30 Days to Chronic Town: Day 30

For the next 30 days I’ll be writing about my memories of R.E.M. as the 30th anniversary of their first show, in an Athens abandoned church on April 5, 1980, inches closer.

The first time I ever heard of the band was in 1983, which I know is late for people among Athens but not for some kid in Miami, Fla. It was watching American Bandstand on Saturday morning and Dick Clark introduced a new “dance” song by a band called R.E.M.

The song, Radio Free Europe, certainly didn’t sound like a dance song, despite all the people in the studio dancing to it. But there was something about it unusual, different than what was coming out of the radio airwaves at the time. The year 1983 is all about Thriller, and The Police would come to dominate the music landscape as well. But this was none of those.

I didn’t buy Murmur for another couple of years, Reckoning was the first R.E.M. album I bought, but that Saturday morning changed my musical landscape.