|
Archive-name: music/rem-faq/part3
Posting-frequency: monthly Last modified: Jan 5, 1998 See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Part 4. Where To Get More Information about R.E.M. (Books) Several books have been published about R.E.M. The best of them are listed below, with a brief description and some bibliographical information. If your local bookstore does not carry a title you want, you should ask them to special order it, and provide them with the publisher and ISBN information included below. REMnants - The R.E.M. Collector's Handbook and Price Guide, by Gary Nabors. A list of over 1200 collectible R.E.M. items fully described and valued, plus a 29 page interview with Peter. A must for the die-hard R.E.M. collector. (Eclipse Publishers, 261 pages, ISBN 0963624148.) It Crawled From The South: An R.E.M. Companion, by Marcus Gray. Second expanded ed.: Da Capo Press, March 1997, ISBN: 0306807513. This is THE book for the serious fan. Some might even go so far as to say to read this and REMnants cover to cover before posting to rec.music.rem! This book is considerably more in-depth than REMarks. REMarks: The Story of R.E.M., by Tony Fletcher. Second ed. of the first bio to appear. A pretty complete compilation of all the well-known info about the band, with lots of pretty pictures. Probably the best bio for the casual fan. (London : Omnibus, 1993. 159 p. ISBN 0711932212 (pbk), 0711932212 (cloth).) R.E.M.: Behind the Mask, by Jim Greer. A pretty hardcover coffee table book written by a writer from SPIN. The author pretty much re-wrote REMarks, replacing fact with his own opinions. (Little Brown, 1992, ISBN 0316327301.) Party Out Of Bounds, by Rodger Lyle Brown. A book about the early (and mostly pre-REM) Athens music scene. Marcus Gray (author of It Crawled From the South) called it "entertaining." (Out of Print as of this writing.) R.E.M. File Under Water, by John Story. An update of "A Few Chords and A Cloud of Dust", a complete discography, bootleg list, etc. published a while back by Total Recall Productions. (Imaginary Books, ISBN 1-897787-00-6) Talk About the Passion, by Denise Sullivan. Interviews with various folks about the band over the years. (Charles F. Miller Books, 1994, ISBN 0-88733-184-X.) REM: The "Rolling Stone" Files: The Ultimate Compendium of Interviews, Articles, Facts & Opinions from the Files "Rolling Stone". (Hyperion/ Little Brown, 1995, 320p., ISBN 0786880546, $14.95 retail price) There have also been some cheap "CD-size" biographies of the band put out by various publishers to be sold in music stores that all rehash material from the primary sources listed above. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 5. R.E.M. On Video Nearly all videos created for R.E.M. songs are available on one of several full-length video compilation releases. These are: R.E.M. Succumbs (videos for Murmur through Lifes Rich Pageant) Pop Screen (videos for Document and Green) This Film is On (videos for Out Of Time) Parallel (videos for Automatic for the People and Monster) Note: Parallel was released with two versions: "A" and "D". (The "A" version cuts explicit nudity from the "Nightswimming" video that is present in the "D" version.) In addition, two full-length concert documentaries have been released: Tourfilm (Green tour documentary) Roadmovie (Monster tour documentary) All these videocassettes/videodisks are in print and can probably be found in your local hip music video emporium even as you read this. Most stores should be willing to special order a title for you if they do not have it in stock, so don't be shy about asking. Four older videos not on these compilations are: "Wolves, Lower"; "(All I've Got To Do Is) Dream" and "Swan Swan H" from the "Athens, Ga, Inside/Out" soundtrack (all scenes from the film, which is available on video); and the MTV version of "Radio Free Europe" (music is the same, but this version of the clip contains snippets of live footage interspersed with the regular video.) After the release of Parallel on 5/30/95, the band put out a video for the song "Tongue"; it is not known if this will be included on a future compilation for New Adventures in Hi Fi or not. Also, PBS and MTV also showed the documentary Rough Cut, which featured an interview with the band interspersed with back-stage rehearsal footage from the Monster tour and a Saturday Night Live appearance. Videos that have been recorded for songs on New Adventures but which have not yet been collected include "How the West Was Won...", "E-bow the Letter", "Bittersweet Me," and "Electrolite". Presumably they will be issued in a set with videos from the band's next album's singles. Other R.E.M. related videotapes are: the previously-mentioned Athens, GA, Inside/Out documentary on the Athens, GA music scene, and Arena Brains, a short film by Robert Longo (who also directed the video for "The One I Love" and the film Johnny Mnemonic) -- featuring Michael Stipe's acting debut. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 6. Resources Available On the Internet USENET * What rec.music.rem is on. Other newsgroups that might be of interest to r.m.r regulars include: alt.music.alternative (very busy group, be forewarned!); lt.music.alternative.female (for all the R.E.M. fans also fans of Indigo Girls and 10,000 Maniacs' Natalie Merchant); alt.guitar.tab or rec.music.makers.* (several groups where you might find R.E.M.'s music worked out by others). EMAIL LIST-SERVER (reflector or digest) With the demise of the MURMUR list, there currently exists no general email forum to which you can subscribe to discuss R.E.M. The previous mailing list organizer may be able to provide a list of former subscribers to Murmur should someone really be interested in picking the job up. There are, however, several lists dedicated to individual members of the band, and for info on them you should check out the following sites: * Mike Mills (OIC3MH) http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/6604/ * Michael Stipe (MLA = Mumbles Lovers Anonymous) <http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~jgraham/mla/mlapage.html> * Peter Buck (BUCKHEADS) * Bill Berry (DATG) * The whole band (REMarks) All have a digest option and can be subscribed to by sending email to majordomo@athens.net with the command syntax (where "listname" is the name in parentheses above, and "username@domain.name" is your email address: subscribe listname username@domain.name or, for the digest version, subscribe listname-digest username@domain.name WWW R.E.M. Home Page http://www.svs.com/rem/index.html Includes an assortment of R.E.M. material and hypertext links to other resources. Maintained by Jason Zimberoff (zim@svs.com). Kipp Teague's Lyrics http://www.retroweb.com/remlyrics.html Allows one to choose albums and songs to view various lyrics, very nicely set up. Same text as the old Fables email lyrics archive, which Kipp Teague <teague@retroweb.com> has maintained for many years. Lyric Annotations FAQ http://www.brainlink.com/~cafard/remlafaq.html A compendium of answers to various obscure references and allusions in R.E.M. lyrics. * Some other WWW sites as of this writing are: Official Warner Bros. Site http://www.wbr.com/rem Jim Barry's STIPEY.COM http://www.stipey.com Chris Bray's site for chords and tabs http://bubblegum.uark.edu/REM/ Bootleg info http://www.svs.com/users/zim/ More great R.E.M. links http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/zoomar/rem/htm If you maintain a serious R.E.M.-related web site and would like your URL listed here in the FAQ, email me and I'll be happy to consider it. (I may not include sites that are chiefly collections of links to sites people already know about, however.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 7. A Primer on R.E.M. Bootlegs/Live Tapes Bootlegged recordings of R.E.M. concerts, and early demo versions of songs from their albums, are widely available; comparisons have been made between R.E.M. fandom and Deadheads on the basis of their shared appetite for live recordings of their respective favorite band. Remember that these recordings are, strictly speaking, illegal, and are therefore not available in retail record outlets. So, if you want to get hold of some, here are a few ways to go about it: 1. Go look in USED record and CD stores. Some used stores won't deal in boots, but many do. If you live in or near a big city (bootlegs tend to be harder to find in small-town used stores), take a field trip and dig, dig, dig. Some older bootlegs are only on vinyl, but most new ones are on CD. Some stores also sell multiple-generation taped copies of random shows, which don't sound as good, but are certainly much cheaper. 2. Go to record shows. While many dealers will sell recordings of questionable legality and origin, you can also find things at record shows not available elsewhere... you pay your money and you take your chances! But there are great finds to be had. 3. Mail order. _Goldmine_ magazine has extensive advertisements from people who deal in bootlegs. You may want to ask other group readers about particular dealers before sending off your money, since some of them aren't too reliable. From some people's experience, Midnight Records (out of NYC) is a legitimate record store that has a very good mail order department, as is Minus Zero Records at 2 Blenheim Crescent in London. They both are reputed to have great bootleg selections. 4. Trade. If you see someone talking on Rec.music.rem about a bootleg they have you think sounds interesting, ask that person politely if they might be willing to trade. Some folks (but not all) will send you a copy of their bootleg in exchange for enough cash to cover both return postage and the cassette, some will also want to be compensated for the time they will spend taping for you, and still others will only want to exchange with you for some rare recording that they are looking for (in which case, if you don't have what they're looking for, they won't be interested in trading with you). This kind of person-to-person trading is a great way to acquire boots since you're dealing with a private individual instead of a store, or bootleg company of questionable morals -- sometimes you can not only get a cool R.E.M. recording, but make a friend as well. HOWEVER: Make sure you come to a solid agreement before you send off tapes or cash! This cannot be stressed enough. Many flame wars have gotten started over a misunderstanding about terms and the time-frame for getting the recordings done and mailed back (some people will get it done in a week, others may take months; everyone has differing priorities). Please try to contact the person by phone or email before posting to Rec.music.rem that they are dishonest... people are sometimes busy, and sometimes honestly forget commitments. It's real ugly when people start making accusations in public about other Rec.music.rem contributors' honesty (or lack thereof). You may find that if you offer some bootleg or compilation tape of rare songs to the entire net, you will be SWAMPED with requests for it. Be aware of this if you don't want to get committed to making dozens and dozens of copies of a single tape -- remember, many THOUSANDS of people read Rec.music.rem each day. Sometimes people will offer to make a certain number of copies for the first `N' number of people who reply, or will ask for a particular type of recording in trade, in order to reduce the number of responses. In Summary Bear in mind that buying new bootlegs is expensive. Vinyl boots used to go for least US $10 per LP disk, and now, in "vintage record" shops, may cost more than twice that. CD boots run about US $20-30 per disc. However, making an investment in buying an excellent quality CD boot means you can easily tape and trade copies of it for other things, and your collection of tapes can therefore grow quickly. Because the sound quality of bootlegs varies widely, if you are considering buying or ordering a bootleg, consult the bootleg discography first, watch the newsgroup for discussions on titles you are interested in, or post a question about the sound quality (it would appear that most of the common boots are owned by at least a few readers) before shelling out the cash. If you are buying a bootleg in a used CD shop, ask the clerk if they will play a couple cuts for you before you buy. The Great Bootleg Discography (see http://www.svs.com/rem/bootdiscog.html or http://www.svs.com/rem/other/boots.discog) has descriptions, ratings, and setlists for just about every bootleg that has been released on LP and CD. Boots taken from radio broadcasts of concerts are usually good-quality soundboard recordings, though are often very widely available under multiple titles from different bootleg outfits -- so be careful you don't inadvertently duplicate a show you already own. Audience recordings, meanwhile, are generally of mediocre quality and may not be worth the effort unless the sound turned out surprisingly well and the people in the rows around the person making the recording kept their mouths shut (yeah, sure, you wanted a tape of Joe Shmoe's drunk buddy in the next seat singing along out of key at the top of his lungs to "Losing My Religion", or somebody's airhead date saying "Ohmigod, the singer is like tot'ly bald!"), or if the show itself was particularly significant (a show you attended, for example, or something cool like the pre-_Murmur_ performances, most notably _So Much Younger Then_). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, A Word About Posting Scurrilous Rumors Don't expect anyone to believe a rumor you've heard unless you can back it up with concrete evidence. "My best friend said so," is NOT enough. If you hear something that you'd like to try to confirm, please specify that it is a rumor and not a fact, and take your chances (in other words, you might still get flamed). But bear in mind nearly all gossip about a celebrity (especially about Michael Stipe, who in R.E.M. seems to be the rumor magnet) is only innuendo without real evidence. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 8. An Index of Subjects This alphabetical listing of the topics covered in FAQ questions is designed to make it easier for you to zero right in on the answer of your particular question. If you just want to wander through FAQ and its answers randomly, proceed to Part 4, the FAQ Proper. "11" [song on Green] B8 "After Hours, The" D4 AIDS rumor A8 Amos, Tori C16 Automatic for the People, origin of name A10 "Be Mine" C22 Berry, Bill B10 Bingo Hand Job D1 Buck, Peter and Buck, Rob (10,000 Maniacs) A13 Burns, Robert C11 "Can't Get There from Here" C7 Caroline (woman in videos) A14 Charles, Ray C7 Chesnutt, Vic B16 Chronic Town cover B9 available separately B14 Clift, Montgomery C9 Cobain, Kurt A16 Cohen, Leonard C15 Countdown myth B4 "Country Feedback" C17 Covers versions(released) D10 Document cover art B12 "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" C18 Earpiece monitor D9 E-bow C21 "Eleventh Untitled Song" B8 Email addresses A6 EST C17 "Exhuming McCarthy" C10 Fables of the Reconstruction cover art B11 quality A5 Fan Club A1 Finster, Howard B5 "First We Take Manhattan" C15 Flame wars A5 Fours and "R"s on Green B3 "Future's 40 (String of Pearls)" D3 Gang of Four D5 Grasso, Carl B13 Green 4's and R's on liner B3 last track name B8 "Green Grow the Rushes" C11 "Harpers" D6 Hersh, Kristen C14 Hindu Love Gods A9 Holsapple, Peter D2 Holt, Jefferson A19 Hugo Largo D6 Inaugural ball performance D7 "It Might Hurt a Little Bit" C16 Kaufman, Andy C20 Krazy Kat A15 Lifes Rich Pageant cover art B7,B10 track numbering B7 Linklater, Richard C5 "Love Is All Around" D8 Lyrics, meaningless C2 "Man on the Moon" C20 McCarthy, Joseph C10 Meaning of band name A4 Merchant, Natalie C13 Mills, Mike suits A11 vocals on MTV Unplugged D8 in band Butter08 A17 Monster liner notes B1 "Monty Got a Raw Deal" C9 Naming of album sides B6 "Neverland" D2 New Years' Eve breakup A7 Newsletters A3 Numbering countdown myth B4 Nudie suits (Mills) A11 Oasis (the band) A20 "One" D7 Pavement (band) A12 "Photograph" C13 Rather, Dan C6 R.E.M. breaking up on New Years' A7 covers D10 email addresses A6 origin of name A4 Reckoning cover art B5 tribute song A12 untitled musical snippet C12 Reconstruction of the Fables B11 "Revolution" (song) B15 Rockville, MD C18 Scheaffer, Ken C6 "Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" C3 "Sitting Still" C1 Smith, Patti A18 Spitting Gargoyle of Notre Dame B9 "Sponge" B16 "Star 69" C19 Stipe, Michael AIDS rumor A8 earpiece monitor D9 first name A2 friend Caroline in videos A14 side projects C14,C16,D3,D6 Straw, Syd D3 "Superman" intro sounds C4 not listed on LRP B7 "Superwoman" B7 Tatoo A15 TourFilm unidentified music D3,D4,D5,D6 Troggs D8 U2 D7 "Untitled" B8 Velvet Underground D4 "Voice of Harold" C8 "We Live As We Dream, Alone" D5 Welch, Joseph C10 "What's the Freq. Kenneth?" lyrics C5,C6 single cover B2 "Your Ghost" C14 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acknowledgments This file is currently maintained by, and new entries (since 1995) were written by, Ron Henry (rgh3@cornell.edu); many thanks to previous authors and maintainers whose efforts this version is based on. Thanks also to numerous Rec.music.rem newsgroup members past and present who have offered information, corrections and criticism to the contents of this FAQ (you may or may not know who you are!) Special thanks go to Kipp Teague, long-time wrangler of this document, and to Valerie Ohm, original list manager at M.I.T. and author of the original text of many of the FAQ questions. Permission is given to quote and reproduce portions of this text provided that you credit the source ("Rec.music.rem FAQ" with date of the version being quoted) and provided that you *do not make any attempt to pass off the text as your own work.* It's always better WWW etiquette to link to existing resources, than copy the pages wholesale. Further suggestions are always welcome (email to eviscerate@geocities.com or rgh3@cornell.edu). Keep those virtual cards and letters coming! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- User Contributions: |
Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: