FBO: 'REM Follows FBO (A Bit Late)'

BUT DID THEY PLAY 'FLOWERS OF GUATEMALA'?


REM is back in South America -- about 12 days behind the FBO -- and their overpriced show at Simon Bolivar Park didn't even make the local paper El Tiempo's arts section. It did make the news section though.

A pic on page one led to a page 16 story that pronounced 'REM se empapo de rock politco,' starting its news-related piece:

'With a dedication to Democratic candidate for president in the USA, Barack Obama, REM confirmed the tendency as a progressive and political group, during the concert last night in Bogota.'

Not very snappy -- my translation -- and certainly nothing new, but apparently Michael Stipe dedicated a so-so new song 'Man Sized Wreath' to Obama. This is potentially upsetting for some of the rich crowd here, who sometimes lean more towards the Republicans.

Or was it? According to www.REMHQ.com*, the Bogota show was 'the loudest crowd of the tour.' Loud in a good way.

Yesterday I bumped into a young lightly bearded reporter for channel 7 here interviewing a black man from Colombia's Caribbean coast about 'human rights' and got to talking with him about travel, perception of Colombia, and why he should use his press card to sneak us both into REM. I mentioned REM often puts politics into their shows, and with Colombia being a surprise issue in the last presidential debate, he could talk with him about it. 'I like what you're saying. Do you want to get lunch?,' he asked. I had an another appointment.

Surely channel 7 is snapping their fingers in disappointment now.

Meanwhile, the FBO appreciates REM's continued attempts to apologize for well over a decade of mediocre work. But they're still not invited to the Panhandle Show in Guymon, OK (tentatively scheduled for May 2009).


FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Bogota, Colombia

* Wonder why REM doesn't use www.REM.com? So do we. Apparently no one else does either.

FBO: 'The Deconstruction of REM'

AN APOLOGY WOULD BE NICE
We've alluded to this before -- that REM was the USA's great alternative hope of the '80s, cordially bouting with Europe's own alternative hope, U2. The results are painfully obvious to see, for the American-centric music fans in us all: U2 by a KO.

Consider these facts:

REM made a few good albums -- 'Murmur' (1983), 'Reckoning' (1984), 'Fables of the Reconstruction' (1985), 'Life's Rich Pageant' (1986) **ed note: remember when bands made albums every year?** and debatably (very) 'Document' (1987). By their first major-label release, the patchy 'Green' (1988), REM lost its edge. By the still-enigmatic power-fuzzy 'Monster' (1994) the singles stopped being hits, and the band slid into horrible sludge it's never shown any sense of rebounding from.

Of REM's 12 or so studio albums, only four are very good. That means 66% of their original work has been questionable. In a 25-year career, 20 years are marred with suspicious output. That's a seriously unimpressive track record.

Why?

--> Mike Mills' Ego
The smart dork in the classroom, a Paul McCartney without the talent, suddenly found his confidence, right before the penultimate song in a fairly remarkable 'Unplugged' peformance for MTV in 1991. Michael Stipe said, before they started 'It's the End of the World As We Know It', something like 'we have one more song for you,' and the audience 'ahhhed'. Mike Mills chipped in: 'Oh, we can stop now if you like?' This generated much doting, polite laughter. And Mike Mills took note. By the time the awful 'Automatic for the People' came out, with burgeoned confidence, he had long bleached hair, was wearing cowboy suits, and his back-ups seemed even higher in the mix.

--> Michael Stipe's Ego
Stipe was his best when he was down in the mix, slurring his words, with lyrics that skirted the meaning -- leaving what he was talking about a 'best guess.' Compare the 'acid rain' anthem 'Fall on Me' (1986) with 'Everybody Hurts' (1992) which has about the subtlety of a punch to the groin. Somewhere, Stipe got his confidence -- we don't have the exact location but it likely involves a successful MTV awards or his bad haircut from the 'Green' tour.

--> Pete Buck's Laziness
Long a liar -- note the photo of him playing piano on the back of 'Reckoning' (1984), or hear his repeated claims that the next album 'doesn't have any guitar'; both lies -- Buck's worst offense is that he just doesn't try anymore. Take 'Everybody Hurts,' where he goes for a blues slow-pick to telegraph the 'sad' tone of the song's listeners. Where are the 'Seven Chinese Brothers'?

--> Departure of Bill Berry
REM's only infallible, almost critique-proof member -- Bill Berry -- left the band in 1997 after suffering a brain aneuryrsm. The band has never been the same.

If you think REM deserve props, and its recent induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, and believe REM is tops...

--> Compare U2's 'One' (1991) with REM's 'Everybody Hurts' (1992) -- The winner in these partner testaments to soaring emotion, 'One' is an anthem of reconciliation amidst differences, the other is included in mockery in movies and films when an over-sensitive character breaks down (eg The Simpsons, The Office (US), 'Bewitched').

--> REM copies Canada's great trio Rush on acid rain. Rush sung about it on songs like 'Distant Early Warning' in 1984. REM's 'Fall on Me' came out a year later.


The FBO asks either that REM apologizes for 'lacking luster' in the past 20 years -- seriously they had five good ones, and 20 dodgy ones -- OR to return the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame ribbon to Cleveland. Their choice, which.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Billy Squier Begins the Begin'

UNFORGETTABLE FIREPLACE

Whilst living in London, this American occasionally got a ribbing at how much better British pop and rock stands up against American pop and rock. If you think about it, they have a point -- many many many of the biggies in this world (Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Who, Clash, Duran Duran, Wings, Adam Ant) are from the northerly isles off France. The USA has Velvet Underground, Dylan, the Ramones and the Outfield, and not a whole lot more than can stack up with the legends of All Time.

In the post-punk '80s, we may recall, the great race for respectability and un-solo-ed anthems set out between Ireland's U2 and Georgia's REM, with it too close to call by the time REM went major and jumped from IRS records to Warner Brothers. Then it all fell apart. REM's last two decades -- basically anything since 'Document' other than a few non-singles from 'Green' and maybe 'Lost My Religion' or throw-away 'Me in Honey' -- ranks up with the Stones' last couple decades for longest span of time with the least-inspired music. REM joined the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame this year, but they've flat-out sucked for a very very long time. U2 meanwhile has risen, with at least a single worth hearing every couple years.

Is the fight over?

No, says Billy Squier apparently. In yesterday's New York Times, the priceless story came out that fellow residents of the lux San Remo in Manhattan's Upper West Side are fighting over smoke rising from a handful of fireplaces in the building onto Bono's private terrace, where he and and his family occasionally drop water balloons -- Willis and Arnold-style -- onto sidewalk passerby way below.

Apparently fireplace-havers -- which include Billy Squier -- don't believe the smoke is entering Bono's living quarters. Bono does. The FBO is neutral on the fight here, but does have an issue with the New York Time writer who says Billy hasn't had a hit since 1984's 'Rock Me Tonight.' Who can forget the synth-spiked 'rocker' 'Don't Say You Love Me' from 1986, with the refrain 'don't say you love me, just say...HUHHHHH'?


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY