Bandsplain - REM with Caryn Rose

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

REM is your favorite band’s favorite band. They’ve influenced countless musicians and had an immeasurable impact on the following decades of indie rock. Veteran music journalist Caryn Rose takes us through the lifespan and wide-ranging impact of Athens, Georgia’s own REM. Follow Caryn Rose on Twitter @carynrose. Her upcoming book, Why Patti Smith Matters, is out on University of Texas Press in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplaine? Welcome to Bandsblane. I am your host, Yossi Salick. This is a show where brilliant experts come on to explain iconic cult bands to me and to you. Today's episode is about REM. If you don't know what REM sounds like, you at least know what one of the seven million bands they directly influence sound like.

Here's what REM sounds like. My guest today is Karen Rose. She's a music writer, archivist, and historian who has contributed to publications such as Pitchfork, NPR Music, Vulture, Salon, Poll Star, and Billboard, amongst others. In 2018, she authored five essays ranging from Aretha Franklin to Joan Jett for the anthology Women Who Rock. And in 2017, she contributed an essay on Maybill Carter to the essay collection, Women Walk the Line. Her next book, Why Patty Smith Matters, will be published by the University of Texas Press in spring 2022. Karen, you're my orange crush. Welcome to the show.

Hello. I'm so excited to talk about R.A. I'm with you. It is very exciting. for me as well. I'll be honest with you and everyone listening. I love REM, but I'm like a real lean back REM fan. Do you know what I mean? Like, I love their music, but I've never spent the time or energy to like really research or get deep. I just throw on the albums and I like vibe. So I'm excited to learn today. I actually think that's a really good reaction to REM, to be honest, because I think that's what they wanted to achieve.

So good for you. I mean, I kind of hinted at it in the intro, but I think it's famously known that R.E.M. invented indie rock. Would you agree? If not invented, they certainly carry the standard harder, fire, further longer than anyone else. Totally. They were kind of like the guys with the machetes going through the forest, cutting the path for everybody else. Like, this is the way we're going. We're just going to make sure you can get there. They walked, so like a million other white guys with guitars could run.

Yes. Yes. Karen, let's just get into it. Why don't you tell me who is R.E.M.? So REM is Michael Stipe, lead singer, Peter Buck, guitar, Mike Mills on bass, and Bill Barry was the original drummer and we'll get to that later. They are, you know, the band originated in Athens, Georgia, but none of them are actually Georgians.

Michael moved from St. Louis with his family. He was kind of, you know, iconoclastic kid who discovered Patty Smith and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. and kind of formed him, kind of formed his view on life. He was an army brat, his family relocated to outside of Athens, and he followed them there and started studying art at the University of Georgia. Peter Buck was originally from California. He was attending Emory in Atlanta, and he was working in a record store.

he kind of describes it as I didn't really know how to do anything else and still be around music, so I worked in a record store. And he was voracious. He would go see everything. He would listen to everything. And like Michael, he was also really interested in everything that was happening on the New York punk scene. He moved to Athens and to work at Wux Tree Records. And when he was there, there was this guy who kept coming in and buying the records that he was saying for him, saving for him.

And he also had two, he always came with these two really beautiful women. And Peter's like, I want to talk to that guy. The women were Michael's sisters, but the guy was Michael Stipe. They became friends, started talking about what, what are we going to do? We're in Athens. We're really bored. A gorgeous bromance, a bromance meet cute, if I've ever heard one. Yeah, it was definitely a bromance meet cute.

So then Mike and Bill knew each other in high school and they were actually deadly enemies. and they ended up in like the same basement, you know, with a band. And Bill says that if he'd had a more portable instrument, when like they said, oh, we have this new guy who's going to join the band. And Mike Mills walked in. And his quote is something like, if I had a more portable instrument, I would have left, but I was behind these drums, so I really couldn't. And then they got over that.

And, you know, then their bromance started. Bill went to work at Paragon Booking, which was a very sort of famous Southern booking agency, like the Allman Brothers, people like that. And that's where he met Ian Copeland. Mike Mills actually sold Ian his base at one point. They both hated working and they decided they'd go to University of Georgia to kill time for a few more years. Mike bought his base back from Ian for more than he had sold it to him for.

And they all went over to Athens. The four of them met because of a woman named Kathleen O'Brien who saw, you know, had met sort of seen Bill around moving into the dorm kind of thing, got a crush on him. It's a small town. It's easy. The weirdos are going to all know each other. by sight. And they were all living in this, or at least Michael and Peter were living in this old church that somebody had basically like knocked the inside out of and then like put a box inside

it and made rooms. There was enough room to like have a party. There was kind of like a little stage. And so they were rehearsing and Kathleen O'Brien just thought that they were good and they weren't listening to her or anybody else. And she was just like, fine, I'm having my 20th birthday party. the beginning of April, you guys need to play at my birthday party. And they got their act together.

And it was a tremendous success. There were lots of people there. I mean, again, small town, weirdos, I'll stick together. And they got immediately booked for two more shows. At their second show at this club called Tyrone's O.C., O.C. stands for Ocean Club. This is Athens, Georgia. They are not near the ocean. Not even close. It's kind of like the Bushwick Yacht Club. Sure. They drew 350 people to Tyrone's. And I remember that because there's a quote from Peter where he's like,

the most popular band at the time was this band called Pylon, this really amazing band. And they would get maybe like a hundred people. Wow. Also shout out Pylon, great band. Yes. Yes. Phenominal band. So that, who they are and how I got together, and I don't know if that's what you wanted me to do, but I did. No, it is. I learned a lot. Karen, tell me what song we should hear first to kick off this R.E.M. We should probably start with the first single because still nothing sounds like it. They had enough interest that they thought they should record something to try to help them get more gigs. And there was a, you know, a local rich guy who decided he wanted to be a record, record person. And he was like, hi, I'll, I'll put your record out. So they made the single Radio Free Europe.

We should hear that. We should. I love that local rich guy puts out R.E.M. single sounds like an onion headline. I do want to point out, so we don't get those letters and cards and DMs. I love the letters and cards from the ever-correcting men, though. This is not the mix that was put out by Mr. Atlanta record guy. Local Rich Guy. Yeah. This is the superior Mitch Easter mix that he did not like. And it didn't come out too much later on. eponymous. So, yes, I am just holding the standard for Mitch Easter. Let's hear Radio for Europe. You are listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and

talk segments live together in gorgeous harmony only on Spotify. Guess what? You can also create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor, Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.fm. slash music and talk. Okay, that was Radio Free Europe off of Eponymous by R.E.M. Again, big shout-outs to Mitch Easter for making this gorgeous song. Okay, so we're in 1981. What's the music scene in Athens like in general? You kind of hinted at it earlier by talking about Pylon. Were the B-52s around yet? Yes, the B-52s were around. There were a lot. a band in Athens. There were the method actors. There was love tractor. Michael's sister was in a band

called OOK. There were a lot of bands because, again, small town, college town, people want to come out and drink and listen to music. And how did Riem fit into that scene? Like, what was the vibe? So the vibe was definitely, like at the beginning, the vibe was, hey, we're all just having fun here. But REM were good. And they were good at a different level. And they became famous and became known quicker than the other bands. So they went from being like everybody's, you know, everyone loves you when you're down and out. but not when you're playing shows, getting attention from national,

from record companies, from record companies. And there wasn't, you know, there wasn't an Athens sound. Everyone, you know, like every time, it's like grunge. Like, oh, there's all these bands in Seattle. Let's all go there. We'll call it this. And the bands actually have nothing in common musically or very little. Yeah.

You know what? Let's do a little fun thing. Let's play a couple of clips in a row. Let's hear B-52s. Let's hear Love Tractor. And let's hear Pylon. All very different. Karen, can you speculate a little bit about why Aram did, like, you know, kind of get head and shoulders above the rest of these bands?

Like, what made them more popular? What, first of all, made them more popular even just amongst the Athens weirdo music scene? and then further, like, put them on the map for, you know, bigger labels and got them more attention. It's this dynamic of that each of the four of them brought to the sound that they made. You know, Michael wasn't a traditional lead singer. His voice, you know, at the beginning, everyone used to make jokes about, you know, we used to make a lot of jokes about not being able to understand what might be. was saying. And everyone had sort of their own interpretations of what he was singing and what it meant.

But it was like, it became another instrument. And so you're relating to the feeling of the instrument, not necessarily the lyrics. Right. Whereas with a lot of bands, you're tuning into the lyrics. Hear the lyrics to me whatever you want. Peter, there's some debate about how qualified a guitar player Peter Buck was or not. He was certainly not, you know, it's not like he'd been playing guitar since he was 15 years old and really was a traditional rock guitar player. He went for a sort of garage rock approach. And then Bill played a really sort of melodic bass that you really wouldn't expect to find.

in an independent band? Yeah, they have kind of like a southern feel, right? Like, and not, I'm not saying country music or anything, but there's something. Yeah, like it's, it's like the cover of Murmur, and you can all go look at the cover of Murmur, which was Kudzu, which is this, this invasive plant that just will take over. If you stop moving too long, anywhere down south, it will grow over you. and that sort of faded gentility. That's such a good way to say it. The way people used to sort of, you know, romanticize like the old plantations,

well, there's nothing romantic about a plantation. No, certainly not. Karen, are you from the South? I am not. I am born in the great state of New Jersey. I want to know how you came to R.M. Because you were in on the R.E.M. train pretty early, right?

Yes. I saw R.E.m. the night I graduated high school. Oh, my God, amazing. So I didn't, you know, I bought the tickets to see the gang of four. And they, and I got there and they said, you know, I did literally know who the opening band was. So they say my kid said, you know, and now R.E.M. And I'm like, oh, I've heard of these guys. And how did you, how had you heard of them? I want to say college radio. Okay. So I definitely heard it. That's where I'm going to guess I heard it or read about. them in the village voice because I was at least close enough to get that. And anyway, so I saw them play. They were definitely just, I don't know what I thought I thought they were, but they were like nothing, they were definitely like nothing I had ever seen. And Michael had this amazing stage presence. It was, it was like he had no bones. He moved a lot. His pants kept falling down. And Peter

kept going to the people in the front row and asking if anyone had a belt they could borrow just for so Michael could finish the show without his pants falling down. And I thought they were really great. And I just, I remember that I liked them so much that I like, you know, I saw that they were sitting at the bar. This was a club called the Left Bank. It was an old bank. So they still had, like, the marble counters and stuff.

And I like walked over and quietly said, hey, I want to buy you a drink. I just, tonight, I just graduated from high school, but don't yell that out loud, please, because I am in here on a fake ID. So then it was like, this is a band I like. This is a band I'm going to follow. This is a, you know, this is a band I'm going to try to see. And what year was that, Karen? That was 1981. So it was right after.

Right there. Local rich guy. put out the help them put out music. And wow, you really got in on the ground floor of REM. So let's play a song from Chronic Town, which I would guess that's kind of like of that era of the time that you went and saw the show. Like what's a song that really struck you and kind of deepened that fandom from that record? From Chronic Town, Carnival of sorts, because that also ties into the sort of mystery around Kazu type mystery that we were talking about. Amazing. Let's hear Carnival of sorts. That was Carnival of Sorts, which in my mind is called boxcars. And you don't need to reply to that, Karen. Lots of people called it then. When I was listening to the song, it's so, like I told you, lean back, lean back fan over here. So like I never really think critically about any of this music when I listen to it.

to it. Frankly, I don't think critically about a lot of music at all, which is smooth brain and happiness. But now that I'm forced to and through the lines of bands playing, I was thinking like, okay, like while it sounds so different than a lot of stuff, it does for me feel 80s. Like it still feels within its time. And I don't know if that's just like the lingering like late 70s post-punk feel of it or just like something about it that feels, it just feels like it fits right in with the time period, even though I know it's probably really different than like what was actually like very popular in 1981. What do you think about that, Karen?

So the first thing that came to mind was when I took a younger friend to see Lou Reed in the 90s and this person had been listening to me talk about Lou Reed for a really long time. And she said she spent the first half of the concert thinking, I don't understand what the big deal is. He sounds like everybody else. And then the penny dropped. And she was like, oh. Right, right. So I think like it sounds like the 80s because they made the 80s sound like that.

Totally, totally. But you are also correct in that the lineage continues because of the jangly guitar. which, you know, came from the birds and that sort of 60s folk rock thing. And also they were really drawn to in the same way that the New York punks were drawn to is garage bands. Lenny K.'s Nuggets compilation. They've, you know, lots of people have talked about that being an influence and the R.E.M. talked about it being an influence because those songs were easy to play. Right, right.

Everyone was pulling from the same talent pool. Right. Everyone was pulling for the same pool, but they just interpreted it differently. Totally. This record came out on IRS records. Yes. But RCA did try to sign them, and they said no. Yes.

They, again, it depends who you talk to. So IRS was the Copeland. Right. And, you know, some people are like, well, they were never not going to sign to IRS. Totally. Like nothing was not just because of the personal connection, but because they felt that they understood the music business and gave them the kind of deal that they wanted. R.C. almost signed a bunch of people. I mean, they almost signed Patty Smith and they screwed that one up, too. So. Okay.

So Chronic Town comes out and it's like game on. Like Chronic Town came out and what it, what that, what that let them do is, again, this comes from sort of like the Copeland school of this is how you break a band in America. Just you play. You get in a van and you drive and you play. And they would play. anywhere, they would take any booking. They, you know, years later, you know, Peter and the band would talk about how they knew what was, which exit to take a 9-95, like, where the good cheap beer was, where the good gas stations were, where they weren't good, like, they knew it because they drove it. Right.

And they would play. And everybody had like a new wave Thursday. And good bands would show up. Yeah. They didn't care if there were, you know, 20 people. And like these old people were like dancing and they played their set and they were like asking for an encore. And like, we're just going to take you all to dinner. And they took them to a Greek diner.

Okay. First of all, I love this story. And it really helps me to bring up a thing I want to ask you about because I'm remembering now in the replacement's double episode where we talk to Bob Mayer. You can't really talk about the replacements without talking about REM because. because, you know, it's two incredible bands, wildly different trajectories. And, you know, it sounds to me like REM were road dogs and like kind of cheerfully. Like, sounds like they wanted to play shows. Or at the very least, they were like down to do what it took to like spread their music around the country.

While famously or infamously, the replacements, not so into it. not so into it, not so cheerful about it, not so driven to do a good job at it. And it hurt them. And it helped R.M. Yes, absolutely. You know, but the thing I think they share the most is if the audience was being aggressive and the replacements would start playing heartbeat, it's a love beat. R.E.M. did that too.

R.M, like, you know, ended up once playing for, like, a hot legs contest or, like, a wet t-shirt contest. There was one time they got booked at an Army base. And Peter and Michael just started rubbing their butts together and, like, kissing to, like, really piss off the audience, you know, again in the, not to stereotype. But yes, in the early 80s, perhaps the South and a military base was not going to be really that progressive. They also did not have the drug and alcohol problems of the replacements. It's like chaotic good versus chaotic evil. We talk a lot here about longevity of bands and like maybe wishing for not so much longevity of some bands. Because, and I'll say it if Kirkobain was around today, you know that man would be wearing leather.

wrist cuffs and showing up at the Chateau Marmonde and being embarrassing or something, at the very least would have put out some embarrassing music. And R.M. is one of the rare, rare examples of a band who has put out 15 albums over the course of decades and kind of stayed good. Like they just kept, I mean, I wouldn't say they were as good as always the best that they were, but they certainly didn't pull a schmertu. You know what I'm saying? And I think there's something really, like, insanely cool about that. Yes.

This was a band that didn't care about purity. They had no problem understanding how to play the game. You know, Bill thought when Bill went to, when Bill and Mike moved to Athens, Bill had it in his head that maybe he would get a law degree so he could be work in entertainment law. And he was managing the band at the, you know, when they started, when things started going up. And he was like, I cannot possibly do this anymore. It's, I can't do both things. But they wanted to know how things worked. And they created business arrangements for themselves. This is a really unsexy thing to talk about on a podcast about music. But they, they created situations for

themselves. Like when they signed to IRS, they took a very low advance and a higher royalty rate. Yeah. Most 20, early 20, guys in the early 20s are not like, let me get less money now. Right. It's actually interesting that you're saying this because I think it is also worth making the point or asking you, because I'm not totally sure, but it's what it sounds like to me. They're a college band, which means class-wise, this, they were in a different class than the replacements, right, who were like pretty squarely working class. And I'm not saying they're like rich kids or whatever. I'm just, they're not rich kids, but yes, they're not working class kids.

Right. Like they maybe had a little. They definitely had more privilege than three quarters of the replacements. Right. They had a decent head to know, like the thing with Mr. Atlanta record label, one of the things that they signed away when they signed with him was the publishing. Right. And because they didn't know, they, they didn't know.

And they fought to try to get it back. And they did eventually get it back for like $2,000 because the guy was broke. And, you know, they were sort of besmirched in the local music community because they took advantage of this. No, they didn't. He took advantage of them first. They just bought it back. Let's get to murmur, I think, because now. Now we're cooking with gas.

Rolling Stone voted it the best album of 1983. This didn't sound like anything else. Right. It was interesting and it was challenging. And but it was still, it still felt familiar because of the places that they were drawing from. Totally. So Murmur becomes a big album amongst who? Hoomst.

So it's going to be college kids, which is a wide. dynamic, the kids who are we going to be listening to the college radio, kids who may have just graduated and are still listening to college radio, people who feel like, I'm just missed punk rock. Right. What? That was me. That was definitely me. The whole punk ethos of we're going to go to a town, like Patty Smith used to come to a town,

and they would say, next time we play here, we don't want to see you in the audience. You should be at another club playing yourself the same night. Right. That sort of, pick up a guitar. Right, start a band. So, so we had that cottage industry, for lack of a better term. And then the indie bands, your replacement, your Hoosker Do's, your Jason and the scorchers, the bands that would come out of L.A., like the Long Riders and the 3 o'clock. Even within each city, like even like Lawrence, Kansas at one point, had a lot of bands.

Yeah, thriving indie. seen, I think even to this day, honestly. Probably. Why don't we hear a song off Murmur? Let's go with Perfect Circle because there's a good story I can tell after it. Okay, this is Perfect Circle. No Maynard James King. Okay, that was Perfect Circle off Murmur. I really love that song. And you know what? Producer Dylan doesn't really love that song. And when I said, what I love this song. Do you know what she said?

She said, that makes sense for you. can you believe to end subordination can you can you even what I have to deal with here um Karen

I was thinking when listening to that song that the last thing we said was like people that missed out on punk were like fuck yeah REM

and then we played like the world's saddest slowest gorgeous song we will get there I promise um there's a great

legendary story about this song in that there was an interview where Peter was talking about, they were asking about how they wrote the songs. And Peter said that the band was playing this club

in Trenton, New Jersey, this legendary club called City Gardens. And there was a field next to the club because who was in Trenton in the 80s. It was, the sun was just setting. It was the magic hour and there were these kids playing

a, you know, they were throwing a baseball back and forth. And Peter was leaning against outside the backstage door. And he saw this happening. And he was exhausted because they'd been on the road forever. But it was, there was just something really beautiful and moving in that scene. And he told Michael about it. And he's like, there's no baseball. There's no kids. There's no sunset. But it's all in there. Wow. And yet when you add to the interview to ask Michael Stipe about it, he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. But I believe Peter. I like that.

I like that that story actually is like a really cool meta way to even think about music in general where it's like, doesn't matter. Like if that's what it means to him and then Michael Stipe is like, I don't know. I just wanted to say heaven assumed shoulders high in the room like 42 times. And both can be true. Let's keep going because as we've mentioned, REM has 400 albums. and in order to get to the monster at the end of this episode, we do have to trudge on. And I'm sure there's going to be people who are being to be like,

okay, but you didn't play the other 11 most important tracks for Murmur. And I hear you. But it's available to you right here on Spotify. You may simply look it up and listen to it. R.A.M. does have a really rabid fan base, though, to this day. I mean, yes. and no, because if they still had a huge fan base, like the last time I saw them at Madison Square Garden, they had the curtains up around the top because they couldn't sell out. Oh.

Yeah. I mean, they were one of those bands where they could have sold out stadiums in Europe forever, but here it really kind of went downhill. Totally. Producer Dylan has made an excellent point, redeeming herself slightly from being mean to me earlier. that if REM had simply just broken up earlier and then pulled the old bait and switch and reunited, then they could have really drawn in the hordes of fans to see them at Madison Square Garden.

It's like a supreme shoe or something, a limited edition vibe. Maybe. That might have worked. But I just think that there's certain bands that don't, are just not, are just not going to do as well here anymore. Right.

They'll do great in Europe. You mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Europe still stands guitar music. And that's why I love it there. In Europe, like blues-based rock and roll is not an old thing. It's still a new thing. The people who are listening to it are, there's still like, you know,

a Springsteen audience in Europe is more diverse in age and sex and ethnicity than any crowd anywhere in America. So Murmur Rolling Stone has declared it the album of 1983. Rolling Stone held a lot of weight and power at that time. Yes. And R.E.M. did what? They went and they made RECKING. They did. They went and they made Reckoning, which is probably still my favorite REM album. Yeah, reckoning is good. I bought a cassette of it. which you didn't do because cassettes were really crappy quality. No, you didn't really want to buy a cassette. But I had to have it in both formats.

And I think you see a progression in the, yeah, I don't want to use the word like mature. But you can definitely see improvement in the songwriting, in the musicianship. Peter Buck wanted how to play the guitar is what you're saying. Peter did never learn to play the guitar. Icon, legend, my hero. He does what he does. Right. He is an excellent Peter Buck guitarist.

But I remember when I lived in Seattle for 10 years and Peter was living in Seattle. And I remember every time like him going on stage at a Bob Dylan night at the Carcadale Cafe. And he and I was standing with a bunch of like Seattle musicians. They were like, Peter has no idea what he's doing. He is looking at Scott McCoy to tell him what chords to play. Great. Yeah. I think we can all learn a lesson here, which is that all you can do is be the best you that you are.

Yes. So they've not matured but matured. Yes. But like I think about the three of the which is like seven Chinese brothers, South Central Rain, don't go back to Rockfield. That's a hit. It is a hit. That is a great song by any measurable standard. But it still doesn't sound like any.

It still only sounds like them. I just think everybody is playing and singing better. It's not like Michael is enunciating, but his voice has opened up. It's just, and part of that, and that's what I was getting alluding to earlier, was the other thing that really sold them was they were such an unbelievable live act. The shows were never the same. They were, I mean, like, we play like Perfect Circle and this is beautiful, lovely song. But it was a explosion on stage. I mean, Peter was just, Peter was leaping.

Michael was doing whatever dance he was doing. Bill Berry used to say that he always asked for Michael's vocals to be the loudest in his monitors because you really want to be able to hear what Michael was singing. You know, Bill is a really, in terms of a drummer, he's not an in-the-pocket kind of drummer, and he's not like a Charlie Watts economical kind of drummer, but he never over drums and he never under drums. He's like the Goldilocks and the Three Bears drummer. Yeah, absolutely. But I can hear the difference when they were like the night they were inducted into the Rock and Hall of Fame.

I'd like to say that we are all extremely humbled. I had been saying to my friends for years the difference, like I can hear the difference. I can hear when it's Bill and it's not Bill. And they were like, no, you're just, you know, whatever. And then he played and they were like, oh my God, you're right. Okay, Karen, now you've really piqued my interest about REM live since I've actually never seen them live, which is across I Must Bear. Let's hear Little America live off of the deluxe edition of Reckoning.

That was Little America Live by R.M. Or sometimes as I hear them called in Europe, Rem. Karen, even during Reckoning, they're still touring pretty heavily, right? Like this is just as kind of like just as breakneck touring as they were from the beginning. Yeah, they've stepped up in venues. Like, they're not playing clubs all the time. Okay, great. Upgrade. But yeah, they're still, that's, they're still winning hearts and minds by zigging the country.

That's when you, gas wasn't ridiculously expensive. And you could, you could do that. It was financially worth it, yeah, to tour nonstop. Yes. And it was sometimes a reaction to, because not every. audience was still favorable. You would still get these frat boys showing up and yelling insults. And even as late as like 1985, we'll get there where I went to a show in Canada

where somebody yelled something and they just went off on played covers for two hours and it was unbelievable. I love the idea of a frat guy paying money to come into a venue to then scream at REM for being lame or whatever. Like, babe, you could have just taken that money, bought a six-pack and sat at home. Why don't we hear a clip of REM covering Fun Time Live, just to give the people a little taste of what we're talking about. Okay, well, that's fun. I see here on your playlist, we have complete rarities. What's happening here? So I wanted to, again, I was trying to, again, I was trying to, show the humorous side of REM.

Famously hilarious. A lot of people sort of didn't see them as having a sense of humor, but then they write a song called Burning Hell. Was that on an album? It was not on an album. It was an outtake that came out of the sessions for the album after Reckoning, which was Fables of the Reconstruction. So a joke, but they didn't really pull trigger by putting it on an album.

I see you, Michael Stipe. It came out later on a outtakes record. I'm just kidding. Okay, Fables of the Reconstruction. Great time to point out that R.E.M. has some of the best album names of all time. Yes. Michael Art directed all of these and the concepts and the artists and the titles. It was all very deliberate.

What was the progression in Fables of the Reconstruction? And like, what do you hear on this album that you feel like kind of marks like any sort of change or growth for the band? That they almost broke up. Okay. We love an almost breakup album. And you can hear it in the record. Yeah, you can hear it. Oh, my God, you can hear it.

They went to, they wanted to do something different. They went to London, four guys, four American guys, from Georgia, went to London, crazy American guys. To work with Joe Boy. So that sort of atmospheric, highly atmospheric, like I can see, I can get the thought process. But I don't think any of them thought about what it would be like going. I mean, again, then they'd worked with people they'd known and worked far from home. And now they're in England and it's cold and it's damp and it's wet. And they hate the food.

Wow. Can you blame? Have they not really toured Europe yet? they had for reckoning. But it's different when you're on tour than it is when you're there for X amount of time. And especially expecting to create an album instead of just playing shows. Yes. Yes. So they're eating fish and chips.

Indian food. A lot of Indian food. Marmite. They were bummed. They didn't want to be there. They had been on the road a lot. You can hear it. Like, you can really hear it in Michael's voice on Burning Hell.

Like his vocal chord sound shot. It was hard. It was taking a lot out of them. And they had been successful, but they hadn't been successful. They weren't on the radio. No, they really weren't on the radio yet. I can remember being at, I can remember here when they didn't start getting on the radio, until the next record.

Yeah. They were on TV. They were on late night with Letterman. Yeah, but everybody was on right night with Letterman. They also did like

solid gold. It was a different time, a better time. Okay. What do you think all of those inputs, the misery, the indigestion,

the hating each other put into this album? I hate the production. I think it's murky as I'll get out. So I think that songs that are good songs,

you couldn't hear them because of what Joe Boy did to them. And I don't think it's, we've been talking about the Southern thing. Well, here I think the Southern thing got pulled in. I mean, it's called Fables of the Reconstruction.

I think the Southern thing just got, you know, I'm thinking about Driver 8 is a great song. He's a great, great song. And that's a good example of it. But then I think about like, can't get there from here, which to me is wedded to this terrible video of them running around a hayfield. And I just don't think it's as consistent an effort. You know, because I literally went through and re-listen to every one of their 247 albums.

And this one, you weren't stoked on. I think we should hear Driver 8, though, because I do think it's kind of an important song. Let's hear it. Let's hear Driver 8. Okay. Let's hear Driver 8. That was Driver 8. This song feels a little punk to me.

I feel a little bit like that's a song where I could hear the drums and bass, if they were really sped up. It feels that's a very, like, punk kind of formation of drums and bass. but maybe it's just a spree decor of the song that felt punked to me. Who can say? I am simply a vessel for God's voice. So do you feel that this song is not really representative of the rest of the album? No, I think it's representative. I definitely think it's representative of the album and where they were at that time.

In London, Eating Mormon. I don't think the record is as strong as I would like it to have been. To your knowledge, do other. REM mega fans feel the same way about this album? Like, is this like a kind of universally agreed upon not as good REM album? It's not that it's not as good. It's not that I don't think it's as good because I just, like I think about leading the album with feeling gravity's pull, which is, that's more punky to me than Driver 8. But it's like, there's this sort of weird, dissonant, almost sonic youth-ish feeling gravity's pole.

And then there's this maps and legends, which feels more like driver A. And then like Old Man Kinsey is this creepy song about an old guy. It just, ugh. It's all over the place for me. That's my that's my verdict on this record. Inconsistent with their other output are just inconsistent amongst itself. Inconsistent as a body of work. Right.

Like, is a singular body of work within this record. Yes. Got it. How did it perform? Like, how was it received? They got a lot of MTV time. Like, this was a, this, they were a real band.

They were band that people were paying attention to. Kurt Loder was talking about them. I heard driver rate on the radio. Like alternative radio or whatever. Yeah, like you would call, you like people would call each other on the phone and be like, oh my God, R.A.M. are on the radio. Wow. And there's still, just to be clear for the listeners who aren't a diehard R.M fans and already know this. They're still on IRS this whole time. Like they are still on an indie. You can guess what they do next.

They go make another album because they are mutants. I don't know. Tireless. They simply cannot stop writing songs. I don't know what it was, but they went straight back and made the next album Life's Rich Pagent. With John Cougar Mellon Camp's producer in Indiana. A cool and weird choice. But maybe John Cougar was not cool yet.

Maybe they were just so much like, okay, we want to go as far away from the UK as possible. Yes. Yes. To go to the Heartland Baby. John Cougar, Mellencamp's producer, Dawn Gaiman. Gaman. Tell me about life's rich pageant, 1986. So they had more of a, like driver rate was got airplay, but fallen me was more of a.

a legit hit. Great song. But like fall on me. Like I can remember got like an MTV video premiere. Like it's going to be at the top of the hour. And they were a bigger deal. Yeah. And for as much as, you know, we made fun of them going to Indiana, working with John Cougar's producer,

the sound is a better sound for them. Right. Everything that they did wrong on Fables, I think they did right on Life's pageant. It sounds great. I think the songs are stronger and more consistent. This album did really well also commercially. Like it, it's the first album they had to go gold. Yes. Which is a cool and important big deal, probably. Kind of crazy to think that you could sell 500,000 albums without being on like mainstream radio. Well, let's not forget that, yes,

they were on IRS, but IRS was distributed by MCA. Right. What song do you want to hear off of this album? What I had put on the playlist was these days, and I still feel like it's a good, emotional representative of the record. Okay, yeah, I feel like I'm learning a lot about R.M. Let's hear these days. That was These Days.

From 1986's Life's Rich Pagent. Tell me about this song, Karen. I love it because it's... It's the, I don't want to say it's the REM that I love, but it's the energy and the sound. It revs you up. It makes you feel good. There's nothing ironic about it. Like, they are here.

And, you know, they were kind of our Paul Revere of the New American Underground riding through the country. Do you feel like R.M was a band that trafficked heavily in irony? Not really, right? No. Like, not really their vibe at all. I think that's maybe one of the things people really like about them. I was noticing that when I was like listening back doing homework for this episode that I was like, wow, like some of the songs might be, I don't want to say obtuse in meaning, but maybe I do want to say that. I don't know, like sort of like, you know, opaque in being, but they're never, they're never ironic.

They're at least, at the very least, they feel sincere, even if you don't know what they're being sincere about. There is definitely an opacity to a deliberate opacity, but it's not in a pretentious way. It's just this was how Michael Stipe wrote lyrics. This is how he conveyed his view of the world. Yeah, R.M is one of those bands that I feel like I don't ever really know what the songs are about, but it doesn't matter. to me because I have a feeling what they feel about to me, and that is enough for me. And that's not the same for me with every other band that I'm really into because I tend, as a writer, and I'm sure maybe you'll relate, I tend to pay really close attention to lyrics.

But here I just like, don't. I'm just like, all right, Michael, go off king. Whatever you're saying is fine. I feel good. It's like shaking through. Shaking through is a love song. At least I think it's a love song. My friends thought it was a love song, but there's not necessarily anything in there that says anything about love.

This is a gorgeous, actually, transition moment, Karen, because now we're going to get to document, which does have the very first overt love song in the R&M catalog. But it's not. Okay, but at the very least, it has the word love in the title. Yes. But Peter Buck has like, he has talked about these, you know, watching these couples in the front row go at it. And he's like, are you listening to the actual song? But it's, you know, a jilted or mad love song is still a love song, I would argue. That's still dealing with the matter at hand of love. Okay. So, that is fair. So I'm interested to talk about document. I also wanted to just say. and ask your opinion. I feel like up until document, and I love every one of these albums, but it feels like they were doing shades of the same thing really well,

like really amazing albums, but sort of shades of the same color. Would you agree with that? Yes, but I don't think the albums that follow are, I think the albums that follow are also shades of the color that is. But yes, I feel like this was more of a, we are going to make a record that communicates. Right.

That is a little bit maybe less opaque. And it's getting across the message of a song. Yes. Well, I mean, like with like a title like exhuming McCarthy. Like, okay. We get it. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, REM might not traffic an irony, but they definitely traffic in politics. often. Well, this is where it started to become more vocal, voluble is the word I was going to use. So let's hear the one I love and then we'll go back to talking about this album. That was the one I love. That song charted. First R.E.M. song to chart on the Billboard singles chart, I want to say. It hit number nine. Yeah, Hot 100. Yeah. Top 10. kind of crazy. Yeah, because it's not what people thought it was about. Yes, it's not exactly a fun pop song, although it is a poppy song. Yeah, it's very poppy. It's very commercial. It's very commercial sounding. Sounds great. Yeah. I mean, this is the same year that you choose with or without you hit number one for like three weeks straight. So like it makes sense kind of in the like greater landscape of what. Yes.

what was, you know, being listened to. This is also the album that got them their first Rolling Stone cover. Yes. Or at least it was this year. I think it was this album. Yeah. Cover headline said, America's Best Rock and Roll Band. No big deal.

Karen, I have a note here for myself that I wanted to ask you. Is this where Michael Stipe starts wearing hats? There was a hat era that started at a point. Hats entered the chat. I feel like it might have been around here. I do not recall a hat, a specific hat in this particular tour. I guess my question is, what is REM's look, their vibe? Like, how are they self-presenting?

Because that's like a pretty big rock band thing. And I think we don't talk about it with REM until later. Would you say here there's still sort of generic alt-rock guy vibe? Well, I think yes, but I also think that they created what that was. Right. You know, they created the we went to Goodwill and we bought, you know, all of Peter Buck's big, stripy shirts that he wore untucked with the vest. Like, he did that. Like, they did this.

They made that. They did that. So it isn't until monster that they really try to break out of that. Totally. Okay. So I think we can both agree that there is another very important song on document. Should we talk about it? Yes. Let's hear The End of the World by I am. Damn, prescient.

Mm-hmm. That was End of the World. I think everyone probably knows that song. Would you agree, Karen? Yeah, they may not know who does it, but they've heard it. Yeah. I really remember the music video. And it's funny, I didn't remember the music video for the one I love.

But this particular music video was on MTV like 25 times a day. Yes. For End of the World. It wasn't as big of a deal as the one I love video was. Like the one I love video was like MTV, world premiere, seat at the top of the hour. Yeah. Yeah. This song sounds different than a lot of the other stuff they've done, right?

This is like a pretty intentional pop song. Yes. And I don't know if it was an intentional pop song, but it wasn't an unintentional pop song. Like I don't think it was like, we're going to sit and write a pop song. I think it just happened. Right. Like Michael had this list of stuff and, you know, this was the list of stuff song. But it was a list of stuff song that have very specific meanings.

Like they top up the line about Lester Bangs and Bidjellie Beans is about their first trip to New York where they were like living in Pylon's van, parked on the streets of Greenwich Village. And they went to a party at Lester Bangs's apartment. Right. Like, don't forget, this also happened before the internet. So, like, one day my best friend showed up at work with a piece of notebook paper saying, Here, find the things I didn't. Yeah. No, I know.

I think I thought a lot about that in general about REM. We take for granted now that you can, like, find every lyrics to every song with, like, a click of a button. But it wasn't like that back then, unless the band willfully included the lyrics. the lyrics in their like CD books, which I'm guessing R.M. didn't? No, they did. It's funny. You brought up the internet to, this song feels like it could be about the internet. I know it's not obviously because that wasn't, but like it's it's about TV, right, ostensibly, like in a, you know, more meta way. It's not about the internet, but it could be about the internet because it's about media that takes over everything. You know, it's like,

Like, you two did the entire ZUTV tour, REM wrote, end of the world. Yeah. I mean, I think like it's still so fucking powerful because it's about the idea that we're not supposed to know all this stuff. Like, it's such a barrage. Like, our brains don't have the capacity to be inundated with so much information about things that, like, by and large, don't have directly to do with our own lives. and it's overwhelming and this song sounds like that it sounds overwhelming

I think it's a it's very I don't know very cool and very sad that it's enduring that like nothing not only has things not changed that's just actually gotten quite quite a bit worse um

Karen tell me about the reception to this album you already alluded to the Rolling Stone cover story and that was a really big deal then like the the I don't want to keep harping on the MTV World Premiere thing, but that was a thing like only Bruce Springsteen got.

Like for REM to get that, this was like our guys had made it. Totally. Woohoo. The college radio was not just a left of the dial thing. I was gazing upon this cover of Rolling Stone. And I think this is the reason I started to bring up the hat line of questioning. They're kind of not recognizable, like as people. Like they're four white guys.

And like Michael Stipe still has his hair. He hasn't yet transitioned into like I think the one thing that made them very recognizable was Michael Stipe's bald head. For me anyways. And that might be because I came into consciousness. That tracks. That tracks because and it wasn't just the bald head. It was the bald head calling it. And he stopped wearing all the super baggy clothes.

Yeah. And you could see how skinny he. He was a very beautiful man. He had this gorgeous face. And then when the hair was sort of probably through no choice of his own ended up being removed, you really saw. He has really stark features. And they were really thrusts like front and center. But at this point, like I'm pretty positive that they could walk down the street.

Maybe not in Athens, but like other streets. And like no one was going to be like, hey, Bill Berry, you know. Yes. The R.E.M., the Rolling Stone Cover store, I think, talks about this a little bit. Like, Peter's like, I kind of get recognized, but not really yet. And they don't seem to like it in the cover store. That's one thing I noticed because I was reading it. There's like some quote where he says, like, I don't ever want us to play stadium tours. Like, I don't want to do that. You know, like, we're never going to do that. I think they did do that. So a couple of things on that, which is. these guys were all students of rock and roll. Sure. Like they knew rock history. So they know what happens when you get famous. They've seen it.

Yeah. They're smart guys. Yeah. To me they didn't have as big of like a look or a mythos as like a lot of other bands of the time that were really big. Like I mean, obviously Nirvana who is like a literal Greek tragedy of a band, you know, like. But there was other stuff. You know, they had such. to look. There's the Courtney Love stuff and all so much stuff going on that made them celebrities

in addition to being a band. And it feels like REM never really became a celebrity band in that way. And that might have been what made it possible for them to make so many albums and make good albums and kind of stay together and not implode. Yes, but I think that was conscious. Right. It was a conscious thing. It was a choice. Just that this is the beginning of them starting to work with Scott Litt. Who really, yeah, and really, you know, he worked on a bunch of memorable records in that time period. I think they sort of found the sound they were happy with. Right. And I think that was important in them getting to the next level on their terms. Right, which they do sign to, they finally signed to a major label for the next album for Green. they signed a Warner Brothers.

Yes. For the alleged $6 million. Right. So 1988, green. I do want to point out, document went platinum. So it's not like they were doing badly before they signed a major. Yeah, they're doing fine. Also probably why they signed to a major.

And I did read, and I, again, this is like alleged for our lawyers listening, but the other labels offered them more money. But Warner Brothers offered them complete creative control, and so they signed with Warner Brothers. Yes. I don't think it was just that, but definitely other labels did offer them more money, and it was still Warner Brothers. Right. It was still the Mo Austin Warner Brothers. Again, students of rock and roll history, they knew what was what came out on that label, and they knew the history of it. Yeah, and Warner Brothers gave them the deal that they wanted. Green was really big. Huge.

Yeah. Gigormous. Went double platinum. Yes, plenty of people said sellout around this record. I mean. But this is also like, like I think about get up. Get Up sort of reminds me of the, like, I believe. And, you know, Orange Crush is another song that people.

really liked without actually thinking about what it was supposed to be about. And love songs, again, brutal love songs, my favorite song from this record is turn you inside out. Like this song live, just like I put it on when I was putting my my playlist together, I just put on the live version as loud as I could stand it and just vibrated the house because it's just, ah. This Karen comes alive, Frampton comes alive. Karen comes alive. Let's hear Orange Crush. That was Orange Crush.

Karen, what's the song about? So on the tour, there was a really interesting version they did on the BBC. Michael used to preface the performance of the song by singing a clip from an old U.S. Army commercial. Like, Hey, first sergeant. Good morning. Be all you can be in the Army, and then they go right into this. Literally, like, just even listening to, like, a shitty live tape, I just get goosebumps.

Yeah. You mentioned the megaphone. Yes, this was a megaphone song. I do not recall, so I don't get emails. Michael talking about why he uses the megaphone. And I think he just, he uses it in a lot of different ways. way to distort his voice. It's a way to focus. It's a way to add emphasis. It's a way to take himself out of us. There's a lot of reasons you can use a megaphone. Yeah, but here it also feels really

military. Like it really works for the song. Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. That song won some MTV Awards is what I saw in my research. Yes. Yes, Matt Mahoran. For the video. And they didn't release it as a single, but it's still like I remember it charted really high on like alternative or whatever the modern rock chart. Yeah, because Stand was the single, right? Yeah. We should hear a clip of Stan. Stand makes sense as the single. It's a pop song like we talked about.

Yes. It's as much of an REM song as anything else on the record. It's the kind of side of them that I'm less fond of. Say more here. I personally do not resonate with songs that are humorous, intentionally humorous. You don't like the lulls and the songs? Yes. You mentioned slightly before that people did, and maybe not all of the fans, but people did start to, you know, call themselves here.

Probably very literally because they signed to a major label, but also probably because the song like stand. Well, and I think it's, yeah, because of a song like Stan, because of the size of the venues that they moved up to, like they were playing arenas now. Totally. Even though he did say in the Rolling Stone, he did not want to play arenas. There was definitely a mixed opinion on that within the band. Right. He does say I. I found that really interesting in that Rolling Stone cover story we talked about a little earlier. Like all of the statements are I from each of the band members. They don't say we. Yeah, because they're democracy. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason it's Barry Buckmill-Stuy for the song credits. Like, that's a deliberate choice. So you don't like stand. Some people think they've sold out. The album does go double platinum. We're playing arenas. It's about to be the 90s, baby. Literally, these people do not rest. I guess it was three years later the album came out of time. Okay, out of time is a big deal. Yes. Out of time. It doesn't get much bigger. Yeah, out of time is the album that I became aware of R.M for it. I mean, that's partially because of my age because I was, you know, not even 10 years old yet. But also because it was a massive album. And this is losing my religion. Yeah. I was working at the affiliate in Israel back in the 90s. And everyone said, oh, this is not a band that will be popular here. And they signed to Warner Brothers. And they were my research. responsibility. And nobody came to Israel on a promo tour back then. They barely came to play a show. So it was a pretty great night when I stood in the airport waiting for them to Peter and Mike to get off the plane. It was like that dumb little kid that used to follow you around and be annoying.

And we were there talking to our friend Karen Rose and she said that she DJs sometimes. She asked a friend of her. So how come nobody ever asked for losing my religion? And the guy said, well, they do all the time. They just don't know the English. They don't know what. to call it so they always ask for oh life oh life oh life um michael's type is a thousand percent wearing hats now you can't now we can't deny it now i know because i remember there's a fedora there's hats there's definitely hats happening um tell me about losing my religion because was that the first single off of this album yes it was the first single and it was a smash the smash it's crazy when you think about it. Like, this is the song? Okay. Yeah. It's a really dark song. And not just,

not content-wise. Like, it has a dark feeling. It's just like a wrenching, torturing, torturing feeling. Especially songs that come out when you're in your formative years. That's true. You're going to, if you're in a dark place or a slightly dark place of your life, that's what you're going to associate it. You can't get rid of it. That's me being 11 years old. saying that's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight. I didn't have a religion to lose, but I still, I still related. Well, and also, losing my religion in the South doesn't really, it's more about like you're at the end of your rope. You're losing your patience. Oh, really? That's like a phrase. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Today years old when I learned that.

Interesting. I don't know if you go down South and you'd still hear someone say it, but it was definitely like, a Southernism. Right. Somehow this song exists on the same album as Shiny Happy People, which everyone hates. Let's be honest. Everyone hates this song. Have you seen the video? Did you see Peter's face? Peter hates it. I feel safe in saying that. What was like, okay, let's try to speculate. Like, what was this song? Why did we, was it? Was it a joke? but but it's right at in the song that's right after it is about to finestration so i don't i don't know but let me correct myself i said everybody hates it that's not true um the r em fans who have been along for the journey are like no thank you to this please no no no but new new fans that find it

they liked it. And maybe because they didn't have any other expectation of R.M because this really is a crossover. This is the crossover moment. Yes. Yes. So the people that bought this record for losing my religion,

like you got the full spectrum of R.A.M. on this record. You've got the shiny, happy people. You've got the dark love songs. You got the, you got Southern noir. You got a little folk rock. Like you got everything on this record. Also, I'm so sorry, I just have to say for the record,

it's so weird to me that KRS1 is also on this record. Yes. I was going to mention like, there's a rap on an R.M. Record. Yeah. Okay, let's hear a song off of Out of Time. What song do you want to hear? Country Feedback any day of the week.

Let's hear country feedback. But not the eight-minute version with Neil Young. Yeah, we're going to say no to the eight-minute version of Neil Young. Okay, here is country feedback. That was country feedback. I love that song. It makes me depressed, which is what I like music to do to me. Producer Dylan was wondering if the lyrics were, did he say I lost my hair? And I was like, that would have been too on the nose. It's I lost my head. Okay, back to Nirvana, where we live. This is the biggest R&M album to date, which, Number one is insane. If you think about it, it's like what, the seventh album, eighth album? Seven. Seven. You were right. So first of all, it's a band that broke through on their seventh album 10 years in, which is not that they weren't popular the whole time, but like what an interesting slow incremental rise to like massive, massive rock domination. Also with a song like Losing My Religion. But then like how did this album feel?

into the cultural landscape of that time? It didn't not fit. It didn't not fit. Totally. You know, like there's a wide spectrum on this record. And things were shifting everywhere, but it didn't not fit. It still sounded like R.E.M. It's, they still looked like R.E.M.

They were still doing R.A.M. kind of things. But I do want to point out, I think it's important to point out that, they did not tour after Green. They didn't tour again until 1995. One of them said something like, we're not touring until we can put together a set list and avoid our first five albums. Wow. Why?

They thought that it was, they were tired of it. They didn't want to do that anymore. They didn't want to be held to that anymore. They wanted there to be enough to have enough material so they didn't have to. So, I mean, but just also think about that, that a band could be that big, and not tour and still stay that big.

That's like I think we have to thank MTV in part for that. Yes. If there hadn't have been an MTV and an MTV of pre-teen mom and ridiculousness 24 hours a day that actually played videos all day, they played the video for losing my religion for like five years. Like it wasn't just when it came out. Like it was in rotation for a long time. And also because they were doing that and because it was still a place, there was still a central place where you went to get culture.

Totally. Well, at the very least, like two kinds of culture. And also here's the other thing. They didn't care. They were like, we're good. If this kills us, then it, if this sinks the band, then it sinks the band. But we're not, we're not doing it again until, until we can do it the way we want to do it. Principled Kings.

So they're not touring. They're massive. Somehow one single year later, they put out automatic for the people. 1992. Same year as Nirvana's, never mind. And I want to, I need to give a special shout out to the until the end of the world soundtrack. when they had fretless. This, like until the end of the world soundtrack

was huge for a movie that no one saw that everyone listened to this record because it had U-2 on it. It had REM on it, who, again, huge. I just want to give a shout out to fretless because it's a tremendous song. And we're heading for grunge. Totally.

It's that we're heading, we're in the 90s now. Like that song also sounds like the 90s, a 90s R-EM to me. This soundtrack was Phnomes. We had Nick Cave, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello. The only appearance of the, there's the only song that's co-billed to Patty Smith and Fred Smith. Hey, rest of these. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing record.

This is a total tangent, but soundtracks used to, like, be such a big deal. Yes. They became a big deal. 90s. It was pretty much specifically only in the 90s and then it ended also at the end of the 90, maybe the early 2000s. Okay, now we're at Automatic for the People, which I think came out the same year as Nirvana's Nevermind in 1992. It was a very strange year. I bring that up in every episode, producer Dylan can attest to. It's not my fault. I was exactly the age, you know, that Nirvana would be my favorite band. So all of my cultural, like, orienting myself is around never mind.

But I think so is a lot of so is music. Exactly. You're not wrong. Exactly. You're not wrong. I remember when that tape, the Nirvana tape came in and I was like, oh boy.

And I can remember arguing with my superior about whether or not this record was going to do something. And I was like, okay, I just, I want to go on the record that I told you we need to be prepared for this. But nobody could have been prepared for.

for what happened with that. No one could have seen that coming for a million years. Yeah. Nobody was prepared. Gavin wasn't prepared. Nobody was prepared. It was a huge deal. It was a huge fucking deal.

Out of time did come out six months before. So it was like first half of the year, second half of the year. One of our fan voices, which we'll hear later, mentioned that Michael Stipe was planning to work with Kurt Cobain before Kurt died. Do you know anything about this? Yes. They had, Kurt had spoken about Michael. Michael had heard this. They had connected.

They did hope to work together to remember the exact details. But it's not like they had ever been in a studio or wrote anything together. Right. But Michael had recognized that Kurt was in, was dealing with a lot of things, was in crisis. And was hoping that him holding this out was. keep him tethered to the planet. Because they were good friends. I don't know if they were good friends, but they were definitely friends.

Right. Famously Michael Stipe is Francis Bean's godfather. Okay, so then they were better friends. That might be because of Courtney. That might be because of Courtney. Yeah. Because I know they were very tired. I have sort of a dual question that also involves out of time.

Do you think out of time and automatic for the people are any REM fans' favorite albums? Automatic, absolutely. Interesting. People who came in later, it's not exactly like the people who like the later replacement stuff versus the people who like the early replacement stuff.

It's not quite that drastic, but I would probably not have any trouble finding somebody who, for whom automatic was their favorite record, but I would bet a significant amount of money that they came to the party later. Totally. I was going to say, because for me, Automatic for the People is not my favorite album, but it has my favorite songs on it. My favorite album is Murmur as like a body of work. And I just, I don't know why I can't explain it. It's just that's my favorite album. I love to listen to it beginning to end.

But as far as bangers go, my favorite individual songs are on Automatic for the People because it had so many bangers. It's a more, in my mind, it's a more consistent record than out of time, which makes it a better record in my book. You're not doing that shiny, happy to belong thing. You're not going in and be surprised by anything that you're hearing, if that makes sense. Like, you're not listening to it and going, what the hell are they doing? This album has everybody hurts. Man on the Moon and Night Swimming are probably the three biggest songs off the record, right?

Yeah, I mean, Drive was the single, but I don't think it was a good single and a good choice for a single. Right. Drive is a great song. Yeah. I don't want to hear everybody hurts to you. Everybody hurts.

It is a phenomenal fucking song that he had hoped to give to Patty Smith or have her sing on it. it. At least I have her sing on it. It's a beautiful song. It's extremely depressing. Well, yes. It's not, it's not subtle about that. I read something where Peter Buck said that this album, this really fucking threw me for a goddamn loop. He said that this album dealt with that sense of being 30. 30. Everybody hurts 30. Yesterday, I realized, while watching One Tree Hill, a fine television program from the early 2000s, that I am older than every single parent on the show. And I feel young.

And then these men are writing this, like, literal, like, woebegone tales of being 30? I'm upset. I feel unwell. But also, this was before, like, 40 was the new 30 kind of thing. Sure. It was different. Okay. have to hear man on the moon are night swimming.

Yeah. We have to give them the obvious stuff and then we'll bait them in. You know, the other thing I would be like, find the river. But I mean, like, again, we're still in the blue tones of the record. You're too much of a head, Karen. Too much of an R&M head. Let's hear Man on the Moon. That was Man on the Moon.

Michael Steep is really smart Incredibly smart They're all very intellectual Which is a little I want to make the distinction Not that they're not just smart I think they're pretty highly intellectual Because these songs

We talked about this a bit In the Jawbreaker episode There's a difference Between writing these kinds of songs That are like kind of really incisive and thoughtful meditations on like broader themes in culture and history. I think that comes up for me over and over again when I'm like, okay, like the end of the world as we know it.

We're like, you know, writing about TV culture, like kind of poisoning, you know, people's brains. We're writing about the Vietnam War, writing on McCormortheism. You know, we're really going there. Even in our love songs, we're writing about the, like, dark, obsessive, poisonous sides of unhealthy love. I mean, it's interesting. I don't know why I brought that up. Oh, because Man on the Moon is about. Yes.

Andy Kaufman. Because of Andy Kaufman. Right. And they did this tour in 2003, 2004, I want to say, the Vote for Change tour. and they were out with Bruce Springsteen and Bruce came out and did Man on the Moon with them and as soon as I was like, what's Bruce gonna do? And I was like, ah, of course, this is perfect

because of the little Elvis, you know, the hey, baby. Yeah, I love this record. I think the songwriting, I don't, all right, I don't think the songwriting on Out of Time was bad. I just think as an album, yeah. This is, this is as the concept of an assemblage of song, songs, this is tremendous. And again, like, everybody hurts is just, ah, that song could have been

bigger than it was easily. Yeah. Why do you think it wasn't? I think they stopped the train. They were like, okay, we're good. Right. This is good. We're going to stop here. And night swimming. God damn, I love it. Night swimming deserves a quiet night. Again, one of those songs that is not about, what I feel when I hear it, but it doesn't matter to me. You know? I have this short story called

Night Swimming about a murder in a small town and it has nothing to do with the song, but it fits completely. Yeah. This song is like a painting. It's like a painting that like you gaze upon and you put your own story into it because it seems like it's purposely the lyrics are written that way.

God, it's been. my arm here is standing up. Okay. We have to, sadly, I must rip us away from Automatic for the People. Automatic for the people, again, crushes. It's a huge album. I have a question, actually. We're in 92.

Is REM at this point, who's bigger? You two or REM? You two. Okay. Yeah, juggernaut. Again, REM stops the train. Right. And Bono and Co.

will play the game. Right. They're going to go out with Zoot TV. Sure. Is that the one where the edge wraps? That was on Zeropa, but it's part of the same era. Okay. Sorry, we'll never forget the edge wrapping.

It's an abomination. Okay. Now it's 1994. We've been waiting for this. Monster. Things get weird now. It's a very grunge adjacent record. That's a really.

a good way to put it. Heavy emphasis on the adjacent. Because it's definitely not, like, it fit fine, you know, but it wasn't a Grunge album. No. But it's like they're definitely related to the sort of New American Underground. Grunge was the next version of that. So they're kissing cousins. And I feel like R.E.M. was like, oh, we know what, we understand what you guys are doing.

we're going to borrow from the same things you guys are borrowing from, but we're just going to do it our way. Totally. Okay, I want to read you a quick little quote from the pitchfork review of the re-release or maybe of the release. No, the release. Okay. I found it interesting by Brad Nelson. For new fans of REM, Monster didn't sound like anything on the radio, and it certainly didn't sound like 1992 is automatic for the people. It sounded like something that had to be put back where it came from. Okay, did people hate Monster? Yes, they did hate Monster. Hated it. Hated Monster.

Hated it. It's like, and if you go to like a UCD store, the number one REM record you will see in quantity is Monster. It is the UCD CD. It has that orange cover with the weird monster. We missed it in automatic for the people because we were too busy, like good journalists talking about the music. but Michael Stipe is already bald now. I mean, he has changed his look. The look has emerged already.

Like the REM look that people associate with really kind of solidified and automatic for the people, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But now I don't know what happened. That may be free to beast because now we're having a look. That was deliberate. They were going back out on the road. They wanted to just be, you know, Mike Mills was like.

Like wore the nudie suits. He was doing that deliberately. Michael Seype had one T-shirt, this whole press cycle, and it was a green shirt with a black star on it. Burned into my brain. Yeah. Peter and Bill were never going to do any of that. But they also like, they had, they brought Nathan December out on tour with them, who it looked like, you know, a rejected extra from Guns and Roses. And he were just like, who is this person? Why are they on your stage?

This does not fit. They were, I admired them for, again, they did what they wanted to do. This was the record they wanted to make. They wanted to shake things up. They were going back on the road. It was going to be a different kind of show. It was going to be a loud rock and roll tour, and that's what it was. Scott Litt also produced this album, right?

I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure, yes. Let's hear a clip of Crush with Islander. What's happening here? It's, you know, people thought it was about Courtney. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, people thought it was about sort of, again, like that sort of you two area.

We were hanging out with supermodels. Right. They're borrowing from early punk. They're borrowing from glam. Yeah. That's what's going on here. I think it's also, is this not the time that Michael came out as queer? 92.

Oh, so it was earlier than this. Yes. I mean, not that anybody around had any doubt before then. I don't really know how this was a mystery to people. Maybe not like a mystery. I think it's just like I keep hinting at. Like, I don't think they had too much of a persona in general. So, like, besides maybe diehard fans, I don't even think anyone was speculating about it.

You know, like, it wasn't part of a mythology, which you think it would have been, you know? It wasn't, this was 1992. It was a big deal to come out as queer at that time. It's, you know, it was a very different time. Yes. There were a lot of rumors that Michael was HIV positive. And he said he deliberately didn't say anything about it one way or the other because he wanted to sort of, Fuck with that. Well, what if I am?

Right. So what if I was? And that's a big, that's a big deal. Totally. Yeah. Wow. Okay, I have a question also. It feels like this album is, and then we should play a song just to orient people or maybe two songs. It feels after, after nine, eight or nine albums of like taking the music and taking their stuff seriously. Like maybe they were just like, fuck it. let's just fucking play around.

Let's just do it. Let's do a fun, you know? I don't know. Maybe they were tired. Maybe they were tired of being so good all the time. They were like, let's be bad. They went back to being sort of quirky. Right.

And this was just, this was the quirky that made sense in this era. Yeah. Like a, it was like a reactive. And they decided to just be big and, and, you know, I used to joke that Peter always used to say, interviews. Well, next record's going to be our big guitar album. It's in every interview. And I'm like, oh, finally, here we go. We got it. Let's hear what's the frequency, Kenneth, because I think that was probably the biggest song on this album. Let's hear what's the frequency Kenneth. Okay, that was, what's the frequency

Kenneth? Karen, before we move on to let me in, I just want you to tell me, you're now my Wikipedia of what REM songs are about because I don't think I've ever, like I said, lean back listener. I've never even bothered to wonder what this song is about. I'm like, I don't know who Kenneth is. Homsd. Whomst is Kenneth? I don't know what frequency they're talking about. It's a fun song. I enjoy it. So I kind of know more than your average bear about this song because I know who Kenneth is because I worked for him briefly as a kind of Girl Friday when I moved back to New York. Kenneth was this sort of weird inventor guy and was playing with a concept he called time shifting before we started talking about time shifting, about being able to watch your television shows no matter where you were in the world. In 1992, 1984, this was a thing.

It was before we all had, you know, cars, flying cars in our pockets. I just held up my phone on the radio. Great. And you called it the radio on top of it. That was as best I could do. The phrase came from this person who was attacking Dan Rather. And the guy who attacked Dan Rather was yelling, what's the frequency Kenneth? What's the frequency Kenneth?

And that's where the title came from. I always interpreted it as another commentary on media and the news and just the deluge of too much information. And again, this is my complete interpretation that it could, too much of this can make, could make you go crazy and attack Dan rather because you think he's responsible for some. Sure. We're back on that. We're back on that, Michael. God, let it go. It's fine. We're all healthy and normal. None of the media has certain. Is Susan Sontag of his generation? I don't know. I'm just kidding. Oh, God. The media, yeah, that's going to be the pull quote for this entire. If we had pull quotes for a podcast, it would be Michael's type of the Susan Sonson.

contact rock music. I like that he interrogates that aspect of it. I love it. Are you kidding? I was making a joke. We're literally all mentally ill because of the media. We're all running after Dan rather calling him Kenneth and asking him, what's the frequency spiritually. Tell me about let me in. So remember what I was saying when you were asking me about Michael's relationship with Kurt and that my interpretation of it was that he knew Kurt was in crisis and he was trying to hold it out as hold his friendship or their or the prospect of working together as something for him to hold on to. That's what I hear and let me in. Well, let's hear it let me in. That was let me in.

Okay. We've redeemed Monster at the very least through that song. The tour for Monster is this where Bill, well, everyone goes to the hospital? Everyone. Everyone. Yeah. Everyone. Yeah.

Bill had a brain aneurism. Mike Mills had a tumor. Michael Stipe had a hernia. I guess they were right about turning 30 because they did apparently turn immediately into like crumbling old men. Yes. Is this the beginning of the end of Bill Berry? Not he's alive, but I mean. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, he goes through new adventures. in 96, but he leaves in 97. Okay. This is where I, as even a lean-back R-E-M listener, leaned all the way back and fell down and stopped listening. So let's talk about these post-monster albums. Looking at, like, the arc of R-E-M, it's like out-of-time, automatic for the people,

well, maybe green and automatic for the people are on either side. Out of time, it's a very pinnacle. And then it just starts to go down, Monster. And then we go sloping down the other side of the hell. So this is the, since you're asking me for my theory, I will tell you my theory, which is, I think they gave themselves too much time in the studio. And I think they realized that later, you know, just because you can spend whatever amount of time in the studio coming and going and waiting for people or taking time off doesn't mean that you should. And they were basically like producing themselves. So they didn't have that like voice to be like, yo, guys, what the hell are you doing?

They had to be that voice for themselves. And there's a quote. There's a quote from Peter Buck that he said about the previous records. He's like, the last record for me just wasn't really listenable because it sounds like what it is. A bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can't stand it anymore. This is about the last R&M record that ever came out before they broke up. No, no, no. This is about up and reveal. Okay, okay.

He said this in 2004 around during Around the Sun. After Monster, this is when R.M. re-signed to Warner for what is allegedly a massive sum of money? 80 million. Something like that. 80 million has never been confirmed by the band, but I've heard similar things. Yeah. It's in enough places that I'll take it. It was a crazy number.

Yeah, it was a crazy number, especially considering the fact that, like, they had crossed that peak already. But I guess it's, whatever, no inside baseball here, but it's smart of Warner to keep their whole catalog, keep the band and do the whole thing. Is it unfair of us to lump together the last, what is it for? Is it four albums? Five. God, they really kept going.

Well, I mean, New Adventures and Heartless. High-Fi still had good songs, but it's very, I found it personally impenetrable. Karen, do you think that at this point, are they still making music because they want to? Absolutely. They would not have continued. They would have just packed up and gone home. Okay. So they are, they're still in it. Like, they're still wanting to do it. It's just not jelling the same way. Well, I mean, I think New Vans. New Adventures sounds like a band where everybody went to the hospital during the tour. And then they came off a tour after not touring and were like, oh, God, that was terrible.

That's not. That was bad. And it represents where they were. And then Bill left. Right. They had said at the beginning that, again, it's a democracy. Barry McMill's type. If one of us goes, we're not going to keep going.

Right. And Bill said, I won't leave if you're going to break up. I was very much in the camp of, no, you cannot keep going without Bill Berry. But they did. And then we got up. And that opens with Airport Man. That sounds like Michael Stipe is in a Holiday Inn in Fargo, North Dakota, with an organ singing. But there's also Lotus.

There's also day sleeper. There's also at my most beautiful. And then there's Walk Unafraid, which is absolutely one of the best. best songs they have ever done in their entire career. Okay, let's hear Walk Unafraid off. Up. That was Walk Unafraid. I forgot I know that song and I love that song. It's very good. Many of these post-monster albums were really well reviewed, critically, at least. How was the fan reception or stickiness? Like, did people stay?

Did people keep caring? So this is a complicated answer. But I can remember seeing Madison Square Garden, and Madison Square Garden was not sold out. Right. They had the curtains around the top. But they were playing football stadiums in Europe. So there was definitely like that divide. Like in Europe, they were.

were still superstars and other parts of the world, but not in the States. Well, rock music is waning also. Like, in fairness, like, we're getting into 2004, 2008, like, rock music is very slowly receding into the background being replaced by electronic music and hip-hop and pop is back, pop-timism, all of it. So it's not wholly REM's fault. But I know that, like, fans still fight about it now. Somebody I know who helps moderate, like, REM fan groups on Facebook was very upset because there was a flame war about people dismissing the last group of records and that they all suck.

But there were also people defending the last group of records. And when I look at the last group of records, there are some great songs. There's also some not great songs. you know, I think about, you know, and it can still, like, imitation of life was on reveal. In 2001, that song is a bop, as the kids would say. This just should have been a shorter record. You know, they saw the problems and then Accelerate, which came out in 2008, which was at least life, but there was nothing there that was going to pull them back up to anywhere where they were.

and I wish they hadn't done collapse into now. I wrote something like band should not do final albums. Well, I mean, that's a whole other top bands playing episode. I'll go ahead and say on record, I don't think they could have written a song that would have pulled them. They could have written, you know, the chord that, you know, David plays and pleads of the Lord, and it still wouldn't have brought them back up.

It's just a time. the time had passed, you know? Yes. And when they broke up, I remember saying that I was, that I thought it was that Michael was no longer interested in the form. He was no longer interested as the form of rock and roll as his art. But funnily enough, he's the one that has come back and done more, has been like, no, I actually really do miss this.

I want to do it again. Yeah. Well, thank God for that. So I do think that as songwriters, they do have it in them. I don't know. I don't ever want to write anybody off. Again, again, there are good songs on Accelerate. Was there a great song?

No. Look, they made like 10 amazing albums. That's enough for three bands, let alone one band. So, you know what? Good on you, R.A.M. Um, this episode is three hours long because of that. You know, regardless of final album, which, you know, again, we could argue that very few bands have a good final album, unless like some tragedy befalls them or something, um, or their job breaker and, um, everyone pretends to hate it

and then realizes later that it's their best album. Um, but, you know, we talked about this. Their legacy is obviously a thousand good songs. It's also a thousand good band. And we, you know, we don't have time on this earth to list all the bands that they've influenced. But there's some, like, pretty, I mean, you can't deny. Like, you said it even with, like, their look. Like, when I was sort of, like, trying to, like, think of who would be good to mention, I mean, pavement, obviously, who wrote a whole song about it. Unseen Power of the Picket Fence.

Classic songs, a long history of unborsious like you and win. I mean, that song is. literally lyrically an homage to R.E.M. and all their albums and how much, you know, they influence pavement. The band, the Local H, known for their one hit, bound for the floor, made their name by combining two R.E.M. songs. And then this one I was like, it made total sense when I read about it, but then it didn't occur to me because I have such a bad understanding of the timelines of bands, the Smiths. Because they were. were contemporaries. And Johnny Marr has said, like, on record that they followed very closely

what REM did and they were influenced by them. And that's kind of fucking crazy. Well, and I hear it. Like, so I was not ever a Smith fan. I love Johnny Marr. I hate Morrissey. You have to leave now, Karen. Sorry. Everyone hates Morrissey, Karen. That's part of the fun. We still love the Smith. I can see a little bit of Michael's lyrical influence. And, you know, definitely the Johnny Marr can knock out a shimmering guitar chord in his sleep. So, yes. I'm always reminded of the meat puppets who loved R.E.M. so much. They did an interviewed spin, but they said they were moving to Athens,

and they were going to write, Michael Stipe, despite the hype, I still want to suck your big long pipe on the side of our band and park it in front of his house. Another band, the absolutely influence, was Uncle Tupelo. And then that just explodes like a family tree in terms of influence, you know, the Uncle Tupelo to Wilco to Pat. Totally. And the other way that they definitely had influence was that a lot of the people who grew up listening to them in their 20s entered the music business in some fashion.

and brought that sort of ethos and way of doing things to how they engaged with the business. That's a really gorgeous way to set up our fan voices, Karen, because we actually have several fan voices in here that I'm pretty sure are power players in the music industry. Do you want to hear the fan voices? There's even women's in them. Yes. All right, let's hear the REM fans. Okay, let me tell you something about REM. I love this band, unapologetically. There's no band more important to me in my life

and no other band that has been as influential to me in my obsessive musical exploration than REM. I think it's safe to say you could call me an REM fan. I take photos of the band up in my high school locker, saw them 13 times before they broke up and have a custom license plate that spells out driver 8. But telling someone what they mean to me is honestly really difficult because I often feel like my identity is interchangeable from the fact

I'm a capital F fan of REM, death taxes, the postal service, REM, those are my constants. I remember being immediately just completely obsessed with Michael Stipe and that voice. By the spring of 84, when their second full-length reckoning arrived, I was already a car carrying an obsessed super fan, member of the fan club, everything. I was hooked and I preached their importance to anyone who would listen. My dad took me to see REM live in 1995 around my 11th birthday, and they completely blew my mind. When I was 16, I started an REM fan site called Murmers.com. Murmers took off.

That was about 1996, and over the next 18 or so years, it slowly became next to, I guess, REM's official website and even predating it the most authoritative place online for getting information and finding other REM fans and getting rumors, et cetera. Chronic Town EP just changed the game for me. I didn't know that you could have the college rock indie sensibility with that type of energy. If you grew up in Georgia in the 90s like I did, by this point it's just part of your DNA. Through REM, I learned how to care about where I'm from, but also think globally and care about what's going on elsewhere in the world.

It's hard to explain how much the band means to me. They're more like family than just a band. There are some of my best friends. And I've met so many people that I call the friends of Aryan, the family around them. Just move me in this weird like Pavlovian-Prustian combo mashup thing where like as soon as notes of songs from reckoning or murmur start, I am back, back deep in it being just a teen and discovering the greatest music again.

They open up the college rock like American underground scene to so many others. So I still burn the flame brightly for them in hopes that many, many more generations to come will continue to discover how important REM is and was and remains to music. For me, it's all about late era REM. I love the early early stuff. Don't give me. wrong. But I discovered new adventures and high-fi and the post-Bill Berry albums when I was in

college. And it was like someone had made a Xerox of my soul and put it on a CD. He just put into words loneliness and

memory and all of the big things that you're thinking when you learn to love music and hear something completely new and different. Liking REM helped turn me on to so many other great artists because there were such big fans themselves and really made a big deal out of promoting stuff that they love. I can go and find other artists and hear RAM's influence

and then come back to R&M at any time and it's still fresh and still important to me. There isn't strokes, there isn't the national, there isn't Interpol, there isn't, yeah, yeah, yeah, there isn't that whole great early-a-rock scene without at least a contribution from REM. In the late 70s and early 80s, you know, playing their brand of sort of southern college rock with, you know, that indie twist. I feel like we often don't let bands get older and change their sound in that way without forcing them to kind of become beholden to what came before it. day, the music, the band, the people around it make up what R.E.M. is and was, which is something more than just the music on a CD. Wow. Okay. The music on a CD. This fan grouping really does run the gamut from people who love late R.E.M. to one millennial. Producer Dylan assures me

there's one millennial in that grouping of fans. We even got a Murmurs.com admin, Ethan Kaplan, in there. Yeah, I mean, none of that is really surprising to me. There's nothing like hearing those records. No one's ever come close to doing what they did. And I don't think anybody ever will. Damn. Well, I mean, I couldn't have written a better ending.

Karen, what song do you want to leave our listeners with today? We had a beautiful episode. I learned. We lived. We laughed. We loved some of the songs, most of the songs. What do you want to leave people with? What REM song?

The song that I still really carry with me in my heart is life and how to live it, which is from Fables of the Reconstruction, you know, the chorus is, you know, write a book and it will be called Life and How to Live It. What better thing to carry with you from a band than that? And I remember they played that when I was out seeing them opening for Bruce Springsteen and they were, they were in Cleveland and it was a hit set because they were playing for Bruce Springsteen fans. And I heard those opening chords and I just yelled and ran it. around in a circle because it was so excited. Okay, cool. Thank you so much, Karen. This was awesome.

This was a lot of fun. I appreciated it. It was fun to dive into it again. This was awesome. Come back next week for more Bansplane, and this is Life and How to Live It by REM. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsplaine, only on Spotify.

Our brilliant guest today was Karen Rose. Be sure to follow her on Twitter. At C-A-R-Y-N-R-O-S-E. Huge thanks to the R-E-M-Megafans you heard on this episode. Andrea Purs, Annie Zaleski, Ethan Kaplan, Jay Coyle, Martin Allen, Mack Montandon, Jordan Stepp, and Rich Bradley. Bansplain is a Spotify original show. This episode was produced by The Good Beneath My Afternoon, producer Dylan,

a.k.a. Dillon Tupper Rupert, and edited by Michael Hartman with help from Casey Simonson and Tari Miller. Executive producers for bands playing are Gina Delvac and me, Yossi Salick. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cocentino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Delagarsa in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to Felipe Guillermo, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDona, Jessica Hopper, and the framed drawing of Dave Matthews I Got on Deepop, whose spirit continues to guide this entire show. come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplay only on Spotify we did it joe