Inspired by a post on a colleague of mine's weblog about visiting his alma mater, I've been listening to an inordinate amount of R.E.M. lately, which is sort've odd, as I've never been an especially massive fan of theirs. Despite his intelligence and encouragingly lefty point of view on virtually all subjects, I find Michael Stipe to be somewhat insufferably pretentious, but as far as I'm concerned, he was never the strongest link in the band's chain anyway (that would be Pete Buck, of course). In any case, reading the account by my friend Ben (a sizable R.E.M. fan himself) of his memories of Syracuse, I started thinking about my own alma mater, Denison University, and it is largely impossible to do so without having certain specific songs start flowing through my head.
Like lots of folks, I'd imagine, I completely associate certain music and specific songs with the time periods and locales wherein I first heard them, and while I'd certainly heard of R.E.M. -- and even bought a single or two of theirs -- prior to my first year at Denison (1985), I didn't really pay too much attention to them until setting foot on that campus. Being that they were, at the time, arguably the preeminent "college rock" band (a term that later morphed into "alternative"), it's oddly fitting that I cannot help but link their music with my own college experience.
I'd picked up the 7" single of "Radio Free Europe" while in still in high school, but never had thought much about them. Some time around 1984, my much cooler step-cousin, John C. (an early supporter of bands like The Cure and U2 when it seemed like the rest of the world was still listening to the J. Geils Band and Foreigner), tried to steer my attention away from bands like Venom and the Circle Jerks by making me listen to tracks off of R.E.M.'s Reckoning, which I probably found a bit too whiney, soppy and lacking in the adrenalized bite I normally enjoyed in my music at the time. John went onto become an art curator in Prague, I believe (I haven't seen the guy in decades).
In any event, by the time I made it to college, I'd made a concerted effort to ditch a lot of the more moronic stuff from my record collection (as mentioned in this earlier post), forgoing albums by idiots like Grim Reaper and Twisted Sister, and delving into a whole new world of music. In my first semester alone, new friends turned me onto records I'd never really heard before by artists like XTC, King Crimson, the Velvet Underground, the Violent Femmes, Game Theory, the Hoodoo Gurus, the Feelies and many more. I remember becoming obsessed with both Funhouse, the second album the Stooges (as needlessly detailed here) and the debut album by The Modern Lovers.
Then, of course, there was R.E.M. At the time, all one had to do was stick one's head out the nearest window to hear their latest album, Fables of the Reconstruction blasting out of someone's window (Little Creatures by the Talking Heads being the other inescapable choice -- an album I've never warmed to). While I didn't mind the single, "Can't Get There from Here" and the album's creepy opening track, "Feeling Gravity's Pull," it wasn't really the type of record I'd rush to the stereo to put on (I was otherwise pre-occupied with the sweetly dissonant Psychocandy by the Jesus & Mary Chain and Love by the Cult). Regular "meetings" (specially designed evening hours exclusively dedicated to the consumption of heroic amounts of beer) in a friend's room across campus, however, shed a whole new light Athens' favorite sons. Marc and Chad (churlishly re-dubbed 'C.h.u.D.' for comedic purposes....well, relatively comedic anyway) were a couple of guys who dormed in a perpetually dank room over in Crawford Hall (where the carpets were always disconcertingly damp and stank of stale beer and bongwater). It was there on some random freezing Ohio night wherein -- over the course of several ill-considered six-packs -- my ears were treated to several high volume airings of Black Sea by XTC (the hiccupy Brit pop band at their clangiest) and, more importantly, Chronic Town, the debut e.p. by R.E.M.
No folksy, middle-of-the-road milksop to be found here; Chronic Town -- a platter I'd never heard at the time -- found the Georgia foursome birthing what would become their signature sound; Peter Buck's chiming Rickenbacker guitars recalling the Byrds and Television in equal parts, but rushed along by Bill Berry's propulsive, jittery drum battery. Thought it lacked the power-chord crunch of my favorite metal bands and the apoplectic slam of the hardcore I'd been championing, here was a band with energy to burn. The five songs, for the most part, blend seamlessly into one another, but there isn't a weak track among them. From the opening staccato chords of "1,000,000" to the jittery jangle-tangle of "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)" it's a high energy ride that retains Punk's stealth but refreshingly jettisons the narrow stylistic parameters. Stipe's lyrics, at the time, might have been largely unintelligible, but there was something endearing about it being more about the sound, rather than the message (this would not always be the case with this band). To this day, I haven't the foggiest clue what "Wolves, Lower" or "Stumble" are about, but the frantic guitars in the opening of the former and the buckshot drums in the intro to the latter render all explanations unneccessary.
With all speed, I obtained my own copy of Chronic Town, putting it into swift rotation next to It'll End in Tears by This Mortal Coil (another album that would come to define my fist year of college). Convinced by Chronic Town that R.E.M. were capable of greatness beyond the odd single, I started becoming a bigger fan (later fave tracks include equally high-energy workouts "Windout," "Pretty Persuasion" and "Just a Touch") but as the band gradually distanced themselves from their original sound, so dissipated my enthusiasm. Ironically, the album wherein R.E.M. arguably embraced the power chord and "found rock," Monster, remains possibly my least favorite album (and the last one of theirs I bothered picking up). Once drummer Bill Berry announced his departure, I all but gave up on the band (though, truthfully, "The Great Beyond," the single they donated to the "Man on the Moon" soundtrack, is actually quite a fine thing). Adding insult to injury, Chronic Town didn't even get its own proper release on compact disc, but was simply tacked onto their odds'n'ends album Dead Letter Office (a fine collection in its own right, actually). I'd love to see Chronic Town re-mastered and re-released, appended with tracks that may not have made it to the original finished product. My breath, however, remains unheld.
Until then, Chronic Town will forever transport me back to the leafy quads and youthful promise of Denison University in the mid-80's.
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