Pages tagged “r.e.m.”

Photos taken at Voodoo Music Festival by Rob Inderrieden

Amidst Athens, Ga.'s dance-inspiring rock 'n' roll scene, which featured the likes of The B-52's and Pylon, college-rock upstarts R.E.M. released full-length debut Murmur in 1983. It went gold, became Rolling Stone's album of the year (beating out Thriller) and began the path that would eventually lead to this year's Accelerate.

Part 3: The Media

“You’re The Best” - Joe Esposito

CNN claims it’s got “The Best Political Team on Television,” while Fox News claims it’s got “The Best Political Team Ever.” With slogans this superlative, how come the coverage sucks so bad?

For months now, Guitar Hero diehards have been hanging on every bread crumb of information released about World Tour, the forthcoming generation of their favorite video game. We knew about Hendrix, Ozzy and a handful of other artists on the track list. But now we have the press release in hand, and it includes 86 songs on-disk, featuring artists like R.E.M., Michael Jackson, Metallica, Coldplay, Nirvana, Interpol, Foo Fighters, Billy Idol, Beastie Boys and Dinosaur Jr., among others.

R.E.M. may have gotten its musical mojo back with its latest record Accelerate earlier this year, but it seems it lost something else along the way.

When Muddy Waters referenced a "gypsy woman" in the song of the same name, he was giving a shout out to traditions of Louisiana's long-standing voodoo culture. New Orleans continues to celebrate those traditions with its 10th annual Voodoo Music Experience. And while the name may sound rather ominous to those not in the know, the experience is more of the musical variety than the hexing one.

Forget that R.E.M.'s new record is their best in years. Forget that even when their albums started sucking, their live shows remained phenomenal. Forget that one of the openers is one of the best young bands around (The National, whose album was declared by Paste as the best of last year—an honor that has gone to their heads, according to Rainn Wilson). And forget that Modest Mouse is also on the bill. This one thing is reason enough for you to make sure you get out to see R.E.M. on their North American tour...

Welcome to The Gorge, y'all. Sasquatch 2008 is here and it's overwhelming. So, in an effort to trim it down to something semi-manageable, I'm going to be posting photos and blurbs of my experience in Washington this Memorial Day Weekend. Enjoy...

Kathleen Edwards rocked with an immaculate band, spitting bile at the sun, particularly on set closer "The Cheapest Key." Edwards sang "B is for bullshit and you fed me some," but I'd argue that "B" is actually for "badass." She is just that.

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
I’m not sure all these people understand…

It occurs to me as I stand here, looking dazed into a sea of semi-familiar faces: I haven’t been in this building since I graduated from high school—20 years ago.

Melanoma tagged my father almost a year ago to the day (at least, that’s when he called to let me know the prognosis); it moved swiftly, making his last months hell. So tonight we’re gathered in the gym of the school where he taught for more than two decades—the same sweaty hardwood where he coached basketball each winter, prowling up and down the sideline, baiting referees with unanswerable questions like “when are we gonna get a gift like that?”—swapping memories, melancholy and occasional snippets of nervous mirth.

Like all places distantly familiar from childhood, the gym looks smaller to me now. I read from the script I’ve written, feel my throat getting tight. To distract myself, I try to focus on the people I know: There’s my former basketball coach, now the school’s athletic director. And there’s the younger brother of the guy who sang in my band: He’s supposedly a desperate drug addict now. But, like everyone else here tonight, he just looks vaguely sad, and nods at me when we catch each other’s eye.

You, I thought I knew you
You, I cannot judge
You, I thought you knew me, this one laughing quietly…

Each person in the family had a job for this event—I’d done the occasional DJ stint, so my role was to go through Dad’s discs to pick out the soundtrack for the evening, locating songs that represented who he was, who he’d been.

For a guy who couldn’t find perfect pitch with a metal detector, and whose singing resembled the death throes of a mortally wounded dog, Dad had great taste in music. His record collection introduced me to artists whose work would captivate me for life: Dylan, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Steely Dan. Picking out a set list from fodder this great felt like shooting fish in a barrel—“Two of Us,” “Girl from the North Country,” (for my stepmother, whose web-footed Pacific Northwest ways offered a stark contrast to dad’s Hawaiian-shirted, Cali-surfer-for-life persona), “God Only Knows,” “Unchained Melody,” R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming,” made more poignant by my dad’s proclivity to poke mock-fun at my love of the band by imitating Michael Stipe’s elongated Southern vowels.

The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse
Still, it’s so much clearer…

At the end of the service, the audience was asked if anyone had anything else to say, and a guy I knew growing up as “Uncle Duane” (one of my dad’s many fraternity brothers) stood up and told a mildly profane story about one particular spring break during which my perpetually broke dad bet him that he could hitchhike his way to Bermuda from Long Beach, Calif.

“Mike, I’m sure you’ve already figured this out, but Bermuda is an island chain. You don’t hitchhike there.”

As it turns out—with the kind of “I’ll show you, bastards” aplomb that came to characterize his attitude about life—dad did hitchhike to Bermuda, sending Duane a breadcrumb trail of photographs and postcards along the way, thumbing rides and whatever else to the tune of then-favorites such as Jan & Dean, The Turtles, The Byrds, and The Lovin’ Spoonful.

Sometimes I’ll see a picture of my dad now and imagine the young dude he must’ve been then: wind in his hair, “Surf City” ringing in his ears, Bermuda dead ahead.

Paste contributing editor Corey duBrowa has written for The Rocket, Seattle Weekly, The Stranger, The Oregonian and Rolling Stone.

Baseball has fueled great works of theater, literature and even dance. But the moment of the perfect baseball-related collaboration is almost upon us, as North Carolina’s own Yep Roc Records prepares the release of an album by The Baseball Project entitled Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails.

Click above to watch "Hollow Man" from R.E.M.'s performance on Austin City Limits.

The new, improved R.E.M.?

R.E.M. has already penned “The Finest Work Song.” Now would be a good time to come up with the finest pop song. The band has seen most of its fanbase dwindle since 1994’s Monster, and 2004’s Around the Sun was so resolutely bland and unmemorable that it could’ve been used as the soundtrack to a Lifetime movie. Career resuscitation is long overdue.

So along comes Accelerate. Produced by Jacknife Lee (U2, Bloc Party, The Hives), it’s both a transparent attempt to recapture past glories and an increasingly shrill cry of continued relevance. It’s about Peter Buck as much as it’s about Michael Stipe, and that means Buck is unleashed to play those ringing, descending “Ticket to Ride” lines all over this album. He’s also free to explore his inner Clash; he’s never played pop-punk chords like this before. Stipe is his usual irascible self. His songs will forever be couched in non-sequiturs and cryptic imagery, but he’s mad as hell about almost everything here, including himself, and he spits out these lyrics like bullets. The truth is that, for the first time in years, the two principal band members and combatants mesh perfectly. Michael Stipe hasn’t sounded this committed in more than a decade. And Peter Buck hasn’t thrown down chiming riffs and shimmering arpeggios like this since Fables of the Reconstruction and Life's Rich Pageant.

Opener “Living Well is the Best Revenge” wastes no time before raising the stakes. Buck plays George Harrison jangle, Mike Mills plays McCartney’s high bass runs, and Stipe plays the early, petulant Elvis Costello. It’s a rousing start for what’s clearly intended to be R.E.M.’s new rock ’n’ roll calling card. And, for the most part, the rock ’n’ roll holds up well. “Supernatural Superserious” nicks the classic riff from “Sweet Jane,” but evolves quickly enough into an old-school R.E.M. janglefest, with a massive, anthemic hook for a chorus. “Horse to Water” finds Buck channeling Mick Jones, detonating distorted punk power chords to match Stipe’s clipped, scattershot vitriol. To the band’s credit, there is a pissed-off urgency and energy in most of these songs, and the targets range from the usual political suspects (“Until the Day is Done,” “Mr. Richards”) to the symbols used by the mass media to play on our emotions (“Man-sized Wreath”) to the cynical heart of one Michael Stipe (“Hollow Man”).

But there are problems. There’s a lingering whiff of déjà vu about these tracks. There’s a restless energy here to be sure, but it’s energy that has been repackaged in familiar ways. There are also a few lingering reminders of the earnest triteness that dominated Around the Sun. “Horse to Water,” for all its sonic blast, is still little more than Stipe affirming that he can’t be led like a horse to water. Given the raging guitars, I’d hoped for something more than a simple twist on a cliché. And pensive folk ballad “Until the Day is Done,” which wants to be a State of the Union address, ends up being Gen X’s very own “Eve of Destruction,” a protest song so solemnly dour that global incineration seems like the better alternative.

Still, there’s some cautiously optimistic news for long-suffering fans. There’s good rock ’n’ roll here, and it’s vital and raw enough to be memorable. But there’s something calculated too, something demographically researched and meticulously executed in these songs. It comes through in the studied vulnerability of “Hollow Man,” a confession of cynicism and emotional manipulation that’s so smug and premeditated that one begins to suspect Stipe of the very cynicism and manipulation he’s singing about. Hey, listen kids, everybody hurts, even me. It comes through in the rousing closer “I’m Gonna DJ,” yet another apocalyptic rave, because it’s the end of the world as we know it, again, and somebody’s got to remind the forgetful throngs. As such, Accelerate isn’t a collection of new songs so much as it’s a marketing slogan that both hearkens back to the storied past and makes a case for the new, improved, hip-again R.E.M. They only got it partly right. The pedal isn’t on the floor, but the speedometer’s moving in the right direction.

Alt-rock pioneers R.E.M. will be streaming their new album Accelerate live on social networking application iLike a week ahead of its April 1 release, Billboard.com reports.

Faced with a musical landscape where many traditional retailers have seen their sales dwindle as digital music outlets such as iTunes and Rhapsody have risen in popularity, the band’s frontman Michael Stipe told Billboard the band didn’t want to be left behind. “I think you can either go with it or sit back and watch it happen,” he said, “and I would rather be out on the field than in the bleachers.”

Accelerate’s 11 tracks will be available for streaming and sharing beginning March 24 on iLike.com, or on social websites with iLike applications including Facebook.com and iTunes. The album will be accompanied by an exclusive video of the band members discussing the new album.

In anticipation of Accelerate’s release, the band played at last weekend’s Langerado Music Festival in the South Florida Everglades, and will be performing another show at SXSW this week. And in May, the band will begin a month-long North American tour before heading to Europe in August.

Dates:

May
28 - Vancouver, B.C. @ Deer Lake Park
29 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Hollywood Bowl
31 - Berkeley, Calif. @ The Greek Theatre

June
3 - Denver, Colo. @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
6 - Chicago, Ill. @ United Center
8 - Toronto, Ont. @ Molson Amphitheatre
10 - Raleigh, N.C. @ Walnut Creek Amphitheatre
11 - Washington D.C. @ Merriweather Post Pavillion
13 - Boston, Mass. @ Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts
14 - Long Island, N.Y. @ Jones Beach Theater
18 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Mann Center for the Performing Arts
19 - New York City, N.Y. @ TBA
21 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Lakewood Amphitheatre

Related links:
R.E.M.com
R.E.M. on MySpace
Paste: R.E.M. Decides to Accelerate New Album Process

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

R.E.M. has added four more dates to the European leg of its 2008 world tour, meaning fans across the Atlantic have exactly 24 chances to catch one of the band's shows this summer.

This year is shaping up to be a big one for the band. First, frontman Michael Stipe announced back in December that the band’s latest album, “a great fucking record” in the singer's own words, would be released this year on April Fool's Day. Next, the band announced it would be taking Modest Mouse and The National along on a two-month U.S. tour beginning in May.

Then the band announced an additional European leg earlier this month (sans Modest Mouse and The National. Sorry Europe, but it’s not the end of the world as you know it. You feel fine, really.)

Now the band has announced a few more shows. The newly added European dates are as follows:

August
24 - Manchester @ L.C.C.C.
25 - Cardiff @ Millennium Stadium
27 - Southampton @ Rosebowl
30 - London @ Twickenham Stadium

Related links:
REMHQ.com
R.E.M. on MySpace
Paste: R.E.M. nearing completion of new studio album

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

Recently, just a little bit of rock 'n' roll hysteria ensued when R.E.M., Modest Mouse and The National announced that this spring, they'd be going on tour...together.

Now, R.E.M. has announced a European leg of the tour this summer, which is sure to turn many fans across the Atlantic into shiny, happy people. Unfortunately, R.E.M. won't be bringing The National or Modest Mouse overseas. Everybody hurts sometimes, right? European dates are listed below the following video:

EuroTrip:

March
24 - UK @ London, Royal Albert Hall

July
2 - Amsterdam, Holland @ Westerpark
9 - Nice, France @ Theatre De Verdure
15 - Dresden, Germany @ Elbufer
16 - Berlin, Germany @ Waldbuhne
18 - Locarno, Switzerland @ City Square
20 - Perugia, Italy @ Parco Giuliana
21 - Verona, Italy @ Arena
23 - Naples, Italy @ Mostra d’Oltremare
24 - Udine, Italy @ Villa Manin
26 - Milan, Italy @ Arena

August
17 - Czech Republic @ Prague, Slavia Stadium
19 - Germany @ Stuttgart, Ehrenhof
20 - Germany @ Loreley
22 - Germany @ Wurzburg, Marienfeste

September
3 - Oslo, Norway @ Ullevaal Stadium
4 - Bergen, Norway @ Koengen Stadium
6 - Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium
7 - Stockholm, Sweden @ Stadium
9 - Helsinki, Finland @ Finnair Stadium

Related links:
RemHQ.com
R.E.M. on Myspace
Paste: R.E.M.: On the Shoulders of Its Own Mythology

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

It has been four years since R.E.M.'s last studio album. Around the Sun posters on den walls across the nation have started to curl and yellow at the corners. And, alas, the sweet face of Michael Stipe is all but a distant memory.

But behold! New material is on the horizon. Well, one sweet morsel of a song, anyway. No need to search high and low for it: stream it right here:

If that wasn’t enough to appease the longing, check out the new promo video for Accelerate. If nothing else, you will be 58 seconds closer to April 1 after watching it.

Related links:
R.E.M.’s Mills, Hem’s Ellyson record
Denver Post: R.E.M. to play Red Rocks this summer
NME News: R.E.M. to play South by Southwest

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

As we recently reported, R.E.M. has a new album on the way. Warner Brothers will release the Jacknife Lee-produced Accelerate, the band's 14th studio LP, on—no joke—April 1 (March 31 in non-U.S. locales).

After a rather busy 2007, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills are keeping the pedal down this year, gearing up for Accelerate's release with festival-headlining gigs at Langerado and South by Southwest.

In the meantime, the band commissioned Vincent Moon—director of the maddeningly addictive La Blogothèque Take-Away Shows—to shoot a series of short film clips for an album-release countdown website called Ninety Nights. What makes Ninety Nights different from, say, hitting up YouTube or checking out last year's footage from R.E.M.'s "working rehearsal" in Dublin is the opportunity for visitors to download each day's high-definition video snippet for whatever personal use they can dream up. Who knows, maybe you could be the next Tarsem Singh.

Tour dates:

March
8 - South Florida Everglades @ Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation (Langerado)
12 - Austin, Texas @ Stubb's Bar-B-Q (SXSW)

Related links:
REMHQ.com
Paste: R.E.M. - On the Shoulders of Its Own Mythology
Youtube: R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion"

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

Almost two weeks ago (despite the fact that it feels like two days ago in holiday time), we told you that R.E.M.'s 14th studio album had been recorded in Ireland with Jacknife Lee and was set for release on April 1. We also told you that Bill Berry would tour with the band, but that particular news nugget turned out to be less than true. (That's a wag of the finger for you and your reputed source, 99X!)

Said album now has a name, and that name is Accelerate. And to hear singer Michael Stipe tell it, the release could be R.E.M.'s finest in a while. "We spent less time making this record than we have in 20 years", Stipe told Q. "I feel like there's a confidence in the material and a communication between the three of us which hasn't been there for some time."

According to NME, a few tracks that will definitely appear on the album are "Until The Day Is Done," "Living Well Is The Best Revenge," "Mr Richards," "Staring Down The Barrel Of Middle Distance" and "I'm Gonna DJ."

Related links:
UPDATE: new R.E.M. album release date, Berry not touring
R.E.M. set to release R.E.M. Live
REMHQ.com

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

This year, in between getting inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame and releasing its first-ever live album, R.E.M. has somehow found time to scoot over to Ireland and record the follow-up to 2004's Around the Sun with producer Jacknife Lee (Snow Patrol, Bloc Party).

The band has been tightlipped on a release date for its 14th studio effort, but earlier this week at a New York charity auction, frontman Michael Stipe announced, "Let me tell you a secret: we have a great fucking record in the bag. It's a big change. It's coming out on April Fool's Day."

CORRECTION: We initially reported that Bill Berry was rumored to be touring with the band in 2008, according to Atlanta alternative station 99X. The band's management has confirmed that this rumor is "entirely untrue." Sigh, oh well, we aren't that lucky.

Related links:
R.E.M. set to release R.E.M. Live
R.E.M. inducted into Rock Hall of Fame
R.E.M. HQ

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

In a stunning departure from past declarations, Michael Stipe does not feel fine about the end of the world as we know it. "I’m deeply concerned with global warming and the environment, and how we’re going to pull ourselves out of that," he said in an interview with the Athens Banner-Herald earlier this year.

So to help push things along, Stipe's band R.E.M. will contribute a new, unreleased song to the upcoming, Anderson Cooper-hosted special Planet in Peril, which airs on CNN Oct. 23 and 24. Entitled "Until the Day Is Done," the song will receive its official debut on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight. As you might have discerned, Cooper is quite the R.E.M. fan. In 2002, the group debuted its video for "Bad Day" on his show.

Stipe is projecting some of that love back.

"We are honored to have our song included in this monumental project," said the singer via a press release. "The images in the film are beautiful, while at the same time heart-breaking and frightening."

Hopefully the song will be up to the task of soundtracking that cinematography. However it turns out, it'll be hard for the group to top this gem.

Related links:
Planet in Peril homepage
REMHQ.com
Paste: R.E.M. prep Live CD/DVD package, more

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

Their OK Computer tribute defied all expectations. Now the folks at Stereogum are giving us another remarkable tribute package. This Friday marks the fifteenth anniversary of Automatic For The People, the album where R.E.M. decided to go "mature" and never looked back. Highlighting the website's Drive XV package is an all-star covers version of Automatic, featuring tracks from The Wrens, Rogue Wave, Meat Puppets, Shout Out Louds and more. Each track appears as a downloadable mp3 or a stream, with liner notes from the covering band and R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills. Tying it all together is a thoughtful essay from Matthew Perpetua, the guy behind Fluxblog and R.E.M. blog Pop Songs 07.

All of those goodies should tide R.E.M. fans over until the group's first-ever live release, arriving on Oct. 16.

Related links:
Paste: R.E.M. - On the Shoulders of Its Own Mythology
REMHQ.com
YouTube: "Everybody Hurts" video

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

After 25 years of performing together as a band, a few things happened to R.E.M.:

* The group got inducted into some old boys' club in Cleveland.

* Michael Stipe learned how to an-nun-ci-ate.

* The band's formerly scraggly, college-aged fans grew up and made enough money to be able to afford numerous R.E.M. recording packages.

Owing to a terrific confluence of these three factors, R.E.M. will release R.E.M. Live, two CDs and a DVD documenting the band's 2005 domination of Dublin's Point Theatre. The busy beavers at Stereogum have a track listing and video from the Dublin performance, so give them a look. Ignore Stipe's facial stripe, if you can.

Meanwhile, as we reported last month, the pieces of the band's new album are swiftly falling into place. There's been no new word since then (the guys are really committed to promoting this live release thing), but R.E.M. album #14 is still slated for a 2008 release.

Related Links:
Paste: R.E.M. - On the Shoulders of Its Own Mythology
REMHQ.com
YouTube: R.E.M. on David Letterman in 1983

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

The bad news: R.E.M. won’t release its next studio album until 2008. The good news: The band will put out a live CD/DVD set on Oct. 16. While obsessive, quibbling fans may call New Adventures In Hi-Fi a live album, R.E.M. headquarters says it ain’t so. It may be hard to believe, but the new set—simply titled R.E.M. Live—is R.E.M.’s first official live record.

The set was recorded in Dublin in February 2005, and includes the previously unreleased track “I’m Gonna DJ,” along with “Orange Crush,” “Cuyahoga,” “The One I Love,” “Losing My Religion” and “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville.”

As for that new studio album, word from Athens is that the band will return to the studio in September to finish recording. Mixing should take place later this year, with the album dropping in early '08.

Related links:
REMDublin.com (with trailer)
Murmurs.com post with tracklist
The Complete R.E.M. Lyrics Archive

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

Most bands crowd into dimly lit basements or sit around their parents’ living rooms to rehearse new material before packing up and heading into the studio. Thankfully, most bands are not R.E.M.

Soon after their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last month, the Athens-based legends announced a special five-night residency at Dublin’s historic Olympia Theatre for June 30 and July 1, 3, 4 and 5.

The shows, their first in nearly two years, will be a chance for Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills to test out songs for their upcoming 14th LP, the recording of which will commence in Dublin, Vancouver, and Athens, Ga., shortly thereafter. Grammy-winning producer Jacknife Lee, who met with the band in Athens in February, will be at the controls throughout the record-making process.

Don’t go calling up your travel agent about a summer vacation to Ireland, though. Tickets for all five nights have already sold out. Check back here early and often for any word on the as-yet-untitled new record.

Related links:
R.E.M. headquarters
R.E.M. on MySpace
Warner Bros. Records

REM bassist Mike Mills and Hem frontwoman Sally Ellyson have recorded a version of Big Star’s classic Christmas tune “Jesus Christ,”