R.E.M. in Dublin
by J. Daniel Janzen
R.E.M. is back in the studio. For the band's loyal (okay, long-suffering) fans, who have spent the decade since drummer Bill Berry's departure glass-half-fulling a series of not-bad albums that weren't quite what we were hoping for, the news is greeted with as much trepidation as enthusiasm. We understand that a band can't jump in the same river twice, and that neither Automatic for the People nor Fables of the Reconstruction will be forthcoming. But we've been so patient with the somber musings of the recent past ... couldn't they please rock out just a little for old time's sake?
Promising news came this spring (this far out, is there any other kind?) with the selection of Jackknife Lee (Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, The Hives, U2) to produce. Not to say that R.E.M. has been ill-served by any of their many producers, but fresh energy and a youthful perspective are particularly welcome at this point in the band's career.
More good news followed. Having spent a few weeks recording in Vancouver, R.E.M. announced a five-night "working rehearsal" at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, close to the Westmeath, Ireland studio where the next sessions would take place. Instead of polishing their new material at their Athens, GA headquarters, they'd do it onstage. It made sense; even in their most difficult periods, the band has never failed to deliver the goods live, and the newer material always sounded better, too — tighter arrangements, faster, more vital. The early canon that made their name — "Pretty Persuasion," "Feeling Gravitys Pull," "Sitting Still" — was worked out live long before it was recorded. For that matter, their last truly great album (and the last with Berry), New Adventures in Hi-Fi, was largely recorded on the fateful Monster tour (during which the drummer's head exploded mid-show in Lausanne, Switzerland).
Needless to say, tickets for the 1,300-seat Olympia were hard to come by, especially once the friends, family members and business associates had been taken care of. But thanks to a generous attitude on the band's part toward photography and audio and video recording, not to mention postcards from the band, published reports, blogs and lively threads on fan sites, luckless fans in America and elsewhere gained a close-up perspective on the work in progress, and the tea leaves continue to read favorably.
In a departure from the highly produced sound of the past three albums, guitarist Peter Buck has described the instrumentation for the new one as two guitars, bass and drums. Sure enough, while longtime sideman Scott McCaughey brought his six-string to Dublin, keyboardist Ken Stringfellow, a fixture since the turn of the century, is nowhere in sight. Bill Rieflin, formerly of the pioneering industrial metal band Ministry, continues as the latest in a Spinal Tap-worthy succession of post-Berry drummers; having filled the seat since 2004's Around the Sun, he now has something slightly less rented-mule about him than his predecessors.
"We're R.E.M. and this is what we do (when you're not looking)," says frontman Michael Stipe, amending his customary greeting for the occasion. He apologizes for his informality in wearing "trainers," a.k.a. sneakers, not to mention his glasses, and a sign behind the stage announces that "This Is Not a Show." Stipe emphasizes that, while they care very much about the audience's reaction, they're more focused on their own: what seems to be working, how the songs hold up and how they can be improved. Lyrics and arrangements change from one night to the next, and in one case a song's ending is rewritten and replayed midstream.
Eleven new songs are played each night, interspersed with a similar number of "olive branches" to reward the audience for enduring the work in progress. Regardless of the preferences of one concertgoer whose cries of "Man on the Moon!" punctuate the July 4 event, the band eschews the usual workhorses in favor of one chestnut after another: most of their debut EP Chronic Town and many others from the IRS years, a handful from the first few Warner Brothers albums, and only two from the post-Bill period. Part of the fun is Stipe's commentary on the old songs (who knew "Harborcoat" was about Lillian Hellman, or that the song makes him think of her giving Dashiell Hammett a blow job on a train with a mouthful of cigarette smoke? Certainly not the young family members he belatedly remembers are present.) More importantly, the formative-years material in the set can't help but influence the newer stuff.
And what really matters are the new songs. Yes: they rock.
The best comparisons would be to Lifes Rich Pageant, Monster and "Bad Day." At the same time, it sounds a little like the album that might have followed New Adventures, if only Bill ... though actually, for the first time in a decade, Berry's absence isn't implicit throughout. The thundering drums, blistering guitar and driving rhythm of songs like "Man Sized Wreath," "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" and "Accelerate" are just what we've been craving. "Disguised," a fat, crunchy piece of power pop, hits the target that Monster so often just missed. "Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance" has more hooks than Kareem Abdul Jabaar. "Horse to Water," arguably the hardest of the new songs, could hold its own with "Turn You Inside Out" any day.
There are also slow songs, of course, but they're not the blissed out ballads or quirky dirges of the recent past. Nor are they sweet, hopeful numbers like "Nightswimming" or "Electrolite." "Until the Day Is Done" has more of a desperadoes in the desert feel, with Mike Mills' melodic bassline carrying Buck's acoustic guitar into the sunset as Stipe urges perseverance against the forces of Bush-Cheneyism. "Mr. Richards," another political number said to refer to an unnamed or composite member of the Bush administration, rolls along on Rieflin's ride cymbal eighth notes and Buck's trusty Rickenbacker. "Houston" is a country cousin of "Try Not to Breathe" with a catchier chorus. "On the Fly," a slow strummer, has won an enthusiastic reception; Stipe calls it one of the five best songs he's ever written.
The unreleased "I'm Gonna DJ" was the band's customary closer on the last tour, and this stand is no different; it's "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" for the new millennium (and the new R.E.M.).
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With so many new songs arriving at once, it's tempting to think of them as a new album, but we're not there yet. Not all of these songs will make the cut; hopefully those that don't will surface as B-sides. Some fans have cautioned that there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, and there's no telling what's going to emerge later this year. After all, the high hopes inspired by "Bad Day" and "Animal" were followed by the thoroughly non-rocking Around the Sun. But opportunities in this life for optimism can be rare; you've got to seize them while you can.
Will the eventual new release give Next Big Things like The Snow Monkey Fire a run for their money? Probably not. Will it make anyone forget about R.E.M.'s legendary back catalog? Not bloody likely. But maybe, just maybe, we'll discover that the band is at last fully recovered from Bill's departure, and back to what they do best, sneakers or no.
Recording continues in Westmeath.
E-mail J. Daniel Janzen at dan at clownyard dot com.
— artwork by Leigh Hyland with photography by Jane Macneil
