The final bar we hit in Jamaica Plain was a place called Brendan Behan Pub, which turned out to be something of a gem...though not really what we were looking for at the moment. It was a smallish bar that was clearly a bit old. The wooden walls and benches were all a bit warped, giving the bar an odd angular look that us NYC-ers would refer to as "Character".
The crowd was mostly neighborhood types and most interestingly enough, dogs. Now, not dogs in an 80's slang, ugly chicks kinda way...I mean actual canines. There were easily 4-5 dogs in there with their owners, just randomly wandering the bar and socializing. As I am a dog person, this was a plus. I'm sure if I lived in JP, I'd find myself in this bar quite often. We were, however, looking for a bit more excitement than that and the pub was not providing it...so we were out after one drink.
We made a quick stop in the CVS, as I had forgotten a toothbrush and deodorant (Prompting Anand to snipe "you use those?") and then it was a cab to "Southie" for the remainder of the night.
Fables of the Reconstruction, the band's 3rd album, has always been my least favorite of the "Golden Age of R.E.M." albums. Sure, I'd listen to it 20 times in a row before I'd listen to Reveal or Around the Sun even one more time...but compared to the stunning debut album and the autumnal majesty of Reckoning, this album has always been a bit of a let down. Not quite sure whether to recapture the murky haze of the early work, or to head towards the arena rock they'd move towards on Life's Rich Pageant and perfect on Document...Fables seems stuck in two places at once, neither one thing nor the other.
Beyond this, it always seemed an odd decision for a band so steeped in Americana (Despite it's artier tendencies) to produce an album explicitly dedicated to a sort of modern American folk lore in London. The band wouldn't record out of The States again until the execrable Reveal. Stripped of all of their baggage, R.E.M. are, at the end of the day, an American rock band and they are at their best when they remember that fact.
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3 comments:
That's gotta be the first time I've ever heard Reckoning described as 'autumnal' but I guess it sort of fits. What doesn't fit, though, is picking it over Fables which marks the band's first real growth. Stipe's lyrics aren't mumbled, the sound gets twisted and amped up, and the overall construction of the record is more cohesive. All of this was much more important leading up to the masterpiece of 'Pageant' than Reckoning
Interesting point of view. Personally, I think that Fables and Pageant are messy albums with good moments (more so on Pageant, I'll grant you) but ultimately they are the sound of a band wandering in the wilderness trying to figure out what's next. They'd figure it out by Document, which I think is their mid career masterpiece and second only to Reckoning in their overall catalog.
Love the user name, btw.
Another divergence..."Document" was the record that introduced me to the band and the one that is most immediately accessible (also the reason that it was the record that exploded them onto mainstream radio) but ultimately, to me, one of their most boring records. Once I discovered Murmur, Fables, and Pageant (and Reckoning), Document came to sound more and more like radio-manufactured hits and songs that offered no point of view. Fables really seemed to want to try on sounds and contained more cryptic lyrics with great hooks along with a definitive overall message (wandering is exactly the word I'd use for Fables but it's a purposeful wandering) while the funerary feel of Pageant that strikes me as the band's ode to where they came from before they started on the next phase beginning with Document.
Minor differences on an oeuvre that's waaaay to disparaged by modern indie hipsters that wants to focus on second-phase missteps rather than the refreshing early work.
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