"Talk About The Pageant: When R.E.M. Came To Bloomington"

[ghost of miles]

Posting this here for any fans of the band or of 1980s indie/college-rock in general--an article I wrote about the band's month-long stay here in the spring of 1986 to record their album Lifes Rich Pageant, including some quotes from an interview that I did with bassist Mike Mills:

Talk About The Pageant: WHen R.E.M. Came To Bloomington In 1986

[Homefromtheforest]

Nice article; thanks.  My older sister was a fan so I became aware of them when "document" came out.  Finally saw them live on the "Green" tour at the age of 15.  For me "green" was their last decent album so I was happy to have caught them live at that moment!

[felser]

Enjoyed their early albums a lot.  They and U2 sort of defined much of 80's rock for me.  I  liked some of the other  Athens/jangle stuff,  like Guadalcanal Diary and Dreams So Real, but it's really much faded in my memory at this point except for R.E.M. themselves.  After a lot of bad albums late in their career, starting with Monster, they came back to their signature sound at the end and went out with a couple of gems, 'Accelerate' and 'Collapse into Now', and a nice live album.

[Rooster_Ties]

2 hours ago, felser said:

After a lot of bad albums late in their career, starting with Monster...

I'm weird. My top 3 favorite REM albums...

1. New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996)

2. Reveal (2001)

3. Monster (1994)

...and from about 1995-2005, my #1 favorite was Monster. (And I think my wife's #1 is Reveal.)

[felser]

2 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I'm weird. My top 3 favorite REM albums...

1. New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996)

2. Reveal (2001)

3. Monster (1994)

...and from about 1995-2005, my #1 favorite was Monster. (And I think my wife's #1 is Reveal.)

Well, you are certainly the anti-me on that anyways - other listeners can decide which of us is weird! 

Give me "Driver 8" or give me (musical) death!

 

Or we may be from different generations.  I'm 61, and think popular music died in 1990 when grunge and new jack trampled it.

[A Lark Ascending]

3 hours ago, felser said:

Or we may be from different generations.  I'm 61, and think popular music died in 1990 when grunge and new jack trampled it.

It died in 1976, actually (and I'm a sprightly 60!). Though there were occasional acts of resurrection, REM being one. My favourite was the first I heard, 'Fables of the Reconstruction', which connected with my Fairport and Byrds interests. I enjoyed the run up to 'Automatic for the People', lost interest after that.  

[jeffcrom]

So I went to elementary school with Mike Mills. We did a science project together in sixth grade (and made an "A"). Then he moved away from the Atlanta suburb where we lived, and I didn't see him for years.

The next (and last) time I saw him was when I was playing a concert with the University of Georgia jazz ensemble in Athens in the late 1970s. He came up afterwards and said hello. We talked for a bit, and he said, "I play bass now, and am in a band."

What I should have said: "Cool! Maybe I could come by and jam with y'all next week."

What I said: "Oh... cool." (Smiling politely, while thinking that every half-assed art student in Athens thought he or she was a musician at the time.)

 

[Homefromtheforest]

Cool story!

[Rooster_Ties]

17 hours ago, felser said:

Well, you are certainly the anti-me on that anyways - other listeners can decide which of us is weird! 

Give me "Driver 8" or give me (musical) death!

Or we may be from different generations.  I'm 61, and think popular music died in 1990 when grunge and new jack trampled it.

I'm 47 (just today, in fact).  While I still really like early REM (the entire IRS years), I got burned out on a lot of their big hit records on Warner Brothers (which I still like, but don't listen to as much).  But Monster was totally different, and not a blues chord-change to be found in the entire thing (by design, iirc).  And New Adventures was even more in contrast to their better known 'sound'.  And for some reason Reveal has always sounded like what I would expect a Michael Stipe solo album to sound like.

I'm NOT a fan of all their post-Automatic for the People efforts.  Up is hit-n-miss for me, and Around the Sun is total dreck as far as I'm concerned (gack, I can't stand that album).  But the last two albums are quite nice, though I haven't spent enough time with them yet (even now), to have fully embraced them like most of the rest of the (earlier) catalog.

My 'problem' (if you can call it that, though it's not really a problem per se) with the earlier, "classic" IRS sound/years is that there's so much similarity to so much of the sound of that material (great as so much of it is).  Also, I've been there and done that for so long, I'm a little burned out on the early stuff more.  Document came out my freshman year in college, and it and lots of what came before were the soundtrack of much of my college years.  And also what came out shortly thereafter too.  You see, ALSO...

...on the college radio station where I worked on-air (circa 1988-92), the IRS stuff got overplayed (some of it WAY overplayed).  And the on the Top-40/Adult Contemporary-Hits-Radio (CHR) station where I also worked on-air (at the same time, circa 1990-94), the Warner Brothers stuff got overplayed (and some of IT also got WAY overplayed).

So you can see where I'm left is with Monster and some select things after it, that still sound fresh and new to me to this very day.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Rooster_Ties

[felser]

Great stuff to ponder, thanks.  As I was older and several years post-college, I didn't get overexposed to the IRS stuff, so that still sounds fresh enough to me, and remains by far my favorite chapter.  The early Warner stuff was very good, but somewhat hit ("Orange Crush", "Losing My Religion" etc.) and miss ("Stand" etc.) for me.  And they lost me at 'Monster' (except for "What's The Frequency, Kenneth").   Check out those last two albums some more, they're pretty wonderful.

[bluesoul]

Great article, thanks for posting this.

[Homefromtheforest]

6 hours ago, felser said:

Great stuff to ponder, thanks.  As I was older and several years post-college, I didn't get overexposed to the IRS stuff, so that still sounds fresh enough to me, and remains by far my favorite chapter.  The early Warner stuff was very good, but somewhat hit ("Orange Crush", "Losing My Religion" etc.) and miss ("Stand" etc.) for me.  And they lost me at 'Monster' (except for "What's The Frequency, Kenneth").   Check out those last two albums some more, they're pretty wonderful.

Felser; I'll check out those last two albums.  At the "green" concert I saw I remember they played quite a few songs from "life's Rich pageant".  

[ghost of miles]

On 3/18/2016 at 4:09 PM, Rooster_Ties said:

I'm 47 (just today, in fact).  While I still really like early REM (the entire IRS years), I got burned out on a lot of their big hit records on Warner Brothers (which I still like, but don't listen to as much).  But Monster was totally different, and not a blues chord-change to be found in the entire thing (by design, iirc).  And New Adventures was even more in contrast to their better known 'sound'.  And for some reason Reveal has always sounded like what I would expect a Michael Stipe solo album to sound like.

I'm NOT a fan of all their post-Automatic for the People efforts.  Up is hit-n-miss for me, and Around the Sun is total dreck as far as I'm concerned (gack, I can't stand that album).  But the last two albums are quite nice, though I haven't spent enough time with them yet (even now), to have fully embraced them like most of the rest of the (earlier) catalog.

My 'problem' (if you can call it that, though it's not really a problem per se) with the earlier, "classic" IRS sound/years is that there's so much similarity to so much of the sound of that material (great as so much of it is).  Also, I've been there and done that for so long, I'm a little burned out on the early stuff more.  Document came out my freshman year in college, and it and lots of what came before were the soundtrack of much of my college years.  And also what came out shortly thereafter too.  You see, ALSO...

...on the college radio station where I worked on-air (circa 1988-92), the IRS stuff got overplayed (some of it WAY overplayed).  And the on the Top-40/Adult Contemporary-Hits-Radio (CHR) station where I also worked on-air (at the same time, circa 1990-94), the Warner Brothers stuff got overplayed (and some of IT also got WAY overplayed).

So you can see where I'm left is with Monster and some select things after it, that still sound fresh and new to me to this very day.

Hey Rooster, Monster came up in the "what rock are you listening to" thread... have you heard the box-set reissue that came out a few weeks ago?  I just got it yesterday and have really been enjoying it.

[ejp626]

11 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Hey Rooster, Monster came up in the "what rock are you listening to" thread... have you heard the box-set reissue that came out a few weeks ago?  I just got it yesterday and have really been enjoying it.

I was not aware of this box set, but I will be checking it out in a while.  I would say Monster probably is my favorite REM album, though I didn't listen to them so much that I ever burned out on a single album.

Speaking of slightly out-there box sets, there is a 6 CD box set covering Zappa's Hot Rats sessions.  It's a little hard to imagine listening to everything in this set, esp. more than once, but I'm sure there are some Zappa fans who will be all over this. 

[Rooster_Ties]

2 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Hey Rooster, Monster came up in the "what rock are you listening to" thread... have you heard the box-set reissue that came out a few weeks ago?  I just got it yesterday and have really been enjoying it.

I haven't picked up that big Monster box yet, but it's something I think I'm going to have trouble resisting for more than 6 months or so.  I'm debating between getting the big box, or just the two-CD set (with the alternate remix of the main album itself, which I've heard a few tracks from on-line).

Either way, I'm sure (my) resistance will be futile!  What I really want to know, though, is how is that disk of unreleased demos??  I'm a total sucker for that sort of thing with some bands, but less so with others.  I've heard some non-LP REM stuff before (instrumentals and such), but all of it was pre-Monster stuff.  And (believe it or not!), Monster is really the earliest(!) REM album that I'm really all that fanatical about (along with New Adventures and Reveal).

More generally, while I am a fairly big fan of REM in general, I would only put them in my personal top-25 list (maybe down pretty close to the #20 spot too), so they're not really an absolute favorite of mine.

Feedback on the big box, demos and the live stuff especially, would be appreciated.  I'm already sold of getting the remix-version of Monster (i.e. the 2CD set), it's just a question of whether I spring for the really big box or not).

[BFrank]

"New Adventures In Hi-Fi" is one of my favorite REM albums, actually. And most of the IRS albums, of course.

Millsey seems to be a nice guy. I spoke to him briefly at SXSW in 2008 and follow him on Twitter. Also seen him quite a bit since REM broke up, in the Baseball Project, other appearances with Steve Wynn and Big Star tributes.

Regarding the Hot Rats box, I was really excited at first and then became skeptical when I saw the track listing full of alt-takes and so forth. But, having second thoughts (again) after reading this piece in the Guardian today.
'He was a musical warlock': reflecting on Frank Zappa's greatest album at 50

[ghost of miles]

1 hour ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I haven't picked up that big Monster box yet, but it's something I think I'm going to have trouble resisting for more than 6 months or so.  I'm debating between getting the big box, or just the two-CD set (with the alternate remix of the main album itself, which I've heard a few tracks from on-line).

Either way, I'm sure (my) resistance will be futile!  What I really want to know, though, is how is that disk of unreleased demos??  I'm a total sucker for that sort of thing with some bands, but less so with others.  I've heard some non-LP REM stuff before (instrumentals and such), but all of it was pre-Monster stuff.  And (believe it or not!), Monster is really the earliest(!) REM album that I'm really all that fanatical about (along with New Adventures and Reveal).

More generally, while I am a fairly big fan of REM in general, I would only put them in my personal top-25 list (maybe down pretty close to the #20 spot too), so they're not really an absolute favorite of mine.

Feedback on the big box, demos and the live stuff especially, would be appreciated.  I'm already sold of getting the remix-version of Monster (i.e. the 2CD set), it's just a question of whether I spring for the really big box or not).

The demos disc is one of the best things about the Monster box-set, IMO.  It's mostly instrumentals and *not* sketches for songs that made it to the album, but rather material that often seems as if it's coming out of their 80s era... tunes that probably "sound too much like R.E.M.," as the band would have put it at this early-90s point in their career.  (There's also one instrumental that did eventually turn into "When Day Is Done" for Accelerate many years later.)  The live show is pretty good, though perhaps not quite as kinetic as I'd hoped for, but a worthy representation of that tour and their concert sound around that time.  The background interviews (primarily with Stipe and Mills, though Buck pipes in a couple of times) are interesting as well.  I would say go for the big box... but then of course I would.