A brief introduction

Well, it's late afternoon and the house is hot ...

Why not learn some R.E.M. songs ... how about all of them.  If you have any interest in R.E.M. as a guitar player or even as a fan, at one time or another, you have hit the internet to discover some guessed at lyrics and chords to most of their songs.  There are no definitive sites and most of them are close and/or wrong.  So what makes me think that I can somehow do better?  #1) I'm insane.  #2) I have no time on my hands.  #3) I want to share what little I have learned.   Will I be correct 100% of the time?  No.  However, I strive to do my best to somehow demystify particularly the early R.E.M. oeuvre, which is cryptic to a fault.  I've picked up the old mandolin and am already banging out Hairshirt and such, but I plan to go from beginning to end starting with the 1982 EP CHRONIC TOWN.  I will also include some earlier songs including Action, Narrator, All The Right Friends, and Ages of You.

I am a NYC based Singer/ Songwriter and will be setting up gigs with guests as I near completion and play through the albums.  If you're in the city, I will provide a link and you can come and heckle me mercilessly.  I will also be posting snippets of the performances, and NO I WILL NOT BE DRESSING UP LIKE MEMBERS OF THE BAND.  I refuse to dress like 80's Bill Berry who at times looked like he hit every branch while falling from the Adam Ant Tree.  Which I don't recommend climbing.  And to which, I also add, Bill Berry makes it work.

So that is my mindset.  I'm going to give it a shot.  My next post will be a bunch of crap about my approach to the mystique of R.E.M. and some background on the band members and then it's on to Wolves, Lower ...

BW