Musical Moments #3: REM

It's been awhile since I did one of these, and I'm going old school. The third band in my "yay memories!" series is REM. They're one of those bands I grew up with, so I've been a semi-fan my entire life. The "official" tipping point, I think, was when I was eleven years old and "Losing My Religion" was everywhere on the radio and MTV. I loathed the song for a long time. Until I started to not loathe it. Until I started to sing along and it became one of my favorite songs. Here are three memories that stand out for me:

• Getting "Monster" as a present for my fifteenth birthday. It was the first REM record I'd ever owned. Purists may scoff, but it will always have a special place in my heart.
  
  
• The day in early 2003 that I found out that my current favorite band, Wilco, was touring with REM, who I'd wanted to see live as long as I could remember, and that they were playing show at Red Rocks, which was this legendary place I'd dreamed of visiting, and that the show was on a Saturday, oh my god ohmygod! Ties with the moment, many months later, when I realized I was sitting in the first row at that very show.
  
  
• The first time I heard "Nightswimming" live, Bumbershoot 2003, when Mike Mills played the opening notes on the piano.
  

Musical Moments #2: Old 97's

Second band in my "yay memories!" series is Old 97's. I became a fan after I saw a free Rhett Miller performance at the Madison Music Awards. Before that show, I barely knew who Rhett Miller was, let alone that he was otherwise in a band. Afterward, I was finding out all I could. Three memories that stand out for me:

• On my first business trip ever, I bought my first Old 97's album ever. It was "Too Far To Care" and I listened to it that night on my Discman, sitting in a chair in my hotel room, gazing out the window.
  
  
• A couple of years later, a post-concert house party petered out in the wee hours of the morning. My car was still parked in the Barrymore lot, and a group was walking back in that direction. It was a crisp October night, far from campus, and it seemed like the rest of the world was asleep. The residential streets were quiet save for the murmur of voices and the crunch of leaves under our feet. Ken and I were walking a few yards behind the others, down the middle of the road, kicking leaves and discussing Poptarts, Nutella, and other sundry topics.
  
  
• Before my first Sloan show, at the Double Door in Chicago, "Barrier Reef" was played during the preshow music. My friends and I couldn't resist singing along ... and apparently neither could quite a few other people near us. A gleeful, impromptu Old 97's singalong ensued.
  

Musical Moments #1: The Jayhawks

Music is a pretty big part of my world. And within that general "music" category there are certain bands that stand out. They're mostly bands I've loved for a long time, though not all ... but they've all wormed their way into my life somehow. I think it would be fun to highlight one of those bands every so often, and list a few of the little memory bits that stand out particularly for me. I'm not going for anything general ... more of a "moments in time" kind of thing, and probably a weird mix at that. I'll see how it goes. First up:

The Jayhawks

• At Luther's Blues, the first time I saw them live, they played one of my favorite Golden Smog songs - "Jennifer Save Me". When Gary Louris sings "fences bent gun metal sunlight/all the way to Montreal" in concert, sometimes he changes Montreal to something locally relevant. Well, on this particular night, he sang, "fences bent gun metal sunlight/all the way to Kenosha." At the time I honestly thought I'd misheard, because he couldn't possibly have named my relatively obscure hometown. But I got a copy of the recording sometime later, and he certainly did.
  
  
• Marc Perlman playing his bass with the bass stand, getting really into it, at the end of "Sister Cry" during the same show
  
  
• After an October '04 concert in Minneapolis, a group of friends and I ended up at the same bar as some stray Jayhawks. Gary was standing near the bathroom hallway for awhile, pretty much blocking the way ... and he wouldn't move for people. Gina had to sort of slither her way around him to get past. For some reason, this makes me laugh every time I remember it.