The Church of R.E.M.
I finally started reading Peter Ames Carlin's biography of the band R.E.M., titled The Name Of This Band Is R.E.M. This book is a revelation about how making art is messy and uncomfortable. Michael Stipe was supposed to be a quiet visual artist. He is multi-talented, but at the beginning of his artistic awakening, the fine art he practiced was focused on presenting a still image to a viewer. But something in him also roared to step up on stage and sing songs that moved the world.
This was a band that should not have been. None of them were trained musicians, but all loved music enough to show up every day and play together until they sounded like what they heard in their hearts before they started playing their instruments.
Mostly, I feel jealous when reading this excellent book. I didn’t listen to R.E.M. until I read the five-star review of Automatic For The People in Rolling Stone Magazine. I only knew they were good because someone else told me they were worth listening to, some expert in a magazine I bought from a grocery store. But I was hooked once I paid my money and put that CD in my 6-disc Aiwa with that sweet moving graphic equalizer. It was some of the most beautiful music I’d heard then. It meant something to me. My experience with R.E.M. may have started with someone else’s opinion, but that became a journey of over thirty years.
R.E.M.’s music means more to me now than it did back then. Great music has a way of aging like wine. My favorite moment from this band's origin story is their debut public performance. It wasn’t in a club, a bar, or any sanctioned venue—it was in the shadow of stained glass and forgotten pews. Bohemian artsy kids lived in a former church turned into a cheap tenement college apartment in Athens, Georgia, where the walls peeled like paper and the floors creaked to pop like an old man’s knees.
Curious and aimless in the way only youth allows, one girl found a loose board in the back of her closet. The drywall gave way when she tugged at it, revealing a dark, cavernous space beyond. It was the abandoned nave of the church, long sealed off and left to dust and ghosts. The adventurous kids strung up Christmas lights, dragged in salvaged couches and folding chairs, and somehow managed to run electricity into the space. They turned a hole in the darkness into a place to perform art and enjoy the thrill of being alive with nothing to do but sing about it. People don’t seize that opportunity often enough, but some people do, and now and then, their art changes the world.
That first performance of four weirdos who somehow found each other to make music for 30 years together wasn’t about being discovered or becoming famous for that brief, shining hour. R.E.M. worked their asses off for ten years before that review got into the Rolling Stone, which then got into my brain.
And it doesn’t matter when you become an R.E.M. fan. You may listen to their music for the first time after you read this, and that would be an honor if my words helped create new R.E.M. fans, because that would be me passing art onto others like that Rolling Stone magazine did for me all those years ago.
R.E.M. wrote a song for every emotion a human can feel. They made the pain of life sound beautiful and haunting. I am grateful for their art.
Reading about the early fans of R.E.M. being the college kids who just loved listening to and watching a cool, artsy band make music that mattered and that they could dance to reminds me of my version of R.E.M., which was a great band called Miranda Sound. I will write more about their music here in the future, but look them up. Check out their record Western Reserve.
Four Seasons
Four Seasons on Netflix is a tender, funny, and meaningful eight-episode dramedy. It’s a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Andor
Cassian Andor is the third most important character in Star Wars. The order of importance goes like this:
Anakin Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Cassian Andor
What I’m Working On
I am in full-on design mode for my Twin Peaks book. This is going to be a loooooooooooong book. I’m only on Part 6, and it’s already 130 pages. Because I’m adding the Twin Peaks Class for each of the 18 parts, that adds about 60 pages to the book. I am enjoying the labor of designing a book again. I am good at this. I could never draw or paint a picture, but I can use a computer to create visuals. As a writer, I deeply love words and how they look on the page next to one another. Words are art, and I enjoy putting the words together and placing them on a page for readers. This will be an expensive book, probably over $100. It will be beautiful, and I want it to be the primary text used in advanced studies courses for analyzing, interpreting, and enjoying Twin Peaks The Return as a great artwork.
I’m reading two other books right now besides the R.E.M. book. It’s difficult because it requires discipline to show up, sit down, and read, but I limit myself to 10 pages daily in each book. It’s a slow, steady slog, but it gets the books read.
In my “pay the mortgage” profession, I’m still learning more about AI Agents working with people in optimized channels of digital labor. I continue to help build a future where people won’t have to work at meaningless labor. I work for a future where people have time and resources to create art like the artists discussed in this week’s meditations.
Thanks for letting me into your front parlor to rap on Sunday evening.
See you next week.
Share this post