U Talkin’ U2 To Me? - R U Talkin' R.E.M. RE: ME? - Chronic Town

Episode Date: February 21, 2018

Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and Scott Aukerman (Comedy Bang! Bang!) come together once again as superfan Adam Scott Aukerman--but this time to discuss the music and impact of the band R.E.M. In this first episode, Scott and Scott share how they initially encountered the music of R.E.M. before launching into a track-by-track breakdown of the group’s first EP, Chronic Town. This episode is sponsored by Leesa and Audible.

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I do, sometimes. What do you sleep on the other times? Do you just hover? Everything else. Well, everything! Hey, Scott, what don't I sleep on? Alright, Adam, shut up. You know, for every ten mattresses Lisa sells, they donate one to a shelter through their 110 program.

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From chronic to collapse, town and into now respectively, that is, this is Are You Talkin' R.E.M. Re-Me? The comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of all things R.E.M. This is good rock and roll music. Welcome back to our first episode. Welcome back. Welcome finally back for the first time. Back. You're listening to Are You Talking R.E-M-R-E-E?

Question mark. Question mark. Ari with a colon. Meaning referring to, what does Ari with a colon mean? And I have several questions about your colon, by the way, after that. Yeah, Ari. What's going on with that? It means a guy named Ari.

Ari. Oh, wait, Ari from Entourage? Yes. Oh, yeah! Wait, I'm sorry. Oh, wait, Ari from Entourage? Yes. Oh, yeah! Wait, I'm sorry. Is this an episode of Ari's Colon? Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy.

Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. Welcome to Ari's Colon. This is Scott. This is Scott. We don't have a lot to say about Ari's Colon. This is Scott. This is Scott. We don't have a lot to say about Ari's Colon today. It's not looking great. Listen, what can you say that hasn't already been said about Ari's Colon?

Not one of our best. It was fine. Yeah, yeah Not one of our best. It was fine. It got off on the wrong foot, I think, when I mispronounced everybody. Yeah, you stupid, stupid man. Welcome to the show. This is our first episode, although it certainly is a continuation of a podcast that my co-host and I used to record together, I guess, as a fair assessment of what we used to do. Sure.

I honestly didn't know we were going to or you were going to bring that up. Wait, you didn't know we were recording it when we first started? I think it's well known. I was wearing a wire. That you were tricking me into recording a podcast. We had firmly established that we were pretending privately to record a podcast. The whole time, it's interesting. If you listen to the first episode of the show, you talking you two to me,

I'm constantly saying, Adam, could you speak into my flower that's on my lapel? Yes. It was a giant daisy. Mm-hmm. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. Gorgeous. The most beautiful flower maybe of all time.

No. The most gorgeous daffodil. Sorry. Daisy. Daisy. I've ever seen. Do you? And Scott, just shut up for a second.

I have seen a lot of daisies. Really? Yeah. Where have you lot of daisies. Really? Yeah. Where have you seen your daisies mainly? Well, I went to the Daisy Festival, of course. Of course. The Daisy Chains. Daisy Chains Festival of Lights.

Beautiful, beautiful festival. I don't miss it. Beautiful. And it's a festival of lights, not daisies. Well, but if you see a daisy there, then you're in luck because you win a million dollars. And that's how you got your start. Yep. I got a million dollars for spotting the daisy at the Festival of Lights.

And that really helped you through the lean years when no one wanted to hire an Adam Quadrero. Right. No one. No one wanted to. And so I would say if I had a lean week, say, with no work, I would say, well— And those weeks now, I mean, they're few and far between. I have fat weeks now. Yeah.

Oh, the weeks are so big. Big fucking weeks. Pepper weeks. But back then, if I was having a lean week, I could eat $100,000. Sure. Right there. And my belly was full for a whole day. Full of paper.

Yes. One full day. Full of paper. Yes. One full day. Full of cloth. Because, as you know, currency, American currency, is made technically of cloth. Not paper. Certainly. According to my calculations. Meanwhile, if I was ever having a lean week, I would have to eat moths out of my wallet.

Boy. Oh, Scott Ackerman, moth wallet. Hey, you know what? That is a great segue into what I wanted to talk about, which was our names. Yes. You named me. This is Scott, by the way. Oh, sorry.

Sorry, everybody. This is Scott. By the way, is there anyone you want to say hello to out there? Well, I would like to say hello to my friends. I would like to say hello to my family. Okay. I would like to say hello to my fans. And I would like to say hello to you.

Scott, hello. Hello. Thank you so much for including me. You're welcome. A lot of times I feel a little left out when you're saying hello to people. I don't think I've ever left you out, but I'd have to check my records. Oh, where are your records kept? They're right here.

Would you like me to check? Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. You brought the entire filing cabinet full. Okay. Let me open the cabinet. All right. Got to flip through these files.

Oh, here it is. Pull out this paper. Oh, wait. I have to get out my decoder rings. It's written in invisible ink. Yep. I said hello to you every single time. Oh, my mistake. Wait, let me close. Sorry, I have to close. Got to you every single time. Oh, my mistake.

Wait, let me close. Sorry, I have to close. Got to close everything? Okay. And I'm going to put it in my backpack. Okay. All right, great. All right, we're ready to start the show.

My mistake. I apologize for that. I had no idea you said hello to me. You know what? Let's just forget it happened. You seem mad though. Well, you accused me of not only lying to you but betraying our friendship. Not really an accusation of either of those.

Merely an accusation that you have never said hello to me ever in our relationship and you're currently lying about it and those files are fake. That is a lie, first of all, that I have never said hello to you. I've said hello to you at least seven or eight times. Seven or eight times over years. Years. Years. Years. I said at least.

At most, let's say two million. Two million times. Somewhere in there? It's a big range, Scott. It's too big. It's a big range. It would be too big if you were playing Price is Right.

Bob Barker coming up the driveway. Yeah, and Bob Barker's coming up the driveway. Here he comes. And he says, okay, you gotta pick a price in between seven or eight and two million. Two million. I'd say, hey, Bob, give me nine.

You know, it doesn't matter. Or 1,900,099, you know. Bottles of beer on the wall. 99 bottles of beer. You take one down, pass it around. 99 bottles of beer on the way. Adam, Scott over here. For those of you who may be new to listening to us, um, welcome.

You're in for a wonderful, wonderful time. Scott, please. Okay. I think we're fine. Uh, but, but you know what? There, there may be a lot of people who are, uh, fans of the band that we are going to talk about here on the show, uh, who have never heard our previous show. Our previous show, this is by the way, uh, way, let me introduce you and you can introduce me.

Across from me is, I mean, I'm just going to say it, one of the finest actors of my generation. Sure. You know, certainly in the generation above me, you have your De Niros, you have your Brandos, you have your De Niro's, you have your Brando's, you have your, uh, Pachino's. Um, but of my generation, ones that, I mean, they were all like acting long before I was around.

You know, I mean, they're, it's the elder statesman, but of my generation, you have who you have, Eddie Nort's. The old Ed Nort. Ed Nort. And then what? And then what? And then what? The nobody. It's a barren, barren field.

It's a wasteland out there of acting. I mean, there's no one, Scott. There's no one good. No one good. So he's one of the finest actors I know. He can do it all. He can do comedy that's sort of funny. It's up for debate.

He can do drama that's not that dramatic, but sometimes he'll say a line and you'll be like, oh, he's more of a comedy guy. And then you watch him in a comedy, you're like, maybe he's a drama guy. It's almost like you would categorize me as a tweener. Sure. Someone who kind of just falls between the cracks? I don't think that word means what you think it means. It does sound like something completely different. It really does.

He is currently on a show, Ghosted, which is on the Fox Network. And you know him from Parks and Rec. You know him from Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Big Little Lies. Boom. Which I have not seen. And I'm just going to say it, nor will I. You really did say it. You really did say it.

And I don't care. I know. As long as those checks clear, baby. Are the checks clearing, by the way? Because I know HBO had a problem for a little while. Every single one. Okay, good. I was really scared, too.

I brought that thing down to the bank myself. I remember I went to the bank with you that one day, and your hands were shaking. Yep. I need you to come with me. Yeah, just moral support. I need someone to bear witness. This is a legal transfer we're going to do. Now, you asked me to wear a mask of Richard Nixon.

Yes. And carry a semi-automatic weapon as well. That's right asked me to wear a mask of Richard Nixon. Yes. And carry a semi automatic weapon as well. That's right. And I wore a mask of Ronald Reagan and I carried three grenades and a pistol. Right. And both of us were wearing dynamite strapped to our bodies. With bulletproof vests, just in case anyone shot us. Just in case anyone wanted to shoot the dynamite. Exactly. Yeah. We went into the bank and I was like, Scott, just stay by my side. Your hands were shaking so badly. Take the safety off of your automatic weapon.

Oh, yeah. Good tip. Good tip. Stand by my side. We're going to go in the bank and we're just going to simply cash my check. But before I do that, right when we walk in the doors, I need you to scream, everybody down on the ground, this is a robbery. Now, those words to me, I don't know. Individually, they mean something.

Together, I had no idea what they, you know. Out of context, it's meaningless. Yeah, it's gibberish. Right, and that's why I wanted you to say it. It was a fun game. It was. It was really fun. And now?

We're very rich men. We're very, very rich men. And we possibly shouldn't have admitted to this. We might want to cut this out. Let's definitely cut this out. I want to welcome him back to the co-hosting chair. Adam Scott is here. Now, go ahead and give me a nice introduction.

Yeah. Sitting across the old table from me, which is French for table, is a man who is sitting in a chair, and there's a wall behind him. In front of him, a microphone. This is not as good as my intro. Beneath him, wheels upon the chair he is sitting, and right in front of him, a table.

This is Scott Ackerman. Yeah. I said some really nice things about you. I gave credits. Well, I said that there was a wall behind you. You're obviously more famous than me. No, Scott. You're the person who doesn't need the introduction.

I'm the one who does need it. I said that there was a tabla in front of you and that you were wearing clothes. Did you mention I was wearing clothes? Yeah, it's part of the it's written right here. It's the introduction. Scott, you know I think the world of you.

Certainly. I think you're incredibly talented. You've always been two things to me. One, a person who when I see you on screen, be it large, be it small, I think to myself, huh, he got another one. And secondly, you've been a wonderful, wonderful supporter of me. Yes. Yes, I've always been. Well, I've always been a firm supporter of the arts.

Certainly, the arts in general. And I fall within that umbrella. Well, in spite of that, I have been supportive of you. Thank you very much. We had a show called You Talking U2 to Me where we discussed the band U2. U2. U2. U2.

At length. For 24 episodes or so at this point we really milked that for as long as we could we squeezed that we squeezed damn titties imagine Bono on his hands and knees

and we're just underneath him milking his tits. Okay. All right. You're imagining? Yeah. Why do you have the world's biggest erection right now? Wait.

Can we get the Guinness Book of World Records in here? Because I think you might be right. That's right. Four inches. But we talked about you two. Check out that show if you are interested at all and haven't heard it. We went through the entire band's catalog, took some interesting sidebars along the way. Sure.

And we talked to the band themselves. Talked to the band themselves. So check out all of those episodes. Now, while we were doing it, look, would we love it if you two had 1,000 more albums to talk about? Of course we would. Sure. We'd have 1,000 more episodes of a podcast to make. Exactly.

And we would love that. We would. But you two are not the most prolific band, meaning they're not putting out one album a day. Right. They put out one album every few years. Every few years. Songs of Experience, their 14th album.

They've been around, Scott, nigh upon 37 years at this point. 30-some-odd years. Something like that. They've put out 14 albums. To me, that's just fucking lazy. That's, you know what? You two, step it up. Yeah.

Take it up a couple of notches. I don't want to say, like, take it up a couple of notches. I mean, want to say like take it up a couple of notches. I mean you're like how many episodes of television have you been on? I mean let's see. At least four or five episodes of television. I've been an actor now for what? Like 20 years. 20 years.

And you've made four or five episodes of television. Right. But make no mistake. Making an episode of television takes years. It's so much harder than making an album. Making an album is something, like you said, you could put out an album of music every day. You could put out an album of music every day. Like how hard is it?

First of all, albums are what? 30, 40 minutes, 50 minutes? Right. 80 at most. And playing a musical instrument is like the most simple thing well the thing is is you can play the musical instrument while you record it and probably should well yeah that's what they do when they record an album they go in they sit down they're like uh okay give me that guitar you take that drum switch on the recording machine and then

and then they go okay 40 minutes 40 minutes later, it's out. And they just decide to do that the night before they release an album like every four years. Exactly. So I don't know why U2 doesn't have more records out, but we ran out. We ran out of records. Yeah. But we didn't run out of tape nor desire to keep this going. That's right.

And so when we thought, well, what do we do next? What is it? What is that thing? What's the special sauce? You know, and so much of what we do is inspiration, but I have to admit a lot of it is perspiration. Oh, man. You said it. You smell terrible. You smell great.

Thank you so much. So there are very few bands who have had decade-spanning careers. Nor the impact on the two of us. Exactly. And that's part of it is both of these bands started around the same time. both of these bands started around the same time and they got sort of popular around the same

years and years where we were just primed for these bands to hit us right in the butthole and they were making music for our buttholes at the time that our buttholes were at that exact

age where they were ready to receive all of this great music. I'm so sorry. So the bands that we decided to segue onto, they have many records, much like you two did. had several records that defined generations. That changed the course of pop music. That changed the very course of pop music itself. That's right. Of course we are talking about the band. The Doobie Brothers.

The Doobs. Yes. Har-ee-um. Har-ee-um. Har-ee-um. harry brothers the noobs uh yes harry m harry m harry m uh they what a wonderful combination of souls people and and uh musicians am i right in this i for me rem is is they're my favorite band even higher than U2 as a I just they when I discovered them and it wasn't as early as I think you did but we'll get into it but you love R.E.M. I love R.E.M.

I think they're just an incredible band and they you know I was at the perfect age when they were hitting it and at the and we'll talk we'll talk exactly about what age you were what uh if i was a little boy or not or a big boy who knows what you were um and what we're going to do in this series is we're going to take rem record by record and just uh talk about what we like about it talk about what we don't like about it and look if you've heard the u2 show, we don't like everything U2 put out.

Right? That's right. We gave them a little tsk, tsk, naughty boys for some of those records. That's right. We sure did. We took them to task. We took them out to the woodshed. We certainly did.

And we gave them a whipping. We gave U2 a whooping when it came to some of those records oh man but they are shaking in their boots that song get on your boots get on yeah that was all about exactly what was going to happen when we started this podcast um what's interesting i think about the two of us is we have two very different opinions of REM, I think. Not in a bad way. And we'll get into it. But they're a band that I love and have all of their songs that they put out.

Yes. So we are coming from that place of we both are collectors. We have all their songs. We spend a lot of time thinking about REM, but we have very different opinions on it. That I'm the more kind of fanatical fan and you may be more measured. Exactly. But we'll figure out exactly when that occurs. And there's a lot to come here on the several episodes.

We're going to do several episodes of this as long as we can. And as long as people want to keep listening. Exactly. It's kind of a big ask. And I will say, the minute people want to stop listening, this podcast will just stop. Really? All you have to do is think it. That second, it will just stop.

So let me think it just now. Wait, you want it to stop? And now we start again. Yeah, you want it to start again. It's crazy how that actually works. Yeah, I am really, I have to say I'm really excited to do this because, like I said, I'm a big fan and I love talking about these records. Yes. This is some of of their music.

And it's been very invigorating for me to re-listen to a lot of these records. These records are incredible. And we're going to get into a lot of things over their career. We're going to get into their videos. We're going to get into the magazine covers, the award ceremonies. We're going to get into the magazine covers, the award ceremonies. We're going to get into it all. All of it.

We're going to get into it all. But I think we need to start where we always start. Yep. With these bands. We did it with the previous band. Yep. Hue 2. And now with Hari M.

We need to start with who are the people in this band? That's right. What are the names of the band members? The band members' names. Yeah. So who do we got? Let's run them down. First of all, I believe, and this is the comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of all things REM.

It sure is. So of course we're going to start with the band members. And we know it all. That's the other part that a lot of people listening don't know is we're experts. Yeah, we know the names of the band members by heart. By heart. They're in our brains. We don't have to look it up on our phone.

We don't have to look it up. No, although, would you mind starting? Because, yeah, let me get it on my phone here real quick. Okay, yeah. No, I'm just kidding. I know it by heart, okay? Sure. I'm a fan.

Right. Let's run him down. We have on, he holds a microphone. He sings. Sure. I mean, that's reductive in a lot of ways. If you're holding a microphone, of course you're singing. Of course you're, but I mean, you know, he does so much.

How can you just reduce it down to he sings? I know, you're right you know it's like i'm the singer no no no he does a lot more he's so much more than that he's a charismatic front man sure sure that's none can dispute that incredible songwriter right it writes uh words that writes lyrics lyrics even sings them out loud sings them out loud in front of people and sometimes to himself i I would imagine. Sure. Why not?

Why not? If you're this guy. Why wouldn't he sing in the shower? If you're this guy, why wouldn't you? If you're one of the most famous singers in the world, can you imagine Frank Sinatra? Right. He gets into a shower. He disrobes.

Yeah. He's got just that Sinatra bod. Oh, man. He's got that- That 60s man bod. Yeah, just like the hairy belly that's overflowing over the polyester pants. Oh, my goodness. And you know, back then, they took showers in their polyester pants.

They did. Yeah. Can you imagine him getting into the shower and one of his many wives? Who do we got? We got Ava. We have Nancy. Oh, yeah. No, Nancy was his daughter.

We got JoJo. Barbara, JoJo, Josie, Gidget. Pincushion. We got the old pin cushion. Pin cushion, of course, yeah. Can you imagine one of them coming in and saying, hey, Frank, do you mind singing in the shower? You have such a wonderful voice.

And him saying, no thanks, baby. I'm off the clock, baby. Hey, hey, hey, toots, I'm going to do it my way. Da-na-na-na. He would never do that. And my way ain't singing. Now get out of here. Get the fuck out of here.

Get the fuck out of here. Hit the fucking bricks. Hey, get the, don't let the door, it's a fuck out. Hickory dickory dock. Can you imagine that if Andrew Dice Clay was Frank Sinatra he would love that

I bet I know no he would never do that I can only imagine never in the shower he would be that's life

yeah she would say don't sing he'd be like one two one two three four hey everybody

don't make it bad he would sing like, one, two, one, two, three, four. Hey, everybody. Yeah. He would sing the Crankshaft song from Lost. Hey, everybody. Isn't that the song? Come on, everybody. Oh, right, right, right, right. I thought you said Land of the Lost.

So I was like trying to catch up. No, you remember the band? Yeah, Crankshaft, Lost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. No, he would sing all the time. And so why would this person, the very lead singer of Hari M., why would we expect him to never sing while he was— We can't.

We cannot have that expectation. No, of course. Of course, we're talking about the one and only— The main man. The main man, Michael Stipend. Michael Stipend. There he is. The guy. The main man. The main man, Michael Stipend. Michael Stipend. There he is. The guy.

The main man. The front man. That's- For one of the greatest bands in the history of music. That's him in that light that you shine from the back of the house. Michael Stipend. Michael Stipend. Now, moving on.

It's Stipe and or Stipend? Stipe and. Stipe and. Okay. It's Stipe and then anend? Stipe and. Stipe and. Okay. It's stipe and then an ampersand. Gotcha. That's, I already knew that because that's his name. Of course, that's his name.

Moving on to the git fiddle. The old guitar. The old six string. Ring it, ring it. Well, well, well, no, no, no. He sings that, I believe. Yeah, yeah, that's an REM song. We have, of course, he's one of the best instrumentalists to ever be in the game.

Yeah, he's a disciplined, prolific, incredible songwriter and guitar player, multi-instrumentalist. Multi-instrumentalist. Played drums on a couple of REM songs. He's a great If it makes sound, yeah, I think he played it.

I think he can, you know, make something of this, right? I think we're in safe hands with him. Seriously, you give this guy a coffee cup. Sure. Just your regular dime store coffee cup that you pick up off the street. Maybe something to slap against it. Sure. This guy can make a hit song.

One hit song. Sure, he can't make two hit songs out of it. Sure. This guy, make a hit song. One hit song. Sure, he can't make two hit songs out of it. No, no, no, no, no, no. Are you kidding me? No, no, no, no, no. That's insane. All you've given him is a coffee cup. No, no, no, no, no, no.

But one hit song? Oh, yeah. No problem. Yeah. Of course, we're talking about Peter Dollar Bill. Peter Dollar Bill in the house. In the fucking house. Shredding it up on the old Rickenbacker.

Oh, the old Ricky. Oh, Ricky, you're so fine. You're so fine. You blow my mind. Hey, Ricky. Hey, Ricky. He does not clap his hands, though. He can't do that. He can't do that. He actually... I don't know that he has hands. Have you ever seen a Hariem video with his hands

in it? The Hariem videos I've seen, he never shows his hands. It's one of the mysterious things about the group. It's very mysterious. Like, great guitar player, no hands. And it's just like clouds of smoke. Yes. So strange.

So strange, but what a wonderful band. Oh, terrific guitar player, Peter Dollar Bill. Peter Dollar Bill, y'all. Michael Stipe and Peter Dollar Bill. Let's move on to another type of guitar. Now, a lot of bands do this. What's that? They have two types of guitars in their band.

Hold on. What? A lot of bands, this is very common for bands. This is very, it's almost like rock and roll 101. Sorry, you're saying this is common for bands, but to me, that sounds insane. It actually, and Adam, what I want you to common for bands, but to me, that sounds insane. It actually, and Adam, what I want you to do is

I want you to go home tonight, and I want you to turn on YouTube, and I want you to just type in band, and a video will come up. You'll click on that. It'll take you to another video, another video. Suddenly, you're down a YouTube hole.

Oh, boy. I've been down those before. I get sucked in for hours. Next thing I know, I'm watching a Ovaltine commercial from when I was seven years old. You just can't. That you uploaded. Of course. Oh my gosh. You're going to notice though that most bands have two different types of guitars in them. Wait a second. Now the one that Peter Dollar Bill plays that we were just talking about, that has six strings. Uh-huh. This guy, he plays one with four. Four guitars? He plays four guitars.

Four guitars? Yeah, and they all have four strings. He's a 16-stringer. Wow. So he has 16 hands. He does not know. He has 16 fingers. 16 fingers.

Okay, that makes more sense. Yeah, it makes more sense. Now, he makes up for Peter Dollar Bill who does not have hands. No hands and then 16 fingers. But weirdly, the extra six are on one hand. Did this guy steal fingers from Peter Dollar Bill? That's, I think, what happened. That's not in the Wikipedia, which, by the way, is our only resource for information on this band.

Oh, yeah, no, no, no. We don't know anything about them other than that. No, we just were introduced to them today. Right. Let's talk about him. He sings harmonies. Harmonies. He plays piano.

He radiates on the 88s. Piano, keyboards. He plays bass guitar He radiates on the 88s. Piano, keyboards. He plays bass guitar. The bass guitar. Of course we're talking about. Of course we're talking about Mike Miller. Mike Miller. The one, the only Mike Miller bass guitar, keyboards, and everything in between.

Everything in between. Vocal harmony, lead vocals sometimes. Yeah, very occasionally. Incredible singer. I wonder what the difference is between a lead vocalist and a person who's not a lead vocalist. Well, say you have – OK. The band we did the podcast about before, Bonobos. Yeah, I sort of remember them. OK.

Hugh Too? Yeah, right. OK. Bonobos was the lead singer of that band, right? You know the guy, he was singing. I don't think that ever came up on our previous show. Okay, well then let me just tell you really quickly. The guitar player, his name was Fedge.

Fedge, right, yeah. And then we had a bass guitar player. His name was Adam Clay 2000 Pounds. And then the drummer, as you know, was Larry Mullen Sr.'s son. The fourth member of the group is named Bonobos, and he was the singer. He was the lead singer. Other people would do backup vocals sometimes, but he's the one that was singing the lead vocals for all of the songs.

Okay, got it. Got it. I'm locked in now. Okay. I'm a... Safety off, buddy. Safety off at this point. Now, we've only talked about three people, and I know a lot of you are saying like,

oh, that's probably it. Yeah. That's a band right there. Yeah, it is. Isn't that the entire band? It's one more than the White Stripes. Right. Right. But no, there actually is one more person. And this guy is. Isn't that the entire band? It's one more than the White Stripes. Right. Right.

But no, there actually is one more person. And this guy is hard to spot sometimes because he's sitting behind a lot of – Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. A lot of – like sometimes you're like, oh, is he sitting behind a bunch of crates or boxes or – Right. I saw a picture of them today. I was like, what are those round boxes in front of him?

Like I can barely – Like what's he holding? these hats right what are why why is he striking hat boxes with right with his long et fingers yeah and in huge fingers with pencils yeah i don't know it's confusing i didn't understand what was going it's very very confusing so i adam don't think less of yourself because when you just look at a picture like that, it's very confusing. Sometimes you need to see several pictures. Sometimes you just need someone to explain it to you. I thought there was only one picture that we could look at. And so I was just looking at that like, what the fuck is going on?

There are actually – and this is interesting. There are actually 12 pictures of this band. I didn't know there were 11 more. There's 11 more pictures. I'm going to show you the other 11 because you've got to see these. Thank you. He plays what I call – but I'm a music fan. I call going to show you the other 11 because you've got to see these. Thank you. He plays what I call but I'm a

music fan. I call them the drums. The drums. Okay. Yep. Alright, well, agree to disagree. Okay. Some people call them the poundums. Oh, yeah. You mean the things you hit with drumsticks? Yes. Oh, the poundums. Yeah, he's a poundum player.

Yeah, I call them drums and poundum sticks. Okay, well, I call them poundums and drumsticks. Okay, exactly. Oh, the pound-ems. Yeah, he's a pound-em player. Yeah, I call them drums and pound-em sticks. Oh. Okay, well, I call them pound-ems and drumsticks. Okay, yeah. So very, you know, it's west of the Mississippi. And then when I have a chicken leg, I call that a pound-em stick.

Oh, do you? Interesting. We know, of course, who he is. It's, of course. Slapping the skins. Yep. It's Buckbury. Buckbury buckbury yeah okay great yeah he's a great drummer incredible incredible at it incredible songwriter as well great singer um i'll take your word for that but uh i a fan, but I guess I haven't gone that deep into it.

Well, he did backup vocals and stuff. I mean, I have never heard those vocals, I guess. But yeah, Buckbury. Terrific. Buckbury. Oh, my goodness. It's quite a name. Quite a name.

You got Peter Dollar Bill over there and then Buckbury. And then Buckbury. Yeah. Boy. We got all the names out. We got all the names, finally. So that's what people have to memorize because those names are going to disappear from our consciousness. Those names are going to come up a lot, actually.

We're going to be talking about these people a lot on this show. So you have to know who we're talking about to follow along. So if I were you, I would maybe write these things down, maybe make a voice memo to yourself, email it to yourself. There's a lot of ways around this problem now. Yeah. Now the technology has advanced to the point where it's not – we don't need these Post-it notes. Who needs it?

A little yellow thing that's stuck all over. Post-it notes, they were great for several years. Yeah. We needed them. But guess what? We don't need them anymore. Not anymore. And they're annoying.

Oh, my God. Remember the days before the Post-it note, though? Yeah. When you had to get like a big tub of glue and put it on your paper? Well, you had to buy paper and cut the paper up into a bunch of small pieces. Smaller pieces. And then squirt like a bunch of glue on the back and stick it to your computer screen. Oh, my God.

Gross. And then stick it onto some Post-it notes you had lying around. Yeah, you had to grab your Post-it notes and throw them in the garbage. Right. And then cut up your paper. Oh, my God. So we're going to be talking about the band. We're going to be talking about today's episode.

We're going to be talking about their very first releases. And we're talking about, of course, the title of this episode, Chronic Town, their very first EP. Before we get to that, though, we need to take a little break. What do you think of that? I think that sounds good. To me. To me.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Very good. So I would quickly just like to say goodbye to my friends. I'd like to say goodbye to my family. I'd like to say goodbye to my family. I would like to say goodbye to my fans. And most of all, Scott, I would like to say goodbye to you. Thank you very much. I imagine during the break, we're just going to sit here staring at each other. So no need necessarily to say goodbye, but I appreciate it.

You're welcome. And you've never said goodbye to me, so this is a very special day. So thank you so much. There's a first time for everything, Scott. There certainly, certainly is. Speaking of first times, this is our first time on this show. be right back with more are you talking rem remy we are going to be right back adam yeah scott what do you uh what's your favorite book of all time? My favorite book.

Talking to that black thing. My favorite, oh, hello, sir. My favorite book of all time. All time. All time. Like from the beginning of man. From the, yes, the beginning, from cave paintings to the latest Tom Clancy.

Is there a latest Tom Clancy? There's always a latest Tom Clancy. He may no longer be with us anymore. Well, whatever the latest Tom Clancy was. Yes, it's the last book ever made. You're right. You know what? Sometimes I like to just curl up, get cozy on the couch.

When you say curl, you mean curling like in the Olympics, right? Yes. Yes, I get out on the ice and grab the nearest book, which is usually an E.E. Cummings book, just like a collection. E.E. Cummings. Yeah. Because you hate capitalization. That's right.

I like the Bible because it's a great value. It's a bunch of little books in one. It's a lot like the Richard Bachman, like the, what was that, that Stephen King of different seasons where it of little books in one. No, I— It's a lot like the Richard Bachman, like the—what was that Stephen King of different seasons? It had four books in one. It had Rita Hayworth. Yep. Or the Richard Bachman ones where it's the running man and everything. It's a great value.

Yeah, it was a pseudonym. A pseudonym. For Stephen King, of course. That Stephen King used. Very interesting period of his writing. Anyway, we can both agree reading is fun always i love a good ee cummings book do you like it just because comes in i i think you may be onto something look audiobooks are even better than regular books because you can drive around and

listen to them you don't have to like it's like reading a good book, it's like a weightlifting competition. It's like, oh, I got to bring this up to my face. Right. Even if it's on an iPad or a device of some kind, you still have to lift it. Even if it's on a one-pound device, that's heavy. It's heavy. That's heavy.

One pound is still heavy. I'm not made of muscles or money or muscles. Or muscliney. So audio books are even better for that because, you know, you can learn so much on audio books. You can listen to books to feel healthier. You can listen to books to get motivated, learn something new. You can probably learn how to play piano listening to an audio book. Sure.

It's like having a butler just whisper a book in your ear, just read for you. Is that what you have at home with your big Hollywood money? Having a butler whisper a book? Why not with regular volume? Nope. Let me tell you this. Audible with an unmatched selection of audio books, original audio shows, news, comedy, and more. Audible has all the audio content you're going to need to start your year on the right foot. And if you're just starting your year right now, you are already starting it on the right foot, my man. That's true. And you know what? You can try books like, let's say, Fiscal You. You are a badass at making money. What book is that? That's this book that they're suggesting right here. You're're suggesting? You're suggesting it.

It's me suggesting it, and I'm not reading it off a piece of paper. Well, I have a book that I would suggest, which is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Wait, wait. Okay, where are you getting that idea from? It's just a book I love. You know, I did listen to Fire and Fury on Audible recently. Did you really? Yeah, the book about—

Yeah, yeah, the Michael Wolff book. Michael Wolff. it's about a monster who lives in a large white house. It's like a new Harry Potter book. Yeah. Wow, by the way, Harry Potter. I don't know if that's on there, but you could have your kids listen to it

instead of you putting in the time to read it aloud to them. We can all go curling and listen to Harry Potter. Look, there's so many great books, whether it's on your phone, through your car, from a tablet, or at home on an Amazon Echo. Echo, Echo. You can get tons of books while doing almost anything,

and I mean anything. And Audible lets you switch seamlessly between devices, picking up exactly where you left off, Scott. That's right. So, Adam, I hope that you will start a 30-day trial. And tell you what, if you start this 30-day trial of Audible, your first audio book. Free.

What? Yes, free. Go to audible.com slash REM or text REM to 500-500. 500-500. That's a better way. I like saying the numerals. There, you can't put it in a dash. That's audible.com slash REM or text REM to 500, 500

for a 30-day trial and free first audiobook. Oh, so there's no dash? It's just 500, 500? I don't know. It's just easier to say 500, 500. All right. Anyway, you can do it. So can you.

With audiobooks. One, two, three. Welcome back to Are You Talking R.E.M. ReMe. This is Scott. And this is Scott. And we are back. Adam took a, what's become a little bit of a tradition here on the show. He took a squirt.

Had to go down the hallway and shake a little dew off the daisy. He certainly did. There probably has not been an episode where you haven't done that right after the first segment. I enjoy it. It leads me to believe that. I go masturbate? Because you're so turned on by either talking about these bands or me.

I don't know, and I don't want to know. Either that or I'm a coke addict. It could be. Welcome back. We're here talking about the band REM, of course, and we have been talking about them exclusively. Nothing else. Nothing else. Nothing else.

And this is exciting because you only get one of these first episodes. You know what I mean? You only get one. You know, Scott, you're so right. It's like going to a really good movie. Walk in. Wait, wait, wait. Is this an episode of I Love Films?

I think it might be. Is this an episode of I Love Films? I think it might be. Hey, welcome to I Love Films. This is Scott. And this is Scott. And today we're talking about film. And Adam, just before we came on air, was talking about it's like when you go and sit down at a really good movie.

At a movie. At a movie. You know, you go in, you... Now, I don't like movies that much. Oh, listen. Neither do I. But I love film. I love... Love film!

Films. I fucking love it. I love going in, you smell the popcorn. Sell you, Lloyd! You get the ticket, you go... Speaking of Lloyd, Dumb and Dumber. The ticket taker. Just a movie.

They tear your ticket. But film. Films, like the godfather. Rip! That ticket just ripping in half. Just a movie. They tear your ticket. But film. Films like the Godfather. Rip that ticket just ripping in half. Oh, yeah. You sit down in a chair. You feel it squeak beneath your bosom. And then, you know, zip.

Mrs. Robinson. Oh, my gosh. Are you trying to seduce me? Hey, listen. That is a film. That's a film. Mike. Nicole's.

Five Cents. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. The best. Wonderful, wonderful. There's no other way to put it. Filmmaker. You know, I'm going to be controversial here, and I'm going to say that I'm going to go out.

Here it comes. Just go out. Just listen. Release the house. Just listen. I really like carnal knowledge, maybe even more than The Graduate. Not as many people have seen it, but I love it. I really like carnal knowledge, maybe even more than The Graduate. Not as many people have seen it, but I love it. I don't even know what you're talking about when you say those two words together.

They feel like four syllables maybe. I know. It's more of an underground favorite, but I love it. Speaking of underground, Kate Beckinsale, call me. Yeah, very attractive woman. I may be thinking of underworld. Yeah, very attractive woman. I may be thinking of Underworld. No, it's underground. Well, that's been an episode of I Love Films.

Goodbye. Good ep. Great ep. Really great. Really good. I loved it. Sometimes we're too hard on ourselves. But I have to say, I love that podcast.

I love doing it. I love doing it. Yeah. I wish we could do that exclusively. Wait a second. Is this an episode of I Love, I Love Films? I think it might be. Hey, welcome to I Love, I Love Films.

This is Scott. And this is Scott. And we're just here talking about the podcast, I Love Films. This is Scott. And this is Scott. And we're just here talking about the podcast, I Love Films. I love, I love films. It's so good. Those guys, they know what they're talking about. You know what? They give a shit.

Excuse my language. They give a shit. I will never excuse that because that is unforgivable. Speaking of unforgivable, Kate Beckinsale, great actress. Very attractive woman. I may be thinking of Clint Eastwood. Same thing. Same thing to me.

Same person. Kate Beckinsale, get in that empty chair, if you know what I mean. Oh, Republicans. The empty chair is my lap. All right, this is I Love, I Love Films. Goodbye. Oh, even better. That might be the best episode of anything that's ever existed in the history of this past 25 seconds.

It may be because everyone's asleep because it's late at night while we're doing this. Yes. Yes. I don't even know why we were talking about it, but I would never pass it up talking about it because – Came back in style? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. But why were we talking about it's like when you go to a movie? I don't even remember.

But here we are. We're going to be talking about – We're here. We're here. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're talking about the band Hariem and Nothing Else. Oh, yes. You only get one of these first episodes. Yeah.

And when you step up to the plate, you've got to take a mighty swing. Yeah, listen. They might throw you a knuckleball. They might throw you a curveball, but you gotta swing the bat. How about a slider? It's not just for dinner plates anymore.

Listen, it might go high and outside. I'm still gonna take a swing, Scott. A knuckleball? Yeah, I'm gonna take a swing. Yeah? Yeah. What about a beanball? Take a swing. Comes straight at the head. Take a swing. Just take a swing at it. Just swat it away.

You have to because you only get one chance. You get one shot. You get one shot. One of them. One of them. By the way, speaking of one shot, have you seen Hamilton? Yes. Where'd you see it?

Here in LA? Here in LA and in New York City, the Big Apple. How'd you get it? Here in LA? Here in LA and in New York City, the Big Apple. How did you get your tickets here in LA? I got my tickets here in LA. God, I don't know. That's a good question. They just showed up? The Hamilton ferry came down your chimney?

I don't remember. You don't remember. I really don't. You know how everyone out there is like, how do I get my Hamilton tickets? Oh, they're so expensive. I don't know how to get them. You don't remember. I remember in New York I asked my agent if I could get tickets because it was difficult.

But here I don't remember how exactly I did that. You just kind of showed up. I don't think it's as difficult here in L.A., is it? It's pretty difficult. It is. Did you see it here? I have not seen it here. I've been going on the lottery every day and no luck at this point.

Are you serious? I am serious. You can get tickets to Hamilton. Well, if you pay up the nose and up the butt around the corner for them, sure. Well, sure. But I like going up the butt and around the corner for my tickets. I did see it in New York. Did you see the original?

I saw the original, yes. I did not. I did not. Lin-Manuel Miranda was very nice to give me house seats. Not give me. Ask for them. Yes. And paid for them.

I paid for them, but it was very nice to, at cost, give me the wonderful seats next to Ben Schwartz. Oh. And they sing that in Hamilton. You only get one shot. Oh. And they sing that in Hamilton. You only get one shot. They sing, lose yourself in the moment, you know. And you own it.

And never let it go. George Hamilton sings that in the show. That show is about George Hamilton. Yes, it's about. It goes all the way up to Love at First Bite. And then he slips on that Dracula cowl, turns to the camera, and goes, I think I'm ready to bite something. Oh, man. Curtain.

And then it just skips ahead to Godfather 3 and it ends. Yep, yeah. There's a whole just, it's what we call in the movie biz a post-credit scene. You know, I, sorry, I feel like this might be another episode of I Love Films. I think we segued into one, yeah. Hey, this is I Love Films. This is Scott. This is also Scott.

We're talking about Godfather 3. We're talking about Godfather 3, certainly. And post-credit scenes. One of the greatest moves ever made by one of our premier American directors. Can I tell you something? Can I finish my sentence? Godfather 2? I think it's better than Godfather 1. Wait a second.

Hold on. Because I was going to say the same thing, but I was afraid of what people might say. One of the better sequels out there. You think Godfather 2 is actually better than The Godfather? I just, there's something about it that I think the quality is so much better. It's just epic, okay? They go back, they show

Vito Corleone. They're in the past, they're in the present, they're in the future. And just the redemption. Oh, the redemption. Guilt. The smooch. Remember the smooch? Oh, big ol' smooch, Just big juicy lips. I knew it was you.

Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah. Fredo. I knew it was you, Fredo. What I was going to say is one of my favorite things that any premier American director has done is when Francis Ford Coppola couldn't get Robert Duvall to be in Godfather 3. Big disappointment. Robert Duvall, you know, he wanted, I mean, it's a paltry sum these days. He wanted an extra $5 million.

Yeah, which is nothing. Which is nothing now. Nothing. But at the time. At the time, it was big bucks. It was big bucks. So he couldn't get him. So who did he replace him with?

George Hamilton. George Hamilton. Great move. Some called it a lateral move. Yeah, no. That is a move straight up. Maybe if you're on your side and you're making a lateral move up, you know, vertically. Maybe if you have extreme vertigo and you can't tell ups and downs.

Speaking of vertigo. Yeah. Is this an episode of You Talking U2 to Me? I think it might be. Hey, welcome to You' U2 to Me? I think it might be. Hey, welcome to You Talkin' U2 to Me, the, from boy to boots, getting them on that is, this is You Talkin' U2 to Me, the encyclopedic and comprehensive compendium of all things U2. This is good rock and roll music.

We're talking about Vertigo. Yeah, Vertigo is a song by Hugh T I like it me too good ep yeah that was a great ep so we're back in

yeah I love films and I have to say that Godfather 3 again so much better than than Godfather 2 or 1 by a mile. By

a full kilometer. That's what I'm talking about. You know what? 10 kilometers. A marathon. 26.2 kilometers. Infinity kilometers. That's how good Godfather 3 is. That's how good it is. I love it.

Sophia, I knew you were gonna be a great director when I saw you up there on that screen. I actually do like lots of things about Goth Other 3. Yeah, me too. I love films. Good ep. Yeah, that was a great ep. Oh, man.

We are in the thick of it. Yeah. But you know, you only get one of these, so I'm going to swing for the fences. You know, enough of these bunts that so many podcasts take. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? I'm not going to let that guy walk me. I'm going to take a swing.

No, I'm not going to let him hit me in the old noggin. Big old dick. You are swinging your dick back and forth. I am sorry. You are swinging your dick. I'm sorry. Back and forth. I am sorry. So what I want to do in this segment is we're talking about the band Hariam exclusively in this podcast.

Hariam. And I want to just, like we did with the U2 show, I want to talk and see where we both started with them. Not getting into the future necessarily, but I want to hear basically, Adam, what I'm trying to say is when did you first hear of REM? For me, and this is for me, I first heard of them back when they had their first big top ten hit, the one I love, and that was on MTV. 1987, I believe. 1987, and I thought the video was really weird.

You were watching MTV? Yeah. The video was really weird. I don't remember what happens in it. In the video? Yeah, I don't, no. Really? Really, I don't remember. happens in it. In the video? Yeah, I don't. No. Really? Really, I don't remember.

It was a great video. A lot of videos, the videos that I remember are probably 82 through 85 maybe are the ones that I remember the most. Okay, so you remember no music videos after 1985. I remember Van Halen's Right Now. Those words. That's a great video. Pepsi. And a great song.

Right now. But I don't recall the exact intricacies of the one I love video. So describe it for us. The one I love video is. Turn your fucking phone off. Super artsy fartsy. Oh, it's our mutual friend. But no, it's a great video and there's no lip syncing in it it's weird the band

isn't really in it it's just a weird collage of images and it's really cool and the song itself really catchy but also sounded different than anything i was listening to at that time what were you listening to at the time this is 1987 how do you mind saying how old you are right now i'm 44 so in 1987 i was you really have to go backwards how old you are? Right now I'm 44, so in 1987 I was... You really have to go backwards from where you are now and you don't go forwards from your birthday? I'm going forward from my birthday, but it's difficult. I was 14 years old, okay? So never won an award for mathematics.

I'm not claiming to... It's standard birthday subtraction. How old were you in 1986? 16. Wow. That's not bad. Well, I was born on an even year in 70. So it's very easy for me to figure this stuff out.

At the time, I was listening to like Bob Marley and the Grateful Dead. She's calling me now. Really? She knows this is happening and is very excited. I'm going to text her. Go ahead. So Bob Marley and the Grateful Dead were kind of my main two bands at the time. Bob Marley and the Grateful Dead when you were 14?

Yeah, I was – Huh? So REM, that song was a big hit and then then it's the end of the world as we know it. And for Christmas 1987, my brother got me Document, the album with What I Love and stuff. And it really blew my mind. I remember I had a learner's permit. Hold on, hold on. Let's back up a little bit.

So 1987, The One I Love comes out. I can't recall if that was a summer record or a fall. It was a fall record. Your brother, older brother? I don't think we've talked about him at this point. David Scott. David Scott. Dave Scott, for those who know and love him.

My middle name is David. Your what? My middle name is David. Karis. Okay. So he's older. He sees you enjoying this, or did you walk around saying, like, I really – Yeah, we –

Did you talk about music? We were, he's, he really got me into music and introduced me to Led Zeppelin and all the, yeah. Stairway to Heaven is one of their songs. There's a lady who knows that she's walking up the stairs and we're in heaven now. We're in heaven now. Look at all these guys with all these harps. and We're in Heaven Now. We're in Heaven Now,

look at all these guys with all these harps. And I remember that summer too, we listened to The Joshua Tree by U2. U2. Okay, so now you were into U2 at this point or no? Well, I was-

Because when, you went to the Us Festival, we talked about this for U2. Yeah, but that was in 1983. You were just a little boy at this point. And so I remember that summer, he was like,

this is U2, this is The Joshua Tree, this album is huge. And we kind of, he was like, this is U2. This is the Joshua Tree. This album is huge. And we kind of, he introduced that to me over the summer. And then One I Love became this thing.

And he was like, yeah, these guys are good. They've been around a while and this is their first hit. And he got that for me. So he knew a little bit about them. A bit, yeah. A bit.

And he got me that album, the cassette of it. Did he own it as well? I believe so. Okay? I believe so. I believe so. And I remember the Christmas day when I got it, I was actually 15 by this point, and I got in the car because I had my learner's permit and was driving

my mom, and I put a document in her cassette player, and Finest Worksong came on, and it's a really loud kind of burst of sound, really like sharp, jarring song. And I was just like, wow, this is incredible. But I was driving her car and she made me turn it off because it was too loud and crazy. Too loud and distracting, yeah.

While I was driving her car. You shouldn't be listening. Which she freaked out about. You shouldn't be listening to songs while you're learning how to drive. You shouldn't, especially songs that are about crashing a car, which is what Finest Work Song is about. Yeah, I mean, Crash Test Dummies. That's the worst band to listen to.

And that's my other favorite band. Would not surprise me. So that's when I really got into them. I wasn't really aware of them before that because they just weren't really on my radar as a 14-year-old. As a 14-year-old boy. But you were already into U2

or you were not into U2? I can't remember. A bit. I was aware of them and liked that album. You got into them with Rattle and Hum, right? No, I got into them with Joshua Tree, but it was around that time that I was just sort of getting into the music of the day

and kind of starting to shed the skin of Bob Marley and Grateful Dead and Cream and all that kind of classic rock that as a 14-year-old in Santa Cruz, I was sort of into. Well, you had to learn the bass. Yes. You know what I mean? Like, I grew up listening to the Beatles and you have to learn like what pop music is in order to start to then appreciate alternative in a way. Yeah, exactly. So I – and Huey Lewis in the News and Michael Jackson was kind of what came before I –

That's the big one for me, by the way. I think I – Huey Lewis? I mentioned it in an interview that just came out today of like when I was 14, Huey Lewis was huge. Sports had come out. And I walked around school wearing a Huey Lewis in the News t-shirt that I made my friend who went to the concert buy me. Wow. I bet you wish you still had that t-shirt. I actually do. It was so cool. But then when I was 15, then I started getting into alternative music. And actually, because we're just a few years off in age, you actually, it's interesting,

87, I think is around the year that alternative band started to go huge yeah you two which had been kind of an alternative band pride in the name of love certainly was kind of a minor yeah but joshua tree but joshua tree was this you know went through the stratosphere and so did r.i.m and at this exact time the fall of 87 right when i got the album they were on the cover of rolling stone it said america's best rock and roll band. Right. That was, it was just like, oh my God, who are these guys? And I just got document and then started kind of going backwards from there. So you went, you went backward, literally backwards, or did you say, okay, I'm going to start at the beginning and go all the way up or what did you do? I had Document and just listened to that constantly.

And then I think the next album I got was Dead Letter Office. Which I believe came out right before Document. It came out in 86, yeah. But at the time, I didn't know that it was just B-sides. It was a B-sides. Did you ever – I mean they talk about – Yeah, Peter Buck wrote the liner notes. Yeah, right.

The liner notes are incredible. And they go into every single song. Yeah. But you didn't realize that it was – I didn't realize it was B-sides. I just didn't know. So I just bought the next most recent one and it was Dead Letter Office. Right.

And got really into that. So by the time I got into Reckoning, Voice of Herald is – even now when I listen to Seven Chinese Brothers, I think of the Voice of Herald lyrics rather than the Seven Chinese Brothers lyrics because – Oh, that's interesting because those are the original ones that you heard. Yeah. It's him just reading the liner notes of a gospel album along with the Seven Chinese Brothers tune. So you – so with Reckoning, would you say then that – You mean Document? Sorry, Document, yeah.

So with Document, would you say that that is – it's the – normally a lot of times our favorite things are the first ones we hear. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Would you say that that then – and I don't want to talk about what your favorite record is because we're, you know, the Document episode is coming down the line, but does that hold a certain fond place in your heart because of that? Yeah.

Document is one that I continually go back to. I think it is its own masterpiece. It's a really complicated album with a lot of – By the way, if you listen to the show, you're going to hear a lot of these types of sentences. This is such a bummer. No, it's great. This is why you want to do the show. But I think that it wasn't until the following year – they used to put out an album every year.

The following year when Green came out that I was like, okay, these are my guys. And I took a deep dive and really went back and got all the albums. You went all the way back after Green. Interesting. So you had the first, you had those two. I had Document and Dead Letter Office. Dead Letter Office. And then the next year, I remember getting Green on election day, the day it came out and just going, oh my God, these are... And so then you got everything. out and just going, oh my God, these are, like, I didn't want to do the, for the, we've been thinking about doing this podcast for a long, couple years now, or at least the

idea of it. And I wasn't even sure I wanted to do it because if you made fun of REM, it would hurt my feelings. That's how into these guys I have always been. And I am going to make fun of them at some point. And it's going to hurt my feelings, but I'll be fine. You'll be okay. I'm a grown-up. You're a grown-ass man at this point. But I do, you know, when you find that band that you're like, these are my guys.

I want to dress like that. I want to talk. These are, you know, everything. It was the Smiths where I would look at their, the only photographs I had of them were the ones on the album. Yes. Plot out exactly what they were wearing and go to thrift stores and try to approximate it somehow. 100%. 100%.

And then – so then, yeah, so 87 is the first time you ever heard of them and then you're a full-blown mega fan by 88. Yes. Mm-hmm. Very good. Very good. Yes. How about you? I believe – I'm pretty sure that I had heard some singles on the radio.

I'm pretty sure that I had probably... Because you were already tuned into alternative music by the time Document broke. I started to... Like, I grew up hearing... Because I didn't even know what alternative music was

at that point. Yeah, okay. So a little bit, if you haven't heard the YouTube show, let me talk about my background a little bit. I was into Top 40. I grew up in Southern california in orange county

and uh i listened to kiss fm that was the first when i was 10 that was the first uh fm radio we we got our first fm yeah i sound like a million years old but but like fm was a kind of an exotic thing exotic thing at that point because we all just had like kind of AM radios. Sure. And cars had AM radios and stuff. Right, right. So we finally got an FM receiver when I was 10 in 1980. And Kiss FM was – I was then able to listen to Kiss FM.

So Kiss FM was what I listened to and it was like Blondie. Yeah. And that was when they were like top 40. Yeah, yeah. You know what I listened to and it was like Blondie. Yeah. And that was when they were, you know, like top 40. Huge, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But also stuff like, you know, Past the Duchy. Yeah. And they would play like What's a Matter You, you know, in the Curly Shuffle.

You know, so it was – Past the Duchy was huge. It was huge, yeah. I remember my brother and I would – we would call into Kiss FM. We would call into their – you know what I'm thinking of? No, wait. I'm thinking of KFI, first of all. KFI on AM.

That's AM? Yeah, I would listen to KFI on AM. But that's talk radio. No, it used to be top 40. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So I was listening to KFI for a while, and then in 82, I got my first FM. Okay, so Yeah, yeah. So I was listening to KFI for a while and then in 82, I got my first FM. Okay, so when I was 10,

I was listening to KFI and we called it, the reason I remember it being KFI is because they had a promotion where they had advertisements where people with huge ears were listening to the radio and almost like,

if you listen to pop music, your ears are going to swell up. And if you ever won a contest, they would give you these fake plastic ears. Whoa. And we won five of their call-in contests. Yeah. And so I had these big fake plastic ears that I used in my plays and in puppet shows for a long time. Well, as a – how old were you at that point?

I was 10. Like a 10-year-old, big plastic ears are fucking awesome. Oh, like they're currency. Oh, totally. For a dork like me. Yeah. So I remember I won like a Bee Gees record and a Pat Benatar record and stuff like that. So in 82, Kiss FM, I started listening to Kiss FM in 82.

And then, you know, Huey Lewis and the News in 83, 84, you know, Cindy Lauper, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And – God, those are great. Those, those are great. That's when I started getting into, uh, high school, we didn't have MTV. My friend had it. I remember I would go over there and see Duran Duran. Me neither.

My memory of seeing the one I love was at my friend, Brian Anderson's house. I didn't have cable TV. Brian, what's up? You listening? Um, yeah. So I, you know, that was just prime MTV time. We didn't have it, but that's, that's what was popular at the time. The police, Billy Idol, all that kind of stuff. So then in 19, so I liked Huey Lewis and Billy Idol, whatever was popular. In 1985, I then got a Smith'sith's record i heard please please please let me get

what you want on the radio and then you're like and then i and then i got into the smiths uh and got into also i i will say the other thing that happened in 1985 was when i was a sophomore uh i got seated next to a guy who ended up being my best friend in high school who was very plugged into alternative music. All that stuff. Yeah. So he was really into the Smiths. He had this bitchin' Smiths poster that I remember up in his room,

and he had like a whole bunch of posters. He had a Fables of the Reconstruction poster. Awesome. All this kind of stuff. But I didn't really know rem all that much uh also my other friend uh also got me into alternative music like x and um devo and all this kind of stuff so i had two friends who had all this kind of stuff my one friend uh did not like rem and my other one did. So I remember he loaned me the Life's Rich Pageant. Okay. But I had heard like Radio Free Europe. Fall on me probably. I'd heard them a little bit, especially Radio

Free Europe because that had been on the radio. So I got Life's Rich Pageant and I borrowed it and that became my entry point. That was in 1986. That's a good entry point. And I listened to that over and over and over and over. What was interesting to me was I had started playing the guitar at the time too, and they were all like songs that you could imagine learning. Totally. Oh, they're all really simple songs. They're kind of simple.

Oh, yeah. They're like three chords. His playing is complicated because he's playing all of these arpeggios that are difficult for someone with no skill like myself to play. But the chords, you could just like – Totally. So I would listen to that over and over. I have a lot of memories with that record of like I associate it with a couple of things. One, going to the La Mirada Playhouse and seeing – I think I saw the guy who played Isaac in The Love Boat playing the drill sergeant in Biloxi Blues.

Oh, my God. And I was listening to that on the way. And it was one of those records that I could listen to with my parents, and they liked it. Sure. You know what I mean? Because a lot of the stuff like Bauhaus or The Smiths, they would complain about. Yes. But I remember The Smithereens and REM were two that my dad was like, hey, this is pretty good.

I remember that with my parents, too. Like, you could play certain REM stuff. That's, I think, a big key to their success too. And I know that Peter Buck for years said they're the acceptable edge of the unacceptable stuff. Right. And that's one of the reasons they were able to keep going. Because they're very built on just kind of classic rock,

almost birds style, jangly guitar chords. Catchy, poppy stuff. But also they're weird. Yeah, they're a little weird sounding. That is the one thing that I will say, and we'll get into that down the road, but occasionally I would listen to it around my parents, and they would go, well, hold on. Yeah, exactly.

Like this isn't, you know, I liked it up until this point, but are you sure you should be listening to this? So a little bit of edge and a little bit of danger. But I remember that record associated with that, and I remember it associated with I went to the library in Huntington Gardens maybe or Huntington Beach or something. No, the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena? No, it wasn't that.

I think it must have been a Huntington Beach library that was like big and had a lot of stuff. And I was used to – this is when I got my – it was 86, so I got my driver's license and I got my first car and I would make tapes of all my records and I would blast them. Yeah. And I remember going to this library and they had this record for the soundtrack to this documentary about Athens, Georgia music scene. Oh yeah, Athens Inside Out.

Right. Yeah. And I remember I checked that, I got a card just so I could check that out of the library so I could tape it and make those songs as like at the end of my tape on the Life's Rich Pageant tape that I had. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So you could fill out the full 90-minute tape. Yeah, exactly. So that was my entry point. And then I remember my friend saying Fables was not that great.

So I sort of didn't really pay attention to that one. But I went back and I got Chronic Town and I got Murmur and I got Reckoning. And Dead Letter Office came out like after that. So I bought that like the day it came out and that was prime time. And then for me, it was for several years, they were one of my favorite bands. And every time one of the new records came out out I got it the day that it came out. So when Document came out you were like there and ready.

I was there and it was also very thrilling of like, hey, my favorite band is now got a huge hit. Yeah, the best rock. And the crazy thing is I wasn't even aware of them

but even before Document they were like filling the Greek theater. Like they were kind of big. They were really big. I mean, they talk about it in the history about just, first of all, in the Athens music scene, every show,

more and more people would go. Yeah, like immediately. And everyone would hate them for that. Yeah. Strangely enough. Because there's something about the songs. They're so, these early REM songs,

they're so catchy. Yeah. that just going to a show sounds, it sounds really fun. It must've been so fun. And you watch footage of those early shows or listen to the early concerts. It's like, man, these guys were fucking good. Like right out of the gate. I have only seen them once.

Oh, really? What tour? Green. Okay. How many times have you seen them? I have no idea. Like – Zero?

Not at all. Not once. No, I've seen them so many times. So many times. Okay. I've only seen them once. Green was my first tour that I had seen, yeah. Okay.

We'll talk about that in future episodes. But I remember what you said about your parents liking them. I remember that, too, because I remember I got – about your parents liking them. I remember that too because I remember I got my parents, my dad had a laser disc player that he borrowed from work. And so I went- What a dork.

I went and checked out at the library tour film and Rattle and Hum or rented them or something and brought them up so I could record the- You check them out at a library. You don't have to rent them. No, but I can't remember if I rented them from a video store or check. But I brought them up so I could record the – You check them out at a library. You don't have to rent them. No, but I can't remember if I rented them from a video store or –

but I brought them up so I could record laser disc quality versions of both of them onto cassette. Onto cassette, yeah. I used to do that with live – I did that especially with the Crowded House live from MTV Spring Break special that they did. Wow. I videotaped it and then hooked up my stereo so I could have a cassette of it. Did you go and buy the extra heavy, really good cassettes? Remember those metal ones? Yeah, I remember those.

Was there any difference? No. No. And they were so expensive. It's like the gold CDs as well. Yeah, stupid. Oh, God. So I went up and I was making a tape of both Rattle & Hum and tour film so I could have this.

Because there's so much stuff on the Rattle & Hum in the movie that's not on the album and same with tour film. And I remember playing them all the way through on the TV while I was recording them and my dad kind of walking in and out of the room. And Rattle & Hum is on and he of the room and rattling hum is on. And he's like, wow, this is great. These guys are really, really good. And this seems like a great movie and band and everything. And then I remember putting tour film on and it's a really weird concert movie. Do you remember that one?

It's also, it's shot. Yeah. Yeah. It's shot like with super eight cameras. Yeah. Super grainy. And yeah. And he's like like with Super 8 cameras. Yeah, super grainy and yeah. And he's like, this is not professional. Yeah, he's like, I don't know what this is. I'm not sure about this one.

Well, that's what REM always had. I mean you two had the thing of – they got so big and they always worked with like the biggest people. You know what I mean? And they always worked with old sourpuss, Brian Eno. And they always worked with Anton – how do you say his last name? Corbin, yeah. I always think it's Corbin Bernson. It is.

It's the same guy. Same guy? Really? Yeah. They were always like applying for the job of the biggest band in the world from day one. But R.E.M., they always seemed to be like they would never star in their own videos. Their lyrics would never be audible. They were always like, we don't want to be popular. We don't want to be like they would never star in their own videos. Their lyrics would never be audible. They were always like, we don't want to be popular.

We don't want to be popular. And that was really cool. And it was cool when I first saw their videos, and it took me a while to even find out what they looked like. And that was awesome. Once they did. Then I was in. Yeah, you were in.

So, yeah. So there was a whole – they were doing it right. There was a mystique about them. It was all perfect. It was a lot like X-Men's greatest villains. There was a mystique about them as well. Exactly. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

I don't even know what you're talking about. I know you don't. So we need to take a break. Have we covered the first time that we've heard of REM? No, I think we should start over. I think we got it. I think this is a good background. But we both, though, by 86 to 87, we're both in, we're both super fans of REM.

Ready to go. All right. When we come back, we're going to talk about, we mentioned it a little bit before, but we're going to talk about R.E.M.'s first Hibtone single, a few of the early songs, and we're going to talk about Chronic Town, their very first EP release. This is very exciting. Very exciting. We are going to come right back. This is Are You Talking R.E.M.

Re-Me. We'll be right back. Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening. You know what this new show has to mean? A new set of T-shirts, bro. T-shirts. Fucking T-shirts.

And listen, these shirts are the ones I love. They will make you feel like shit. I can't read that. I can't read. This is stupid. This is stupid. Who wrote this? When it's the end of the world as we know it, you're going to be. No. No. I can't read that. I can't read. This is stupid. This is stupid. Who wrote this? When it's the end of the world

as we know it, you're going to be... No, no, no. We can't read this. Anyway, check out the new REM shirts. They're pretty cool. We just got our pairs.

They're terrific. They're really good. Check them out at podswag.com slash REM. That's podswag.com slash REM. Welcome back. This is RU talking REM RE-ME. This is Scott.

I have Scott across the table from me. And this is Scott. And we've done it. We certainly have talked genuinely about how we first heard of REM. Our humble beginnings in the REM. As far as Adam is concerned, maybe not so humble. No. I am the greatest fan. No, I just mean your beginnings are, you know.

What do you mean, like very privileged? I know Santa Cruz. I've been to Santa Cruz. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. So we've come to the moment in the show, and we've been talking about REM at length, at great length. Exclusively. Exclusively, and have not been talking about REM at length, at great length. Exclusively. Exclusively, and have not been talking about anything else. But it's time for us to go, and this is a little something we call track by track.

Yeah. And we just zip right through this part. Yep, we certainly do. We're going to basically go through song by song and talk about, I don't know, what we like about them, right? Is that safe to say, Adam? Yeah, and we're going to start with those two Hibton songs. The two Hibton songs. So this is the very first R.E.M. song ever. This is 1981. And these two songs, this is the A side and the B side.

1981 and these two songs, this is the A side and the B side, these two songs are going to pop up on our next episode in versions that are maybe slightly more professionally recorded. Yeah. On Murmur, yeah. On Murmur. And this is Radio

Free Europe. This is their first song ever. Let's hear a little bit. Here we go. Just off the strength of this, people started freaking out immediately, like music critics and stuff. Well, I mean, the world at large, too. Like, I remember the headlines the next day on the papers. Yeah, the front page of the New York Times. Band puts out record. World freaking out.

Listen to this. Oh, I know. It's great. I mean, and this, by the way, could be the chorus of any other song. The chorus is coming up. Yeah. This is like all written. This is just.

But they pull back. Oh, they pull back. They don't give you that chorus. They don't know. Because they know what they're doing. They're being miserly with that chorus. Little Ebenezer Scrooges with the chorus. This is 21 years old.

They know not to give you that tasty chorus. A lot of bands, they would. Well, they start with the chorus, Scott. Stand in the place where you live. A lot of bands would do something like that. Not R.E.M. Nope. I'm just gonna. By the way when Stand was on Get a Life did it like was your world exploding like mine was? Your two favorite

things coming together? No I hated that song. Oh, you did? Yes. Everyone kind of did. I loved it. Here's the chorus. Here we go.

I am a dancer. I am a dancer. Radio, radio, radio. Oh, so good. Man, this is such a great song. This is, I mean, let's talk about, okay, so there's two different versions of the song. This is the early version. It's a lot faster.

It's a lot faster. When's the first time that you heard it? Because I can tell you with certainty the first time I heard this version. Really? It's when Eponymous came out. Oh, Eponymous. Yeah, Eponymous was their greatest hits record, and they put this version of Radio Free Europe on

and not the, what I guess a lot of people consider to be the classic version. The one that's on Murmur. Yeah, the one that's on Murmur is the one that was played on the radio all the time, and it's the one that everyone kind of knew the sound of. So this was kind of like almost a rarity to put on the eponymous album in order to attract buyers well i know having a an original hyptone single of this the record is the number one like rem collectible is it really because they only made a thousand right um yeah one k i think eponymous came out between Document and Green after they had left IRS.

So I don't think they even wanted eponymous to be a thing. No, they actually worked with IRS on eponymous. The future compilations, they did not want to be a thing. But that one, they were actually – They did not want it to come out. But as long as they were doing it, they decided to work with them. We'll just agree to disagree on that. I know that for a fact.

But yeah, the Sitting Still, they didn't put that on eponymous, did they? The Sitting Still was not on eponymous. The early version of Sitting Still, that was, I don't know what its actual CD debut was, but I have it on the complete IRSB sides.

It's pretty great too. It's pretty great too. Well, let's talk about Radio Free Europe though because I don't know what version – maybe we should save this for next time, but I don't know what version I prefer. I prefer the Hib tone just because it's – I kind of do too. Yeah. It's so – It's so much faster.

Yeah, and it just feels like these guys have two hours to record two songs. I don't know how quickly they recorded it. 120 minutes. Sure. It sounds like they are just aching. They've played this song so many fucking times and have rehearsed it, and it's just perfect in its kind of energy and roughness. And by the way, this is the REM that we grew up with.

A lot of people know REM. They probably started to know them around Everybody Hurts, Automatic for the People era. This is the sort of classic first version of REM where the sound is these jangly arpeggio guitars, Michael Stipend mumbling his lyrics, and you have Mike Miller. Mike Miller with some—

Backups and bass guitar lines that are sort of playing melody in a way. And then good old Buckbury over there. Buckbury over there. Buckbury. You know, yeah. You know, Mike Miller's bass lines are very McCartney-esque in the sense that they are. I don't know who that is. Jonathan McCartney? Jonathan McCartney.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. I didn't know. I know him. That's our friend. Yeah, and he's a terrific singer. Have you heard him sing? Yeah, and I didn't know that Mike Miller was basing his guitar lines on his singing.

Everybody knows that. I didn't know that. Okay. Let's hear the B-side, Sitting Still. This is, okay, let's just hear it because, oh boy, here we go. Here it comes, ready? Yeah For the first two songs The band records

These are Stone Cold classics Amazing This is a great song Incisive commentary This is a great song. Incisive commentary. Let's get to the chorus. They hold back from the chorus. Do they?

See that? These guys know what they're doing. I'm going to turn it back up when the chorus comes. But these are two of the best R.E.M. songs ever, in my opinion. They're amazing. And I don't know where songwriting like that comes from when you're that young. It starts with Happy Birthday. That's one of the first songs you ever hear. You know, Happy Birthday is a real favorite of yours.

It really is. You maintain that that's the best song ever written. Look, you know, Patty and Mildred had... They knew what they were doing. They just knew what they were doing. These guys didn't know what they were doing. No, they're not Patty and Mildred. No.

Here it is. It's a chorus. Okay, coming up. Okay, coming up. It's great. So good. So these are the first two songs they put out in 1981. They put out the – Hibtone is a small independent label.

They put out 1,000 of them. They're snapped up. Yep. And then – and by the way, should we talk about the producer, Mitch Easter? Yeah. Great guy who is in Let's Active is his band. Yeah, and was Don Dixon involved in this or is that murmur when Don Dixon joins?

I don't think he was. When the Hibton single came out, I don't give a shit. I don't think he was. When the Hibton single came out, the Village Voice wrote about it. Get your shit together. Suddenly, these guys had just put out one single. You are so, by the way, you are so afraid of saying something that does not historically. No, I know that.

No, what I mean is to say is like, this means so much to you that you are choosing your words so carefully because you want to get across how much this means to you. No, you're right. Because I don't want to make a mistake because I didn't do any research

before coming in here because I feel like I already know everything. But now I'm realizing I might have the Hibitone single coming out and Murmur coming out mixed up, whether it was Village Voice or Rolling Stone because I know Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone really liked Murmur. That's what it was. Yeah, yeah. I believe that was their number one record or something of the year.

Yes. Yes. But I can't remember who really talked about it, but it got good reviews. That's safe to say. The Hibton single. The Hibton single. The Hibton single. Yes, yes. When those reviews came in, extra, extra, read all about it.

R.E.M. puts out record. World freaks the fuck out. R.E.M. puts out two songs. Two songs. World comes in its pants. Is that what happened? Something to that effect, yes. So they basically put out that record, and we're going to make another record for Hip Tone.

And then Miles Copeland, who ran the IRS label, which, by the way, when I was first getting into alternative music, the IRS label was – Oh, yeah. Like that's quality. They had everything. They have the police. They have the Go-Go's. They have REM. They have General Public.

Oh, General Public. That's right. I remember I used to erase the L from my General Public tape, so it said General Pubic. I thought you meant it to say Gen-ra Public. And I would go up to people at school and be like, look, it says General Pubic now. By the way, and I want to talk about this. Do you remember, and maybe this is just a Southern California thing, but I thought about this and I could not believe that people used to do this and it was fine with everyone. But they used to get In-N-Out Burger stickers and it says In-N-Out on the top line and then Burger on the bottom. And they used to take off the B and the R, so it just says In-N-Out Urge.

Oh, yeah. And that's fine and people drive around and the public doesn't say hey maybe you shouldn't be doing that and it caught on so much hundreds if not thousands of people do this and it's fine but they're they're like hey isn't it great when you stick a cock in a pussy and you go in or whatever you like to stick it in, and you go in and out and you have that urge to do it? You have the urge to do that. How insane is that? Doesn't that sound crazy?

That people would do that? Just that it's not that people would do that. It's like I can see one person doing that and be like. The fact that it turned into like a mini phenomenon? Even more than the phenomenon, the fact that everyone's just like, yeah. Oh, yeah, that that just was everywhere and everyone was like yeah yeah it's it's like the the toyota on the back of the trucks where they erase the the some of the letters so it just says toy toy yo well even yo even yo or toy it's like okay you bought it one is in and out it's about's about fucking. I know.

It's crazy to me. I thought about that the other day and I was like, and I remember when I was a kid, it was like, hey, you know what my brother did? He took off the B and the R and it was like, that's a good idea. Oh, that's clever. It's really a great idea. That's a way to tell everyone you like fucking.

You know what I'm going to do? What's that now? I'm going to go and do it. On the way home, I'm going to swing by In-N-Out. I'm going to grab myself a bumper sticker. They don't make them anymore because so many people. Because of that? Yes, so many people did it. They couldn't make them.

That's how crazy this is. Is that true? It's true. It's very true. And they're a very Christian organization. Yeah, but they have John 316 or what have you on the bottom of their cups, which is prime place for looking at things. Oh, yeah. The bottom of those cups.

I'm always looking there for inspiration. Oh, always. It turns out that Village Voice did alert the public to this hair tone single. All right. Already moved on from that. A little factoid. So a year later, they're about to – oh, I was going to say the IRS label snaps them up and says, hey, instead of putting it out on the small independent – Stupid hiptone label. Why don't you come over here and play with the big boys?

Yeah. And – Miles Copeland and the big boys. Stuart Copeland's brother. Yep. So they bring over REM and they say, okay, but we want to give you a new producer. Wait, is that for Murmur? Maybe I'm thinking that's for Murmur because –

Yeah, because didn't they want them to – For Chronic Town, it still is Mitch Easter still doing it. And Don Dixon at this point, right? I don't know. That's for you to find out. Okay. I have enough trouble. I'm working the iPod here.

I can't like fact check your bullshit. Yeah, Mitch Easter and Don Dixon were a team. All right. It's like I'm in an episode of Ghosted right now. They were like professional musicians and these kids from like lore that ever – these kids came in to record Chronic Time and a chronic murmur and you are having a fucking meltdown right now get your shit together Mitch Easter and Don Dixon

let's look up their credits okay no I'm looking I'm looking this up. I know. I know. Okay. Wow. Wow? Yeah, Mitchie Serendon Dixon.

Checks out. Checks out. Okay. Checks out. So, yeah. So, then the next year they're going to put out a record, they think. They're going to put out an album. And IRS says, you know what? I don't know that you have enough songs to put out a record they think they're going to put out an album and uh irs says uh you know what i

don't know that uh you have enough songs uh to put out a regular album why don't you put out an ep sure and so what we have is the chronic town ep that came out in 1982 and um for me this is maybe my favorite rem release. I don't know. What? We're going to go through their records and whenever we get to the last record, we're going to rank our favorites. Like our favorites so far. Well, after having listened to them all

and talking about them all, we're going to say, okay, now here's, after hearing them all, here's our definitive list of what we think. But for me now, I don't know. It's either Life's Rich Pageant or this. They're the ones I listen to the most.

I mean on my way over here, I was listening to Chronic Town and I was like, this is fucking good rock and roll music. Like this is great. By the way, do you still think that Songs of Experience is a big album? I know. I did listen to it. I usually don't listen to it back, but I did listen to it back. Oh, do you still think that Songs of Experience is a big album? I know. I did listen to it. I usually don't listen to it back, but I did listen to it back. Oh, did you? We both said that.

I know. Many times. I believe we were struggling for extra words. Yes. So Chronic Town, yeah, I listened to the shit out of this record. Yeah. And the weird part about it to me is that um it really wasn't available uh other than on record oh yeah i i didn't i got this it was extra on on a dead letter office i don't even know what it was right they they basically put out this uh ep and i i

think it was ep ep phone home and it was 12 I think. It wasn't a 10-inch. I have no idea. I think it was a 12-inch, and I have the 12-inch. Oh, you had it? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I have it. Yeah, I still have it at home. You do?

Uh-huh. The original? Yeah, the original, yeah. You should bring that in. I will bring it in. And could you autograph it for me? Sure. I'm going to.

No matter what, I'm going to draw on it with a pen. You're going to draw a big dick on it. That's right. A big gargoyle with a big dick. Yep. Licking it. No, I had the record, and then when everything segued into CDs about 1987 is when I got my first CD player from my job at the LA Times.

I won it as a bonus. Really? Getting a CD player back then was a big deal. First CD that I ever bought was a very special christmas really yep because i got it at christmas and that was the was it like one of those benefit albums where everyone has it yeah that was yeah it was the one with sting and madonna and run dmc like the big classic one and it just with uh the keith herring on the cover yeah yeah christmas and hollis like everything it was it'd come out like the day before I got the CD player or whatever.

That was the record to get. Yeah. But so then I started transferring everything over to CD and rebuying every record I had. But Chronic Town, weirdly enough, they wouldn't put out just a normal CD of it. They tacked it on to the end of Dead Letter Office which was their

B-Sides compilation. Adam he gets the CD of Dead Letter Office and there's five songs at the end which are in my opinion

R.E.M.'s finest songs maybe and they're just like a tacked on add-on. It's after their drunken version of King of the Road

suddenly this weird tight post-punk music starts and you don't know what the hell was going on. add-on. It's after their drunken version of King of the Road, suddenly this weird, tight post-punk music starts. I didn't know what the hell was going on. And you're still confused to this day. Let's listen to a little bit of Wolves Lower, which is the first song on Chronic Town.

This is even a step up from the Hibton single as far as, you know, sound quality. This is just great. This is just great. The drums are so loud. I can't turn it up. No.

Good. The drums are so loud, aren't they? Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it is so catchy. So incredible. This, I mean, what's interesting about this song, Wolves Lower, by the way, is that it's Wolves comma lower. Yeah, there's a comma in the middle of the song title. Which usually commas come at the end of sentences, don't they? Yeah, usually at the end of any proper sentence, you put four commas.

Yeah, and from the very start, those harmonies that – Mike Miller. Mike Miller and – And Buckbury. No, yeah, Buckbury and also Michael Stipend. Well, Stipend is not doing harmonies. He's doing lead vocals. Well, he and Mike Michael Stipend. Well, Stipend is not doing harmonies. He's doing lead vocals. Well, he and Mike Mills do harmonize.

Mike Miller does. Mike Miller. Yes, exactly. They do harmonize. Well, that's true. Okay, I guess we're splitting hairs here. Or the atom. Let's split the atom on that one.

How about it? But from the very beginning there, very beautiful harmonies. Harmonies. And the odd thing about this song is that it was a late addition to the record. Oh, was it? They had Ages of You in there, which was a song we played a little earlier. You told me that, and I didn't know that. That's crazy.

They had that, and I believe IRS maybe said, you know what? We don't think this gets the record on the right foot. Let's do a new song. And then like this is what they put on, which is one of the best R.E.M. songs ever. But Ages of You is one of my favorite songs. What version of Ages of You were they going to put on? It's one that we have not heard. They've never put it out.

Yeah, we've never heard it. I don't know. That's weird. They've put everything out. I would love to hear it. We've never – yeah, we've never heard it. I don't know. They've put everything out. I would love to hear it. Because the Ages of You that's on Dead Letter Office is pretty rough. Years later. It's great.

And then I have a ton of live versions of it, but I've never heard it. But they've never – yeah, they've never put out the version that they're talking about. Oh, I want to hear that. I want to hear it too. I want to hear it. So then that's the first song. And then you have, I mean, those first two songs that they put out, the A side and the B side, Radio Free Europe and Sitting Still,

two of the greatest. But then here's this maybe, I don't know. If you were to say best R.E.M. song of all time, this is maybe one of them. I don't know. This is Gardening at Night. Oh, yeah. Second song on this EP. I like how almost all of their songs have a part where Buckbury can just, like, go... His fills are my favorite

now remember I like McGraw I remember when Guns N' Roses got big like in 87 and Steven Adler's fills I thought were ripping off

Buckbury's fills really? yeah that's interesting there are a lot of fills on Appetite for Destruction that I think

are shut up fuck you man seriously fuck you fills on appetite for destruction that I think. Yeah, shut up. Fuck you, man. Seriously, fuck you. Ah, man, I love this song. Yeah, it's a great song. Although I will say that the other vocal mix,

I may prefer. Let's talk about that because there is a different version of it and that can be found on Eponymous. Exactly the same music track. Same backing track, but there is a different vocal. Now, to me, the vocal sounds a little more out front maybe, a little more legible or audible rather. It's not in falsetto. It's just kind of sung in the usual stipend way. And it seemed to me like it was – first of all, it's a rarity to get people to buy it.

But it also maybe was like, hey, everyone likes the one I love where the vocals are a little more out in front and center. Why don't we have this other version of it where it's – that was just me. Maybe. I mean I would imagine they had those two versions and just decided to put that one on there. Yeah, maybe. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. But I will say the cool thing about eponymous was that they put those two kind of different versions on. And then also the South Central Rain that they put on there was the one from the music video, which is a different version.

So they did put out a best of, but it had different things on it. So not really the best of. No. It was out a best of but it had different things on it. So not really the best of. No. It was like the best of some songs. The best of eh. And then they also put romance on it. What movie was that from? I can't remember but we'll talk about it

when it comes up. Okay so track number three on Chronic Town is Carnival of Sorts parentheses boxcars. This cars my favorite on this this is your favorite oh wow this is great um starts off with this kooky kaleidoscope it's like what am i listening to kiss psycho circus am i at the circus what's going on oh wait a second This is great. Jesus Christ. I'm gonna blow my fucking brains out. This is so good, I'm gonna blow my brains out.

Yeah. God damn it. So this is sort of the classic R.E.M. sound, right? Wait, wait, wait. We've got to hear it. All right. Here it comes. Right here. Here it comes. Right here. Gentlemen, don't get caught. Cage is under cage.

Gentlemen, don't get caught. Boxcar, I'll totally entertain. That damn it. Boxcar, I'll totally entertain. Boxcar, I'll totally entertain. This is the classic R.E.M. sound to me. Yeah, totally. The fast drumming with these great fills.

The harmonies. The arpeggios. The just catchy, catchy melodies. And you can't really, you don't know what they're talking about. You don't know what they're saying. That's the other thing is like when I would sing along, I'd be like, Boxcars, I'm in here. Ba-da-ba-da. Ba-ba-da, it's cool. Ba-da-ba-da.

Ba-ba-da-ba-ba. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. I'm loving it. That's what you do. That's what you do. Okay, so that's the first side of the EP. Yeah.

Okay, so it was three songs on the first side and three on the second? Three songs and two on the second. Two on the second. Two on the second. Yeah, and the last song, Stumble, is long. It's like a five-minute song or something. So it was like a 22, 23-minute or so. The first song on side two is, this is a million. Goddamn.

And it sounds like a million bucks, Buckbury's rather. This is one million. Did they play any of this when you saw them, the one time you saw them? I'd have to go look at the track list if it's online somewhere. It is. I can't believe you only saw them once.

I mean... By that point, were you kind of... I was on my way... I peaked, maybe, with them. I'm not sure. We'll talk about it in future episodes. So this is... I mean, this is obviously

verses are great. Wow, this is a good sound. But then when they get to these choruses. Oh, my goodness. Here we go. Yeah. They just had a knack for it. I wonder what, I mean, I guess, would Michael Stipe and,

I wonder if he would make the melodies later or, you know, they would just jam and he would sing over it. I'm really interested with these types of catchy pop songs, you know, like later when they get experimental, I'm sure they're just like putting chords together and he's, you know, doing what Bono does, which is sort of just humming over it and figuring it out later or whatever. But with these types of catchy pop songs, I wonder how they do it.

I know usually they would just record the songs and give him tapes of it and he would just drive around and think up melodies and lyrics. So sort of like what you would do when you were driving your mom around. Yeah. It's actually the same process. Michael Stipan would come to Santa Cruz and drive my mom around. Really? Where would he take her? Grocery store, the park. Why isn't she driving herself? Your mom sounds lazy. She's very, very, very lazy. No, she actually prefers to walk around, but sometimes she likes to drive just because she enjoys vehicles. Does she ever run?

Yeah, she's a jogger. Really? Yeah. How fast does she go? Like 20, 30,000 miles every 15, 20 minutes. That's not bad. That's not bad. Thank you.

It's not bad. She could keep up with me, let's just say. Oh, really? What are you, a cheetah? I'm a puma, motherfucker. Oh, jeez. Okay. Now, last song of the EP and last song on side two is Stumble.

Yeah. Now, I've been listening to this a lot over the past couple of days. And each time I go, you know what? That's the only stumble for me trying to be clever of like this is the song that I technically don't like as much as the first four. It's not as good. But only because those first four are Stone Cold classics. Yep. Because then each time I would go, let me hear it one more time just so I can solidify my opinion that Stumble isn't as good.

It still is really good. Yeah. I mean – But it's not – It's not – And like you said, it's longer too, which is – Teeth. Yeah.

Plus it's got a guy going two at the beginning. No, he says teeth. He says teeth? It's going like this. He's pointing at his teeth? No, he's knocking his teeth with his finger He's going like this. He's pointing at his teeth? No, he's knocking his teeth with his finger. You can hear it.

Huh, interesting. That's what these, it sounds like drums, but he's just banging on his teeth? No, he literally is going like this. But the do-do-do-do

that you're hearing? Yeah, that's also teeth. That's also teeth? No, I like this song, actually. This is great. But you're right, it's not the... It's like if the others are 100s,

this is like a... It's like an 85. I would even say 90. Once it gets going by the chorus, it's like... But it's not like some of the songs that we've heard before or further songs in their canon. No, this is great. I mean, listen to that.

I mean, listen to this. It's so good. It's fucking great. Yeah, this is great. I mean, listen to that. I mean, listen to this. It's so good. It's fucking great. Yeah, this is awesome. These guys. Yeah, I like this. I love this song. That's where it comes in and it's like, oh, wow, this is good.

Yeah. I have no clue what they're talking about. Far and Chance? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I have no clue what they're talking about. Far Enchants? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. By the way, are there lyrics online for these songs? Yeah, there are. There are.

I think even the REM website might. I don't know about this stuff. That's why, I mean, but it was not available when these came out. So there's no way. Actually, when they started printing lyrics with their albums, I was a little bummed out just because that was one of the cool things

that they never did do that. But eventually they did. Well, that's Chronic Town. As far as I'm concerned, one of their best releases. Yeah, it's incredible. And what's weird about it is with Radio Free Europe

and Sitting Still, they re-recorded those to put them on a regular album. But these five songs never recorded them again, never put them on an album. It just lives on Chronic Town. But it was an IRS release, so it was distributed more widely than the Hip Tone Sync. Sure, it was. But, I mean, once CDs started coming out, it was an afterthought, and it was not even on iTunes until maybe three years ago or something.

Yeah. I didn't know that. And Gardening at Night is, you know, I think is one of their classic songs, and the others are classics too as far as I'm concerned. But it's one of these strange classics that is a little harder to come by or at least was. But for me, Life's Rich Pageant and Chronic Town were the two that I listened to over and over and over and over. That's cool. Yeah. I mean I listened to Chronic Town by proxy just because it was on Dead Letter Office.

And I would – I got to know it really well. But I didn't know that it was them from – From several years ago. Years earlier or whatever. I just – I didn to know it really well, but I didn't know that it was them from – From several years ago. Years earlier or whatever. I just – I didn't know. I mean you were stupid. Just a stupid, stupid boy. I mean, look, you had the mental capacity of a two-month-old.

Yeah. I mean, listen, I'll be honest. I'm no genius now. I mean, honestly, sometimes you don't know. You're saying, Goo Goo, you don't know if you should follow it up with Gaga or bleh bleh. You just don't know. Yeah. I mean, listen, never going to claim to be an A-plus student.

Sure. An A student, yes. Yeah, but no A-plus. But pluses, it's like, come on, you know? And those A plus students, by the way, they're ruining the curve. Get out of town. Get the fuck out of town. Get the fuck out of here.

Hickory dickory dock over here. Look at mine. Look at mine. Look at mine. Look at mine. Look at mine. Look at mine. Do you think we should wrap it up?

Yeah. I mean, what else do we, is there any, that's it. There was, we played a little bit of White Tornado, which was written and on the B-sides at the same time. That was our intro to the. What was that on the B-side of? You know what? It was not, I don't believe it was really released.

It's just on the complete B-sides. It was on Dead Letter Office and stuff, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but it was not, I don't think it was put out. I don't think it was really released. It's just on the complete B-sides. It was on Death at Her Office and stuff, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was not – I don't think it was put out. I don't think it was a B-side of anything. But it was recorded. It was recorded around the same time. And All the Right Friends, which you played.

All the Right Friends is around, recorded around the same time. Yeah, and maybe more of a live track at the time. You pointed out that they didn't really get around to recording that until maybe later, but it was around this time. It was one of their first song. Obviously, they were playing live shows and they couldn't just play seven songs. Yeah. So they had a lot of songs. You played a lot of covers in those days, too.

Yeah. But you do hear them playing songs that will wind up on records five years in the future. Just a Touch was one of those early songs and that winded up on Life's Rich Pageant. Life's Rich Pageant, of course. And then a lot of times you'll be listening to a Murmur concert and you'll hear Reckoning songs

and I'm sure vice versa. You know, there is a version of Gardening at Night I wanted to play you. Okay. That wound up. Here.

You have it on your phone? Yeah. Give me that fucking thing. I don't care I don't care when I get tricked this is a version of what? Gardening at Night Gardening at Night is this the different vocal version

or is this the acoustic version? this is a different version altogether that I hadn't heard this is a different version oh I thought you were saying altogether that's an airplane joke I've never heard this what is this

this is a different version of gardening at night I know but I'm just oh god it came out in 2006 but it's it's uh

oh I thought it was over I was gonna say that's really different a little slow well yeah it's a slower version Oh, I thought it was over. I was going to say, that's really different. A little slow. Well, yeah, it's a slower version. As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to make a different version, you've got to make it exactly the same tempo. You've heard the acoustic version, right?

That's on the complete IRS B-sides. I'm sure. It also was a bonus track on Dead Letter Office when they put out an expanded version of it. And here's an early Just a Touch. Yep. So these are all the songs that are playing, that they're writing around this time. So these are all the songs that are playing,

that they're writing around this time. Oh, this is actually not that early, but Just a Touch is a very old song. Yes. Good for you. All right. You too. You too.

You too. All right, we're going to wrap it up, but there is plenty more where this came from. Look, I mean, Adam, we're committed to doing this, right? Look, we're embarking on an all-new adventure. Oh, my gosh. And I'm excited because there's an endless well of great music here that I'm excited to talk about. And, you know, there's a lot of really funny things that we're going to say. Oh, man, we're going to say so many funny things that I don't even know where to start.

We're going to do this as long as we can. We have a little bit of time over the next few weeks to record some of these. So I'm looking forward to doing this. Absolutely. So I'm going to pull this back so you can't trick me. And I got it. Oh, fuck.

Why did I not do that? Because I fucked you. All right. Here we go. This is the end. A lot of bad language today on the podcast. Are you sensitive about the bad language? Because REM might be...

Well, language to me, it's like one of the last words. Anyway, we'll see you next time on Are You Talking REM Remy where we hope that you

found what you're looking for! Until we think of something to say goodbye with. Bye! Bye! for until we think of something to say goodbye with bye bye this has been an Earwolf production executive produced

by Scott Aukerman Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson for more information and content visit Earwolf.com. Hey, Queeros, it's me, Cami Esposito, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, Queery.

You can sit in on hour-long conversations between me, Cameron Esposito, and some of the brightest luminaries in the LGBTQ family. Queery explores individual stories of identity, personality, and the shifting cultural matrix around gender, sexuality, and civil rights. Plus, it is fun. We have had some incredible guests. Emmy winner Lena Waithe?

Yes, definitely. Congressman Mark Takano? You bet. L Word creator Eileen Shakin? Yes. President and CEO of GLAAD, Sarah Kate Ellis? We definitely have. We've got celebs.

People like Trixie Mattel, Evan Rachel Wood, Tegan and Sarah, the band, and the people, separately, on two different episodes. We also have activists and changemakers in our community. I think it's a one-of-a-kind show full of chats you have never heard before. It's identity, it's I think it's a one-of-a-kind show full of chats you have never heard before. It's identity, it's community, it's Query.

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