From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V6 #222 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Friday, November 10 2006 Volume 06 : Number 222 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] John Mellencamp "news" [zoom@muppetlabs.com] [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver [Certr] Re: [loud-fans] John Mellencamp "news" [CertronC90@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver ["] RE: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver ["] Fwd: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver [] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:26:20 -0800 (PST) From: zoom@muppetlabs.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] John Mellencamp "news" > Thinking about it, two guys come to mind who aren't/that weren't gay that > wear/wore leather pants. Adam Ant and Jim Morrison, and both loved the > ladies, > the latter even "let his flag fly" at a concert, so it's not fair to > assume > he is, According to Stephen Davis' recent biography of Morrison, he didn't content himself with the ladies... http://tinyurl.com/tgwmd ...but as to the second matter, consensus seems to be that he rummaged around, but didn't show the world what he was looking for. I've looked for the tape of that infamous Miami concert on YouTube...no luck so far. Not all who leather are pansied (Tolkien said that, right?), Andy I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bush's church and that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for ''Homegrown Democrat,'' but they thought it better if I didn't mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, ''I don't need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics  I'm a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service.'' And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We've got ours, and who cares? The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched. - --Garrison Keillor, from http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-10/100613who.html#i14 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:36:48 EST From: CertronC90@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver music box R.E.M. vs. U2 Who was the best rock band of the '80s? By Dan Kois Posted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, at 10:18 AM ET You can tell a lot about a band by how they tell their own story. This fall, R.E.M. released And I Feel Fine, a collection of songs from their early years, 1982 to 1987. The deluxe two-disc edition comes with liner notes in which R.E.M.'s four founding members relate stories of the band's early years. As a one-time devoted fan, I devoured these 11 short pages of storytellingba tiny window into the songs I'd spent so many hours rapturously listening to, obsessing over, and decoding. In weighty contrast to this slim text is the just-released U2 by U2, a $40 coffee-table book that exhaustively recountsbin 352 pages of interviewsbthe birth, struggles, and modern-day megasuccess of U2. Now that U2 has become America's spokesband for human dignity, it's difficult to remember that R.E.M., the quiet Georgians with the elliptical lyrics, once competed with U2 for the title of world's best rock band. With U2 triumphant and R.E.M. fading into near-obscurity, And I Feel Fine reminds listeners that R.E.M., not U2, made the most memorable music of the 1980s. Throughout that decade and the early 1990s, a fierce rivalry existed between R.E.M. and U2bnot in real life, mind you, but in my head. Among certain floppy-haired music nerds in that era, you were either an R.E.M. person or a U2 person, and this R.E.M. person has spent the last five years in agony, watching my one-time heroes release several _drab_ (http://www.amazon.com/Reveal-R-E-M/dp/B00005BL29/) _albums_ (http://www.amazon.com/Around-Sun-R-E-M/dp/B0002W4UVG/) , while U2 famously _announced_ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/02/09/bmu209.xml) they meant to matter againband succeeded. It's hard to imagine R.E.M. making a similar pronouncement, given the determination with which they pursued their off-center, Southern muses for so many years. For all of their ambition, in the 1980s, R.E.M.'s music was willfully obscure. Much has been made of Michael Stipe's mumbly lyrics, but it wasn't that you couldn't make out the words of early R.E.M. songsbyou just didn't know what the hell they meant. Neither did the band. "I still have no idea what that song is about," Stipe writes about "Pilgrimage," and bassist Mike Mills says the same about "Gardening at Night" (while drummer Bill Berry claims it's based on a euphemism for peeing along the side of the road during an all-night drive). The lyrics could mean anything, and therefore they meant everything, weighted as they were with mystery, resonance, and passion. "It's not necessarily what we meant," writes Mills, "but whatever you think." A friend once gave his sister, for her birthday in 1988, a complete collection of R.E.M. lyrics, painstakingly hand-transcribed from repeated listens to the songs. Were they right? It hardly mattered. Even R.E.M.'s "political" songs of the era, like "Fall on Me" or "Exhuming McCarthy," are tricky to parse. "_Fall on Me_ (http://img.slate.com/media/51/Fall%20On%20Me.asf) " could maybe be about acid rain, or maybe air pollution in general, or maybe, uh, missile defense? Whereas U2's political songs of the 1980s are a little easier to work out: "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is about Martin Luther King Jr., for example, and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is about Bloody Sunday. Stirring as those songs are, there's very little a listener can bring to them; they are Bono's take, not yours, unlike "Fall on Me," which, for me, in 1987, was a deeply personal song about the crushing whatever of existence. When U2's songs weren't on-the-nose political anthems, they were _vague but heroically uplifting_ (http://www.slate.com/id/2061087/) bfilled with signifiers but signifying nothing. Whereas R.E.M. songs, drenched in Southern detail, allusive and elusive, sounded like fables or folk wisdom, U2's majestic uplift often felt like the outtakes of a melodically gifted youth-group minister. There's a charming modesty in R.E.M.'s liner-note stories of how they learned to create these songs. Mills devotes paragraphs to explaining why it was fun to play bass within the framework of Peter Buck's guitar. And in the notes on the collection's best new track, a slowed-down version of "_Gardening at Night_ (http://img.slate.com/media/80/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(demo).asf) ," the band explains how, struggling with the song in the studio, they tried playing it slowlybto see if, in Mills' words, "it might hold up well with a softer treatment." Unlike most previously unreleased demos, this version is a treasure: The intricacies of Mills and Buck's interplay at a slower paceboverlaid by Stipe's falsetto and supported by Berry's expressive drummingbreveal new beauty behind the _familiar drive of the original_ (http://img.slate.com/media/64/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(original).asf) . In the studio, R.E.M. was tentative and exploratory, while U2 was as straightforwardly ambitious as a band could be. "We're going to make the big music," says Bono, in U2 by U2, about the band's mindset leading up to the recording of 1984's The Unforgettable Fire. "That's who we are. ... Big ideas, big themes, big sound." Live, the two bands were markedly different. U2 By U2 is filled with stories of Bono climbing the stage rigging and leaping into the audience at shows. Contrast that willful courting ofband connection toban audience with Stipe _hiding behind the drum kit_ (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ykp0Vq77IBw) on David Letterman's show in 1983, or, in 1987, telling a story about the origins of "_Life and How to Live It_ (http://img.slate.com/media/74/Life%20and%20How%20to%20Live%20It%20(live).asf) " that just adds to the song's curiosity. "There's nothing like being at Number One," Bono says in U2 by U2. "It's just better than Number Two." In the early 1990s, both bands were Number One: U2 with Achtung Baby and "One," R.E.M. with Out of Time and "Losing My Religion." By the late 1990s, both bands were in career lulls: U2's dabbling in electronica with Zooropa and Pop had turned off many hard-core fans. R.E.M.'s Berry had amicably left the commercially floundering band after suffering an aneurysm onstage during a concert. Without Berry, R.E.M. has recorded three quiet, unimpressive albums. Meanwhile, U2 is on top of the rock heap againba brand as much as a band, representing both sincerity and success. Just check out their _Successories_ (http://www.successories.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/dir_product.title_list_sku/ product_title _id/09604111-0758-4b95-92c8-2c7bcbfefe35/product_id/a04acea3-59c1-474b-aa93-e 6 04db101b60/Brilliance.cfm) -ready aphorisms in U2 by U2: "I always thought the job was to be as great as you could be," says Bono. "If it is not absolutely the best it can be, why bother?" says bassist Adam Clayton. And that's just in the flap copy! Either you loved U2, or you liked them fine. Either you loved R.E.M., or you hated them. The delicacy at the heart of R.E.M.'s 1980s albums fostered introspection and brotherhood among those of us who loved them in those years: introspection, because the songs pushed the listener inward, finding significance in every line; brotherhood, because we had to band together to defend our heroes against the unfeeling jerks who found R.E.M. precious and maddeningly opaque. I assumed, of course, that those jerks were U2 fans. There never really was a rivalry, of course. In 1992, members of the two groups combined to perform a _sweet version of "One"_ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6P2jy_dzkM) at MTV's Inaugural Ball. Despite all of my righteous teenage anger on R.E.M.'s behalf, U2 and R.E.M. were entirely friendly. Bono even discusses Stipe in U2 by U2: "Michael Stipe's friendship means more to me than I can ever tell you," he says on Page 162. Then, he doesn't mention Stipe's name again in the book._Dan Kois_ (http://www.dankois.com/) has worked as a film executive and a literary agent. He lives in New York City. Article URL: _http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/_ (http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/) Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:49:46 EST From: CertronC90@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] John Mellencamp "news" In a message dated 11/10/2006 2:26:47 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, zoom@muppetlabs.com writes: According to Stephen Davis' recent biography of Morrison, he didn't content himself with the ladies... It's all that leather. They just can't help themselves. Thinking about it, it's supremely funny. I think Keith is such an overcompensating closet case, yet he's the American spokesman for masculinity, and people buy into his persona as something real and not calculated to manipulate his audience demographic. Ain't life a trip. - --Mark "I feel so quick in my leather boots" (The Jesus and Mary Chain "Taste the Floor") "The INFJs are also the most vulnerable of all the types to the eruption of their own archetypal material." "Well, F***ING DUH!!!" (how I reacted to reading about my personality type in a book) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:01:24 -1000 From: "R. Kevin Doyle" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver Hey! This is by a former member of my improv group. Thanks for forwarding it! On 11/10/06, CertronC90@aol.com wrote: > > music box > R.E.M. vs. U2 > Who was the best rock band of the '80s? > By Dan Kois > Posted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, at 10:18 AM ET > > You can tell a lot about a band by how they tell their own story. This > fall, > R.E.M. released And I Feel Fine, a collection of songs from their early > years, 1982 to 1987. The deluxe two-disc edition comes with liner notes in > which > R.E.M.'s four founding members relate stories of the band's early years. > As a > one-time devoted fan, I devoured these 11 short pages of storytellingba > tiny > window into the songs I'd spent so many hours rapturously listening to, > obsessing over, and decoding. > In weighty contrast to this slim text is the just-released U2 by U2, a > $40 > coffee-table book that exhaustively recountsbin 352 pages of > interviewsbthe > birth, struggles, and modern-day megasuccess of U2. Now that U2 has > become > America's spokesband for human dignity, it's difficult to remember that > R.E.M., > the quiet Georgians with the elliptical lyrics, once competed with U2 for > the > title of world's best rock band. With U2 triumphant and R.E.M. > fading into > near-obscurity, And I Feel Fine reminds listeners that R.E.M., not U2, > made > the most memorable music of the 1980s. > Throughout that decade and the early 1990s, a fierce rivalry existed > between > R.E.M. and U2bnot in real life, mind you, but in my head. Among certain > floppy-haired music nerds in that era, you were either an R.E.M. person or > a > U2 > person, and this R.E.M. person has spent the last five years in agony, > watching > my one-time heroes release several _drab_ > (http://www.amazon.com/Reveal-R-E-M/dp/B00005BL29/) _albums_ > (http://www.amazon.com/Around-Sun-R-E-M/dp/B0002W4UVG/) , while U2 > famously > _announced_ > ( > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/02/09/bmu209.xml > ) > they meant to matter againband > succeeded. > It's hard to imagine R.E.M. making a similar pronouncement, given the > determination with which they pursued their off-center, Southern muses for > so > many > years. For all of their ambition, in the 1980s, R.E.M.'s music > was willfully > obscure. Much has been made of Michael Stipe's mumbly lyrics, but > it wasn't > that you couldn't make out the words of early R.E.M. songsbyou > just didn't > know what the hell they meant. Neither did the band. "I still have > no idea > what > that song is about," Stipe writes about "Pilgrimage," and bassist > Mike Mills > says the same about "Gardening at Night" (while drummer Bill Berry claims > it's based on a euphemism for peeing along the side of the road during an > all-night drive). The lyrics could mean anything, and therefore they meant > everything, weighted as they were with mystery, resonance, and passion. > "It's > not > necessarily what we meant," writes Mills, "but whatever you think." A > friend > once gave his sister, for her birthday in 1988, a complete collection of > R.E.M. > lyrics, painstakingly hand-transcribed from repeated listens to the songs. > Were they right? It hardly mattered. > Even R.E.M.'s "political" songs of the era, like "Fall on Me" or "Exhuming > McCarthy," are tricky to parse. "_Fall on Me_ > (http://img.slate.com/media/51/Fall%20On%20Me.asf) " could maybe be about > acid > rain, or maybe air pollution in > general, or maybe, uh, missile defense? Whereas U2's political songs of > the > 1980s are a little easier to work out: "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is > about > Martin Luther King Jr., for example, and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is about > Bloody Sunday. Stirring as those songs are, there's very little a > listener > can > bring to them; they are Bono's take, not yours, unlike "Fall on Me," > which, > for me, in 1987, was a deeply personal song about the crushing whatever > of > existence. > When U2's songs weren't on-the-nose political anthems, they were _vague > but > heroically uplifting_ (http://www.slate.com/id/2061087/) bfilled with > signifiers but signifying nothing. Whereas R.E.M. songs, drenched in > Southern > detail, > allusive and elusive, sounded like fables or folk wisdom, U2's majestic > uplift often felt like the outtakes of a melodically gifted youth-group > minister. > There's a charming modesty in R.E.M.'s liner-note stories of how they > learned > to create these songs. Mills devotes paragraphs to explaining why it was > fun > to play bass within the framework of Peter Buck's guitar. And in the > notes > on the collection's best new track, a slowed-down version of "_Gardening > at > Night_ (http://img.slate.com/media/80/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(demo).asf) > ," > the band explains how, struggling with the song in the studio, they tried > playing it slowlybto see if, in Mills' words, "it might hold up well > with a > softer treatment." Unlike most previously unreleased demos, this version > is a > treasure: The intricacies of Mills and Buck's interplay at a slower > paceboverlaid > by Stipe's falsetto and supported by Berry's expressive drummingbreveal > new > beauty behind the _familiar drive of the original_ > (http://img.slate.com/media/64/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(original).asf) . > In the studio, R.E.M. was tentative and exploratory, while U2 was as > straightforwardly ambitious as a band could be. "We're going to make the > big > music," > says Bono, in U2 by U2, about the band's mindset leading up to the > recording > of 1984's The Unforgettable Fire. "That's who we are. ... Big ideas, big > themes, big sound." > Live, the two bands were markedly different. U2 By U2 is filled > with stories > of Bono climbing the stage rigging and leaping into the audience > at shows. > Contrast that willful courting ofband connection toban audience with > Stipe > _hiding behind the drum kit_ (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ykp0Vq77IBw) on > David > Letterman's show in 1983, or, in 1987, telling a story about the origins > of > "_Life and How to Live It_ > ( > http://img.slate.com/media/74/Life%20and%20How%20to%20Live%20It%20(live).asf > ) > " that just adds to the song's curiosity. > "There's nothing like being at Number One," Bono says in U2 by U2. "It's > just better than Number Two." In the early 1990s, both bands were > Number One: > U2 > with Achtung Baby and "One," R.E.M. with Out of Time and "Losing My > Religion." By the late 1990s, both bands were in career lulls: U2's > dabbling > in > electronica with Zooropa and Pop had turned off many hard-core fans. > R.E.M.'s > Berry had amicably left the commercially floundering band after suffering > an > aneurysm onstage during a concert. > Without Berry, R.E.M. has recorded three quiet, unimpressive albums. > Meanwhile, U2 is on top of the rock heap againba brand as much as a band, > representing both sincerity and success. Just check out their > _Successories_ > ( > http://www.successories.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/dir_product.title_list_sku/ > product_title > > _id/09604111-0758-4b95-92c8-2c7bcbfefe35/product_id/a04acea3-59c1-474b-aa93-e > 6 > 04db101b60/Brilliance.cfm) -ready aphorisms in U2 by U2: "I > always thought > the job was to be as great as you could be," says Bono. "If it is not > absolutely the best it can be, why bother?" says bassist Adam Clayton. And > that's > just in the flap copy! > Either you loved U2, or you liked them fine. Either you loved R.E.M., or > you > hated them. The delicacy at the heart of R.E.M.'s 1980s albums fostered > introspection and brotherhood among those of us who loved them in those > years: > introspection, because the songs pushed the listener inward, finding > significance in every line; brotherhood, because we had to band together > to > defend our > heroes against the unfeeling jerks who found R.E.M. precious > and maddeningly > opaque. I assumed, of course, that those jerks were U2 fans. > > There never really was a rivalry, of course. In 1992, members of the two > groups combined to perform a _sweet version of "One"_ > (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6P2jy_dzkM) at MTV's Inaugural Ball. > Despite > all of my righteous > teenage anger on R.E.M.'s behalf, U2 and R.E.M. were entirely friendly. > Bono > even > discusses Stipe in U2 by U2: "Michael Stipe's friendship means more to me > than I can ever tell you," he says on Page 162. Then, he doesn't mention > Stipe's > name again in the book._Dan Kois_ (http://www.dankois.com/) has worked > as a > film executive and a literary agent. He lives in New York City. > > Article URL: _http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/_ > (http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/) > > Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:17:51 -0600 From: "Tom Galczynski" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver I like U2, but I prefer REM. To me you can hear the effort in every U2 song. That's something usually missing from the best art. It's kind of like the difference between Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. Astaire always seemed effortless whereas you could tell Kelly was always giving it everything he had and then some. The best of REM, in particular "Automatic For The People", had that same effortless-ness quality about it to my ears anyway. > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-loud-fans@smoe.org > [mailto:owner-loud-fans@smoe.org] On Behalf Of CertronC90@aol.com > Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 3:37 PM > To: loud-fans@smoe.org > Subject: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. > white flag waver > > music box > R.E.M. vs. U2 > Who was the best rock band of the '80s? > By Dan Kois > Posted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, at 10:18 AM ET > > You can tell a lot about a band by how they tell their own > story. This fall, > R.E.M. released And I Feel Fine, a collection of songs from > their early > years, 1982 to 1987. The deluxe two-disc edition comes with > liner notes in > which > R.E.M.'s four founding members relate stories of the band's > early years. As a > one-time devoted fan, I devoured these 11 short pages of > storytellingba tiny > window into the songs I'd spent so many hours rapturously > listening to, > obsessing over, and decoding. > In weighty contrast to this slim text is the just-released U2 > by U2, a $40 > coffee-table book that exhaustively recountsbin 352 pages of > interviewsbthe > birth, struggles, and modern-day megasuccess of U2. Now that > U2 has become > America's spokesband for human dignity, it's difficult to > remember that > R.E.M., > the quiet Georgians with the elliptical lyrics, once competed > with U2 for the > title of world's best rock band. With U2 triumphant and > R.E.M. fading into > near-obscurity, And I Feel Fine reminds listeners that > R.E.M., not U2, made > the most memorable music of the 1980s. > Throughout that decade and the early 1990s, a fierce rivalry > existed between > R.E.M. and U2bnot in real life, mind you, but in my head. > Among certain > floppy-haired music nerds in that era, you were either an > R.E.M. person or a > U2 > person, and this R.E.M. person has spent the last five years in agony, > watching > my one-time heroes release several _drab_ > (http://www.amazon.com/Reveal-R-E-M/dp/B00005BL29/) _albums_ > (http://www.amazon.com/Around-Sun-R-E-M/dp/B0002W4UVG/) , > while U2 famously > _announced_ > (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/02/ 09/bmu209.xml) > they meant to matter againband > succeeded. > It's hard to imagine R.E.M. making a similar pronouncement, given the > determination with which they pursued their off-center, > Southern muses for so > many > years. For all of their ambition, in the 1980s, R.E.M.'s > music was willfully > obscure. Much has been made of Michael Stipe's mumbly lyrics, > but it wasn't > that you couldn't make out the words of early R.E.M. > songsbyou just didn't > know what the hell they meant. Neither did the band. "I still > have no idea > what > that song is about," Stipe writes about "Pilgrimage," and > bassist Mike Mills > says the same about "Gardening at Night" (while drummer Bill > Berry claims > it's based on a euphemism for peeing along the side of the > road during an > all-night drive). The lyrics could mean anything, and > therefore they meant > everything, weighted as they were with mystery, resonance, > and passion. "It's > not > necessarily what we meant," writes Mills, "but whatever you > think." A friend > once gave his sister, for her birthday in 1988, a complete > collection of > R.E.M. > lyrics, painstakingly hand-transcribed from repeated listens > to the songs. > Were they right? It hardly mattered. > Even R.E.M.'s "political" songs of the era, like "Fall on Me" > or "Exhuming > McCarthy," are tricky to parse. "_Fall on Me_ > (http://img.slate.com/media/51/Fall%20On%20Me.asf) " could > maybe be about acid > rain, or maybe air pollution in > general, or maybe, uh, missile defense? Whereas U2's > political songs of the > 1980s are a little easier to work out: "Pride (In the Name of > Love)" is about > Martin Luther King Jr., for example, and "Sunday, Bloody > Sunday" is about > Bloody Sunday. Stirring as those songs are, there's very > little a listener > can > bring to them; they are Bono's take, not yours, unlike "Fall > on Me," which, > for me, in 1987, was a deeply personal song about the > crushing whatever of > existence. > When U2's songs weren't on-the-nose political anthems, they > were _vague but > heroically uplifting_ (http://www.slate.com/id/2061087/) bfilled with > signifiers but signifying nothing. Whereas R.E.M. songs, > drenched in Southern > detail, > allusive and elusive, sounded like fables or folk wisdom, > U2's majestic > uplift often felt like the outtakes of a melodically gifted > youth-group > minister. > There's a charming modesty in R.E.M.'s liner-note stories of > how they learned > to create these songs. Mills devotes paragraphs to > explaining why it was fun > to play bass within the framework of Peter Buck's guitar. > And in the notes > on the collection's best new track, a slowed-down version of > "_Gardening at > Night_ > (http://img.slate.com/media/80/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(demo).asf) ," > the band explains how, struggling with the song in the > studio, they tried > playing it slowlybto see if, in Mills' words, "it might hold > up well with a > softer treatment." Unlike most previously unreleased demos, > this version is a > treasure: The intricacies of Mills and Buck's interplay at a slower > paceboverlaid > by Stipe's falsetto and supported by Berry's expressive > drummingbreveal new > beauty behind the _familiar drive of the original_ > (http://img.slate.com/media/64/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(origi nal).asf) . > In the studio, R.E.M. was tentative and exploratory, while U2 was as > straightforwardly ambitious as a band could be. "We're going > to make the big > music," > says Bono, in U2 by U2, about the band's mindset leading up > to the recording > of 1984's The Unforgettable Fire. "That's who we are. ... > Big ideas, big > themes, big sound." > Live, the two bands were markedly different. U2 By U2 is > filled with stories > of Bono climbing the stage rigging and leaping into the > audience at shows. > Contrast that willful courting ofband connection toban audience with > Stipe > _hiding behind the drum kit_ > (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ykp0Vq77IBw) on > David > Letterman's show in 1983, or, in 1987, telling a story about > the origins of > "_Life and How to Live It_ > (http://img.slate.com/media/74/Life%20and%20How%20to%20Live%20 It%20(live).asf) > " that just adds to the song's curiosity. > "There's nothing like being at Number One," Bono says in U2 > by U2. "It's > just better than Number Two." In the early 1990s, both bands > were Number One: > U2 > with Achtung Baby and "One," R.E.M. with Out of Time and "Losing My > Religion." By the late 1990s, both bands were in career > lulls: U2's dabbling > in > electronica with Zooropa and Pop had turned off many > hard-core fans. R.E.M.'s > Berry had amicably left the commercially floundering band > after suffering an > aneurysm onstage during a concert. > Without Berry, R.E.M. has recorded three quiet, unimpressive albums. > Meanwhile, U2 is on top of the rock heap againba brand as > much as a band, > representing both sincerity and success. Just check out their > _Successories_ > (http://www.successories.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/dir_product. > title_list_sku/ > product_title > _id/09604111-0758-4b95-92c8-2c7bcbfefe35/product_id/a04acea3-5 > 9c1-474b-aa93-e > 6 > 04db101b60/Brilliance.cfm) -ready aphorisms in U2 by U2: "I > always thought > the job was to be as great as you could be," says Bono. "If it is not > absolutely the best it can be, why bother?" says bassist Adam > Clayton. And > that's > just in the flap copy! > Either you loved U2, or you liked them fine. Either you loved > R.E.M., or you > hated them. The delicacy at the heart of R.E.M.'s 1980s > albums fostered > introspection and brotherhood among those of us who loved > them in those years: > introspection, because the songs pushed the listener inward, finding > significance in every line; brotherhood, because we had to > band together to > defend our > heroes against the unfeeling jerks who found R.E.M. precious > and maddeningly > opaque. I assumed, of course, that those jerks were U2 fans. > > There never really was a rivalry, of course. In 1992, members > of the two > groups combined to perform a _sweet version of "One"_ > (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6P2jy_dzkM) at MTV's > Inaugural Ball. Despite > all of my righteous > teenage anger on R.E.M.'s behalf, U2 and R.E.M. were > entirely friendly. Bono > even > discusses Stipe in U2 by U2: "Michael Stipe's friendship > means more to me > than I can ever tell you," he says on Page 162. Then, he > doesn't mention > Stipe's > name again in the book._Dan Kois_ (http://www.dankois.com/) > has worked as a > film executive and a literary agent. He lives in New York City. > > Article URL: _http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/_ > (http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/) > > Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC > > ______________________________________________________________________ > This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. > For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email > ______________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 14:37:14 -1000 From: "R. Kevin Doyle" Subject: Fwd: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver I mentioned to Dan Kois, this article's author, that this was making the rounds and he replied: >> the response to this article has been hilarious, including my favorite email: >> >>Dear Dan, >>I didn't have a chance to read your article, but the Replacements are better than either of >>those bands, >>Sincerely, >>Some Guy ________________________________ From: R. Kevin Doyle [mailto:r.kevin.doyle@gmail.com] Sent: Fri 11/10/2006 5:03 PM To: Kois, Dan Subject: Fwd: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver Hey Dan, Moments after getting your last email, I received this on a listserv I subscribe to - a fan list for the band The Loud Family. You somebody, eh? R. - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: CertronC90@aol.com < CertronC90@aol.com > Date: Nov 10, 2006 11:36 AM Subject: [loud-fans] Stipe vs. Bono: Harborcoat wearer vs. white flag waver To: loud-fans@smoe.org music box R.E.M. vs. U2 Who was the best rock band of the '80s? By Dan Kois Posted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, at 10:18 AM ET You can tell a lot about a band by how they tell their own story. This fall, R.E.M. released And I Feel Fine, a collection of songs from their early years, 1982 to 1987. The deluxe two-disc edition comes with liner notes in which R.E.M.'s four founding members relate stories of the band's early years. As a one-time devoted fan, I devoured these 11 short pages of storytellingba tiny window into the songs I'd spent so many hours rapturously listening to, obsessing over, and decoding. In weighty contrast to this slim text is the just-released U2 by U2, a $40 coffee-table book that exhaustively recountsbin 352 pages of interviewsbthe birth, struggles, and modern-day megasuccess of U2. Now that U2 has become America's spokesband for human dignity, it's difficult to remember that R.E.M., the quiet Georgians with the elliptical lyrics, once competed with U2 for the title of world's best rock band. With U2 triumphant and R.E.M. fading into near-obscurity, And I Feel Fine reminds listeners that R.E.M., not U2, made the most memorable music of the 1980s. Throughout that decade and the early 1990s, a fierce rivalry existed between R.E.M. and U2bnot in real life, mind you, but in my head. Among certain floppy-haired music nerds in that era, you were either an R.E.M. person or a U2 person, and this R.E.M. person has spent the last five years in agony, watching my one-time heroes release several _drab_ (http://www.amazon.com/Reveal-R-E-M/dp/B00005BL29/) _albums_ ( http://www.amazon.com/Around-Sun-R-E-M/dp/B0002W4UVG/ < http://www.amazon.com/Around-Sun-R-E-M/dp/B0002W4UVG/> ) , while U2 famously _announced_ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/02/09/bmu209.xml) they meant to matter againband succeeded. It's hard to imagine R.E.M. making a similar pronouncement, given the determination with which they pursued their off-center, Southern muses for so many years. For all of their ambition, in the 1980s, R.E.M.'s music was willfully obscure. Much has been made of Michael Stipe's mumbly lyrics, but it wasn't that you couldn't make out the words of early R.E.M. songsbyou just didn't know what the hell they meant. Neither did the band. "I still have no idea what that song is about," Stipe writes about "Pilgrimage," and bassist Mike Mills says the same about "Gardening at Night" (while drummer Bill Berry claims it's based on a euphemism for peeing along the side of the road during an all-night drive). The lyrics could mean anything, and therefore they meant everything, weighted as they were with mystery, resonance, and passion. "It's not necessarily what we meant," writes Mills, "but whatever you think." A friend once gave his sister, for her birthday in 1988, a complete collection of R.E.M. lyrics, painstakingly hand-transcribed from repeated listens to the songs. Were they right? It hardly mattered. Even R.E.M.'s "political" songs of the era, like "Fall on Me" or "Exhuming McCarthy," are tricky to parse. "_Fall on Me_ (http://img.slate.com/media/51/Fall%20On%20Me.asf ) " could maybe be about acid rain, or maybe air pollution in general, or maybe, uh, missile defense? Whereas U2's political songs of the 1980s are a little easier to work out: "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is about Martin Luther King Jr., for example, and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is about Bloody Sunday. Stirring as those songs are, there's very little a listener can bring to them; they are Bono's take, not yours, unlike "Fall on Me," which, for me, in 1987, was a deeply personal song about the crushing whatever of existence. When U2's songs weren't on-the-nose political anthems, they were _vague but heroically uplifting_ ( http://www.slate.com/id/2061087/ < http://www.slate.com/id/2061087/> ) bfilled with signifiers but signifying nothing. Whereas R.E.M. songs, drenched in Southern detail, allusive and elusive, sounded like fables or folk wisdom, U2's majestic uplift often felt like the outtakes of a melodically gifted youth-group minister. There's a charming modesty in R.E.M.'s liner-note stories of how they learned to create these songs. Mills devotes paragraphs to explaining why it was fun to play bass within the framework of Peter Buck's guitar. And in the notes on the collection's best new track, a slowed-down version of "_Gardening at Night_ ( http://img.slate.com/media/80/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(demo).asf < http://img.slate.com/media/80/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(demo).asf> ) ," the band explains how, struggling with the song in the studio, they tried playing it slowlybto see if, in Mills' words, "it might hold up well with a softer treatment." Unlike most previously unreleased demos, this version is a treasure: The intricacies of Mills and Buck's interplay at a slower paceboverlaid by Stipe's falsetto and supported by Berry's expressive drummingbreveal new beauty behind the _familiar drive of the original_ (http://img.slate.com/media/64/Gardening%20at%20Night%20(original).asf) . In the studio, R.E.M. was tentative and exploratory, while U2 was as straightforwardly ambitious as a band could be. "We're going to make the big music," says Bono, in U2 by U2, about the band's mindset leading up to the recording of 1984's The Unforgettable Fire. "That's who we are. ... Big ideas, big themes, big sound." Live, the two bands were markedly different. U2 By U2 is filled with stories of Bono climbing the stage rigging and leaping into the audience at shows. Contrast that willful courting ofband connection toban audience with Stipe _hiding behind the drum kit_ (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ykp0Vq77IBw) on David Letterman's show in 1983, or, in 1987, telling a story about the origins of "_Life and How to Live It_ ( http://img.slate.com/media/74/Life%20and%20How%20to%20Live%20It%20(live).asf) " that just adds to the song's curiosity. "There's nothing like being at Number One," Bono says in U2 by U2. "It's just better than Number Two." In the early 1990s, both bands were Number One: U2 with Achtung Baby and "One," R.E.M. with Out of Time and "Losing My Religion." By the late 1990s, both bands were in career lulls: U2's dabbling in electronica with Zooropa and Pop had turned off many hard-core fans. R.E.M.'s Berry had amicably left the commercially floundering band after suffering an aneurysm onstage during a concert. Without Berry, R.E.M. has recorded three quiet, unimpressive albums. Meanwhile, U2 is on top of the rock heap againba brand as much as a band, representing both sincerity and success. Just check out their _Successories_ ( http://www.successories.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/dir_product.title_list_sku/ product_title _id/09604111-0758-4b95-92c8-2c7bcbfefe35/product_id/a04acea3-59c1-474b-aa93-e 6 04db101b60/Brilliance.cfm) -ready aphorisms in U2 by U2: "I always thought the job was to be as great as you could be," says Bono. "If it is not absolutely the best it can be, why bother?" says bassist Adam Clayton. And that's just in the flap copy! Either you loved U2, or you liked them fine. Either you loved R.E.M., or you hated them. The delicacy at the heart of R.E.M.'s 1980s albums fostered introspection and brotherhood among those of us who loved them in those years: introspection, because the songs pushed the listener inward, finding significance in every line; brotherhood, because we had to band together to defend our heroes against the unfeeling jerks who found R.E.M. precious and maddeningly opaque. I assumed, of course, that those jerks were U2 fans. There never really was a rivalry, of course. In 1992, members of the two groups combined to perform a _sweet version of "One"_ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6P2jy_dzkM) at MTV's Inaugural Ball. Despite all of my righteous teenage anger on R.E.M.'s behalf, U2 and R.E.M. were entirely friendly. Bono even discusses Stipe in U2 by U2: "Michael Stipe's friendship means more to me than I can ever tell you," he says on Page 162. Then, he doesn't mention Stipe's name again in the book._Dan Kois_ (http://www.dankois.com/) has worked as a film executive and a literary agent. He lives in New York City. Article URL: _http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/_ (http://www.slate.com/id/2153184/) Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V6 #222 *******************************