Begin the Begin. Robert Dean Lurie

four were approaching music in the spirit of adventurous children, not quite knowing what they were doing and therefore stumbling into interesting sounds. But it was not to be; Paul and Kit never showed up that day.

      How differently things might have turned out! Recall that at this very moment, across town, Billy Holmes was (so the story goes) drunkenly turning down an overture to play in a band with Mike Mills and Bill Berry. Perhaps, in a parallel universe, these two would-be bands—the trio of Holmes, Mills, and Berry, and the combo of Buck, Butchart, Swartz, and Stipe, are playing Athens clubs to this day. But instead of R.E.M. No. 1 and 2, they are called . . . Well, we’ll get to that.

      Back in the real world—or, rather, the hazy dreamworld of Athens, Georgia, circa March 1980—Stipe, Buck, Butchart, Kurt Wood, and two women whose names have been lost in the sands of time decided to go on a road trip to New York City to see Pylon perform. Never mind that they could see Pylon play any given week in Athens—this was the Big Apple! And it was on this trip that the template for R.E.M.’s future road behavior was set: constant drinking and a complete disregard for the necessities of sleep and personal hygiene. This latter aspect made a lasting impression on the attendees of a party that was thrown for Pylon. According to Paul, there are people walking around New York to this day who refer to his band of interlopers as “the guys that smelled bad.” (The women had broken away from the group a few days before). This event also doubled as a birthday party for music journalist Lester Bangs—a hero to all four young men for his iconoclastic, acerbic writing in Creem and Rolling Stone. The now-bloated, shaggy-haired Bangs spent much of the party slumped in a corner, drugged out of his mind. Butchart recalls Peter Buck keeping a respectful distance. As Buck explained to Butchart, “I don’t want to talk to famous people because they’ll ruin my image of them; they’ll probably be arrogant or something like that.” (Buck’s oft-quoted version of the story includes Bangs calling him a “rotten cocksucker” even as Buck attempted to keep a wide berth.) The hungry travelers had intended to load up on food at this party, but all that was on offer was cheesecake and jelly beans. They ate as much as they could stomach.

      It would be some time before Stipe and Buck returned to New York City, but it’s safe to say the place got in Stipe’s blood—or more accurately, that it reinforced an obsession he’d begun to develop a few years back when he bought that Horses album. The trip also seems to have focused Stipe’s and Buck’s ambitions. They returned to Athens suitably inspired, and channeled this new energy into preparations for their upcoming debut.

      Meanwhile, Butchart and Swartz filled out their own fledgling band with Jimmy Ellison—the ex-husband of Pylon’s Vanessa Briscoe—on bass. “We both just naturally thought of Jimmy because he was this character around town,” Butchart says. “And so we asked Jimmy if he wanted to play bass. He’s like, ‘I don’t know how to play bass,’ and Kit said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll show you what to do.’” Jimmy’s lack of ability only accentuated the primitive surf-drone inherent in the music Swartz and Butchart had been working up. Butchart characterizes the Side Effects’ resulting sound as that of “an instrumental band with vocals,” Swartz’s barked lyrics coming across almost as an afterthought.

      The Side Effects: Paul Butchart (drums), Kit Swartz (guitar),

      Jimmy Ellison (bass), 688 Club, Atlanta, 1981.

      Photo by Margot Butchart.

      As the fateful day approached, word of the party circulated throughout the larger UGA community. Kurt Wood remembers riding on a university bus down Milledge Avenue—the fraternity and sorority area—and overhearing a girl telling her friend about the upcoming “party at that church place down on Oconee Street.”

      “I thought, man, word has really gotten out,” Kurt says. The anticipation was probably augmented by the wild stories that had circulated about previous parties there, since Athens was a small town (its population in 1980 was around 40,000).

      As a result of all this chatter, far more people showed up at the church on the night of April 5, 1980, than anyone had anticipated. Estimates put the attendance at anywhere between 300 and 600 people. Just about everyone remembers it as a hell of a party. Beyond that, details become hazy and contradictory; some people remember the band Turtle Bay (soon to be renamed Men in Trees) opening the show.(1) “They were kind of like a hippie hard rock band,” Kurt Wood says. “They were OK. They were definitely experienced musicians but it wasn’t really what I was there to see.”

      Next up were the Side Effects. “I think they did their first song, and it totally fell apart,” Wood says. Which didn’t seem to matter. Everyone loved the Side Effects. The party was roaring along by that point; a number of people remember the floorboards literally bending under the weight of everyone dancing. Kathleen had stationed the kegs outside, which helped keep the crowd dispersed, but there were still an awful lot of people inside that sanctuary, jumping around and sweating.

      When their turn came, Berry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe took the “stage” fortified with booze, adrenaline, and take your pick of what else. Nerves ran high, and the performance certainly had all the shaky qualities of a debut. The band still hadn’t even committed to a name. And yet something stood out. As Paul Butchart remembers, “They sounded more like a real band that was tight and everything. They were really good. I know they were better than us, but that didn’t matter at the time.”

      Kurt Wood adds, “I thought they had the most . . . chops or whatever. It was still pretty loose. Everyone was pretty drunk.”