R.E.M.: A Twenty Minute Film And A Fifty Minute Live Mix

When they started out playing parties for their friends in abandoned churches and then rapidly became a proper band R.E.M. defined themselves as much by what they said 'No' to as by what they were for. One big 'No' was videos. Their label I.R.S. would have been happy with something that could have been shown on MTV, which was rapidly becoming the way Americans consumed their new music, but the band weren't comfortable with it and Michael Stipe refused to mime. Their early 80s music was drenched in mystery and for Stipe, a visual artist who was naturally drawn to the avant garde, making a brash, lip syncing promo just wasn't something he was prepared to do. They didn't really play the MTV video game until The One I Love in 1987. 

In 1983 when R.E.M. released their second album Reckoning Stipe secured some funding to make a film to coincide with Reckoning. An Athens, Georgia filmmaker James Herbert was brought in to direct and Stipe's vision was that the band would be filmed at the farm that belonged to a local folk artist R.A. Miller, Whirligig Farm.

Between them, Herbert and R.E.M. they ended up with a twenty minute film. Herbert was used to making twenty minute films and was reluctant to edit his footage down to four minutes for just one of Reckoning's songs. The band decided that the film could accompany all of one side of the album (side one,labelled on the disc as the Left Side. Side two was the Right Side- hence the film became Left Of Reckoning). As well as some snippets of studio audio verite and Little America to start and finish it, the film provides visuals to Harborcoat, 7 Chinese Brothers, So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry), Pretty Persuasion and Time After Time (Annelise).

Herbert used slo mo, close ups, time lapse, silhouettes and a process called rephotogrpahy which used the same image twice with a slight time lag, cutting in and pulling out. It's an impressionistic but watchable film, very of its time and place, a time capsule of a period when for many artists pop videos and MTV were an enemy. MTV didn't show Left Of Reckoning- they weren't really into twenty minute art films of long haired indie rockers wandering round a hillside with some windmills and whirligigs. 

I used to own Left Of Reckoning on an R.E.M. VHS compilation called Succumbs and there was a time when I would often put Left Of Reckoning on and sit and watch it, the visuals and music giving a glimpse into a world that I'd never visited and only knew through books and films- and this was a version of the south that was different from the one those books and films portrayed. A post punk Southern Gothic with jangly guitars, indecipherable but emotionally connecting lyrics, denim jackets and long hair. 

Between releasing Chronic Town in August 1982 and Document in September 1987 (their last for I.R.S. before heading off to major label Warner Bros) R.E.M. put out four albums, each one a little bigger than the one before, each one adding something to their sound and style and their songwriting. They also  played thousands of gigs, starting out at tiny venues in Athens and ending up in 1987 on the verge of big stages in big concert halls. They'd end up in arenas by 1995. 

Today's Sunday mix is R.E.M. recorded live at various gigs between 1983 and 1987, the band powering through those songs from Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning and Fables Of The Reconstruction. The audio differs a bit due to the nature of how and where it was recorded but it holds together pretty well and demonstrates in fifty minutes, what a fearsome and life affirming live band they were- the speed, thump and melodic power of Peter Buck,  Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe's words, vocal melodies and presence. 

Fifty Minutes Of R.E.M. Live In The Eighties

• There She Goes Again (Live at Larry's Hideaway, Toronto, 9th July 1983)
• Radio Free Europe (Live at The Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, 7th July 1984)
• 7 Chinese Brothers (Live at Larry's Hideaway, Toronto, 9th July 1983)
• Ages Of You (Live at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston, 13th July, 1983)
• Harborcoat ((Live at Larry's Hideaway, Toronto, 9th July 1983)
• Life And How To Live It (Live at Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, Utrecht, Netherlands, 14th September 1987)
• Sitting Still (Live at The Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, 7th July 1984)
• Talk About The Passion (Live at Larry's Hideaway, Toronto, 9th July 1983)
• Pilgrimage (Live at Larry's Hideaway, Toronto, 9th July 1983)
• Little America (Live at The Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, 7th July 1984)
• Second Guessing (Live at The Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, 7th July 1984)
• We Walk (Live at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston, 13th July, 1983)
• 1, 000, 000 (Live at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston, 13th July, 1983)

R.E.M. were in the habit of covering The Velvet Underground both in the studio and live. In 1983 they often opened gigs with Femme Fatale and on the Green tour they often encored with After Hours. Three Velvets songs turned up as B-sides and then compiled on the Dead Letter Office album- Femme Fatale, Pale Blue Eyes and the one I've used as the opener for this gig mix, There She Goes Again (from the Velvet's 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground And Nico). 

Larry's Hideaway was a bar in the Prince Carlton Hotel in Toronto, Canada, one of the first venues in Toronto to open up to punk and New Wave acts. It was originally a restaurant and then became a jazz club in 1961. The list of bands that played there is impressive- The Cramps, The Bad Seeds, Sun Ra, Killing Joke, The Fall, The Cult, Billy Bragg, John Cale, Black Flag and Bauhaus all trod the boards at Larry's. It closed in 1986. The hotel stayed open but was raided by police due to a series of robberies and assaults taking place on the property. It closed in 1988 and the building was destroyed by a fire in 1991. It's now the off leash dog section of Allan Gardens Park. 

The Aragon Ballroom in Chicago opened in 1922 and has a long and storied history ever since hosting bands of all descriptions, from the Big Band era onward, as well as wrestling, roller skating and boxing, another life as a disco and its appeared as a location set in films and on TV. When R.E.M. played there in July 1984 they were supported by The Dream Syndicate. 

The Paradise Rock Club in Boston opened in 1977 with a capacity of 900, close to the university. It's still open today- The Charlatans will play there in September. The plumbing may have been a bit off in 1983 however. In the final song in the mix/ set above, as the band power into Chronic Town's 1, 000, 000, Stipe cautions the crowd, 'Don't drink the water'.

Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, Netherlands, was a 5000 capacity venue which shows the step up in audience and venue size R.E.M. took between 1983 and 1987. The building was demolished in 2008 and a new concert venue built on the site which opened in 2014. The version of Life And How To Live It they played there has a long introduction by Michael Stipe, where he describes the Athens man the song is about and the house he lived in, followed by the band absolutely flying through the song at the height of their 80s powers.