So REM’s band manager and Attorney, Bertis Downs, recently donated to my nonprofit, the Mississippi Free Press. I’ve gotten to talk to him a couple of times, and followed his Instagram feed, which you would love because he’s prolific and always posting REM memories and info.
Holly, I feel like you wrote this one just for me. I adore REM and have so many things to say about them. Saw them play live twice in Philly: on 9-5-99 (the summer before my junior year of high school, when I was mind-willing them to play “Half A World Away” and then THEY DID) and 10-1-03 (the height of the “Michael wearing a thick blue band of eye makeup” era), and then I saw Michael Stipe alone on the Vote for Change tour in October 2004. All magical. Deep non-REM cuts I will recommend are Michael Stipe and Kristin Hersh singing Your Ghost, Michael and Coldplay singing In The Sun, and Michael’s cover of The Last Day of Our Acquaintance. I think what kills me most is they’re all still just walking around perfectly well and alive and they could still be making music and touring and they just choose not to!! I wish they’d reunite so you could see them.
Oh, man. I totally did this with The Band and wanted a young Rick Danko to be my boyfriend. It was not a minor obsession as I was truly depressed that I’d never see them live.
I do remember when Dan Rather was attacked while being asked, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” My husband’s name is Ken so the phrase pops up on occasion in our house.
Lastly, I saw REM at the Greek Theater when you were probably about 10.
So happy to have you back writing about your life.
Love this! Saw them many times back in the day - first time was 1987 in Philly and 10,000 Maniacs opened. He came out and sang A Campfire Song with Natalie Merchant and it was heaven (I almost wrote nearwild heaven there but stopped myself).
I loved REM in high school and college, and I saw them for the first time in Dallas in 1989 during the Green tour. Years later, I was living and working in Colorado with a high school friend of Michael Stipe’s, and though I did t get to go backstage with her, seeing them with Wilco at Red Rocks in 2003 was pretty special.
I lived in Athens, GA from 1988 to 1991 and it wasn’t unusual to spot those guys doing very normal mundane things around town. We got to attend the filming of some MTV performance of Losing my Religion one time, and that was super exciting! We got to listen to them play it a bunch of times while they filmed it from different angles. Everybody in that room knew it was gonna be a cool memory. My husband got to sing with Stipe’s sister, Linda, in some band back in those days too! Anyway, I feel like an ancient person but my favorite REM song is probably Radio Free Europe-it just takes me back to a special era in my life and I love it. If you follow comedian April Richardson, she’s probably the biggest fan ever. She’s really funny and a shard dresser too.
*SHARP dresser (also one time, when I worked at a box office in Pdx, Pete Buck came to pick up will call and I told him I was a fan and that I lived in Athens back then and he said, “well you must’ve been a CHILD!” (I was 18-21 then, so YES I was! But he was giving me a compliment and I blushed for days)
Oooh, love this. I've also been going through an R.E.M. phase, triggered by my son's obsession with the Goosebump remake, which features many early 90s song. And that's the thing: I love me some 90s REM, but my husband (a teen in the 80s) keeps insisting that I must listen to their early albums, they are so much better, but I've been too lazy to do so. My first REM song was Losing my religion, which was HUGE in my home country (Venezuela) and pretty much my intro into 90s music and into developing my own musical taste, so I still have a big soft spot for it and for the end.
Never saw them live either :(, but my biggest regret in that are continues to be Radiohead. They haven't officially split but might as well, and I will forever regret not having gone to see them back in 2006.
I have liked REM since high school but my appreciation also continues to grow. Maybe it is because the lyrical depth hits different when you have more experience living? I also love Nighswimming and listen to it with my adult kids even though it is about skinny dipping.
Loooove! Love every single thing of this REMiffic post and that you've been listening to them virtually non-stop over the past year. I've loved REM since I was a kid growing up in Former Yugoslavia, and then when we emigrated to Australia mid-1994, 'What's the Frequency, Kenneth' was a then-hit so it marked for me those early days of finding our feet in Oz after having left behind war and the only life we'd ever known up until that point. Also, how did I first hear REM? Well, 90210. Ha! Kid me was watching an ep of Beverly Hills, Brenda and Dylan were breaking up in his vintage Porsche convertible (parked on the beach), and all I could think—besides, you know, the sheer angst of The Couple calling it quits—was "What is that song?!" I would later find out it was Losing My Religion (a few weeks later on MTV, I think). It had me entranced the moment I heard it.
Of the late-'90s releases, I love 'The Great Beyond' and 'At My Most Beautiful'. I was a teenager when 'AMMB' was released, and I remember thinking how it was so wonderfully beachboysesque; how it had a definite 'God Only Knows' feel and quality to it (which is only one of my all-time fave tunes). Anyway, all this to say, looooove me some REM forever. I still have so much of their discography to discover. Note to self: remedy this!
So REM’s band manager and Attorney, Bertis Downs, recently donated to my nonprofit, the Mississippi Free Press. I’ve gotten to talk to him a couple of times, and followed his Instagram feed, which you would love because he’s prolific and always posting REM memories and info.
That is so cool! I'll follow him now!
Holly, I feel like you wrote this one just for me. I adore REM and have so many things to say about them. Saw them play live twice in Philly: on 9-5-99 (the summer before my junior year of high school, when I was mind-willing them to play “Half A World Away” and then THEY DID) and 10-1-03 (the height of the “Michael wearing a thick blue band of eye makeup” era), and then I saw Michael Stipe alone on the Vote for Change tour in October 2004. All magical. Deep non-REM cuts I will recommend are Michael Stipe and Kristin Hersh singing Your Ghost, Michael and Coldplay singing In The Sun, and Michael’s cover of The Last Day of Our Acquaintance. I think what kills me most is they’re all still just walking around perfectly well and alive and they could still be making music and touring and they just choose not to!! I wish they’d reunite so you could see them.
Immediately searching for these songs, thank you! (Also "Half a World Away" is my absolute #1 REM song!)
Oh, man. I totally did this with The Band and wanted a young Rick Danko to be my boyfriend. It was not a minor obsession as I was truly depressed that I’d never see them live.
I do remember when Dan Rather was attacked while being asked, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” My husband’s name is Ken so the phrase pops up on occasion in our house.
Lastly, I saw REM at the Greek Theater when you were probably about 10.
So happy to have you back writing about your life.
Love this! Saw them many times back in the day - first time was 1987 in Philly and 10,000 Maniacs opened. He came out and sang A Campfire Song with Natalie Merchant and it was heaven (I almost wrote nearwild heaven there but stopped myself).
You just reminded me I think I did see REM with 10,000 Maniacs back in the day!
I loved REM in high school and college, and I saw them for the first time in Dallas in 1989 during the Green tour. Years later, I was living and working in Colorado with a high school friend of Michael Stipe’s, and though I did t get to go backstage with her, seeing them with Wilco at Red Rocks in 2003 was pretty special.
I lived in Athens, GA from 1988 to 1991 and it wasn’t unusual to spot those guys doing very normal mundane things around town. We got to attend the filming of some MTV performance of Losing my Religion one time, and that was super exciting! We got to listen to them play it a bunch of times while they filmed it from different angles. Everybody in that room knew it was gonna be a cool memory. My husband got to sing with Stipe’s sister, Linda, in some band back in those days too! Anyway, I feel like an ancient person but my favorite REM song is probably Radio Free Europe-it just takes me back to a special era in my life and I love it. If you follow comedian April Richardson, she’s probably the biggest fan ever. She’s really funny and a shard dresser too.
*SHARP dresser (also one time, when I worked at a box office in Pdx, Pete Buck came to pick up will call and I told him I was a fan and that I lived in Athens back then and he said, “well you must’ve been a CHILD!” (I was 18-21 then, so YES I was! But he was giving me a compliment and I blushed for days)
Oooh, love this. I've also been going through an R.E.M. phase, triggered by my son's obsession with the Goosebump remake, which features many early 90s song. And that's the thing: I love me some 90s REM, but my husband (a teen in the 80s) keeps insisting that I must listen to their early albums, they are so much better, but I've been too lazy to do so. My first REM song was Losing my religion, which was HUGE in my home country (Venezuela) and pretty much my intro into 90s music and into developing my own musical taste, so I still have a big soft spot for it and for the end.
Never saw them live either :(, but my biggest regret in that are continues to be Radiohead. They haven't officially split but might as well, and I will forever regret not having gone to see them back in 2006.
I have liked REM since high school but my appreciation also continues to grow. Maybe it is because the lyrical depth hits different when you have more experience living? I also love Nighswimming and listen to it with my adult kids even though it is about skinny dipping.
Loooove! Love every single thing of this REMiffic post and that you've been listening to them virtually non-stop over the past year. I've loved REM since I was a kid growing up in Former Yugoslavia, and then when we emigrated to Australia mid-1994, 'What's the Frequency, Kenneth' was a then-hit so it marked for me those early days of finding our feet in Oz after having left behind war and the only life we'd ever known up until that point. Also, how did I first hear REM? Well, 90210. Ha! Kid me was watching an ep of Beverly Hills, Brenda and Dylan were breaking up in his vintage Porsche convertible (parked on the beach), and all I could think—besides, you know, the sheer angst of The Couple calling it quits—was "What is that song?!" I would later find out it was Losing My Religion (a few weeks later on MTV, I think). It had me entranced the moment I heard it.
Of the late-'90s releases, I love 'The Great Beyond' and 'At My Most Beautiful'. I was a teenager when 'AMMB' was released, and I remember thinking how it was so wonderfully beachboysesque; how it had a definite 'God Only Knows' feel and quality to it (which is only one of my all-time fave tunes). Anyway, all this to say, looooove me some REM forever. I still have so much of their discography to discover. Note to self: remedy this!