The thought process that goes into a race:

Night before: I haven’t trained enough. I’m going to suck. I better not even walk because I’ll injure myself. I have to be up at what time? Do I have enough Goo? Should I carbo-load or shouldn’t I? How cold will it be?

Morning of: Holy jesus is it early. It’s cold. How bad will traffic be? Should I hydrate more?

Running it: Ow (first two miles). I feel great! (next 8-20). I want to die (up to the last mile). I feel amazing and want to sprint! (last mile).

Post race: When can I do that again?

Bertis Downs, Mike Mills

Note: this was published in the last ever R.E.M. Fanclub Newsletter. I wrote it after I went down to Athens, GA for their final (I hate that word) release party for Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage.

I am an R.E.M. fan. For me, driving into Athens, GA is synesthetic. Heading up from the Loop on Oconee you hear songs fade in and out as you pass by landmarks. At every corner you see something or hear something that is tied to a piece of music. A Church Steeple to Gardening at Night. The train in the distance to Driver 8. Dudley Park to the entirety of Murmur.

The town is the living embodiment of the collective works of a band that, on September 21st, 2011, announced they would cease being R.E.M. and return to being John Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck. They were preceded in this by Bill Berry.

I came into town to celebrate the band that was. I’ve been going down to Athens for over a decade now, sometimes every year, sometimes a few years in between. In the last five years my visits were under the guises of a label executive. This time, it was purely as a fan and friend.

The news of R.E.M.’s disbandment wasn’t a shock to me, but it still struck a blow. It’s a band I dedicated more time out of my life to than I did any other pursuit. I started a fan site for them when I was 16, worked at their label. I even met my wife because of one of them. The closure of the chapter of R.E.M. was thus a closure of a part of my life, a part that I’m immensely proud of and grateful to have had, but still nostalgic for. Yet we all move on, and while I got married, got a great job, had a kid and left that job, this band has managed to consistently deliver the joyful noise that surrounded every one of my life ocassions.

As with every record since Automatic for the People, the band and the town of Athens, GA (through various charities) was holding a release party. Given that this would be the final one, I thought it as good an ocassion as any to head down south and pay my respects.

The parties were awesome. The tribute concert a joyous ramshackle affair full of friends and family (and staff) who put pretence asside to show a genuine appreciation and love for an amazing body of work. The fact that Mike Mills (“always the ham” as he said) couldn’t help but run on stage at various turns was icing. The fact that a tanned and fit Bill Berry watched from the balcony with his family was sweet.

The next days two parties had a feeling of a joyous wake. It was the last time to celebrate new material from a band that had given so much for so long. Cine held the Taste of Athens charity event, while the 40 Watt Club, yet again held a listening party full of auctions, videos and fans.

But overshadowing the events was something more.

This was more than a band. While the work they produced was in the form of music, video and art: the entity of “R.E.M.” transcended far beyond that.

It was family, in the way the band members parents and siblings were present, in some cases to continuously snap photos to send to them via text messages. The pride expressed not only in words, but in the obvious emotion and pride from seeing their sons and brothers on screen, on record and on stage.

It was friends, in the countless neighbors, office staff and spouses, children and towns people who came out many nights in a row to show their love.

And more than anything, it was fans. People from Europe. People with tatoos of lyrics (and band members!). Fans who knew all the words, all the demos, all the videos and all the history.

This mix of family, friends and fans was there to not just celebrate R.E.M. In a way, they were R.E.M. The band that was so much more than a band. They were a band made whole by the friends, families, fans and town that supported them.

R.E.M. is no more. The demos on my hard drive will never become songs (although I’m happy Instrumental 4 from Dublin became “A Month of Saturdays”). I will never again see them live nor feel the anticipation of the first listen to a new record or song. But we have not lost them.

R.E.M. is alive in the friends I’ve met. It’s alive in the fans I’ve met. It’s alive in the friendships with the staff, the band and others that I’ll hold dear for the rest of my life.

The only time I became a bit choked up the entire time I was in Athens was while watching the retrospective video in Ciné. During the part that chronicled the Georgia Music Hall of Fame ceremony, there was a moment when myself and my wife Amy were on screen, smiling ear to ear and singing along. Thinking back on how fun that moment was, and all that preceeded it including how I met her made me realize that while a band can be finite, their impact never will be.

Some day my son will ask me about R.E.M. and why they meant so much to me for so long.

I won’t have an answer.

They were R.E.M., and that is what they did.

First, how did I do on 2011?

1. Get back into tennis. I haven’t played since high school and I’m in a lot better shape now than I was then. I did not do this.
2. Maintain my work/computer/life balance properly, especially time with Eli and Amy. I did this more for the fact that I wasn’t working for 8 months than anything.
3. Be a nicer person Debatable.
4. Now that we know Eli can travel, we should do so! We went to Maui, San Francisco and New York, so CHECK.
5. See more concerts Not really, but it is now a job requirement.
6. Run another marathon A half?
7. Make an iPhone app and a web app Web app: check. iPhone? Not yet.
8. Organize life and keep it organized Still in progress
9. Learn something new NOT involving computers, programming languages, etc Nope.
10. Organize photos (both digital and analog), scan the analog in, make books Yes

It began like this.

WBR Parking lot, 1-28-11

I started my job at WBR in 2005 thinking, correctly, that it was a dream come true. The four years I spent as a part of Warner Bros. Records were among my best in my life. Every day I came into work with the task being “what can we invent today to make this amazing music we have even better for more people?” I had the job of inventing the future for music, and what could be more fun?

The fifth year at WMG was not as fun. I left after that. On January 28 I pulled my car out of the WBR parking lot for the last time, my car loaded with the remainder of my personal belongings and started what would end up being a longer “vacation” than I intended.

Here in are the highlights of the time between then and now.

Collapse into Now

What would be their final record, and the final one I worked for them. I was in the studio for the final days of the recording and mixing, and I heard all but one song. Here is my reaction upon hearing it.

My reaction after hearing Überlin for the first time.

The album was released in April. I listened to it constantly up to its release, as its 41 minutes of length made a perfect four mile run. At some point I realized that this was a swan song, and the record upset me too much to listen to anymore. I’m over that now.

February, in Kid Rock’s House with Rick Rubin

I played him back Collapse Into Now

Playing Collapse Into Now back to Rick Rubin

SXSW

SXSW was interesting this year as I was unemployed (and yet promised to someone). I had fun, and it was the last time I was with R.E.M. as a full band together.

Hawaii

My uncle and aunt and my family went to Hawaii for a week and a half. My cousin was nearly a year old, and Eli nearly 2.

Eli and Leah

Begin the Begin

In July or so, I started working on a project. That project became a “job” of sorts in August and around then, the company I had promised myself to started having discussions with another company which now employs me. Complicated, yes. In the end, August, September, October, November and December were spent planning, programming, researching and writing. A fruitful and productive time.

Midway through this two things happened that made some of the good in the way of things diminish.

One was R.E.M. and two was Steve Jobs.

R.E.M. Calls it a Day

I have been an R.E.M. fan longer than I have not. I have been the R.E.M. fan for half as long as I’ve been on the planet earth. I knew the day that did come was coming, but it still caught me unprepared. I had an e-mail from their manager asking me to call him first thing in the morning. I did and he told me the news a few minutes before the website posted it.

I sent off a text to Mike, Michael and Peter saluting them on a great run, and thanking them for letting me be a small part of it for the last 15 years, and then dealt with the website, press, etc.

It’s difficult to put into words what that day meant to me, because it would seem to be over exaggerated to some, and it trivializes it to me. It reads oddly to tell people “I have dedicated a large portion of my life to the expression of fanaticism for a band,” and yet, that’s the truth. When they cease to be, a portion of my life goes with it.

In the end: I have great friends in the band, their staff and amongst fans. I credit the work I did with and for them with more than I can summarize in a blog post, and I know that they did what was right, not what was easy or expected. For 31 glorious years.

Steve Jobs

Another day we knew was coming. I have no need to lionize the man, nor excuse what he did and didn’t do during his lifetime. We are all allowed heroes, no matter how flawed, and their passing takes a part of us that was to their credit with them, however small or large that part may be.

And Now 2012

It is nearly 2012 now. Lets show those kids how to do it fine. Fine.

This was to be my first time seeing R.E.M. I remember walking into the venue and taking everything in: the road cases, the guitars, the dinosaurs on stage. I was a student of history for this band, so I recognized Microwave, Bertis and others walking around. I never stopped smiling.

And then the show started.

I don’t remember much of the show. I remember that MIchael came out with his head colored blue and with a huge pumpkin cutout. He had a bowl of “Monster” candy that he threw to the audience and when he handed the bowl down to the crowd, I got it. That bowl is my “catch-all” bowl where I put my keys and wallet and change to this day.

After the show, I was hoarse. I had hair coloring pouring down my face. I looked like the cover of Hole’s “Celebrity Skin”, but I don’t think I came off that high for many months. The next day at school I as a zombie, as was everyone else who had either seen REM, Oingo Boingo or a few other bands that had played the night before. I remember thinking as I struggled through the school day: “I need to feel that again.”

And so I went to shows a lot in high school and then beyond. I saw R.E.M. more times than I can count in every possible way. Rooms of 8 people to stadiums of 20,000 in Italy. I saw Patti Smith return to Los Angeles in 1996. I fell asleep standing up watching the Long Winters after not sleeping for 36 hours. I was on stage with the Flaming Lips on New Years a few years ago.

I remember every time a concert ended during which I was transcended above the space I was in. Everything worked, and it didn’t matter if I was back stage, in the booth, in the audience or in the back. I remember walking to my car or to a subway or even to a tour bus or van with a feeling that magic happened and I shared it with others.

And this is a magic that has been retained even as technology has reduced the work of art to be subjugate to the act of its reproduction. As technology has made music, books and movies dependent on the onus of representation more so than the media therein, live music has sat at the intersection of art, technology, spectatorship and passion: something outside of the ramifications of progress, not much different now than shadows on a cave wall.

As a technologist I strive to create products that are at once visceral, emotional and pragmatic. Striking this balance has been at the core of technology since we used tools to augment our innate abilities. It is an unobtainable goal however, but the journey toward the impossible is what has given humanity its greatest triumphs.

—-

Many years ago I met a kindred spirit in the music business, someone my then boss called a “genius.” He and I shared many of the same passions: the intersection of technology and art, the sifting of information from mass amounts of data and of course R.E.M. Eric Garland’s company, BigChampagne did something I always admired: quantified the reality of industries which inherently rely on an agreed fiction. This often met with scowls, but for those, like me, who relied on the balance between fiction and reality to inform our day to day, it was gold.

While at Warner Bros. Records, WEA and WMG, Eric and I worked closely together on various projects. Some saw the light of day, some didn’t, but at some point when I knew my time at WMG was coming to an end we talked about the possibility of really working together. If I remember correctly, I said “At what point do we just say ‘fuck it’ and work together?” Not elegant, but it did feel as if the time had come.

We were always the ones in the conference room who would stand up and say “bull shit!” when required (with data to back it up), and we knew that collective voice had a place in an industry we had not given up on, while so many others had. Emotionally and scientifically we understood that the power of entertainment was not diminished through technology, only changed and in most cases strengthened. Where would the home for this understanding be?

In the last year we toyed with this in various forms, including some experiments that we launched. When BigChampagne entered into an agreement to be acquired by Live Nation, we found our platform.

As of today I’m the VP of Product for LiveNation.com and founding, with Eric and Joe Fliescher from BigChampagne, Live Nation Labs.

We are hacking on a huge stage.

And I can’t wait to show you all what we’re working on.

PS: If you want to join us, ping me. We’re on the hunt for great developers (Rails, Node.js, iOS, Android etc) and designers.

Steve’s last words were “Oh wow!” repeated three times. What he was feeling, what he saw behind or beyond the faces of his loved ones we’ll never know.

But “oh wow” says something to me. Two monosylables which express so much wonderment, breathlessness and astonishment. It got me thinking of the last time I said that without reservation.

When he emerged into the world all I could do is say “oh wow…oh wow” and look at him. Sometimes I still do (when he isn’t throwing water bottles at the dogs or drawing on the walls).

One of my favorite songs from R.E.M. is “Sweetness Follows,” which is a song (ostensibly) about dealing with the crushing weight of life and moving on. There is a line in there I really like:

“Live your life filled with joy and thunder”

So we shall.

Here is an exercise:

Think back on the last time you felt an in your core love for something. Not someone, but something. Now, when was that turned toward music? When was the last time something you heard stirred something inside you?

That feeling: it is indescribable. It’s a hot feeling in your eyes, like you might cry. A lump in your throat. It’s hard to talk. Something that goes beyond just what you are hearing and makes you feel something. You can’t describe it to anyone, nor explain why something made you feel this way. Others might deem you a “fan boy” or crazy. The song might have only resonance to you and you alone. The band may even disown it. But it is there, something that goes to the core of emotional response.

Tell me: was this feeling able to be quantified in something as pedestrian as a “Like” or a “Follow” or an activity in a stream?

Think of that moment. Really hard. Go into the least social place to listen to music (right now, iTunes) and listen to that song. Don’t talk about it with anyone, don’t socialize it. Let it consume you for a moment.

Did that feeling return? If not, what would you pay for it to? How much is your emotional response worth? How do you want it expressed?

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Music is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance at the moment brought on by a few things: desperation, pervasive connectivity and ubiquitous computing.

Or rather, the access to music is undergoing a transformation, if not renaissance. The actual weight of collective creativity and passion behind an individual artist however is not. If anything, the ascendancy of access as a means of enjoyment (rather than implicit curation through purchase) is devaluing what it means to be a “fan,” or to “like” something into nothing more than edges on a graph.

Is this a bad thing? Not hardly. It is a fundamental shift, and it presents an interesting predicament in terms of how to address this as an artist.

Music is a weird thing. At a fundamental level, it is emotion expressed through orderly and pleasing assembly of frequencies. This enjoyment is predicated on the use of technology to amplify and extend those frequencies (from the amphitheater to the iPod, this has been consistent). It is emotion through sound, and should strive to bring those two cores closer together.

But what is lost in the discussion right now of how to monetize music is what exactly it is we’re monetizing. Is it access to music? Is it the value exchange between access and emotional response? Do we even care about emotional response anymore?

Or is it that we are paying for the ability to go from disordered frequencies into representations that are up to us to quantify as either background or emotionally resonant works? Where does the onus lie?

If the actual value transaction is more about that which represents rather than that which is being represented: what is the role of the artist?

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I took a lot of heat somehow for advocating that in the discussion of the value of content we revert everything back into a fundamental discussion on the value of art in a society, and the place of the artist. I don’t care about the heat so much as I care about the point.

The value of art can’t be fixed through the panacea of new technology and the fetishizing of the ability to access content over the ability to make Art.

No. True value can only come from those that seek to create it. The Artist.

Right now, those that create the true emotional response of Art are the craftsman constructing our ability to access it. Spotify is more emotionally resonant to people than the content contained within. Apple makes products that serve as emotional extensions through technology, but the content on it, and the art contained within as digital bytes strengthens not the connection to the Art, but the connection to the tools enabling it.

I think back on the emotional response I had to music. I think the last time that hit me was hearing Überlin for the first time.

It wasn’t predicated on the latest social network, open graph, streaming service or “access model.” I wasn’t cognizant of breakages, licensing, catalog size, investors, valuations or charismatic CEO’s. There were no keynotes. There was no Like button, oAuth, Connect or graph. No marketing plans, promotions, exclusives or partners.

There wasn’t any filter between me and the music.

It was me, two speakers, an amp and a piece of music, and for a moment the breath was caught in my throat and I couldn’t speak afterwards.

I want nothing more than to get this feeling again.

It is up to the artists to do this.

I haven’t travelled or lived as long as Jack (sorry Jack), so I don’t have multitudes of memories for many, but here it goes. These are places that stick in my mind because of the music I heard there. Not chronological and maybe not all venues.

The Wiltern: Patti Smith (1996), Natalie Merchant (1995), Sigur Ros, Travis, Wilco, The Decemberists, Green Day. I think my favorite venue.

The Artist Lounge, WBR – The White Stripes, Neil Young, R.E.M., Randy Newman. I sat in here, cross legged next to Jack White listening to Icky Thump.

Blackbird Studio, Nashville, TN – Last year I went and heard the last R.E.M. record for the first time in the fall. The entire band sitting behind me as I was in the producers seat listening, eyes drilling into my neck it felt like.

The Armory Studio, Vancouver – Three of us from WBR went up to hear Accelerate (before it had a name, this was just as they started recording). We were I think in our hearts, scared to death since this record was following up Around the Sun. What if it sucked? What if what we heard sucked the life out of the room? What would we say?

We all three sat in Aeron chairs facing the studio monitors as Jacknife Lee queued up “Living Well is the Best Revenge” full blast, in early demo form. We all three pulled out our iPhones and/or Blackberry’s and texted Michael, who was in Georgia.

Peter Buck’s condo – the first time I heard most of Accelerate, before the band headed to Dublin.

The Showbox, Seattle, WA – one of the most emotionally stirring performances I’ve ever seen: Patti Smith.

Jones Beach, NY – The first time I had an after-show pass. Patti Smith was there and I got to finally meet her.

The Casbah, San Diego – I spent the day with the Minus 5 taking photographs (700 frames, which became my final project in college). Also saw the Decemberists there opening for someone else, playing to maybe 20 people.

The 40 Watt Club, Athens, GA – I lit a couch on fire.

Two weeks ago three guys who meant a huge amount to me called it a day.

And today the day was called, too early, for another who helped shape who I came to be through his contributions to the world.

Farewell Steve Jobs.