When the film ended, the four of us gave it a standing ovation. I’m more than gratified that “Murmur” is still floating around in the ether.ġ.) That’s when Peter went to the Salvation Army across the street from Reflection Studios and found the two plastic dinosaurs that became Left and Right, and sat on the studio speakers for every record until… (Peter: “every record til the end”)Ģ.) While we were recording in Charlotte we went to see a movie called “Strange Invaders.” They’d licensed the song “1,000,000” from the “Chronic Town” EP, the first time any of our songs had been used in a film, so of course we wanted to see it in action. If, on the way to the first day of recording “Murmur,” we had chanced upon a radio rebroadcast from exactly forty years previous, we would have heard speeches from Franklin Roosevelt, news about World War II, and the swinging sounds of Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. Of course band dinner that night was on me, or maybe Lee Iacocca, the then-chairman of Dodge. I was flabbergasted that he paid me $100 for my brief effort! That was a king’s ransom in those days. He was producing a Dodge pickup commercial soundtrack. Always eager to lend a hand, I went to studio B and nailed it in one take. I didn’t have to continue as there was already a polite tapping on Studio A control door. I announced to all in control room that there would likely be a knock on our door soon. I blew it perfectly in the same pitch then made a beeline for our control room and closed the door behind me swiftly. I decided to yank his chain a little and stood in hallway just out of his sight. I had long ago figured the whistling technique that provided that eerie tone. When I left our studio for restroom or food breaks his exasperation level was becoming more audible with every trip. For HOURS he was struggling to mimic the whistling part in “The Good The Bad and The Ugly” theme on a Moog synthesizer. His space was small so he left door open. We had some fun, remembering some little corners of memories from the making of Murmur 40 years agoġ.) We all stayed in one hotel room during its recording.Ģ.) There’s the Reflection incident that found me whistling for a producer working in a control room down the hall. R.E.M.had been a band for three years, had one single and an EP to its name, and then released the first album Murmur on this date. (Look for era-appropriate pop culture references to Lee Iacocca and Tammy Faye Bakker.)Īpril 12, 1983. To commemorate the milestone, R.E.M.’s official website collected remembrances from each of the band’s four members about their time making the 12-song record at Reflection Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina, back in 1983. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the release of R.E.M.’s iconic first album Murmur, a record that’s widely considered among the best rock debuts and one that helped set the template for ’80s college rock and the ensuing alternative-rock explosion.
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