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from www.remhq.com 11.2.08

R.E.M. AND FRIENDS AT ROYAL ALBERT HALL

Kick Start 60 Years of the
ICA Celebrations with
Royal Albert Hall Show, March 24th
With Robyn Hitchcock, Foals, Duke Spirit
One week prior to the release of ACCELERATE, R.E.M. will perform their first ever show at London’s Royal Albert Hall to celebrate 60 years of the ICA.
Special guests are: Duke Spirit, Foals and Robyn Hitchcock.
Tickets go on sale Friday February 15th at 9am and are priced at £55/£45/£40/£25 and are available from Livenation, and by telephone at 0844 576 5483 (cc 24 hrs).
All profits will go to the ICA, a non-profit arts institute and registered charity.
Q Magazine, in the meantime, is holding a contest for a pair of tickets to the event. Please click HERE for more information.
R.E.M. tour North America from May 23rd to June 21st before embarking on a European tour startng July 2nd in Amsterdam.
Additional U.K. dates will be announced shortly so please stay tuned.

MARCH
24th: UK: London, Royal Albert Hall

JULY
2nd: Holland: Amsterdam, Westerpark
9th: France: Nice, Theatre De Verdure
15th: Germany: Dresden, Elbufer
16th: Germany: Berlin, Waldbuhne
18th: Switzerland: Locarno, City Square
20th: Italy: Perugia, Parco Giuliana
21st: Italy: Verona, Arena
23rd: Italy: Naples, Mostra d’Oltremare
24th: Italy: Udine, Villa Manin
26th: Italy: Milan, Arena

AUGUST
17th: Czech Republic: Prague, Slavia Stadium
19th: Germany: Stuttgart, Ehrenhof
20th: Germany: Loreley
22nd: Germany: Wurzburg, Marienfeste

SEPTEMBER
3rd: Norway: Oslo, Ullevaal Stadium
4th: Norway: Bergen, Koengen Stadium
6th: Denmark: Copenhagen, Parken Stadium
7th: Sweden: Stockholm, Stadium
9th: Finland: Helsinki, Finnair Stadium


R.E.M. will tour North America this May and June in support of Accelerate, their new record which is set to be released on April 1. The band will be joined on the North American tour by Modest Mouse and The National. Please stay tuned to remhq.com for more details.

May
23--Vancouver--Deer Lake Park
29--Los Angeles--Hollywood Bowl
31--Berkeley--The Greek Theatre

June
03--Denver--Red Rocks Amphitheatre
06--Chicago--United Center
08--Toronto--Molson Amphitheatre
10--Raleigh--Walnut Creek Amphitheatre
11--Washington, DC--Merriweather Post Pavilion
13--Boston--Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts
14--Long Island--Jones Beach Theater
18--Philadelphia--Mann Center for the Performing Arts
19--New York City--TBA
21--Atlanta--Lakewood Amphitheatre



POSTCARD/VIDEO/INTERVIEW FROM NEW YORK - REMHQ
R.E.M. has been in New York City for the past few days doing press and photography for the new record. Earlier in the week, the band got together with the fantastic, super-talented director Vincent Moon (ninetynights, Takeaway Shows) to shoot a video for "Supernatural Superserious." Bertis was on hand for the shoot and wrote a few words which we've posted below, and we were able to catch up with a very gracious Vincent Moon, who, despite the fact that he was working feverishly on the video and suffering from a fever as well, was kind enough to give his thoughts on the process straight from the cutting room floor/table. We've rarely pulled such a trifecta: postcard from the road, video, and the director in one fell swoop, so let's get to it. If this is any indication of the way this year will go, then what a year it will be!

BERTIS:
It is cold. While here we made a video in the Lower East Side, filmed by Vincent Moon of ninetynights, Takeaway Show and Arcade Fire (among many other artists) fame. Vincent's working style is spontaneous and fun-loving, so going from storefront to storefront on Rivington Street was certainly a unique and memorable experience. And of course, in the age of YouTube, we already have "rushes" (thanks to Devin Sarnoe for the mini-documentary of the video shoot; click below to view) on the web-- yoohoo! Anyway, it will be a good video I

-And I don't expect anyone can bring about a revolution in the way that Bob Dylan did - and really didn't - in the 1960s.
-Because the casual music listeners are the ones who turn on the radio and they don't really care what's playing, they just know that they kinda like it or it's easy to drive to or it's easy to sing along to or whatever.
-But I think the one thing that I can say about us is that we're very consistent about certain things and part of that is our desire to do the very best work that we can and not rest on our laurels, or not allow formula to come into what we do.
-But we're very much an American band and that's that. I think that's part of the appeal outside of this country and it might be part of the reason people turned away from us within this country, because familiarity breeds contempt.
-But, people also have to understand that just because you're well known, doesn't mean you don't have bad moods.
-I really wanted to be on Six Feet Under as a corpse. That would be hysterical.
-I think there were early critics who wanted us to change the world because the Sex Pistols failed.
-I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself.
-I'm just not that fascinating a person to have had all those lives that I've written about.
-I'm not homosexual, I'm not hetrosexual, I'm just sexual.
-I'm tired of being this solemn poet of the masses, the enigma shrouded in a mystery.
-I've always felt that sexuality is a really slippery thing. In this day and age, it tends to get categorized and labeled, and I think labels are for food. Canned food.
-If I'm tired of me, I'm sure the public is as well.
-If you disagree with me, fine! Because that's the great thing about America, we can disagree!
-My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am.
-My iPod that was programmed by Peter Buck. It has 7,000 songs hand-picked for me by him.
-Never eat broccoli when there are cameras around.
-On planes I always cry. Something about altitude, the lack of oxygen and the bad movies. I cried over a St. Bernard movie once on a plane. That was really embarrassing.
-Peter was sick of being a pop star, the guitar god, and so he decided to teach himself other instruments. Among the instruments that he picked up was the mandolin.
-So, we just kind of created our own thing and that's part of the beauty of Athens: is that it's so off the map and there's no way you could ever be the East Village or an L.A. scene or a San Francisco scene, that it just became its own thing.
-So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we're kind of an international phenomenon.
-So, when you divide the world into music lovers, music fans and then those people who are just very casual about their music, it's wallpaper to them, it's elevator music, it's just the thing that's playing in the background that helps them through their day.
-Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting.
-Super casual music listeners. That's most of the people in the world. And you have to understand, that's why Top 40 radio exists. It's not there for people who seek out music and who love music.
-There are people that very strongly identify themselves as gay and then lesbian, and then I think there are a lot of people who are kind of some percentage or some version of that.
-There was a point in the '80s when I looked out at my audience and I saw people that - were I not on the stage - they'd sooner slug me as they walked by me on the sidewalk. And I realized that I was way beyond the choir.
-There was never a golden era of American radio as far as I can tell.
-They always want me to play myself and that's a big snooze.
-We made part of the record in Miami, and I would go down to the beach, and

Formation: 1980–1982
In January 1980 Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in an Athens record store the latter worked in. The pair discovered they shared similar tastes in music, particularly punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and The Velvet Underground; Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that he was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck soon met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry at a party, a pair who had played music together since high school. The quartet agreed to write several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it." The unnamed band spent several months rehearsing and played their first show on April 5, 1980 at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church. After considering names like Twisted Kites, Cans of Piss, and Negro Wives, the band settled on R.E.M., which Stipe pulled at random from a dictionary.

Eventually, the band members dropped out of school to focus on the band. R.E.M.'s success was more or less instant in Athens and in the surrounding area; the band drew progressively bigger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment among the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded their first single, "Radio Free Europe" (sample (help·info)) at Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "Radio Free Europe" was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim; it was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times and the Village Voice named it Single of the Year in its 1983 Pazz & Jop critics poll.


R.E.M. had recorded its debut EP, Chronic Town, with Easter for Hib-Tone when the band's demo tape found its way to I.R.S. Records.The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records and signed with I.R.S. in May 1982. Chronic Town was released by I.R.S. in August 1982 as the label's first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the aura of mystery the songs presented, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this." The band was initially paired with producer Stephen Hague by I.R.S. to record their debut album, but Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied and asking the label to let them record with Easter.

I.R.S. subsequently agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. gave the green light to record the album with Dixon and Easter. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone listing it as their record of the year. The album was warmly received by college radio, and its success there pushed the album to number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the lead single from the album and reached number 78 in 1983. Other notable tracks included the piano-led "Perfect Circle", "Sitting Still" (a re-recorded version of the Hib-Tone B-side), and "Talk About the Passion", which was re-released as a single in 1988. Despite the acclaim awarded to the album, Murmur only sold about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.

R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, where they performed a new, unnamed song.[18] The unnamed song, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)," became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning, which was once again recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NME's Mat Snow said that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one