Kindle Notes & Highlights
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February 7 - February 19, 2023
the politically incorrect phenomenon of white flight (and its various offshoots) played a part in the birth of one of the most liberal rock bands in history:
this new music invigorated him with its leanness and ferocity, and he longed to bring it to the United States.
Ian Copeland was a change agent, brinGing punk sensibility to MacOn, Bill Berry and Mike Mills
every musician and scenester I interviewed for this book pointed to this particular concert as a watershed moment in the formation of the Athens music scene. This probably had less to do with the Sex Pistols’ performance and more with the fact that the event opened everyone’s eyes to the existence of a hitherto hidden, robust subculture of seekers and misfits dissatisfied with the musical status quo.
Sex pistols atlanta
In a way, the art school confronted music with no feelings of pressure or sense of duty to tradition. That was the basis of much of the Athens music. People were experimenting and creating—not just their own music but in some cases their own instruments too.
Yet it’s also clear that Smith had a tremendous influence on Stipe’s personality and visual aesthetic. She served as a model for how an outsider like Stipe might move through the world.
Patti Smith
In either case, opaqueness was a component of Stipe’s writing from the very outset, and it set him apart from most other fledgling songwriters.
Mills didn’t look cool. No matter his musical talent, his bowl haircut and penchant for bell-bottoms were violently at odds with the mental image Stipe had constructed of his hypothetical ensemble.
Like several of our principal actors he attended the Sex Pistols concert at the Great American Music Hall in 1978 and was galvanized by that event.
From the beginning there had been a musical tension at the heart of R.E.M.—a push and pull between the classically trained Mike Mills and the willfully ignorant (in terms of musical theory, at least) Peter Buck.
“The less I know about formal music, the more creative I’m going to be, because this is rock ’n’ roll. I won’t know which rules I’m breaking; I will just be doing what I do.” Mike’s attitude, on the other hand, was, you learn music theory, you learn music harmony. You learn the rules, and then you break them.
Buck vs Mills
Michael is so unpredictable . . . He never takes the easy way, which can be pretty frustrating. But quite often his left-field suggestions make you question things you took for granted, like how songs are arranged and the distinction between lead and background vocals.
