Awesome

Courtesy of Mr. John Porcellino, author of King-Cat Comics and Stories.

When you greet a stranger look at his shoes

Man, it’s a been a while, and I’m sorry, and I miss the things I used to do. By way of explanation/apology/fishing for sympathy, I’ve been doing my ‘normal’ job every day from like 8-830 till about 5-530, then heading to the book shop til 8 or so, then back home for work then beddy bye. Crazy crazy.

That being said, my plan this evening is to drink enough keg beer to get the appropriate buzz on to be able to review and discuss R.E.M.’s next album, Fables of the Reconstruction (or, as you may know, ‘Reconstruction of the Fables’).

I officially first bought this cassette off a friend of mine in 1985 or 1986, because she that it was ‘too fucking slow’. I have to confess I didn’t listen to it until AFTER I fell in love with Reckoning, their album prior to this one.

As with Reckoning it will be impossible to be objective about this record. The summer of 1990, when my girlfriend’s mom died from cancer and I was at math camp, I listened pretty non stop to this, a Robyn Hitchcock tape (queen elvis) and a mix my gf had made for me that had a bunch of tunes from the Lou Reed/John Cale ‘Songs for Drella’ album. I’ve listened to this album, I would guess, over a thousand times.

Let me just say, it’s great. But listen, I have reasons.

This is the first album where REM seemed to be growing, and also, seemed a little sad. Gone (for now) were the hit-you-over-the-head early twenties sad songs like ‘Perfect Circle’. In their place came songs almost wholly about being stuck in one place while simultaneously rushing towards some impending doom. Or good fortune. It’s hard to tell. It’s certainly their darkest, and least pop album. But in that darkness is a sort of hope for the future.

Let’s consider the top songs of 1985, as compiled by Billboard.

1. Careless Whisper - Wham
2. Say You Say Me - Lionel Richie
3. Seperate Lives - Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin
4. I Want to Know What Love Is - Foreigner
5. Money for Nothing - Dire Straits
6. We Are the World - USA for Africa
7. Broken Wings - Mr. Mister
8. Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears
9. The Power of Love - Huey Lewis
10. We Built this City - Starship

Compare that to ‘Feeling Gravity’s Pull’, ‘Life and How to Live it’, ‘Kohoutek’, ‘Can’t Get there from Here’.

Feeling Gravity’s Pull, a song that always seemed out of place to me, makes perfect sense now. A song about, literally, the weight of life, is a brilliant way to kick off the record. I could do without the violins, but how sweet a line is, ‘This is the easiest task I’ve ever had to do’? And a beautiful transition into Maps and Legends, a beautiful song about being lost.

I’m sure rock critics way smarter than me have made the observation that Stipe appears to be talking about himself in the third person when he sings, “ Called the fool and the company, on his own where he’d rather be. Where he ought to be, he sees what you can’t see, can’t you see that?”

But it makes sense - REM had achieved a small level of fame by this point, and weren’t sure really, what the fuck to do with it. They weren’t yet capital P political, and they didn’t sound like other college rock. They were excited and scared, so they wrote about THAT.

The same is true of Driver 8. ‘He piloted this song in a plane like that one’.

From there we move away from introspection, and into singing about the freaks they felt they might be, or might become. Life and How to Live it, is notoriously about a guy who lived his life with a line drawn down the middle of his house. Sometimes he’d live on this side, sometimes on that. When he died, they discovered a closet full of a book the man had written called, ‘Life and How to Live It’.

Old Man Kensey, similarly is a fucked up old guy. He wants to be a sign painter, but is illiterate.  Kensey is full of desires and wants, but he can’t quite achieve them because he’s just not good enough yet. Maybe like a band in transition….?

Can’t Get there from Here is their ‘happy bouncy song’ for this album, but is based on a traditional southern expression. When you ask someone for directions in, say, rural Georgia, you might be met with, ‘Boy, you can’t get there from here’ as your response.

Green Grow the Rushes is a little trickier. It’s got one of my favorite little Peter Buck riffs of all time, and such a sweet melody from msrs. stipe and mills. At it’s face value, it’s a song about an old farmer. Or, it might be about slavery. I’m not sure. I mean, they ARE southern.

Kohoutek is the most painfully obvious song on the album, lyrically. It’s a classic broken heart song, but instead of disguising himself as an old man, an engineer, an auctioneer, a sign painter, or a crazy writer, Stipe merely calls himself ‘Michael’ as he sings of hollering along and tearing down bridges. A quiet beauty this one.

Auctioneer is the angry flip side of the Kohoutek coin. He even sings about hollering. But again, it’s a song about leaving - no about FLEEING. And he’s pissed watching the girl escape town. Not my favorite song musically, but a far more bitter precursor to ‘the one I love’.

Good Advices. Mmmmm……My buddy Adam and I used to listen to this song over and over again. It’s a song of sweetness, and offers silly advice about traveling and meeting people. But that line, ‘Who are you going to call for?’ STILL hits me in the gut every fucking time. Keep your hat on your head indeed.

Taken in the REM context though, this is there version of that one Journey song about ‘life on the road’. “A familiar face a foreign place I forget your name. I’d like it here if I could leave and see you from a long way away……home is a long way away.”

And the album end up with Wendell Gee, a drinking song, if you will. It’s the closest legitimate country song REM has ever done. It’s a song about an old man (as I see it) stuck trying to fix his trees. Sigh.

There are some amazing things about the music on this album too. For the first time they’re adding stranger instruments - horns, violins, a banjo - and they work for the most part, or at least they add more than they detract.

Secondly, Mike Mills’ harmonies and backing vocals coat this album with a fine layer of honey, though every time I listen to this record, I’m convinced the EQ is off on my stereo because the whole fucking thing sounds muddled in honey.

I guess if Chronic Town and Murmer were them trying to become a band, and Reckoning was them nailing it, then Fables is them coming to terms with being a BAND. It wasn’t just a hobby anymore. They recorded it in England for months, rather than in North Caroline for a couple of days. They were selling out the Hammersmith Ballroom, a place the fucking CLASH sang about. And they weren’t sure what all it meant, which is good.

Lately, I’ve heard a number of critiques of the way music is disseminated in society. Thanks to the interweb and MySpace, a band can get ‘famous’ 8 minutes after they record a demo by simply uploading it. The critique of course is that bands don’t have time to grow, or in the words of Jim Deregottis, ‘to suck’. I’m not saying REM every sucked, but they at least had time to be interesting, which is something you can’t say of Wolf Parade or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. To listen to a band evolve in an interesting way is an amazing thing.

Admittedly, it was these evolutions that, later, made fans grouse about the ‘old days’, but I had a dream last night - a crazy vivid dream that I went to see R.E.M. at the Continental Club in Austin Texas, a place I went to a few times back in the 90’s. There were maybe a hundred people there, and I got to stand right next to the stage, and when Stipe would come over to sing, he’d smile at me. During song breaks we’d chat a little, and he agreed to give me a setlist when they were done. At one point, we hugged.

Normally, I either dream about buying a newspaper and eating breakfast, or about people I know. So what does it say that this band has entered my subconscious in such a way? Well, it means you should listen to Fables. It’s a lovely album to listen to, and it’s a little challenging. If you are, or ever have been, a person in your late 20’s and not sure what you were doing (or were going to do) with your life, then this could be a great fucking album for you.

For a special friend

You know who you are. Hope this cheers you up.

“]

Here we go, yo.

L’il Hep?

Before I launch into a review of ‘Fables of the Reconstruction’ R.E.M.’s next (and I’m going to argue, 2nd best) record, I have a favor to ask of y’all.

As some of you may know, my friend and old roommate Luke and I are opening up a used bookstore, and it look like we’re set to go around June 1.

For the folks I work with, no I’m not leaving staff right now - I’m going to work at the store on the weekends, and Luke’s taking weekday responsibilities - but we need some help with the NAME of the place. There may be a poll coming up some time soon, but in the interim I’d thought I’d share a couple of contenders to see what y’all think, and if you have any ideas of your own.

Current ideas include :

Ampersand Books
Kilgore’s Books
Bananafish Books (Luke’s not as a big a fan….)
Dan and Luke’s Used Book and Comic Emporium Bursting with Goodness
Booksplosion (Will’s idea)
Bookgasm (Will’s other idea)
Bookotronic 5000 (why are we listening to Will?)

Anyway, let’s here it folks! And, if you come up with the winning name, you’ll get um, big thanks!

A handshake is worthy, it’s all that you got.

R.E.M.’s Reckoning.

I’ve been trying. I really have. But there is no fathomable way I can review this album objectively. I say before God and the blogosphere - though I don’t particularly believe in either - that this is my favorite album of all time.

From the opening guitar riff of ‘Harborcoat’ to the closing, ‘Jefferson, I think we’re lost’, of Little America, this is a note for note perfect record. I’ve loved this album since I discovered it as the flip side to the ‘Cream - Disraeli Gears’ tape my brother left for me.

Starting with Haarborcoat, a song ostensibly about the holocaust (R-E-A-C-T), going perfectly into 7 Chinese Brothers, a song where every instrument is in exactly the right place at the right time. Peter Buck hits every note the way it’s meant to be. Stipe’s voice is smooth and seductive, and you want to hug him. Mills drives along with simple melodic bass lines, and keeping it all together is Bill Berry, who has learned to drum within his abilities, and masters it.

Since I can’t give an honest assessment of the album, I’ll describe what each song means to me.

Harborcoat - My favorite song. Not just by REM, but ever. When my mom told me my parents were getting divorced, I put this song on. When my brothers went to war, I put this song on. As Stipe would later say, ‘A must.’

7 Chinese Brothers - This song is all Adam Kuklinski. That fucked up almost saint of my late childhood and early adulthood. Sitting in my house pouring over the Howard Finster cover, trying to decipher its meanings, and failing.

So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry) - This is riding the bus to school everyday, and thinking of my girlfriend Julie. Rivers of suggestion. There’s a girl without a dream. I’m not sure what I was sorry for, but I sang along anyway.

Pretty Persuasion - This is another Adam song. He liked it, I didn’t, but because of him it grew on me. Also, Stipe says ‘god damn your confusion’. True true.

Time After Time (Annelise) - This is a song where I got to be sad about things, and not certain why. Now I know why, and I was right back then. Still a beautiful song.

Second Guessing - Some joy after all the deep shit. Just a good rocking song where everything works, and fits right.

Letter Never Sent - Another Julie song. I wrote dozens of letters I never sent. I once feel by her bedside and didn’t know how to tell her.

Camera - When I listened to this tape the first time, over and over again, I was reading ‘Replay’ by Ken Grimwood. He went to Bard College, where I later went. He died from AIDS, which I do not have. But this song always makes me think of him. Alone in a crowd.

(Don’t Go Back To)Rockville - Sung by Adam, Julie, and I as Don’t Go Back to Earlville for obvious reasons. Later, the three of us would crash Adam’s dad car while this song was playing loud on the tape deck. Our biology teacher showed up at the accident, and none of us knew what to say. At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don’t care that you’re not hear with me.

Little America - Probably the greatest ‘throwaway’ song of all time.

Nostalgia aside, everything in this albums fits. The melodies are right, the lyrics, what you can decipher of them, are perfect. Every song is in exactly the right place on the album. The artwork is brilliant, the linear notes suburb, and the film ‘Left of Rockville’ (the album sides are ‘right’ and ‘left’) is a wonderful experience watching four young men playing in Rev. Finster’s yard.

If you don’t have this album, fucking get it. If you have it and love it like I do, put it on, and have a cocktail. Listen to it start to finish. When you’re done, get another cocktail. Repeat.

I’ll teach my eyes to see

This has always been one of my favorite Springsteen songs, but christ, can you imagine if you were married to Bruce when he wrote this? That’d be a real self-esteem killer, huh? Happy Wednesday.

]

Could it be that one small voice doesn’t count?

Murmur. Great album title. Overall, though, this has never been my favorite REM album. I tried to ignore that as I listened to it over the last week or so. But, I think I stand by my assessment that this is an unever album where they try just a little too hard.

The first two songs - the sluggish slowed down version of Radio Free Europe and Pilgrimage get the album off to a rather dense start, and I could do with out them. Right when you’re ready to turn it off though, that bass line for laughing comes in, and they seem to redeem themselves. It’s a lighter song with a solid hook, and a great chorus. Then comes ‘Talk About the Passion’. It’s a great song, there’s no doubt, but one issue I’ve got is they way R.E.M. is so oblique, yet hits you over the head. Have you seen the video for this song? Sheesh, we get it. Not EVERYONE can carry the weight of the world - the subtext of course meaning that perhaps this band can.

The next half of the album, Moral Kiosk, Perfect Circle (heavy handed, but lovely) Catapult, and Sitting Still all hit their mark perfectly, and deliver on the hints of greatness from Chronic Town. There’s also less dicking around with weird intros and overdone reverb, which I appreciate.

9-9 is a funny one - sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. I think this is in the ‘trying to hard’ category. The speak song behind the guitar opening guitar riff (so artsy!) the crunchy guitar (so punk!). I don’t know, I just usually don’t care for it.

Now, I consider Shaking Through and We Walk to be crowning achievements on this album. Shaking through is light and poppy, but has a deeper meaning to the lyrics and a great piano riff that gets me every time. Stipe, as most of you know, had a penchant for slurring his words together on early albums. so the question was always, ‘what is he SAYING?’ and there are millions of versions of lyrics out there. The thing about Shaking Through is you actually care - you want to know what the lyrics are, vs. 9-9, where I could really give a shit. Conversatoin fear? Ok, fine.

We Walk, in addition to being one of the best canvassing songs ever (thanks Bobby - as an aside, whenever I’m canvassing I get ‘Reason to Believe’ stuck in my head, but that’s a different entry) is just such a fun bouncy song WITH THUNDERCLAPS! Kudos gentlemen.

West of the Fields always felt terribly tacked on to me - like they needed to make the album three minutes longer.

So, bottom line, I think Murmur should’ve been another EP. Laughing, Talk about the Passion, Moral Kiosk, Perfect Circle, Catapult, Sitting Still, Shaking Through, and We Walk. A long EP, but significantly better, I think, without Radio Free Europe, Pilgrimage and WOTF.

Overall Grade - B/B-

I would say, if you’re an REM fan you know this record. You’re all good. If you don’t know REM’s older stuff that well, don’t start with this one. The good songs are great, but the mediocre songs detract from the album for me. Next week : Reckoning, which to be fair, has been my favorite REM album since 1986.

I know you don’t love that guy, cuz I can see right through you.

You don’t really love that guy you make it with now do you?

The title is a throwback, in honor of the REM project. God love you Godzilla.

In 1992, when I was 17, my father came back to live with me for the first time in four years. We were strangers, and not even on the same road. For his birthday that year, December 1, I took him to see Tobias Wolff speak. I was trying to win my father’s love by turning him onto the things I was interested in, which were all books - Tobias Wolff being a champ umong them. That night, Tobias read a story called ‘Snowstorm’, about being stuck in a storm with his father, who’s love he was trying to win. I don’t think my father was convinced, though he said he enjoyed himself. It’s sixteen years later, and I’m still working on winning dad’s love. Tobias Wolff is doing a reading tomorrow night in Denver, and it’s really important to me that I go. Enjoy the 85th Dirtbag comic.  God lord willing, and the crick don’t rise, 86will be out later this evening.