Let’s do a Saturday mix of our highlight countdown of Dawg touchdowns with another Athens institution – R.E.M.

Last Sunday was the anniversary of the release of R.E.M.’s 4th album, Lifes Rich Pageant, which turned out to be a critical turning point in the band’s career, refining their sound and moving them from popular moody college rock band to a worldwide sensation. The album featured two songs that would skyrocket and move the band forward with their most commercially successful album to date, peaking at number 21 on the Billboard charts: “Fall on Me” and “Superman”.

Superman features Mike Mills as the lead singer, and is a cover of the original version that came from The Clique, which has a distinctly more psychedelic sound than R.E.M.’s version of the song.

Part of the driving reason for the change in the band’s sound came about from their selection of Don Gehman as their producer. Originally hesitant to work with a major producer, as the band was still clinging to their independent roots and rejecting the major studio influences, the guys had Gehman come to Athens to work on some recording samples for some of their ideas for the next album. Mills was wanting to broaden the band’s experimentation with various other instruments, and Gehman’s work on John Cougar Mellencamp’s acoustic album piqued their interest in working with the producer, who had an extensive career working with the likes of James Brown and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and later Hootie and Blowfish and Tracy Chapman. He earned his first studio credit working with Stephen Stills and his notoriety was really developed in his ability to construct what is considered the evolution of the construction of P.A. systems for modern band concerts.

The book Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. provided a lot of insight into the band’s work with Gehman. The guys were going through a bit of a change at the time, as well, with Berry getting married right before recording the album, and Mills and Berry were debuting a Led Zeppelin cover band called the Corn Cob Webs at the 40 Watt, while Stipe was also touring with various bands of interest at the time. While they didn’t care for John Cougar Mellencamp, they were wise enough to recognize good recording quality when they heard it.

Gehman was invited to a gig, where he was allowed first impressions of the band. “I was intrigued” he would recall “I wouldn’t say impressed”. The band was running up on their final two albums in their contract with IRS, and they were looking for leverage to renew their contract. The band had a backlog of songs ready for recording. The oldest was “Just a Touch”, which was written about the day that Elvis died, and was one of the fiercer songs of the band’s at the time. “Fall on Me” had been one of the more recent concepts, a song written by Stipe about acid rain. Another eco-conscious song, “Cuyahoga” was also brought into the fold for recording on Pageant.

Interestingly, one song considered at the time was “PSA”, which was recorded as a studio demo in 1986, and would later be revamped as “Bad Day” in 1986, but was the prototype of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”. See if you can hear it:

Gehman wasn’t intimidated by the young band’s resolute nature to do things their way. One of his first rules of recording is that listeners like to know what words are signing – even if they don’t understand them or the message. This lead to a conflict with Stipe, when Gehman asked the singer “what the fuck is this about” and challenged Stipe on his lyrics, where promptly crossed his arms and left the studio in a fit. Stipe would later admit that Gehman’s direction threw him for a loop for several records, but ultimately pushed him in a different lyrical direction that would lead the the singer and the band’s success for albums to come.

In all, Berry felt the drum sound improved, Buck declared himself as “not a lead guitarist” and wouldn’t explore long, heavy solo riffs, Mills got to play in the lab with several different instruments and types of keyboards, and Stipe became a refined singer. The rest, they say, is history. “Superman” was recorded during these sessions as a proposed B-side album.

And speaking of Superman, today’s Dawg P*rn is brought to you by Superman himself, Brock Bowers, from last year’s Kentucky game. His 21 yard score is at the 1:07 mark.

What a game. Ray Davis had just rushed for 280 yards the week prior against Florida, Georgia had looked human in games leading up to it, and most of the pundits were predicting this to be the upset game for the Dawgs.

The defense limited Davis to 59 yards, and Bobo decided to open the crayon box and allow Beck and Company to finally play around a little. Georgia would amass 608 yards of offense to Kentucky’s 183, in a beautiful evening game in Athens. Let’s hope to see more of these in 2024.