(formatted) from the Fables articles archive
-------
"Be Seeing You?" by Barney
Hoskyns
from the Aug. '96 issue of Mojo Magazine.
-------
When R.E.M. concluded the _Monster_ world tour with a shambolic version
of Wild Thing in Atlanta last November, they were so frazzled and generally
beaten up by the experience of being on the road again that their future
was the last thing they were ready to contemplate. Relieved to get home
- and that Peter Buck, at least, hadn't been struck down by the illnesses
which had laid the others low - they scattered to their respective domiciles
and collapsed. The future was on hold.
Eight months later, a new R.E.M. album is scheduled for release on September
10 and the rock'n'roll world is buzzing with speculation about that future.
Will the new record be another Monstrous garage-rock affair, or will it
be more Automatically acoustic? Or will it be somewhere between the two
poles? Will the band sign with Spielburg-Katzenberg-Geffen label
Dreamworks or re-sign with Warner Bros.? Or neither of those? Will they
pack it in on the last day of the millennium, December 31 1999, as apocalyptically
rumoured? Or will they turn into the Rolling Stones? Did the parting of
long-time manager and 'fifth R.E.M.' member Jefferson Holt in mid-May reflect
strife and stress within the band, or was it simply the natural result
of rock'n'roll entropy?
It is a testament to how much their fans have invested in R.E.M. - as musical
saviours, as The Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band in the World - that these questions
are being so keenly debated. Like U2, they are four friends who have stuck
together through feat and famine, plaudits and backlashes; there is something
heroic in their very endurance. "They've dealt with their success like
saints," said Kurt Cobain notlong before he died. Few groups have been
so canonised in their lifetimes. Yet for some it has been apparent - as
apparent, at least, as things can be with a band who keep such a tight
lid on their inner workings - that all is not entirely well in the R.E.M.
camp. The Los Angeles Times reported that Jefferson Holt's departure was
the climax of "months of tension," while rumours as to the exact reasons
for that departure have been zipping around the globe for two months. The
painful birth of _Monster_, an album which was supposed to pull the band
back together but only seemed to confirm the distances between them, drastically
called into question their sense of unity - a unity which, in any case,
has been open to conjecture ever since the recording of _Green_ (1988).
The fact that the four members are now spread out over America, with Peter
Buck based whole time zones away from Athens in Seattle, has had the inevitable
consequences, especially when one considers Mike Mills' remark in 1992
that "if any of us moved, it would be destructive."
On the other hand, R.E.M. have not broken up, and they have just finished
mixing what will be their tenth album proper - in Athens, no less. How
bad can things really be? A Warner Bros. spokesman reports that the sessions
have gone very smoothly and efficiently, with none of the hiccups and frictions
which dogged the recording of _Monster_. Indeed, the word is that the band
are getting along better than they were at the time of _Monster_, Stipe
himself now has a home in Seattle, and has been regularly seen out on the
town with Peter Buck. "I'd say they're probably closer than they've been
in a long time," says an insider.
Word is that the album in question will almost certainly not re-tread the
moshly viscous ground of _Monster_, but neither will it be a straight return
to the deceptive acoustic mellowness of _Automatic for the People_ or _Out
of Time_. Some R.E.M.-watchers report that it's closer in spirit to the
R.E.M. of _Document_ or even _Reckoning_, while others maintain that it
reflects the band's romance with the mid-'70s Manhatten of Television,
the Voidoids and of course Patti Smith, who contributes backing vocals
to one of the tracks. "Musically, it's supposed to be stronger and more
varied than _Monster_," says one watcher, "plus there's more thought gone
into the lyrics." Another reports that, "it sounds like Peter probably
wrote most of it, and probably on a Rickenbacker."
The original concept for the album had been to do a _Time Fades Away_/_Running
on Empty_-style 'live' set, using material played onstage and backstage
during the last tour. (This material includes Revolution, Binky the Doormat,
Undertow and Wake Up Bomb, all test-driven during the final shows of the
_Monster_ tour). But when the band gathered in Seattle after the tour dust
had settled, the idea was scrapped: instead they started afresh, recording
14 tracks which may or may not include the above-mentioned four but which
will definitely include songs written as they rehearsed in the studio.
Song titles being bandied about by R.E.M.-heads include New Test Leper,
Be Mine, Swamp, Louis, E-Bow, Hail Grant, Monkeyshines, Open Up, Candle
Man, Infected, and Can Opener. Some of these (Louis, Open Up) are said
to be acoustic, with Peter Buck pulling the old mandolin out of the closet;
others (Monkeyshines) are thought to be harder and more abrasive, with
Stipe barking lyrics through a megaphone. Chances are the album will be
a mixture of light and heavy.
After the various traumas of the _Monster_ tour, the band are highly unlikely
to hit the road to promote this album: given the multi-platinum sales of
_Out of Time_ and_Automatic_, both released while the band opted not to
tour, why bother? However, there are likely to be the usual BingoHand Job-style
'secret' shows in Athens and other environs - gigs that won't reduce Michael
Stipe to a state of abject terror. Press will be minimal: Stipe may do
one major interview with Rolling Stone, but he won't be talking to anyone
else.
Meanwhile, speculation mounts as to what R.E.M. will doafter the expiration
of their contract with Warner Bros. In all the over-excited talk of the
band following Mo Ostin andLenny Waronker to Dreamworks SKG, or their producer
Scott Litt's new Geffen-distributed label Outpost, no one seems to have
considered that R.E.M. don't *have* to make a decision about their future
label at all. "From what I gather, they haven't been talking to any labels,"
says one insider. "This may or may not be true, but it makes a lot of sense
because it means Warners are really going to have to work their tails off
to sell this album. There is no definite word aboutwho they're going to
sign with, because it doesn't have to be decided. They could be like John
Lennon and say, 'My contract's up, I'm gonna go bake bread for five years.'
Why close any door? They have everything to gain by biding their time."
The new album is likely to take the band through to the end of 1997, and
they would be unlikely to release another one before the fall of 1998.
That record could, in any case, be a Greatest Hits package. Viewed from
this perspective, R.E.M. are unlikely to call it quits, even (as they have
often joked they would do) on the eve of the 21st century. They could then
feasibly continue the way that The Rolling Stones, say, have continued:
as a business run by grown-up men who know they're not a gang any more
- who have their own families and interests, who periodically come together
to make records and tour.
Interestingly, there are those who feel Jefferson Holt's departure may
prove to be the very thing that enables R.E.M. to keep going - almost as
though it had been
a necessary sacrifice. (This
would be especially ironic given that so much of R.E.M.'s 'integrity' has
been attributed to the band's astute management duo of Jefferson Holt and
Bertis Downs. A _Murmur_/_Reckoning_ co-producer Don Dixon put it, "A lot
of it has to do with being protected from the bone-crushing and jarring
crap by Bert and Jefferson.") "If you look at the history of all rock bands,"
says one insider, "there's always been a point at which a member left or
a member died. Everything comes to a head, and then something has to blow
in order to allow the enterprise to regroup. In some ways, Jefferson going
makes it easier for them. Now there's an excuse to reshuffle allkinds of
things, if they care to. I have no idea - and I don't think anyone outside
the group does - what their business relationships are. This gives everyone
the chance to change the business structure, to look at new deals in different
ways. There's no reason to assume the five principals of R.E.M. are in
total agreement about that either."
Other insiders are disturbed by the manner in which R.E.M. and Holt have
parted company. They see the timing as indicative of a desire to cut Holt
out of the supposed megadeal that's in the offing, or at least as evidence
of some power struggle with Bertis E. Downs IV (to give him his full name),
the attorney who's worked with the band as long as Holt and who has now
assumed overall management of their affairs. Others conjecture that R.E.M.
blame Holt for the manifold problems of the _Monster_ tour.
"Whatever went down with Jefferson, we'll probably never know," says one
observer. "But my personal opinion is that when somebody works for an organisation
like that for 15 years, to be cheated of his just reward in the end doesn't
seem right. They obviously are right-thinking people, and you think, They'd
never do that. Well, maybe they would. Or maybe Jefferson caused them enough
grief through the years where they feel like they have no choice. We can
surmise at this point that Bert Downs has actually been the business brains
behind the whole operation for some time. Jefferson was a good figurehead
who had the ability to get a certain amount of work done, but ultimately
I suspect that he was dispensable."
"I did hear there was a feeling that Jefferson's heart wasn't in it anymore,"
says another. "He had a number of other business interests in Athens, and
may just have wanted to spend more time with them. Everybody knows R.E.M.
spent a long time off the road and became more and more wealthy and more
and more successful, and obviously the band members have talked about what
a shock it was for them to go back on the road. But nobody's thought about
what an adjustment it must have been for the *managers* to go back on the
road. In a funny way, nobody would have been shocked if Bill Berry had
said at the end of the tour, 'Y'know what? I can't go through with this
anymore,' but because it's the manager, and everyone still has this image
of the cigar-chomping monkey talking on three telephones at once, we don't
consider that he may simply have reached the point where he
didn't wanna get on the
bus any more."
The remarkable thing about R.E.M. is that even if there *was* anything
remotely untoward about Holt's departure, we would probably never know
about it - though some people think he may bring a suit against the band.
"They historically have had such a machine behind them that keeps things
of this nature quiet," says the person who thinks Holt got a a rough deal.
"It's almost unearthly. Stuff just never gets out. It's like the fact that
you never hear about drugs and sex. I'm not saying they were Motley Crue,
it's just that they were regular young guys, and yet you'd never know that.
It's hard ever to get the real story because of that mysterious *thing*."
"You get all kinds of rumours," agrees our more conciliatory friend, "but
everything is speculation because the members of R.E.M. really keep their
own counsel. You hang out with them, you can see them socially, and they're
not gonna get into that stuff. It's like talking about what goes on in
the bedroom in someone else's marriage. Very often in these situations
with big bands like R.E.M., on the rare occasions when you do get inside
and find out what really happened, it's never what all the lawyers and
A&R men standing about drinking their Lite beers said it was - never.
The problem is that nobody wants to admit they don't know."
The one thing we do know about R.E.M. is that they remain resolutely idealistic
after all these years - still rooted in a punk-rock aesthetic that would
forbid them turning into undignified breadheads. Even if the Rolling Stones'
route to survival is logistically possible for them, they would have a
hard time justifying it to themselves. Apart from anything else, the Stones
fundamentally enjoy touring, where R.E.M. don't. Some might cast doubt
on the band's attempts to resist celebrity - isn't Michael Stipe simply
a more covert kind of exhibitionist than Mick Jagger? - but none can doubt
their word that the _Monster_ tour was a fairly alarming experience for
all concerned.
If R.E.M. have struggled with the conflict between their ideals and their
success, they have nonetheless retained their integrity in a world where
the stuff is gold dust. As ex-Dream Syndicate singer and R.E.M. chum Steve
Wynn observes, "R.E.M. were the first band to show us you can be big and
still be cool." Even taking with a generous pinch of salt Stipe's contention
that "we always felt like U2 set out to be the biggest band in the world...
[whereas] we didn't really set out to do anything but travel around in
a van," it's hard to disagree with Kurt Cobain's conclusion that the way
they've dealt with their success has been almost saintly. Indeed, not too
much has changed since I interviewed R.E.M. 12 years ago, at the time of
_Reckoning_: "I think in a peripheral way we avoid the uglier side of the
music business," said Stipe at the time. "The whole game of rock is about
self- promotion, so you can easily see how someone who didn't have the
heart in the first place might turn into an egomaniac... not that any of
us are bucking for the sainthood!"
The R.E.M. have encountered are in a sense symptomatic of the whole Alternative
dilemma: in other words, if you become mega-successful by offering a noble,
politically right-on alternative to 'egomaniac' rock'n' roll, how do you
reinvent yourself to ensure you don't simply become the new mainstream?
R.E.M. are as aware as anyone of the 'hollowness' of the 'alternative'
tag, just as they know they can no longer pretend to be four guys "traveling
in a van." Stipe himself is in the difficult position of being someone
so famous that he can only socialise comfortably with other famous people.
Given that he has witnessed at first hand the problems of fame and
self-destruction that have claimed people like River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain,
he finds himself in roughly the same place that Neil Young was in at the
time of _Tonight's the Night_ and _On the Beach_ - as someone who is close
to the vortex of decadence but able to stand back from it and even try
to offer a helping hand to those in trouble. Much of _Monster_ confirmed
that, as they did for Young, the issues of fame and celebrity have themselves
become a central source of subject matter in his lyrics.
If R.E.M. were to split up, there is no doubt that Stipe could go it alone.
His may be a troubled and even disingenous kind of stardom, but he remains
enormously credible as an icon of alternative, anti-celebrity rock. (Think
of all the fake Stipes - from Eddie Vedder to Scott Weiland - he has inspired.)
He is the most obviously free agent in the R.E.M. camp, with his outside
interests in photography and film and his Single Cell Pictures production
company. Nor would there be any shortage of fellow stars willing to collaborate:
he was about to record with Kurt Cobain when the Nirvana frontman killed
himself. The question is, just what
would Stipe be risking severing
his ties with Buck, Mills and Berry? Would he be cutting himself off from
the source of the music that has enabled him to articulate his ideas and
feelings for the better part of 15 years?
The most likely scenario, funnily enough, is that R.E.M. will do exactly
what they've always joked they will do: keep going as a band 'till the
end of the century and then call it a day. As Mike Mills put it three years
ago, "R.E.M. can't last for ever...you get too old for that kind of thing."
Who knows, by the year 2000 maybe another honest, hard-working fourpiece
will have risen from provincial obscurity to become The Greatest Rock'n'Roll
Band in the World. Maybe, in another university town near you, four guys
are loading their amps into a van at this very moment, full of ideas and
principles that will protect them against the evils of the music business.
Just think, you can say you saw them when they couldn't draw 50 people
to the local bar...
--------
_With_thanks_to_David_Cavanagh,_Marcus_Gray,_
_Dave_Thompson,_Denise_Sullivan,_Kipp_Teague_
_and_Jon_Storey._
---------
