REM has broken up. Athens is kind of staggered. [link]
Mighty fine shindig.
Mal ,'Shindig'
Buffista Music 4: Needs More Cowbell!
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
flea - Sep 21, 2011 8:35:26 am PDT #4719 of 6436
information libertarian
tommyrot - Sep 21, 2011 8:37:35 am PDT #4720 of 6436
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
Huh.
Well, they used to joke they'd break up on New Years Eve 1999, so we got extra added bonus REM for the last 11 years....
le nubian - Sep 21, 2011 8:41:04 am PDT #4721 of 6436
"And to be clear, I am the hell. And the high water."
I thought they were already broken up!
DavidS - Sep 21, 2011 8:45:00 am PDT #4722 of 6436
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Considering their last half a dozen albums have been completely non-essential, I'm glad. There are a few scattered gems here and there but they could've should've quit after Bill Berry left.
sumi - Sep 21, 2011 10:09:08 am PDT #4723 of 6436
Art Crawl!!!
Yeah, but it's still kind of surprising.
smonster - Sep 21, 2011 7:54:58 pm PDT #4724 of 6436
We won’t stop until everyone is gay.
I thought they were already broken up!
Me too!
sumi - Sep 22, 2011 5:23:17 am PDT #4725 of 6436
Art Crawl!!!
Salon piece with musicians remembering REM.
DavidS - Sep 22, 2011 6:30:15 am PDT #4726 of 6436
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Salon piece with musicians remembering REM.
Nice. It's hard to overstate how important they were. Lots of bands were poking around the potsherds of the late sixties and trying to glue the Byrds and Velvet Underground together but they were the ones who pulled off that very tricky splice using lots of Big Star for glue.
Obviously their sound was incredibly influential (bands as diverse as Pavement and The Divine Comedy started as straight up imitators), but as the tributes note they were even more important as an example of How To Do It Right. They just gave back so much.
I first saw them at the 930 Club in DC in the spring of '83 before Murmur had even come out and I was so blown away. They already had so many great songs and such a fantastic sound and were a great live band. I saw them four times and I still remember each gig vividly and who opened for them: Let's Active, Husker Du, The Neats (I think Jon was at that show, at MIT) and the dBs (in Providence).
Jon B. - Sep 22, 2011 6:46:19 am PDT #4727 of 6436
A turkey in every toilet -- only in America!
I was indeed at the MIT show. The very first time REM came to Boston (a couple of years before my time), everyone told them "You sound like the Neats!" Which was true, but unlike the Neats, they had a record label who knew how to promote them and they stayed off the hard drugs.
flea - Sep 22, 2011 6:50:42 am PDT #4728 of 6436
information libertarian
REM's commitment to the music scene in Athens is huge and ongoing, as is their commitment to the community as a whole. They do a huge amount of charity funding, for example. They help sponsor music programs in the public schools, our elementary school's 5K run, tiny little things probably from their financial perspective, but it adds up to a lot. It's from that perspective that people in Athens are stunned at the news, not even really the music piece at this point.