Review: 'The Name of the Band Is R.E.M.'

Unlikely as it was, the mysterious and insular R.E.M. became the biggest college rock band of the eighties, and one of the nineties' biggest bands of any stripe, so they've naturally been the topic of their share of biographies. Yet there's is a tough story to tell with the usual rock and roll salaciousness that pins cynical eyes to pages. Their story is suspiciously lacking in drug-crazed binges, intraband hair-pulling bouts, humiliating flops, and groupie abuse. R.E.M. were basically four nice guys who liked each other. One shouting match during the making of Monster and cutting Peter Holsapple out of the lucrative co-writing credits for "Low" was probably the most Mick-and-Keith things they ever did. Sure, Peter Buck did have that one well-publicized fit of air rage, but mostly he settled for strolling around town in his PJs and robe while tugging on a tallboy to get his ya-yas out.

Peter Ames Carlin finds his way around R.E.M.'s lack of sleazy drama by devising novel ways to keep readers on their toes. The Name of the Band Is R.E.M. begins with thirty pages of Michael Stipe's back story before the other guys suddenly appear at his side with such a lack of fanfare I was left thinking The Name of the Band Is Michael Stipe would be a more fitting title. Then some fifty pages later, Ames Carlin backtracks to fill in Peter Buck's missing past. Some time later he does the same for Mike Mills, and more than halfway through the book we find out about Bill Berry's origins. A hundred pages later, the band's fifth member, Bill's unibrow, finally gets its passage. 

I've read a lot of books about a lot of rock and roll bands, and I'd never come across this approach before. It keeps the storytelling fresh, which is key in a book in which there isn't a lot of outrageous doings. 

Ames Carlin's breathless prose, which sometimes edges toward the poetic, also goes a long way in keeping The Name of the Band engaging. He has a knack for making you feel like you're at an electrifying R.E.M. show instead of merely reading about it decades after the fact. His explanations of some of R.E.M.'s cryptic lyrics and his not-initially-apparent determination to keep all four members of the band at the story's forefront also make the ride worth taking.