Love Letter Forever Sent: about a beautiful newish R.E.M. book that was as perfect on the steamy summer day I started it as on the gloomy winter day I finished it
Peter Ames Carlin. The Name of this Band is R.E.M.. Doubleday, 2024.
To say that I was insanely excited to learn that there was a new R.E.M. biography by Peter Ames Carlin would be an understatement. For a band that has been broken up for 15 years, my fandom for them only seems to grow. Even before starting it, I told myself: I need this book in life.
Even though I began with an advance-reader-copy late last summer, long before the November 5, 2024 release, I had to put it down due to many distractions, not the least being the dire forecast of last fall’s political failure, which coincided with the book’s public unveiling. But ready to set aside a PDF on my Kindle, when the book finally dropped, I drove to a local brick-&-mortar store to purchase a physical copy & finally finished it this past grey winter, amid a serious R.E.M listening binge.
A recap-detour through the ways I have tried to document my R.E.M. fandom sets the stage for my giddy reception of this text.
After my wildly transformative & immersive inaugural R.E.M. show on the day before my 17th birthday in October 1984, I assumed I would always see them perform. They were so good; why would I not always see them? What a night in Ann Arbor with a then long-haired Michael Stipe in his most spastic & ecstatic dervish dances, prophesying post-punk mumble-poems; I still get chill-bumps when I remind myself that a band with only two full-length albums played 31 songs that weekday night, with an 8-song second encore. I got to meet them backstage that night & a couple more times, but two of my friends had become friends with the band.
I only saw them perform live a mere handful of times, with that too-brief-run ending in 1987 on the Work Tour when I was barely 20-years-old; this fact that I never made the extra effort to see them in the 90s or 00s has haunted me ever since they broke up.
In very recent years, I have made it a point to catch the Baseball Project with both Mike Mills & Peter Buck, most recently for a headlining set at the intimate Space venue in Evanston, Illinois. When I saw the “Arthur Buck” duo at the Basement East back in 2018, the crowd was so small that after the set, we got to hang with Joseph Arthur & Peter Buck, along with Mike Mills, who was in the crowd as a fan. I greeted Peter for myself, as well as on behalf of one of those friends he would actually remember, & I apologized for missing so many shows over the 31 years since I had seen him last. “But you are seeing me now,” was his kindness-as-response.
In the years since I started my “Teacher On The Radio” program, I have penned a handful of R.E.M. reflections on the website/blog. Over the same span of almost two decades now, I have made more than a few excursions to Athens, Georgia, for shows at the 40 Watt club, as well as to Paradise Garden, to visit the fascinating folk art of R.E.M. album-cover artist Howard Finster. Since 2023, I have made it a point to catch the R.E.M. tribute band Dead Letter Office. All of these feel like necessary pilgrimages, just to touch the vibe.
Each time I write about R.E.M, I wonder if I am just saying the same thing over & over again. I needed to hear what someone else had to say. Which brings us back to the book. Every time I seek some kind of sacramental point-of-contact, I realize that the absolute best thing of all is their vast catalog on my expensive headphones from the streaming service of my choice. Then, there are the countless YouTube videos, not to mention official documentaries & DVDs.
That’s all a ridiculous rehashing to get to the point that the best thing I may have ever written about them was a “love letter”-as-review of their December 1985 shows in Columbus & Indianapolis, respectively, right after Fables of the Reconstruction was released. I simply titled it “Letter Never Sent,” after their song, published in the brief & bright fanzine Disoriented Rain Dance (DRD). [reprinted below] One of those aforementioned friends made sure that the band had copies of the fanzine. That might be one of my proudest moments as an amateur music journalist.
But finally back to the Peter Ames Carlin book, which is the love letter forever sent, the love letter I needed to read.
The best long-form biographies function as beautiful non-fiction novels. To capture the eccentric specificity for the tangled testament from Georgia that’s the band called R.E.M. is not an easy task. Other books about R.E.M. have tried. I remember picking some of them up, then putting them down. When I picked this one back up after a brief break, it would not let me go. For something to feel so incredibly definitive to your identity as the fandom for one band, R.E.M. are so elastic & elusive, simultaneously alluring yet aloof. How hard it would be even to write a book like this, how amazed I am that someone did. A meticulously researched manuscript that he started during the pandemic, & finally, recently, completed, Carlin’s magisterial takes are such to anchor this sonic addiction of mine in the real world, but also in the weird world that we all share as century-straddling GenX-ers.
Towards the end of its 400 pages, Carlin addresses the entire arc of the career & allows some understanding of how, perhaps by luck or fluke, R.E.M could be such a massive popular success, yet still feel to us in the core fanbase like our best friends. Yes, they’re rich rock stars, but they are also an unpretentious assemblage of regular somebodies, everyday folks that you would nod to in the aisle at the store. Despite mistakes & missteps & near-tragedies & even some un-sexy sexual disclosures that I learned about for the first time in this book, R.E.M.’s very existence as an aural art-form remains a radical proposition, subversive in their innermost beings, both sonically & ethically.
The Name of This Band is R.E.M. is an expressive & expansive encyclopedia that magically manages to capture the strange spirit of these generation-defining superstars, without sacrificing journalistic integrity or jettisoning the author’s pure-genius prose, that somehow resembles a joyful ramble with the R.E.M. catalog on your headphones or speakers. - Andrew/Sunfrog, winter 2025
R.E.M. - Letter Never Sent (Or Railroad Rhymes For The Highway)
originally published in the summer of 1986 Disoriented Rain Dance #3 - about a show in late 1985
Dear Disoriented Rain People,
Joe & I traveled south back in December for a tremendous adventure with what is quite possibly the World’s greatest rock’n’roll band, R.E.M..
We left Detroit after I got out of school & then drove to Columbus for our first show at the War Memorial. Thanks to Karen Kelly of IRS Records, our passes were waiting at the door. We hung out for a bit by the now-famous R.E.M. tour bus. We could see the holiday lights in the window.
After a great opening set by the Minutemen, R.E.M. took the stage with lights out & the cool artwork on the screen & the train sound announcing the arrival of the reconstruction. Talk about a band with powerful imagery coming to life.... The R.E.M. show was for all of our senses to enjoy. The opening chords of “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” sent vibrations up & down my spine.
A poem I wrote on the road between Columbus & Indianapolis probably reflects the total experience in the best way:
Happy Life
just trying to absorb
every potent detail
of my experience
Eagle Creek
the trees have all the color that
they could once their leaves were
gone The bare branches
reach out to me & to the
Gods
Rich
theatrical
moving
The big wheels
The artwork
The storytelling
of a mature & brilliant Michael Stipe
A colorful rough homemade t-shirt
An American flag
The amber waves of gain
How I can help but to fall over?
Peter pajama-top Buck
Bill bounce-around Berry
Mike mamas-boy Mills
Michael man-on-the-moon’s-third-side Stipe
Big toilet paper tubes
Blonde hair
Makeup
How can things be any better?
Absorb the river & the rain
Life with passion & pain
The earth is my music &
My arms are open to the
Sky
I guess you could say that I was inspired by my first R.E.M. show in over a year.
Michael Stipe used to have curly locks of brown hair. He never talked much while on stage. I remember the Ann Arbor show in 1984 that he said something about electing a new president, but we did not know the storyteller of today. Natalie of 10,000 Maniacs helped Michael bleach his hair blonde while the two bands were touring together in November. At both shows, we saw Michael was wearing a huge amount of eye makeup & an article of clothing over his jeans that looked like a skirt. Before “Sitting Still,” he talked about a Columbus folk artist that moved him in a huge way with several projects, one that Michael likened to big toilet paper tubes.
The greatest story came before “Another Engine.” Both nights it was a little different. Each time it was about a friend of Stipe’s named Caroline. Michael brought a music stand on stage & performed the story as if he was reading from the music stand. Maybe he was. The story went something like this:
“I have this friend named Caroline. Carooline got onto a train, & when she got off, she was 20 years in the future in Philadelphia, PA, zip code 19102. As you can imagine, she was a little bit confused, being 20 years into the future in Philadelphia, PA, zip code 19102. She went to get a newspaper, & she looked at the headlines. She didn’t like what she saw. So she wrote me a letter. It went something like this: ‘Dear Michael, I took a train, & I got off 20 years in the future in Philadelphia, PA, zip code 19102. As you can imagine, I was a little bit confused, being 20 years into the future in Philadelphia, PA, zip code 19102. So I picked up a newspaper & looked at the headlines. I didn’t like what I saw. Michael, I think we need to start a new country. If you’re going to have a new country, you need to have a name. We could call our country Shine. If you’re going to have a new country, you need a preamble. It could go something like: We the people, will not eat green eggs & ham, Sam I am. If you’re going to have a new country, you need a battle hymn of the republic. This time, let’s make it more hymn than battle. If you’re going to have a new country, you need a form of transportation. Let’s get rid of Chrysler & Ford & General Motors, & let’s keep the trains.”
After the Indianapolis show, I asked Micheal what I had to do to become a citizen of Shine. He obviously was not prepared for this question, but quickly came up with an answer. To become a citizen of Caroline & Michael’s new country, you have to paint, read Mother Jones, & listen to Mahalia Jackson.
For an encore in Columbus, R.E.M. started to cover “Born to Run,” but stopped midstream as the band refused to cooperate on a Springsteen song. “I just wanted to sing that line,” Michael said as they stopped right after “strap your hands across my engines.”
Joe & I spent a great day together that began down by the river in Columbus taking photographs & was followed by a chilly afternoon hanging out in the downtown center of Indianapolis.
The band was good enough to get us & my friends from Indy passes for the show which was simply an occasion of smiles. I just love the way Michael Stipe moves as we danced together to the funky sounds of “Can’t Get There From Here.” The big train wheels covered the walls during “Driver 8.” Only Peter’s guitar accompanied Michael on a quietly arousing of “So. Central Rain.” Before “Green Grow The Rushes,” Michael’s work on Central America, he said, “There is something called the food chain when a big fish eats a smaller fish that eats an even smaller fish. There is a country called the United State & another country called Mexico & another country called Guatemala.”
Backstage, this has got to be the friendliest, most considerate band with their following. R.E.M. fans are the most intelligent, creative, & non-groupie backstage people I have ever seen. Michael is totally animated & alive. Peter & Joe carry on a pleasant conversation. Bill & Mike seem to have friends & autograph-seekers as well.
Joe & I hit the road directly after the backstage fun, both of us happy & smiling. Joe has now seen R.E.M. a total of 10 times. I still remember the waves of feelings that are R.E.M.. It was all there. Misty eyes during “Harborcoat” & a mental orgasm in the closing beauty of “Life & How To Live It.” Wow.
Peace, love, & music,
Andy
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