I know Dan [Wilson] was probably the most into R.E.M. in our crowd, though I loved the band too. We played the 40 Watt. It was obviously a groovy scene as I am sure you have heard. The band was at that point flying pretty high. R.E.M. that is. We were grinding it out. Michael shook Elaine’s hand. Too hard it seemed. She was like,”Ow!!” Dan was all, “What did he say?” It was surely oracular! “My hand hurts!!” That was a little later I think, maybe after Peter produced a Run Westy Run single up here and after he played on “I Will Dare” by the Replacements.
Before that, in 1982, I will never forget my college bud buying Chronic Town and going, “What the heck is this!!” Amazing record. So moody. And inscrutable. I believe the other record he bought that day was Everything Falls Apart by Hüsker Dü.
Seeing R.E.M. very early on open for the Suburbs and the Replacements at Harriet Island in St Paul MN was a total revelation because the music made sense live in a great way. Michael invited a kid up to sing a couple of songs, “Radio Free Europe” in particular but another one or two also. It became apparent that the singer was mostly a dancer who was sort of enthusiastically doing the best he could with the totally obscure lines but getting most of the melodies. He showed us how to move to those tunes.
It was an incredible inspiring day in the eighties before Reckoning even came out I believe.
JOHN MUNSON is a musician based in Minneapolis. His long musical CV includes Trip Shakespeare, Semisonic and the New Standards, among many other projects. John is now working on a memoir, which he reports is “a bit like running a rototiller through my past.”
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John Munson in the late ’80s
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