There's only one good one reason for buying Dead Letter Office: because you absolutely must have a copy of everything R.E.M. ever released. Which is appropriate, because that's why the original album was released.

Writing about R.E.M. in 2002 make me feel very old and very sad. They were the band I adored most in my early 20's. They made music that sounded terrific-- the kind of stuff I wanted to play.

They had great taste--every time they mentioned an artist in an interview, they turned out to be terrific. I got Jason and the Scorchers and Pylon from singer Michael Stipe, Rank and File and Dream Syndicate from drummer Bill Berry, the dBs and Love Tractor from bassist Mike Mills and the Replacements and Husker Du from guitarist Peter Buck. The only really awful band they liked were the Indigo Girls; they were a worthwhile price to pay for being turned onto the bands that gave us Alejandro Escobedo and Bob Mould.

Like The Who (the band I really loved in my teens), the guys set really high standards for themselves. They weren't going to play big arenas, because you couldn't hear decently in those places. They wouldn't get corporate sponsors for tours. They wouldn't just mimic the records onstage; they'd never get a bunch of extra people just to duplicate the overdubs. They wouldn't sign with some monolithic record company. They wouldn't stagger on forever (they said, more than once, that they were going to break up no later than 2000). They were a unique combination of four guys, and they wouldn't be the same band without those four guys. So they wouldn't carry on if one of them left.

And, like the Who, they've broken every one of their promises over time. They've shown more integrity than those two suckdogs, but they're still young-- when Mike drops dead, I'm sure they'll just find a session guy.

Musically... well, a lot of people liked Automatic for the People. That was the album that persuaded me that I was going to need a new favorite band--a thought that had begun with Document and escalated with my first hearing of Stand.

Sweetness Follows

The one thing I liked most about them--and still admire, to some degree--is the way they treated fans. You could join their fan club for $15 a year, and you'd get a newsletter, a member-only record and a bunch of other stuff. Last time I checked, they still had the club and it was still $15 a year.

You could write them and get questions answered from someone in their office. I don't know of anyone who sent a self-addressed stamped envelope didn't get a response. And they weren't form letters, either. One of my girlfriends--who sent in transcribed lyrics to Pretty Persuasion with a cover letter asking "Are these right?"--got a typed letter back saying "the band doesn't talk about their lyrics."

But included in the envelope was the page of lyrics she'd sent. One of the verses had a big slash in green magic marker, with the words "all wrong" scrawled by it. By another, it had the words "not bad", and there were other words scribbled on the page.

When I compared it to my signed copy of Chronic Town, it looked like the handwriting of Peter Buck. A few years later, when I met someone who worked in their offices, she said that it might have been-- if Peter had been in the office when they opened the letter.

This is my favorite story. At one early show--held just after the release of Reckoning at a converted 1.500-seat movie theater--I was sitting next to a girl who said she'd been following the tour with some friends for a couple of weeks. This was going to be her last day-- she was going home to Charlotte or Raleigh or someplace.

She was out of money, but it was OK, because her boyfriend was coming up to visit his brother in Cleveland, and he was going to come get her and they were going to drive back.

I asked her if she'd met the band and what they were like. She said she knew some of the crew and had said "Hi" to the guys, but they hadn't talked, partied or had sex. The way she said it, I believed her. She said she was just following them before she went back to school--someday she hoped to write poetry as cool as Michael's lyrics.

Because she was alone in a strange city (and really cute) I stayed around with her after the show in spite of that remark about the lyrics. As people drifted away, she began to get uneasy. Eventually she extracted a notebook from her backpack and dialed a number from a pay phone in the parking lot behind the theater.

I listened to her apologize to the person at the other end, explain who she was and why she was calling so late. It was immediately obvious that something had gone wrong. After barely a minute, she said "thank you" in a small voice, hung up the phone and burst into tears.

He wasn't coming. Apperently he'd met someone else, decided not to drive up and been too chicken to tell her parents. The brother was sorry, but that was it.

I told her she'd be OK-- she could crash at my folks' place, call her parents the next day and get them to wire her money for the bus. She was processing some of it, but still losing it when someone who looked like a bouncer asked what was going on. In an effort to make sure he didn't call the cops, I explained what was happening.

He asked if she had any money. I said it apparently not. He asked if I was with her. I said no, I'd just met her, but I was going to try to help her get home. He opined that the guy was messed up. I agreed and he walked off.

Five minutes later, he came back with a popcorn box. "Hey," he said, tapping her on the shoulder. "Here." It contained about $100 in bills. "The guys felt really bad for you." I drove her to the bus station and she was on her way home--with enough money to eat--less than an hour later.

That's what they were like back then. And that's why this album was released.

Exhuming McCarthy

The problem started with the first commercial release for IRS. R.E.M. hated the idea of classifying their songs as A-sides or B-sides. It was like saying that some of the songs were better than others--or not good enough to stand on their own. So what they'd put on the back of the single was something that even the band knew wasn't very good.

Unfortunately, R.E.M. had such hardcore fans that people wanted to hear everything they did. So people would hear that there was a UK double-pack of Wendell Gee with a cover of Crazy, plus two new songs (Ages of You and Burning Down), and go nuts looking for it. And they'd pay through the nose--I had a friend pay $22 for that item, which was, except for Crazy, a waste of money.

Eventually people started writing to the band. And they finally said "OK, don't worry. We'll do something about it" Soon afterward, Dead Letter Office was released. That album gave you everything that had ever been on a B-side of an IRS single. (The only exception is the live version of Catapult, which is the flip side of the Rockville single.) They talked Peter Buck into writing track-by-track liner notes and then sent it on its merry way.

As an album, Dead Letter Office stunk. But it saved fans the need to pay huge bucks for collectibles. Better yet, it struck fear into collectors' teeny little hearts. Suddenly they couldn't get away with charging $12 for a Dutch single--you could just smile sweetly and say "No thanks, I'll just wait for Return of the Son of Dead Letter Office."

And when the age of CDs arose--and completists were gnashing their teeth at the idea of buying another copy of this abomination just to get everything on the new format--R.E.M. did a pretty neat thing. By including a copy of Chronic Town (their terrific first EP) in the package--rather than issuing it separately--they saved fans $6-8 and made the purchase seem more palatable.

(Maybe they just did it to force everyone who wanted the EP to pay full price for an album. What's left of my admiration prefers to think otherwise.)

Underneath the Bunker

The songs on the CD can be broken into several groups. The Chronic Town songs (cuts 16-20) are by far the best cuts. There's no need to alibi for Wolves Lower, Gardening at Night, Carnival of Sorts, 1,000,000 or Stumble. I'm fond of the first three; the last two are the style I disliked (which eventually enveloped the band). But they're vintage early R.E.M.--unique bursts of creativity. The melodies are hypnotically propulsive and the playing is crackerjack.

The second group of stuff are songs that were seriously considered for an album, but lost out in the final cut. That's usually not a good sign--but if the band is known to make quixotic decisions, you can sometimes find a winner. For example, All the Right Friends (the only redeeming virtue about the movie Vanilla Sky) was an early song that got rejected.

White Tornado is a surf-based instrumental that lost its place to Sitting Still. Smart move. I like surf music, but the best I'll say is that it's mildly amusing and kinda cool live.

Burning Down and Ages of You are outtakes from Reckoning. They're early songs that the band eventually got tired of playing. I got tired of them both after one listening. Windout, like All the Right Friends is an early song--a punky trifle that you either like or hate. I like it, but the band condemned it to the soundtrack for Bachelor Party.

The Fables of the Reconstruction contributed one hit and one miss. I like Pylon, but R.E.M.'s version of Crazy is even better. It subtracts the manic, jittery energy of the original and replaces it with a modal folkie drone. Bandwagon just sounds like a song constructed from the uninteresting pieces of seven other songs, with some really stupid lyrics.

The Lifes Rich Pageant album is my least favorite of the early stuff, and it produced two miserable cuts. The only contribution they're likely to make to your life is an appreciation for the bass playing of Mike Mills.

The One I Love

As a former musician, there's no doubt in my mind that the bass player has the most difficult job in the band. The drummer is responsible for the beat; the rhythm guitarist and/or keyboardist construct the backdrop with the chords. The singer and lead guitar share the same role: give people a single-note melody line to sing along with (you'll notice you almost never hear both of them at the same time).

The bass, on the other hand, has to be in step with the drummer, or you can't dance to the song. The notes have to link to the two rhythm instruments or the song won't sound musically right. And since you're only playing one note at a time, you have to play a melody--but you can't compete with the lead instruments.

It's very, very hard to do. Most guys wimp out by just playing one of the notes of the chord, with an occasional fill. Some guys can play riffs and melodies that support everyone else--but also stand alone as music. It's almost impossible to do that and sing too.

(By the way, I'm not a bass player. I'm a drummer who switched to guitar and also can play piano. I tried bass but had to give it up because I couldn't sing if I played bass and I wanted to sing. I have respect for the instrument that only someone who's succeeded elsewhere but failed at it can have.)

The test of a great bass player is simple: Can you hum what he plays? Do you like to hum what he plays? Does he do that without getting in the way of everyone else? Do you think of his bass part as part of the melody? The classic examples are Pink Floyd's Money or Cream's Sunshine of Your Love.

(Don't make barf noises at me. You might not like the style of music, but if you can't tell the difference between something that's done well and done badly, your understanding of music is flawed. If you can't say "I don't care for this music at all. but if you do, this stuff is really good", I don't think much of your opinion.)

The elite list is very, very small: Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Sting, Roger Waters and John Entwistle. The second tier includes John Paul Jones, Jack Bruce and Phil Lesh, who pass 2-3 tests but miss a perfect score. (Bruce might have been the greatest of all, if he hadn't always insisted on wrestling Eric Clapton's guitar for control of the song.)

Of the people working in alternative rock in the 80's, Mike Mesaros (Smithereens), Andy Rourke (The Smiths) and Mike Mills were the only guys who could really do it well. Mills carries Rotary Ten--a meandering jazzy instrumental. Listening to it is almost painful, because it emphasizes how plodding Bill Berry's drumming often is, and how sloppy guitarist Peter Buck's melodies often are.

The cover of Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic is painful. The other three guys have their strong points, but they're not technically gifted enough musicians to be able to pull off full-bore hard rock. A re-arrangement might have helped, but they just imitate the original. Badly.

Mills is the only one who pulls his weight--he goes one-on-one with Tom Hamilton's high-speed rampage and holds his own. It doesn't save the song. They would have been a lot better off with the version of the Barney Miller theme (an old live staple). That they cover well.

The Wrong Child

There's virtually no excuse for the other six songs. The three Velvet Underground covers (There She Goes Again, Femme Fatale and Pale Blue Eyes) were recorded during rehearsals. They provide positive proof that the comments in the band's interviews (which said they really liked the VU) weren't hype. If you're really into analyzing Stipe's lyrical style, you might find fertile ground in the changes he makes to Lou Reed's lyrics. Further than that, deponent sayeth not.

I'm sure Voice of Harold is one of those tracks that seemed hysterical when the guys were bombed out of their skulls. In it, Stipe sings the liner notes from a gospel album to the backing track of Seven Chinese Brothers. I'm not angry that they put it on the album--it saved people the trouble of paying premium prices. But I'd like to beat them for putting it on a B-side.

Burning Hell was born during album sessions. Someone got a riff, they decided to jam on it and see if they could come up with a song. While it will do my credibility no good to say this, I sort of enjoy it. Imagine what would happen if they all simultaneously decided to channel Ted Nugent. It's also Stipe's most mannered vocal performance (which, on this album, is saying a lot).

Last--and to any sane person, least--is the medley of Walter's Theme and King of the Road. Walter's Theme was intended to be the backing track for a commercial for a local restaurant (the owner is the guy who coined the phrase "Automatic for the People"). It's one of those rococo R.E.M. chord patterns that's all embellishment and no melody.

King of the Road is a horrendous cover of the Roger Miller song, and you would have to be a musician--and fanatically interested in the inner workings of R.E.M.--to find any value in it. I found it fascinating; maybe you will too. (This works a lot better if you have the CD.)

Let's set the stage. They're doing a free recording for a friend. They're really drunk. The project is so off-the-cuff that they don't have any words written; Stipe is just babbling over the chords. They finish the song with a guitar and drum flourish. "That was the end", Mills says.

Then Michael Stipe starts singing the first line of King of the Road. Bill and Peter, not sure if he's still singing or not, repeat the final flourish. "That was the end," Mike says again.

But Stipe sings the line again. Peter plays a chord riff, that sounds like it ws borrowed from the punk version of the Pink Panther soundtrack. Bill does what is probably as close to a drum roll as he can.

Stipe sings the second line. Bill does another fill. Stipe sings the third line. He isn't urging them to play-- in fact, he hasn't said a thing. He just keeps singing. If you've been in a band, you know the message is Hey guys, let's do this!

On Roger Miller's original ("No phone, no pool, no pets"), there's a four-bar pause, followed by a bass riff that leads into the fourth line. When Stipe finishes the third line, Mike Mills plays a bass pickup. It's not the line from the record. But it's in time, in tempo and in in the same key that Stipe is singing in (which isn't the key of the record).

He hasn't touched his bass for the last 30 seconds. But all of a sudden, he's there. OK, hey-- why not? Let's do it.

That's good enough for the others. For the next 15 seconds, as Stipe staggers through the final line and the chorus, they attempt to join in. Bill Berry has it easy--drummers don't have to play notes. All he has to do is get into time with the bass line--and he just pops out a generic slow jazz backbeat.

Peter Buck is notorious for losing control of himself when he's stoned (as his recent airline case showed). He always has trouble keeping his guitar in tune on stage. He can't sing backing voals because he can't hold pitch. So it isn't surprising that he fumbles around trying to find a key, or a lick or a line that sounds good.

Mills just keeps improvising. He knows the song, he's got good time and better ears. He misses notes, but that's probably because he's trying to shout out the chord pattern to Buck while he's playing.

At 36 seconds into the track, things start to kick in. Berry locks into the bass line. Stipe gets back onto pitch. Mills hasn't left it. And finally Buck stops playing and just tried to listen, get the chords in his head and figure out something to play.

By 42 seconds, it's still just bass, drums and voice. But the song is rhythmically there and the voice and bass are doing the melody. Berry feels confident enough, as the song approaches the next verse, to even try a few rim shots.

And at 48 seconds, Mills does the pickup to the next verse, shouts out the chord ("C!") and the song comes together. Buck starts with one of his hammer-on chords; as they hit the next chord changes, Mills shouts out the other chords ("F!" "G!"). It takes time, but Buck finally realizes that the song has only three chords and they're three chords that he uses a lot. 50-odd seconds in, he pulls off one of his ersatz country arpeggios. By 1:08, he's finally locked in.

It never gets pretty. Buck can think of wonderful riffs and intriguing chords, but he's a godawful soloist. And this is one of his worst. Stipe can't remember the lyrics and he wanders all around the pitch.

But when they come out of his solo, they do a fairly amazing feat--duplicating the key shift (up two steps) that occurs on the original record. And they nail it.

Now they're in the key of D, one of the four keys that's suited for guitar (E,G and A) so they all add a few more riffs before they bring it to a close.

It isn't worth the price of admission. In fact, it doesn't make the song any less dreadful. But it does give you some idea of the working relationships. Which, if you're really a fan (and that's why most people would buy this), is pretty neat. And if you're a musician, it's very neat.

Endgame

If it weren't for the presence of Chronic Town, the rating would be easy. Give it one star and let trufans ignore the rating. The EP--which has five good songs--makes the decision difficult. (Unless you don't object to online file trading.)

Here's how I look at it. An album used to have 10 songs and between 30 and 45 minutes of music. There are 20 songs and 63 minutes of music here--nearly a double-album. The five songs on the EP run 20 minutes--they're worth your money. If you like R.E.M., I'd guess you can find 2-3 things you like like and another 2-3 that provide amusement on some level. So if you get maybe 15 more minutes, that's an album.

A good album? No, but the Beach Boys' Shut Down, Volume 2, Flowers by the Rolling Stones and even the soundtrack to Yellow Submarine are pretty awful bargains too. In a tribute to the schizophrenic nature of the album, I'll give it two stars and thumbs up.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I picked this album to review... Tonight I was was going through some old floppies, copying stuff to CDs. Amidst the stuff that was embarrassing and the items that were badly dated, I found nine or ten old essays that I really kinda liked.

Maybe they're not great. In fact, I know they aren't. But they're kinda cool and they're informative on some level and if I just linked them together a little...

Well, OK, I mean, I didn't want them to put them in a box and make them go away entirely. Which is probably why I like this album a lot more than I should.

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Cleaning the House