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25 Years On

Re-living the first R.E.M. gig, EVER!

That Night (April 5, 1980)

Back When It All Began: A R.E.M.iniscence

The Party

Boy, were we nervous. In just a few minutes we were going to be playing our very first show ever. Who could have known when we decided to get together and make some music that we would actually be playing in front of an audience? That night was the birthday of one of my oldest friends in Athens, Kathleen O'Brien. We first met while we were in high school, at a German convention, where we snuck off with a few people to get high. I used to work with her brother when I was 15, and her best friend was in my high school German class.

The Invitation

On Feb. 29, 1980, John Cale played the last show for a long time at the Georgia Theatre. After the show I went to a birthday party for local college radio DJ Kurt Wood. At Kurt's birthday party, while standing on the front porch of a house on Lumpkin St., Kathleen O'Brien asked if Kit Swartz, Jimmy Ellison and I could play at her birthday party on Apr. 5. She said her roommates' band was also going to perform, if they could get a set together.

Nervously we agreed. Even though we had only been playing music together for about three months, we also hoped to have our set, too.

The Practice

We began practicing every night, going over and over our setlist, which was only about nine or 10 songs. One thing that always bothered me about the way we practiced was that we would stop and start over at every little mistake, so that it took a long time to go through our few songs. I had only been playing drums about six months, and Jimmy, our bass player, had only been playing four months. Kit, the guitarist, had been playing a little longer than I had, because his brother knew how to play guitar and showed him different tricks. We were listening to a lot of Ventures albums, and the Gang of Four was our favorite band, though we did like most of the "New Wave/ Punk" that was coming out, and they were probably our biggest influences. Therefore, we were an "instrumental band with vocals."

The Trip

During spring break a few weeks after Kurt's birthday, I rode to New York City with Michael Stipe and Peter Buck (of the band that was to headline Kathleen's party) and Kurt Wood, who started the first "New Wave/ Punk" show at WUOG, the student-run University radio station. The trip to NYC was, to say the least, quite eventful. It was while in New York that we all were somehow invited to attend a birthday party for music critic Lester Bangs. Years later, I would ask the hostess if she remembered us from that day, and she said, "Oh yeah, you were the guys that smelled so bad."

We spent the whole time living in a van off Columbus Circle in front of the club Hurrah's, and didn't get to shower, though Peter didn't show up one night and said he had picked up a girl at a bar just so he could get a shower.

I knew Peter because he worked at Wuxtry, and Michael and I worked together at the Steak and Ale restaurant, where the crew would sometimes get together and have go-go parties at a house outside of town.

The Critique

Two weeks before the show, Michael and a friend of his, Mark Cline, came to see us rehearse at a house my parents had bought out in the suburbs of Athens. We were quite the amateurs. We plodded through our nine-song set and asked them what they thought. Michael seemed to feel that we were really no threat to them musically, but we definitely may have had them beat in the originality department. We played several covers, but after Michael came to see our practice, we narrowed it down to two: "Boots are Made for Walking" and "For Your Love," because the other band was playing some of the same songs. However, our versions were played not at all like the originals, yet still captured their essence. We decided not to play "Secret Agent Man," so that they could perform that as well.

The Rehearsal

The night before the show, we loaded our equipment through a back door into the sanctuary of the old Saint Mary's Church, where Kathleen lived with Peter and Michael. There was a two-story apartment built inside the church, occupying half of the available space in the sanctuary. After setting up our equipment in the dark and dusty chamber, we ran through our set. We played our set for Bill Berry, the drummer of the headlining band, and the bassist, Mike Mills. It was the first time Peter heard us as well. We were quite nervous, since they had just finished performing some of their songs for us. It was the first time I had ever heard them play, and they were much more professional and quite tight. Their set consisted of mostly covers, with about 40 percent originals interspersed throughout it.

The Nerves

"That is interesting the way you accent the downbeats the same as the upbeats," Bill told me.

I honestly had no idea what he was talking about, having never taken a lesson in my life. "Thanks," I said through the microphone after our set while doing a very lousy impersonation of Johnny Lydon in the Public Image Ltd. vein. We were really wasted on the Quaaludes that were going around by the time the night was over, because we wanted to play sober at the party.

The Buildup

Earlier in the evening before the birthday party, members of both bands did interviews with Kurt Wood on WUOG. The party was to be a big secret. The headlining band hadn't even chosen a name yet and were asking the audience to vote on such names as "Twisted Kites," "Third Wave" and "Negro Wives." Both bands were really playing up the big rock star image. It was quite hilarious. We made about eight posters for our show with only the name of the band, "The Side Effects," and a photo of a kid with a hand grenade in Central Park, by Diane Arbus. Since the headliners didn't have a real name they didn't have a poster, though the poster at Wuxtry had written on it, "With Twisted Kites, at a Theater near you'all. Only the coogat will know." Coogat was our catch phrase at the time for things that were more than keen, from the Woody Allen movie Sleeper which most of us had seen a few weeks earlier.

The Performance

Time for our debut set, and the whole place was packed. It was G-Day weekend and perhaps word made it out beyond the downtown scene. People were hanging in the windows next to the stage being careful not to fall through the holes in the floor. We were scared to death! We opened with "I Always Used to Watch You" and ran quickly through our set, ending with a song the Peter would eventually name for us, "Neat In The Street." For some reason, I think the idea of playing before the audience gave us some weird boost of energy. Finally our set was finished and everyone was screaming for an encore, so we played our first two songs over again.

The headlining band finally took the stage for their premier performance as well. They played "I Can't Control Myself" or maybe it was ‘Nervous Breakdown." It is hard to remember. Our set was over, and the need to remain sober had long vanished. However, their set was just beginning, and for them it would be the first of many for years to come.

The Revelation

The next day, I returned my brother's van, which had been used for the spring-break trip to NYC with Peter and Michael. While cleaning it out, I find a pair of underwear inside the refrigerator. For years, I had no idea where they came from until one evening in a casual conversation with Peter, he admitted that they were his and that on that historical evening he had an intimate encounter with what was perhaps his first rock groupie. Funny how things turn out that way.

The Perspective

Looking back on the last 25 years, it always amazes me how much the scene has grown, from small secluded parties in old warehouses and people's homes to a major industry bringing in thousands of dollars to the local economy. There would be no place now for a band like ours, once referred to as the nerds of the local scene. Still, I am thankful to have been in the right place at the right time to capture the small town magic that was once the Athens music scene. I am sure there are those who experience the same sense of oneness with those in the audience and those on-stage, but self-awareness may have removed some of the naive charm and wonder experienced when everything thing was new, every note fresh, and every beat empowering.

Paul Butchart

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Taken, with thanks, from REM Is On and Flagpole Magazine.