later on the tour on electric guitar. Other songs making their way to the live shows included Old Man Kensey, Auctioneer (Another Engine) and Hyena (although obviously this was not included on the final Fables album).
For fans that are willing to jaunt into this realm, I recommend picking these up. Some of the highlights in my opinion are as follows:
Feeling Gravitys Pull – The most inventive song on Fables stands out for the insane drumming by Bill Berry. Comparing this to the original highlights an aspect that is often forgotten in the Peter Buck-Guitar Centric minds of R.E.M. fans in what a great drummer Bill was. He is the key to the album Murmur, in my opinion and I would imagine that if the producer on this album was someone other than Joe Boyd, the song might have turned out differently.
Can’t Get There From Here – Not as funky as the finished product as the chorus is still in development and does not contain the flashy horns on the album version.
Kohoutek – The lyrics on this song are still not finished as several inconsistencies occur.
Maps and Legends – This is also a work in progress as we find Michael Stipe’s lyrics on this offer different lyrics for the both the second and third verse. The second verse is almost completely unique minus a line he uses in the finished product and the third verse is similar to the first.
Don’t Throw These Trolls Away – The song that has been titled “When I Was Young” on several bootlegs, is given a proper treatment here. While some of the lyrics will eventually end up on the song “I Believe” here we see a song that is a work in progress. There is no doubt that they made the right decision to abandon this song. I would be curious however, if a version of this came out of the Fables sessions in England. That might be interesting to hear.
Wendell Gee – Instead of focusing on Banjo and Keyboards/Pianos, this version features Peter on electric guitar such as how the band performed during the later part of the tour for Reckoning.
On another level it works as an alternate Fables album and I guess you can rearrange the songs and put them in that order as I had the opportunity to do the first time that I listened to it.
And while I support this release and the fact that the band gave us something that has not been heard yet, I also feel that something is left out. The Fables Tour marks the first time that I believe that Stipe is coming into his own on stage. The Fables Tour acts as part live show and storytelling opportunity that allowed him to begin weaving the tales of the album’s content to the live audience such as the stories about Kensey or even the made up story of “Theme to Two Steps Onward”. Thanks to tapers such as David O. Thomas who recorded amazing bootlegs of these shows, most of them can be found from time to time online.
But for the common fan out there, I can only look back at myself and remember that it was these elements that got me so enamored with R.E.M. in the first place.
There has been quite a bit of talk on this site about clipping, showing graphs, and giving you some idea of what it sounds like.
Most of my listening over the past couple days has been over a Wav file (not MP3, M4A) on my iPod to get some idea of what exactly is going on with my own ears.
I have come up with an example which I believe supports the "Clipping" argument.
The sample that I have provided is a 5 second clip from Auctioneer about 1:50 minutes into the song. If you listen to Michael sing "Leave" you will hear distinct "Static" or as Drew had described it shear. Now if you compare this to your earlier version of Fables of the Reconstruction, there is no "Static/Shear" occurring.
Auctioneer Sample
This one was the more apparent moments that I found on the album, although I did hear some others during the entire album where similar incidents like this occur.
Now this issue is also very prevalent on the Demos as well, definitely moreso. However, since there is nothing to compare them to, this to me is the bigger disappointment.
Now, I do find some type of humor, mind you when REM sent out an email yesterday listing this site as a place to find information on the latest Deluxe Edition but how can I with a straight face tell you to buy an album that was not mastered properly?
This is really unacceptable.
Initially, I was going to take the easy road and say that maybe this campaign can make a difference on future recordings but maybe there is a time to say that people who bought this album can go to a site and at least download a better copy.
I guess what it comes down to is just a sloppy job altogether.
As you might already know if you read this site, the deluxe edition of R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction arrives in stores today.
Reviews are slowly coming in:
This remaster opens it up a little more, and certainly does full justice to some of the best crfted harmonies and guitar lines in REM’s catalogue. At the same time this is, at heart, a very obtuse folk-rock album and nothing’s going to change that.
"Fables" is a very different type of reissue: Whereas R.E.M.'s first two albums are generally considered classics of Southern post-punk, their third has never enjoyed such a lofty reputation. So this set is less of a reminder and more of an argument — and a highly persuasive one at that. Sounding both more revealing and more mysterious, it is every bit the equal of its predecessors and sets just as strong a standard for subsequent albums.
Some more discussion about the quality of the remastering on this album.
The album itself is also compressed+clipped (see my essay). Here's a visual. Audio-wise, on a record that Bill is already mixed too quietly, that he's even more buried (due to the heavy compression) is bordering on criminal.
My own opinion of the album so far, remastering wise, is that there are deficiencies in the product. I really do not think that this album is "Opening Up" but rather feeling denser and that is not a good thing. Missing is Bill Berry's drum's which are such an important aspect of their music to raise the levels of inconsequentual buried vocals. I still need several more listens before I can give some type of appropriate review but I figured I would offer some initial thoughts on the album.