I fell under the spell of early R.E.M. From the tail end of 1983 when I bought Murmur on the strength of its cover, some reviews, Radio One, Kid Jensen Evening Session radio plays of Talk About The Passion and an excellent hunch which has paid splendid dividends ever since. I went on a college trip to The Soviet Union in December 1983 and became interested in girls and vodka every bit as much as Soviet culture, history and architecture. The memories of those two weeks were rich and vivid and will last me a lifetime.
Murmur meanwhile wasn't off the turntable until Reckoning came out and then the two played tag right the way through 1984 on my turntable, my imagination and in my dreams. I bought pretty much whatever the band mentioned and recommended in Music Paper interviews. All the emerging young American guitar bands that were brought up in the articles about them. Rain Parade, Replacements, Green on Red, True West, The guiding inspirations they raved about. Television. Patti Smith.
Mitch Easter, the co-producer of Murmur and Reckoning had his own band, Lets Active. Naturally I got into them too.,They released their debut album, Cypress in 1984. It had a stunning, child drawn crayon sleeve of a volcano in full eruption. I bought it and loved it instantly. It was fueled by a similar enigma and mystery as R.E.M. Hints of the old American South, Brer Rabbit even.
It's still a favourite record of mine. Here's Water's Part the single they plucked from it. A Double A side essentially with their cover of The Outskirts Blue Line. Let's Active seemed to join the dots between R.E.M. and The B-52s
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