"Old Man Kensey"

Old Man Kensey may well be my favourite Fables song. If not then it certainly has my favourite middle 8 in the R.E.M. discography. I would have loved to see this song make an appearance at the Dublin Rehearsals.

Powered by its bass line, this cover puts my amateur bass guitar skills on full view! I haven't quite got the sound right I know. On the record there appears to be some kind of "chorus" effect on the intro bass line that I'm fairly sure dies off once the other instruments begin to cover it up. I'm also not entirely pleased with the guitar solo, I find it really hard to play. But, hopefully, I think I've got the overall mood of the song right...

"Good Advices"

Good Advices is one of the songs from what I refer to as "The forgotten Side B of Fables of the Reconstruction'. I say that because I have this vision of casual fans getting to Can't Get There From Here or maybe Green Grow The Rushes and switching it off. But, in true R.E.M. style, it's the songs that don't sink in on first listen that become your favourites over time.

It was when I heard the Fables demo version of Good Advices that I started to re-appreciate the song and wanted to cover it. It's one of those jangly Peter Buck performances where the guitars shimmer beautifully leaving the bass to define the direction of the song. So well done Mike Mills, another great song!

I've only recently bought a bass guitar so I'm a bit sloppy, so bare with me. Also, I'm still at that stage where I have to leave half week intervals between playing to allow my fingers to return to their natural shape after the harsh beating they get on those thick strings!

"Ha (We Get Paid For It)"

Ha (We Get Paid For It) is an unreleased song that was played a few times during 1981 and was never officially recorded or released. My version is a cross between the live version and the slower, darker version recorded on soundcheck that same year. But the structure of the two versions are very different, one has a middle 8 the other doesn't have and vice versa. Mine has both middle 8's!

I never used to rate the song until a friend urged me to cover it and then, upon studying it, I grew to like it more and I think it could have been a contender for Chronic Town. The song features a verse guitar riff which is a precursor to the chorus guitar riff of Old Man Kensey recorded four years later.

This is my favourite of my recent batch of covers.

"Fall Above"

The song I refer to as "Fall Above" is a song that was only performed once and that was on 22nd January 1982 at Fridays, Greensboro. It was the fourth song of the set, played after Windout and before a cover of Velvet Underground's There She Goes Again.

It contains lyrical segments from Pilgrimage (speaking in tongues) and Catapult (your mother remembers this). I actually think this is one of the stronger unreleased songs from this period although it clearly doesn't match the standard of anything off Murmur. Maybe if Chronic Town hadn't been an EP it might have made it on there...

"Title"

Title, if indeed that is the name of this song and not just a name that has been latched on to by the bootleggers, is a song that was played several times during the 1987 Work Tour and a very poor audio quality demo was recorded in the early stages of the Green sessions. The song was abandoned most likely because it didn't suit the new style of Green and sounded a bit too much like the R.E.M. of old.

I don't think Stipe ever figured out proper lyrics, most the recordings feature him mumbling nonsense to form melodies. But it's a great song nevertheless and it's the first R.E.M. cover I've made for years and signals my intention to continue.

A brief explanation

For those of you who have just wandered in and have no idea what is going on, a brief explanation...

This blog is where I will be posting my R.E.M. covers as and when I complete them. But let me clarify, I don't sing, these are just instrumental backing tracks, recorded and mixed by myself using the application Garageband.

Unless I'm overcome by a sudden change of heart, you won't find covers of Man On The Moon or Shiny Happy People on here. I'm primarily interested in some of the more obscure, lesser known songs and, in some cases, unreleased songs that were maybe played live once or twice and then dropped, hence an official recording doesn't exist.

I suppose the reason for doing this is that I'd like to get some feedback on what, until now, has been a rather lonesome labour of love. I'm constantly learning and (hopefully) improving and your feedback/criticism should help me step outside my own tunnel vision and provide an objective perspective. Secondly, I hope my recordings will be of some enjoyment to hardcore R.E.M. fans. I'd like to think that, with some of the most obscure song choices, I'm providing a sample of what the song might have sounded like had the band decided to officlally record it. I'll let you be the judge of this!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the music....