dtram

WTF is he on about now?

Did you read it, its pretty clear.

Has anyone gotten the Smile Sessions yet? I'm still undecided on whether to go for broke with the huge box set or just get the 2-disc version.

Yes, go for broke. I had an ear to ear smile (no pun meant, seriously) as I went through it . Without a doubt, the coolest packaged muaic item I own. The version of smile is like the cleanest fan mix youve ever heard and I havent made it through the bonus stuff yet but the packging is just incredible, worth every penny.

The Third disc of Tracks consists primarily of River outtakes. And there are still many that haven't seen the light of day (so to speak).

Gotcha.

Maybe need to start another thread in Someone Elses Song on this topic. Just thought of another, Who's Next.

No opinion there as I'm a casual Springsteen fan and don't even own the river and the songs I do know don't really hit me the way his other stuff does. From what I know, that was originally a single that got stretched to a double so I'm surprised that you would feel there was still enough left off to warrant that kind of opinion. Not debating it, just surprised.

I've always thought a studio version of "Laminated Cat" along the lines of the live renditions would've fit nicely on the album. (I dig the studio version on the first Loose Fur album, but I've always thought the song has sounded better live.)

I agree with this. YHF may be the greatest record ever in terms of the quality of songs that didn't make it.

"I don't give a shit about making money. I think rock music is junk. I am a genius. The Who were OK but without me they would have all ended up working in the flower market, or worse - in Led Zeppelin."

I love Pete Townshend. That lecture is actually really good, thanks for posting it.

I've been crucified in other threads for this opinion but i cannot stand radio cure. I replace it with magazine, slot in cars can't escape between jesus and ashes and listen to the record this way 100% of the time. I can understand the opinion that magazine may be a bit too poppy (not for me but i see that side) in which case, i think a strict swap of radio cure and cars is in order and works well. For me, either way is superior to the released version. How cars was left out is absolutely beyond me, it fits that record in every way. I play that song for wilco fans who aren't fanatical like me and they cant believe it was essentially thrown away.

For me, mixing the coomer era verisons with the kotche era doesnt work so well so a couple of months ago it put together a playlist which could be be called summerteeth 2, it's basically all of the songs from the original batch of demos with Ken that didn't make it on the record with the addition of the 2 versions of camera and ashes. It really plays like a lost album between ST and YHF.

My pleasure, let me know if there are issues.

Ok, here it is. Dont kill me if you have a problem. i refuse to pay for Winzip so I used a free program called 7-Zip. I have had no issues unzipping with this program but it is the first time I have ever tried to zip. If anyone has a problem let me know. This is 1988-1998 including the Deck The Halls from the '88 Winter Warnerland album. If all goes well, I'll try and put up the rest in a few days.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/blxdx5

From Wiki:

Year Tracks Format

1988 "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers"

"See No Evil" (Television cover) Green 1989 "Good King Wenceslas" (traditional)

"Academy Fight Song" (Mission of Burma cover) 7" vinyl 1990 "Ghost Reindeer in the Sky" (spoof of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" by Stan Jones)

"Summertime" (George Gershwin) 7" vinyl 1991 "Baby Baby" (Vibrators cover)

"Christmas Griping" (R.E.M. original) 7" vinyl 1992 "Where's Captain Kirk?" (Spizzenergi cover)

"Toyland" (Victor Herbert/Glen MacDonough, from Babes in Toyland) 7" vinyl 1993 "Silver Bells" (Jay Livingston/Ray Evans)

"Christmas Time Is Here" (Vince Guaraldi/Lee Mendelson, from A Charlie Brown Christmas) 7" vinyl 1994 "Sex Bomb" (Flipper cover)

"Christmas in Tunisia" (R.E.M. original) 7" vinyl 1995 "Wicked Game" (Chris Isaak cover)

"Java" (Allen Toussaint instrumental cover) 7" vinyl 1996 "Only in America" (Jay & the Americans cover)

"I Will Survive" (Gloria Gaynor cover) 7" vinyl 1997 "Live for Today" (R.E.M. original)

"Happy When I'm Crying" (performed by Pearl Jam; Pearl Jam original) Not Included 7" vinyl 1998 "E-Bow the Letter" (live video, with backing vocals by Thom Yorke)

"Lucky" (live video, performed by Radiohead with vocals by Michael Stipe; Radiohead original)

- (both recorded at the Tibetan Freedom Concert, Washington, D.C. 6/14/98) VHS

No prob. I guess just up to 97? I will try and zip them up tonight but no guuarantees. Ill post the link here so anyone else who wants them can grab them.

Edit, not sure how this posted twice.

No prob. I guess just up to 97? I will try and zip them up tonight but no guuarantees. Ill post the link here so anyone else who wants them can grab them.

I have 1998-2010 from the fan club I wish they would release a cd with all a and b sides from the fan club as an album!

Doubt that will happen. I see them keeping them scarce and real collectors items to search out and I guess I prefer it that way. If you wantt them all, let me know and ill zip em up and give them to you.

Love their silver bells. I have never been a fan club joiner sort of guy but have been in since '90. I missed the first 2 years because i didn't realize you got cool stuff. When i met Peter and mike in the meeting i described above, i asked Peter if there was any chance in getting the first 2. He said to call the office and tell them i talked to him and he said to hook me up. When i called, They said they only had archive copies of the first but would send me the second. Thats how cool those guys were. Eventually did get he first 6 years and a lot of record shows later, that one was a toughy. I wonder how many people have them all. Cant be more than 3000 since that's how many of the first one they made.

I forgot about that one. Is that the song Michael plays drums on?

Peter. The story was that the beat was so goofy that bill couldn't play it but i never bought that, I'm sure he could play it if he needed to but it was a cooler story to let Peter play it. I believe the working title to the song was So Awake, Volunteer as some of the lyrics were included in a fan club package from the era with that title.

I like the songs You Are Everything, World Leader Pretend, The Wrong Child, Hairshirt, and I Remember California.

Made up most of what would have been the real "air" side. Originally, one side was going to be more acoustic, air, and the other heavier, metal, but they kind of mixed it up at the end.

Don't like the eleventh untitled song? One of my faves. Was listening to the green demos the other day, some really cool unreleased stuff on there including a song called Title that was dropped because it was considered too rem sounding.

 

R.E.M.'s ventures into major-label-land just bored me to death. It all sounded too big, too slow, too calculated, too disinterested, from a band that had once packed so much raw tension into each three-minute burst, even the supposedly "slow" or "quiet" ones. It seemed like Peter Buck had lost interest in his early rapid-fire guitar technique, and Stipe's lyrics were becoming trite and bland.

 

decades.

This feeling is what i was refering to in a post before on how some old school fans left the band. I totally respect anyones opinion to like what they like but i vehemently disagree that they were being calculated or disinterested. I was fortunate to be working in radio in 1991 and was the person who met Peter and mike in the lobby and rode the elevator with them to take them up to our station. They seemed genuinely happy that i told them i loved the record. I don't remember all that was said but in my conversations with them that day and all the interviews of the time, they clearly thought they were going out on a limb with OOT and that they might have lost their audience. To make a baroque pop record with a lead single featuring a mandolin does not sound calculating to me. They have always lived by that risky muse and sometimes it backfired, e-bow anyone?

As for peters guitar technique, he was clearly trying to get away from that sound, not because of being disinterested but because he wanted to try new things and not keep repeating himself. If you ask me, rem have ale ays tried to stretch their sound and that is what led to the disintegration of their audience. When the songs became a little more straightforwardly poppy, the IRS fans split. When they got all glam, the acoustic era fans split. They could have kept the same sound, more or less and been U2 but they chose a different path.

As for stipes lyrics, they evolved as he did. Your head is not in the same space at 30 than it was at 20 or at 40 or 50. Again, that to me doesn't signal any of the negatives like being complacent or calculating.

And Green is an amazing pop record, crap it's not.

Tonight I've had a Beach Boys night and listened to Surfs Up, Holland, Smile and Pet Sounds. Paradise.

That's a nice line up.

The run from "Chronic Town" in 1982 through "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" in 1996 is peerless. Even if Bill Berry hadn't quit there's a good possibility that what came after wouldn't be considered as favourably.

 

I was listening to "Up" again this week. What a great record and unlike anything else R.E.M. did.

I love up, that one alone is exhibit A on why they shouldn't have broken up.

I am really enjoying the flood that's coming out now. That cassette set is fantastic, i wish i had a turntable to rip my hibtone single to compare, and those murmur rough mixes are great too, especially that Hague catapult. Had always wanted to hear it and it really is interesting how new wavy he made them sound. I wish the automatic demos would surface. Im sure it sounds like any other rem song that never made the cut but I'd love to hear Devil Rides Backwards On Horse Named Maybe for the title alone.

Watching that trailer, it really just is an amazing catalog. I just got done my own run through of every record in order. I totally understand how one drifts away over time for whatever reason, but there really is something for everyone through every era. There's been a lot of ranking of albums going on over at murmurs which got me to thinking, it think aftp is probably their best but i don't think it's by a lot and my mind changes often. I think they have 10 great records, the first 6, aftp, up, accelerate and cin, at which any time any of them can/has been my favorite, 4 really good ones, oot, monster hifi and reveal, and one mediocre/ bad one, ats.

It has driven me nuts, all this talk how they should have broken up after bill left when IMO, they made 3 great records. I thinkn those final 5, in hindsight are going to be viewed much more kindly.

 

When I first heard the song, I thought of a few BB songs. I posted that in one of those threads about the new album.

 

I think I have read more about Parks than I have actually heard him.

Yeah, cap city is dripping with different influences. It think vdp is an acquired taste. I don't have a lot of his stuff and don't listen often but I like it when I hear it.

 

Speaking of VDP. I saw him mentioned in the music credits for this $3 DVD I bought of Goin' South - a Jack Nicholson directing/starring comedy western (the film he did right before The Shining).

 

Does anyone have an opinion on VDP's solo albums? I have long wondered about Song Cycle.

I like song cycle. Capital city is kinda reminiscent of it. If you don't like cap city, stay away.

I also love marcella. The Carl and the Passions/holland 2fer is really good. There are a couple Dennis songs that were tabbed for a supposed solo record, cuddle up and make it good that I think are fantastic.

Song writing credits usually just mean the lyrics.

No, it's music and lyrics.

I remember reading somewhere that Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe songwriting credit cost Michael Stipe somewhere in the neighborhood of $45,000,000, after accounting for songs the other guys actually wrote.

$45 million sounds a little high but to be fair, he has been quoted many times that he would've been nothing without the other 3. Now while that may be a little bit of false modesty, thats one of the things I always loved about rem, their total awareness of what did in other bands and that one of the main things was song writing credit and deciding to split it 4 ways then 3. And at the end of the day, that was the fair way to do it.

While, as has been stated above, the song is the chord structure and the melody and the rest is arranging, in a case like wilco, it has surprised me that Jeff wasn't a little more liberal with splitting the song writing credit. I always thought it was interesting that BT was an all songs by JT. While I guess by the letter of ascap/bmi they were, it has always been clear to me that Jay took those songs to places they wouldn't have gone otherwise. I remember when ST came out, being impressed that it was credited all songs written produced performed by wilco and surprised that didn't last.

I think its kinda nuts to put different versions of such an important song out but whatever, its not like you cant get it. To that end, anyone who would like to do a nice rip of the vinyl and send me a pm, id be grateful. I even show you my best buy proof of purchaseof the cd if you like.

If it's so easy to find last minute face tix, then why is stub hub a problem? Some people don't want to leave it until the last minute and want to lock up seats. I guess I'll never understand why, in society based on buying low and selling high, that concert tickers are the exception. Now if you want to talk about ticket agencies funneling seats to brokers, that's a different story and that should be stopped, but this whole concept that permeates that only "true fans" whatever that means, should have first crack at tickets is absurd to me.