R.E.M- Ten Cover Versions (1984-1996)

On June 24th I posted a compilation of 10 of the many songs that R.E.M have covered down the years. As a companion to that post here are the R.E.M versions.




Toys in the Attic (Aerosmith) B side Fall On Me 12” (1986) Dead Letter Office LP (1987)
Ghost Rider (Suicide) Orange Crush UK 3” CD (1988)
Femme Fatale (The Velvet Underground) B side Superman UK 12” (1986) Dead Letter Office LP (1987)
Pale Blue Eyes (The Velvet Underground) B side So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) 12” (1984) Dead Letter Office LP (1987)
Dark Globe (Syd Barrett) Orange Crush UK 3” CD (1988)
One (U2) performed by Automatic Baby (Michael and Mike with the 2 normal guys from U2) live on MTV, released on Childline album (1996)
Strange (Wire) Document LP (1987)
Love Is All Around (The Troggs) B side Radio Song (1991)
Crazy (Pylon) B side Wendell Gee 7” (1985) Dead Letter Office LP (1987)
Superman (The Clique) single & Life’s Rich Pageant LP (1986)

 Sorry, this is no longer available to download.

R.E.M- Live at Tyrone's OC, Athens, GA, May 12th 1981

Okay, here’s another live bootleg for you.
It’s May the 12th 1981 and the venue is Tyrone’s, Athens, GA.
The band is REM.
Enjoy

Hindu Love Gods- (1990)

Hindu Love Gods were the late great Warren Zevon backed by Peter Buck, Bill Berry and Mike Mills of REM.
Hindu Love Gods made their first outing on vinyl as early as 1984, a single which went largely unnoticed. Then in 1987 Buck, Berry and Mills
played with Zevon on his Sentimental Hygiene album. According to the mythology these ten cover versions were recorded to use up the spare studio time. They are thumping blues rock numbers of the kind that I imagine would go down a storm in bars across the south.

Line up:
Warren Zevon- vocals , guitar
Peter Buck- guitar
Mike Mills- bass
Bill Berry- drums

R.E.M- Chronic Town (1982)

Chronic Town was R.E.M's second outing on vinyl, something of a compromise in that manager Jefferson Holt felt that the band should release a longer record, but that they were not ready to make an album.

The hallmarks of R.E.M's early sound are here: jangling arpeggios and sometimes indiscernable vocals.

There was a typical obscurity about the packaging; why have side one and side two when you can have a Chronic Town side and a Poster Torn side, and why put the tracklisting in the correct order?

R.E.M- Live at Mansfield, MA- 15th September 1989

Sooner or later I had to post something by R.E.M.
Brad said that he was originally from Scranton, PA. His dad had inherited some farm and they’d moved to the mid west. Brad hated it there. He actually preferred to be here in Wales. I suppose it must be cool to be considered exotic. On one arm he had an American eagle tattoo, and he soon balanced this out with a Welsh dragon on the other. I remember that on his door he had a front page cutting from some US paper: ‘Ethel Merman Dead.’ One day I called on Brad. The floor and the bed and the desk in his room were completely covered in playing cards. Brad was seated, cross-legged on top of the wardrobe. He had about twenty fresh packs of cards beside him and he was tossing cards down onto the floor. There must have been thousands of cards in the room. I didn’t ask anything. ‘The patterns, man, the fucking patterns…’ he said, entranced.
This is for Brad. It’s a soundboard recording of R.E.M, live at Mansfield, MA- 15/9/89. I think it’s just the second half of the gig, but still 13 songs or so.