Dangerous Times (side two)

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.

Grab it here

That's all for now.

Dangerous Times (side one)

This is something I planned and wrote last year but held back for an appropriate time. As it's Easter - a time associated with rebirth and new beginnings - it's as good a time as any. I suppose you could consider this post a sort of prequel to this one in which we looked at a totally hypothetical pre-'Murmur' debut album. This time though, we're going back even further...

During R.E.M.'s very earliest months in 1980, they wrote a whole host of songs. Most of them were never recorded, and many were long-forgotten by the time they recorded the 'Chronic Town' EP in 1981/2. It was the recording of that record that was my reference point for my pre-'Murmur' project, using songs that were a solid part of the band's live set around that time. However, it did mean a heap of earlier songs didn't get a look in - and that's where I'm coming from with this post.

I've decided to pull together all (or, at least, most) of the earliest self-penned songs R.E.M. performed in their first six months together. One or two of them became rather well known among those who bought their records. The others - well unless you're an uber-fan who seeks out obscure bootlegs from the band's embryonic phase, you won't have heard them before.

I've taken two of the earliest-known recordings of R.E.M. (maybe even THE earliest-known recordings) to provide an almost definitive guide to the band's very first songs. It's in two parts. Today, what is believed to be the earliest recording of the band. In July 1980, the band entered Jackson Street Rehearsal Studios in Athens to practice material for upcoming shows in Atlanta and North Carolina. A tape recorder was present. Eight songs were captured and later surfaced as the very first R.E.M. bootleg, a cassette called 'Slurred'. It's often noted that this recording was made at Wuxtry's, the record shop where Peter Buck worked, on 6th June, but while they did play there on that date, no recordings (if any exist) have ever made it into circulation. It's now widely accepted that this is the Jackson Street rehearsal.

Seven of these songs were performed at that first gig, with Just A Touch making its debut at their second show a fortnight later at the Kaffee Klub, the same day they decided to call themselves R.E.M. (after, fortunately, discarding other suggestions like Negro Eyes, Slut Bank, Africans In Bondage and Cans Of Piss!)

As you might expect, the sound quality isn't exactly top-notch, but I've had a little go at improving things. The opening track Dangerous Times is one of my favourites from the era but is incomplete on the tape - the first line is missing - so I've tried to "fix" it. The opening line is "These are dangerous times", which also happens to be the third line, so a little copy & paste puts that right. The opening snare hit has been added from an early live show at Tyrone's (which we'll get to in a day or two...), so it now sounds whole again, though be warned it is rather rough!. Otherwise, everything is as it appears on that tape, just with less hiss and a tad more oomph.

So here's "Side One" of 'Dangerous Times: the genesis of R.E.M.' presented as a single continuous MP3 as if ripped straight from vinyl. The artwork includes shots of Michael Stipe and Bill Berry at the debut St. Mary's show. Side two will follow on Easter Sunday...

Grab it here

Sally & Tommy & Tommy & Anna

Despite being a non-smoking, non-drinking, good-eating, mask-wearing, triple-vaxxed, generally fit and healthy dude, I somehow succumbed to 'The Vid' last week and have been isolating ever since. Yes, isolation is no longer mandatory; yes, the great British public thinks Covid is all over; but if I've managed to pick it up from somewhere (and lord only knows where), I'm not going to be responsible for spreading it like your average cretin. I work for the NHS, for gawd's sake.

Thankfully, I've not been terribly ill, a couple rough days but the rest just like a normal mild cold, albeit one that won't shift. For some reason, I've tested positive for 9 days straight, but that can happen apparently, even if I'm not infectious any more. By the time you read this, I should be out of isolation. Thank god - it's been quite boring being stuck in one room. MrsRobster probably wishes the garden shed wasn't so full of stuff as it would have been far better for her if I could have spent my isolation period out there!

Even though I've been working from home throughout the period, I've managed to find time to catch up on some stuff on Netflix. I also came across an old gem I've seen many times before but couldn't resist watching it again when I felt quite low at the seemingly never-ending run of positive LFTs I kept getting.

I can't remember how old I was when I first saw Tommy, but I was probably in my late teens. I loved it instantly. It's so audaciously over-the-top, exactly as a rock opera should be. Ken Russell was the perfect person for it, even though he hated rock music. I won't waffle on about it much as I'm sure all my readers know the story, but ever since I watched it again the other night, the songs have been floating in and out of my head like crazy.

This one was, apparently, the first seed of the story. While The Who were supporting The Doors on tour, Pete Townshend witnessed a girl in the crowd get injured when someone threw a chair. Jim Morrison apparently cleaned her wounds himself! So the story of Sally Simpson became the first song of what would ultimately become the greatest rock opera of all time.

It's a bit longer than the original album version from 1969, and some of the words were changed for the benefit of the movie (e.g. the Rolls Royce is blue in the original, black in the movie).

So many great stories have been told around the making of Tommy - hardly surprising when you consider the cast - and while some may well have been embellished, exaggerated or completely made up, they only add to the greatness of the thing.

And while we're on the subject of Tommy and greatness...

The final series of Peaky Blinders has just aired, very possibly one of the the top 5 TV shows the BBC has ever produced. I'm not going to give any spoilers or anything, but want to mention that, as in season 5, the wonderful Anna Calvi was largely responsible for the musical score and some of the songs that featured. If you've ever seen the show, you'll know it has an incredible soundtrack, and latter seasons have featured specially recorded songs as artists have flocked to be a part of it.

Calvi is about to release a 4-track EP of songs she recorded for season 6, entitled, rather appropriately, 'Tommy'. As well as her cover of the theme tune - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Red Right Hand - she also offers a take on Bob Dylan's All The Tired Horses, plus two new songs, including this. Inspired by a traditional American spiritual recorded by numerous artists, including the late, great Johnny Cash, Ain't No Grave sums up both Calvi's unerring knack of composing dark, atmospheric mini-masterpieces, and the ominous moods of Tommy Shelby's life.

Brilliant stuff.

For the record, the blog is not making a proper comeback, but I do have a special Easter treat for you next weekend, especially if you're a fan of early R.E.M. Stay tuned...