Today we look at the other half of the songs R.E.M. would pen and perform in their first few months together. Those very early gigs often contained quite a few covers, but gradually more original material was written and made it into the live sets. By the end of the year, most of the band's set consisted of originals.
On 4th October, they played a second consecutive night at local venue Tyrone's OC, a place where they would become increasingly familiar over the next 12 months. Among the set that night were songs that were played during their very first set at St. Mary's Church in April, a few newer tunes and a sprinkling of covers. Observers of the band's earliest shows note the vast improvement of the performances over a very short period. By October, just six months since their debut, they were altogether tighter and slicker. They remained fast and furious - they didn't do slow songs in those days - and occasionally a little ramshackle, but the seeds were beginning to sprout.
Today's selection of tunes is taken from that Tyrone's show and features 8 more of their very earliest songs, including four they played at their first show - I Can Only Give You Everything, Action, Schéhérazade and Lisa Says. The other four include two songs that would become among their most loved numbers over the next few years.
The quality of this recording is significantly better than the cassette-sourced stuff I posted on Friday, so I haven't had to tinker much with it at all. I've attempted to remove the audience sound (with mixed results), and I've cropped the beginning of Schéhérazade during which Stipe is heard shouting greetings to audience members. There's still one left in - to someone called Kathleen - which I was unable to edit out. Finally, the original tape drops out at the end of Gardening At Night and I have no other material available to attempt a reconstruction, so I've faded it out.
That aside, it's still a fascinating document of where R.E.M. were at the time. There were very vague shades of what was to come, but in general, they were an extremely energetic garage rock band yet to hone the skills that would make them the biggest band on the planet by the end of the decade. Today's artwork features two more shots taken at R.E.M.'s very first show - Peter Buck on the front and Mike Mills on the back.
Whoa. You do spoil us. Happy (Mitch) Easter. Looking forward to these two recordings, Robster. Hope you’re feeling well now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this Robster, these are much more than just historical documents or footnotes
ReplyDeleteHi Greg. I've just looked this up. I've never come across this bootleg before but found it to stream here: https://archive.org/details/REM_1980-05-30
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of pieces mis-information on the site. Schéhérazade is an original, obviously not a cover by the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov! Dangerous Times is not a cover by Cher, but another early original. A Girl Like You is also an orignal, not a cover.
There are also three originals I'm not familiar with at all. She Said (also labelled on the site as Chappaquiddick), Mediocrity and I've Got A Charm. I'll have to dig a little deeper to see what I can find out about these.
Thanks for the tip though - it's certainly the earliest recording I'm aware of, had no idea it existed.
You, sir.....are a genius. Incredible knowledge and a (very) belated thanks for such an effort.
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