Posts Tagged ‘Michael Stipe’

A Bootleg Review: R.E.M., Opal, Steve Wynn, 10,000 Maniacs – May 24, 1987

Posted: March 1, 2020 in 1980s, 1987, Bootlegs, Kendra Smith, Opal, R.E.M., Steve Wynn, The Dream Syndicate
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Beneath my desk is a box that, for the past 14 months, I’ve used as a footstool. Inside it are some hundred-plus bootleg CDs, including quite a few Springsteen sets that have become moot due to his ongoing archival releases, as well as some Neil Young concerts and assorted other oddities, such as this one on the TMOQ bootleg label. It’s a pristine soundboard recording of the early and late shows at McCabe’s Record Shop in Santa Monica, Cal., on May 24, 1987.

Unlike what the CD cover claims, the night’s participants were L.A.-area bands Downy Mildew and Love Tacos (of whom I can find no information); the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn; Opal; Peter Case; Natalie Merchant; and “Mystery Twins” Michael Stipe and Peter Buck. The single CD doesn’t present either show in its entirety, however. Substantial sections are edited out to fit the proceedings onto one disc. As a result, it’s something akin to a best-of.

Due to that, the participants featured on the CD aren’t one and the same with the night’s acts. Steve Wynn, Natalie Merchant, Downy Mildew’s Jenny Homer (misidentified as Jenny Holmer) and Charlie Baldonado are on it, as are Michael Stipe and Peter Buck, and Opal’s Kendra Smith. Wynn is afforded a large portion of the spotlight, but Natalie Merchant and the Twins get their due, too.

Cross-collaboration occurs quite often. For instance, Natalie is joined by Homer and Stipe for a cool rendition of “Hello Stranger” – you can hear the intro to it at the end of the “Don’t Talk” clip above; and Stipe and Buck are joined by Natalie, Homer and others for a fun mashup of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “Sunday Morning.” 

Kendra Smith and Natalie Merchant join forces on Opal’s “Hear the Wind Blow”…

And here’s Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant on the “Wheel of Fortune/The Counting Song,” which I often ended compilation tapes with back in the day:

Unfortunately, those are the only clips I can find on YouTube from the night’s two sets.

For those curious, here’s the night’s lineup in full:

Early Show:
Downy Mildew: The Big Surprise; Floorboard; Your Blue Eye; Hollow Girl
Love Tacos: Border Patrol; Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White; Torn Away; Pleasure
Steve Wynn: Merritville; Drinking Problem; One More Cup of Coffee (with Bob Forres)
Steve Wynn and Russ Tolman: Galveston Mud; Solitary Man
Opal: Rocket Machine; She Moves Ahead; Magick Power
Natalie Merchant: Don’t Talk (with Downy Mildew’s Charlie Baldonado); Hello Stranger (with Michael Stipe, Jenny Homer and Baldonado); The Wind, the Wind (a cappella); Verdi Cries
Michael Stipe and Geoff Gans: The One I Love
Michael Stipe and Peter Buck: Welcome to the Occupation; Disturbance at the Heron House; Finest Worksong; Maps and Legends
Michael Stipe: Harpers; Damaged Goods (with Buck and Merchant)
Michael Stipe and Peter Buck: Leaving on a Jet Plane-Sunday Morning (with Wynn, Merchant, Homer and others)

Late Show:
Downey Mildew: The Kitchen; Floorboard; The Big Surprise; Hollow Girl; Your Blue Eye
Love Tacos: Border Patrol; Torn Away; Pleasure; Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White (with Peter Buck)
Peter Case and Peter Buck: Walk, Don’t Run; Baby Please Don’t Go; A Million Miles Away; Blue Eyes
Steve Wynn: 50 in a 25 Zone; How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?; Killing Time; See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (with Buck)
Steve Wynn and Russ Tolman: Galveston Mud; Solitary Man; Stage Fright; Too Little, Too Late (with Kendra Smith)
Opal: A Falling Star; Rocket Machine; Supernova; Magick Power
Natalie Merchant: The Fat Lady of Limbourg (a cappella); Don’t Talk (with Charlie Baldonado); More Than a Paycheck (with Homer and Smith); Hear the Wind Blow (with Baldonado and Smith); Hello Stranger (with Stipe, Baldonado and Homer); Verdi Cries
Natalie Merchant & Michael Stipe: A Campfire Song; Wheel of Fortune/The Counting Song
Michael Stipe and Peter Buck: Stretch My Hand; The One I Love
Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills: Spooky; Disturbance at the Heron House; King of Birds/Finest Worksong; Fever; So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry); Red Rain

I should add that the shows have been bootlegged beyond my early TMOQ release, which is stamped No. 189; as evidenced by the artwork, the clips above come from bootlegs of the original bootleg. (From what I’ve read, the complete shows made their way into the collector’s world in 2006 – long past my bootleg-collecting days.)

Be that as it may, the single disc – regardless of how or where you find it – is a delight. The sound is perfect; and the performances are a lot of fun. Fans of any of the featured performers are sure to enjoy it. 

The track list:

Today’s Top 5: April 1983 (via Record)

Posted: March 18, 2017 in 1980s, 1983, Bangles, Holly Beth Vincent, Marvin Gaye, Neil Young, R.E.M., Top 5
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April 1983: high-school graduation was a month and change away. I’d yet to attend a concert, outside of some nondescript local band (named Lightning, if memory serves) that played the high school one Friday or Saturday night in ’81 or ‘82. That would change the following month, though, when I saw not one, but two cool shows: the Kinks at the Spectrum and Roxy Music (with Modern English opening) at the Tower Theater…

And, yes, we have been here before: That opening paragraph is borrowed from what I wrote 11 months back, when I covered this same stitch in time – but via Musician magazine (click here for that). So, instead of regurgitating a similar recap, I’ll turn straight to the newsprint. And I do mean newsprint: the newspaper-like Record came folded in fourths, just like its big brother Rolling Stone did in the early ‘70s, and the ink sometimes smudged on the fingers.

Ric Ocasek of the Cars, as evidenced by the picture up top, graces the cover. He’s the focus of an in-depth profile by David Gans that, as the Contents page reveals, uncovers the fact that the soft-spoken musician is warm, human and lovable. Who would’ve guessed?

Today’s top 5:

1) Holly & the Italians – “Dangerously.” Mark Mehler pens an excellent profile of Holly Beth Vincent, which opens with this: “One morning about a year ago, [she] awoke to perhaps the worst feeling a human being can have—none at all. ‘I felt like I was in a void,’ she says matter-of-factly, not unlike one of those ‘real people’ on television describing the onset of a migraine headache. ‘I had no control over my body. I didn’t know who or where I was.’”

That inability to move apparently didn’t stop her from grabbing for a pen and scribbling the lyrics to this song, which graces her second album, Holly and the Italians. According to Mehler, “it’s one of several tunes on the album dealing explicitly with the thin line between sanity and insanity; with remembrance; with violence and loss. But these subjects are handled with poignancy, melodic grace and occasional humor.” (For the complete Holly Beth article, scroll down.)

2) R.E.M. – “Radio Free Europe.” Mehler also catches up with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, who discusses the recording of his band’s first album, then tentatively titled 7,000 Gifts. “From what I can hear,” he says, “most albums consist of ten songs all sounding pretty much the same. It’s taking me a long time to come to terms with the fact that we’re actually in the middle of recording one ourselves.” The brief piece concludes with Stipe discussing touring: “I don’t like to drive the van. Driving from Philadelphia to Madison, Wisconsin, in the middle of the night is no fun. But I can’t claim to be a martyr to rock ’n’ roll; it’s the life I chose.”

3) Marvin Gaye – “Sexual Healing.” At this point in time, Marvin was in the midst of a comeback – and sat for an interview with Gavin Martin. There’s far too much to recount, but I found and still find the last questions and answers  illuminating and sad.

4) Neil Young – “Transformer Man.” Stuart Cohn is not kind to Neil’s Trans album: “Neil Young’s much-vaunted experiment in electronic music is like one of those get-rich-quick schemes everyone comes up with now and then. It seems like a sure thing in the middle of the night as the drinks are flowing. But hungover in the cold light of dawn, you realize it wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

5) The Bangles – “I’m in Line.” Wayne King tackles the debut EP of “yet another all-girl group.” As you can see in the scan, he raises the question that “haunts most all female acts” – whether they play their own instruments on record – before dismissing it as irrelevant: “somebody has come up with what they used to call a hot platter, one so tight and sharp that it threatens to singlehandedly resurrect that deservedly-dormant phrase, power pop.”

He also singles out their “intricate and endearingly rough harmonizing” and equates the end of “I’m in Line” to the Move’s “Message From the Country.” He also pushes forth his view of how the band should evolve: “If the Bangles don’t yet articulate the tough sexual politics of a Chrissie Hynde, they at least may be close to finding that voice.”

 

Today’s Top 5: Cover Songs

Posted: February 7, 2016 in 10000 Maniacs, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, Cover Songs, Diane Birch, Garland Jeffreys, Natalie Merchant, Neil Young, Rumer, Susanna Hoffs, Top 5
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maniacs_stipe_1993

There’s something magical when, in concert, an artist covers a song long associated with another act. Some fans hate such moments, I’m sure, wanting instead for another song from the artist’s own catalog; I understand that point. I do. But, for me, such moments offer a glimpse into the artist’s soul in a way their own songs don’t. Maybe they choose the song because they love it; or maybe they choose it because it’s cheesy fun. Either/or is fine by me. Here are five favorites from YouTube, including a few from my own YouTube channel:

1) 10,000 Maniacs with Michael Stipe – “To Sir With Love.” From MTV’s Inaugural Ball in 1993. “To Sir With Love” is just one of those songs for me; it brings back a flood of memories from just about every era of my life. Chief among them: September 17, 1992, when the Maniacs closed their set at WXPN’s Five-Star Night with the Lulu classic; it was sheer magic. This performance with Michael Stipe, on the other hand, is sheer goofy, contagious fun. (This clip also features the song that followed, when Stipe joins in on the Maniacs’ own “Candy Everybody Wants.”)

2) Garland Jeffreys with Marshall Crenshaw and Jonathan Edwards – “Waiting for the Man.” Since Reed’s passing, Garland has paid tribute to his old pal, whom he met in college in the early 1960s, with a cover of this classic Velvet Underground song at just about every show of his I’ve seen. This great performance hails from September 2015 at the Ardmore Music Hall in the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore, Pa., where he was part of a round-robin concert with Marshall Crenshaw and Jonathan Edwards.

3) Susanna Hoffs – “When You Walk in the Room.” Susanna’s rhythm section had another commitment, so this November 2012 concert was just her, guitarist Andrew Brassell and a roadie on tambourine/percussion; and, as this song shows, the result was wondrous. She sang a few covers throughout the show, including the Beatles’ “All I Got to Do,” but this spin on the classic Jackie DeShannon song (which was a big hit for the Searchers) was my favorite.

4) Rumer – “American Dove.” This rendition of the Laura Nyro classic hails from Rumer’s first-ever concert in the U.S. in October 2011, at the World Cafe Live Upstairs in Philadelphia. We were two of about 50 folks in attendance.

5) Diane Birch – “Heavy Cross.” What’s amazing about this mesmerizing 2010 performance, which hails from French TV show? Everything.

And… one bonus.

Neil Young with Booker T & the MGs – “All Along the Watchtower.” In the early 2000s, Neil hit the road with the legendary Stax group. Their rendition of the Dylan-Hendrix classic is best summarized with three words: Crank it up!