Cuttings

REM MIKE MILLS What would be the best thing anybody could give you for Christmas? “There’s a record of my father doing Handel's 'Messiah' that I don't have. That would be a nice Christmas present." What’s the worst Christmas present you’ve ever been given? "My father gave me a Rush record once. It was 'Hemispheres'. That’s gotta rate up there with the worst." Bet you didn’t play it. "Oh, I played it! I knew I wasn’t a fan but I give everybody a chance!” What on earth made him give you that? "He was trying to be cool! I never looked at him as an old fart or anything like that. It's just that he shot and he missed! That’s the way it goes.” What do you think of Christmas? “I love it. Well, not so much any more because now it’s this obligatory round of present-buying which is really kind of a drag. But I’m still able to feel things about it. I’ll do things like on Christmas Eve - or pretty much any night of the week before Christmas - I’

Without doubt, one of the finest albums of 1983 was R.E.M.’s debut ‘Murmur’. Surprisingly sucessful in their American homeland (going top 40), it eventually picked up some worthy attention here when the band visited these shores in November. With a name standing for Rapid Eye Movement (the effect of dreaming) it is not surprising to find their music warm and emotional, a trance-like collection of hidden moments and memories. Using the simplicity of jangling guitars,a bright piano and Michael Stripe’s almost Morrison-esque voice, R.E.M. managed to put together an album that grows on the listener like no other I’ve ever encountered - on first hearing it’s good, but by the fifty-first it’s a classic. Lucky enough to be witness to all three of their British performances (The Tube, Dingwalls and The Marquee), I became even more of a convert, and before R.E.M. returned home I found myself locked in an A&M office with Michael and guitarist Peter Buck (bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill B

ANOTHER GREEN WORLD 1988 saw REM leave their cult status behind, and home in on the airwaves and turntables of mainstream America. The critically lauded 'Green' album - third best 33 of the year in the NME festive chart! - consolidated the strengths and sublime songs of 'Document' whilst offering further evidence of Michael Stipe's unique lyricism. SEAN O'HAGAN probed the psyche of rock's most enigmatic songwriter. HORSES As a rule, the things people won’t talk about are usually the most interesting/ revealing aspects of their self. Today, Michael Stipe is reluctant to talk about his childhood. Were you a weird kid, Michael? "Erm. I wrote backwards right up until sixth grade. Perfect mirror image." That’s pretty weird... “It's quite common among left handers. This one teacher told me my brain would flip over if I didn't stop and learn to write properly" So you stopped? “Yeah. I had this recurring image of two fish inside my head, flip

OGRE FRIENDLY! REM Cardiff Arms Park THERE IS a clock. Positioned a few streets away, its deadpan face gazes over the rooftops and the terraces at Cardiff Arms Park, almost hidden behind the huge stack of amps which dwarf Peter Buck stage left. Thus it will stare for the ensuing two hours of rocking, rolling shenanigans. And it will not move once. For this clock is stuck, its hands stretching back to such a dusty point in time they are almost completely horizontal, from left to right. Forget asking Kenneth about the frequency - what's the bleedin' time. Michael? Why. it's 2.46. Eternal. Perfect. For isn't this predsely the kind of riddle that so delights REM-ites? Yet another twist to tease the masses, another act of subversion to upset the applecart of preconceptions? Of course not - it's just a bloody town clock that some sod can't be arsed to wind up. But such have been the dangers inherent in disseminating the REM info overload over the past 17 years: no mat

From US television Sesame Street meets REM Last week, Sesame Street in the US (brought to you by the letter B and the number 19) featured a guest appearance from REM. Here is the full shooting script and transcript, revealing the stadium rock stars’ contribution to cognitive emotions and early learning Title : REM Song: Furry, Happy Monsters Goals : Emotions, happy/sad Music/Lyrics : B Berry, P Buck, M Mills, M Stipe Scenic : Limbo Talent : REM, Monsters, Two-headed monster Music : Track to song Shiny Happy People [As REM starts the tune, we see a group of happy, laughing monsters and the two-headed monster. Their joy is over the top. They skip, jump, run, whoop and high-five each other. Music: track to song Shiny Happy People ] REM sings : Furry happy monsters, laughing... Monsters having fun, happy, happy, See them jump and run, happy, happy Laughing all the while, cheerful, cheerful, Flashing a big smile, that’s a perfect sign That they’re feelin’ fine!

LOSING THEIR PRECISION REM Monster (Warner Bros/All formats) AND MONSTERS go ‘Grrrrrrrr!" Well, what else were they going to do? As the final chords of 'Find The River" ebbed away and the listener struggled to grasp the enormity of what had just been heard, one instinctively felt that when REM made another album - if REM made another album - it could not be ‘Automatic 2: More Songs About Death And Dying'. So perfectly realised, so beautiful in its dignified exploration of the darkest themes, ‘Automatic For The People' brought the late chapter in the REM story to a most unequivocal close. How could its perpetrators make another relatively quiet contemplative record without starting to repeat themselves? What would be the point? Leaving aside the response that seeing as the perpetrators were REM, the most consistently inspired band of their generation, the results would most likely be wonderful - and that would be the point - the volte face of ‘Monste

WE ARE TRUSTWORTHY ONCE MICHAEL STIPE COULD sing like a man with a mouthful of ectoplasm and a head full of spells and people would take it on faith that it meant the world. Yet now, the beautiful ascetic with the stained-glass eyes is the consummate striped-trousered superstar, the maps and legends crashed under a pile of celebrity contacts. For eight years REM have been in that hollow place where the glare of fame withers the good, and, as 30 million album sales prove, it's no longer a matter of love, but of trust. It's a matter of trust for the band as much as anyone. Without dummer Bill Berry for the first time, keen to show they don’t exist in vacuum-packed isolation, REM’s take on 'Up' is that it’s just a bunch of guys playing together in a room. There's more than a little preposterous superstar posturing here, but maybe, when you’ve created whole musical solar systems, you just want to be the salt of the earth. For ail the promised adventuring, it

THE FINAL RECKONING? REM Automatic For The People (Warner Brothers/All formats) EVERY RIVER has a multiple tributaries, glorious sights on its banks, and an end. If you imagine REM's career as a river, the source would be Athens, Georgia and the release of 'Radio Free Europe' in 1980, the tributaries would be the various collaborations Stipe, Berry, Buck and Mills have indulged in over the years. The glorious sights would be the temple of fandom erected around them, and the rapids - that started with 'Document' shifting a million copies and got faster through 'Green', more than doubling that figure to ‘Out Of Time' going supernova last year - have now reached the ocean, flowing around the world with 'Automatic For The People'. Future efforts will be played out on the same grand scale as the Michael Jacksons and Madonnas ... But the river also signifies life, from your humble beginnings as a tot, through teenage years, to middle-age