Spotlight On - Mitch Easter

[winston]

Good day ladies and gentlemen from Western Canada. The sun is shining and it is a glorious day here. Fresh for your reading pleasure is an interview with our very own Mitch Easter. He is as fine a guitarist and songwriter as I have had the pleasure of listening to in a long while. He is also one of the most down to earth and interesting people that I have had the opportunity to get to know in the music business. What you see is what you get and there are no embellishments or delusions of grandeur attatched to this very personable musician.

Without further ado, here is the interview recently conducted with Mitch.


Spotlight On - Mitch Easter

Now I don’t want anyone to think that I am pretending to have known about Mitch Easter for years and years because the truth is I recently discovered him and then I discovered the full tapestry of sound that constitutes his music. I hate that feeling that I sometimes get when I know that I missed out on something good. Well….. Now I know what I have been missing in this respect………and it’s all good (at least according to my very rigid set of standards) I am glad to report.

It was an unusual chain of events by all accounts that led me to Mitch, but that is a whole other story worth telling over a cup of coffee if anyone ever has the notion and the time, energy and finances to make a trek to Western Canada and visit my family and I for a few hours of BS and good humor.
Here’s what I have learned about Mitch in the past few weeks since I literally found out about him.

Mitch grew up during the 1960s in Winston-Salem, NC. At age 12, Mitch got his first electric guitar and a few short months later he was on stage playing his first gig. He channeled his passion for playing very well and became a very skilled and tasteful lead guitarist.

While in college Mitch earned a degree in radio and television. His all consuming interest in both playing music and exploring recording technology led to the birth of the now famous Drive-In studio, where he launched his recording career.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll recently caught up with Mitch and put him under the spotlight.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Mitch thanks for agreeing to an interview for It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll and the Rickresource forum. So let’s get started.

Tell me about that feeling you got when you first picked up that old electric guitar and realised that you might be able to play it some day and then you became determined to do it to the best of your ability.

Mitch

There were a couple of electric guitar moments that absolutely riveted me- the solo in “Raunchy”, by Bill Justus, and the definitive “spy riff” in John Barry’s “James Bond Theme.” But I couldn’t imagine how to make that kind of noise myself. Then, a friend of mine, Doug Muir, got an electric guitar and showed me another essential spy riff- “Secret Agent Man”, and it was so easy, I could do it! Wow! My dad had a banjo but plinking around on it never gave me the feeling this Guitar Moment did.

It wasn’t long before I signed up for guitar lessons and had a great teacher who was willing to teach me what I wanted to learn, which was Monkees songs. He realized I was just a kid, and scales and theory could come in due course. Thank goodness! At that stage it’s so important to feel like you’re playing songs.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

When you realised that you could actually play at a competent level and people in any audience no matter what size actually enjoyed it, how and when did you know that’s what you wanted to do with your life?

Mitch

My first ever stage appearance was in the fall of 1967 at Floretta Baylin’s Academy of Dance Arts, where they attempted to civilize young ruffians by teaching them how to dance (I was enrolled…). At the end of the term, we were allowed to have a Teen Dance and somehow our band weasled its way into the gig. We went out and got matching double-breasted blazers for this event and were definitely in Show Business from that moment! The show was a total thrill aside from the fact that we didn’t know “Incense and Peppermints”, which is what everybody wanted to hear. For such a momentous occasion, I rented my dream amp, a Vox Berkeley III, from Dixie Music, an upgrade over my brown Princeton.

Not too much later I met Sam Moss, a local guitar legend (at age 15, but he was THAT good), and he got me and the drummer from that first band to join his new thing. This was an incredible eye- and ear-opener because we learned all the essential psychedelic material of the day, which stretched my guitar playing way beyond what I had been doing. Unquestionably, getting feedback, soloing and wearing Edwardian stage clothes was the best possible thing I could do with myself for the rest of my days!

The brilliance of this insight was not always confirmed by the size or enthusiasm of the audiences, though.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

What drives you to keep trying to get to the top? Tell me specifically what it is that you have inside you pushing you to try harder to succeed.

Mitch

It quickly became apparent that it was pointless to worry too much about the Top, especially since I was less and less a fan of “mainstream” music as time went on. But when the punk/New Wave scene came along it gave a lot of us a bit of hope that we might at least find a place in some kind of scene. And in fact, an awful lot of people from my town got something going in those years which succeeded in some way. It’s shocking how many of us are still at it, more or less. We just must, you know, really like doing it! For me, there is no satisfaction comparable to writing a good song and getting it recorded and still thinking it’s good the next day, and seeing an audience to respond to it. I really only ever want to do that…

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Tell me about the Let’s Active days, your band from the 80’s.

Mitch

Having failed to become a musical household name upon high school graduation, I was really freaking out by 1981, when Let’s Active got going. I had started my recording studio, which was doing well, and as much as recording other people was pretty much fun, it was driving me crazy that I wasn’t making music myself. My usual musical cohorts were all off doing something, but my girlfriend, Faye Hunter, had started playing bass (on a lovely ’71 4001), and she was a natural! So we thought, OK, that’s guitar and bass, we just need a drummer. My friend Don Dixon and R.E.M.’s original manager Jefferson Holt had both told me that I needed to check out Sara Romweber, a Chapel Hill, NC teenager who was playing in a ska band called The Psuedes. Eventually I met Sara at an R.E.M. show and she was very friendly, but also hard to pin down and it took us ages to convince her to get into a room with us and try something. I guess the thing that really helped that band coalesce was an invitation from R.E.M. to open for them at the 688 Club in Atlanta. The show was two weeks away, so we rehearsed like crazy and went down and did that show, one at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, and one in Charlotte NC, and it was all right! I think we hammered something into shape that made sense for those times. I was deliberately playing guitar differently (this was when I got a Rickenbacker) and writing less conventional songs compared to what I’d done before. We actually managed to get signed to I.R.S. Records and made a few disks which did well enough and many touring years followed.

Of course, it was almost inevitable that this original line-up only lasted a couple of years. I was heartbroken, because I knew how hard it was to form a band that anybody actually cared about! Because it’s not just about music, people have to like the identities of the band members, and I think our band had that, 3 sort of fluffy people who vaguely resembled each other, with 2 girls and a sort of girly-looking guy… well, it seemed to work!

We carried on with other members and probably got better in some ways but I don’t think the charm was there and I got dispirited after awhile and ended the band in 1990.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Tell us about "Every Word Means No.". I understand that there is quite a story attached to the video and a certain VJ.

Mitch

That video was shot at the A&M Records lot in Hollywood, which was the old Charlie Chaplin lot. Certainly a thrill, and I’d never even been to California before! We got a little spot on The Cutting Edge, a show that I.R.S. produced and which was shown on the fledgling MTV, so this was just a quickie thing, with other bands also doing shoots the same day. On this same trip we met somebody from MTV at a party, who said she was delighted to meet us and would seek out our video…well! It’s hard to imagine that at that time, MTV had to go out and look for things to show!

For a couple of years, Let’s Active and I would pop up on MTV News, like when a lot of my studio gear got blown up by lightning. This really happened, but how they knew, I don’t know. I think in 1984 Faye and I did a brief interview with Martha Quinn before we embarked on a long tour of the UK with Echo and the Bunnymen. Martha seemed to be the most famous of the original Veejays, and she was just great! Very pleasant and easy to talk to. A pro! She had been informed that I had once backed up the late 1960s teen star Bobby Sherman and asked about that. That show was my one and only experience of actually hearing thousands of screaming girls from the stage. What a sound! Yikes. Bobby was pretty cool but I think he was horrified at how loud our band was. We all had full Marshall stacks!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Tell us a bit about how the band was managed back in the 80’s and how it is being managed today. Give us a bit of a comparison of the business models and why the change came about.

Mitch

In the 1980s we had this shocking and wonderful renaissance of live music and dancing, enthusiastic audiences and it was great! It was one of those times where the energy really flowed both ways, as it should. So, the clubs were full and there was money to be made. Although Let’s Active was essentially just a club band, we did a lot of 6 – 8 week tours and came back with comfy amounts of money to live on. A show in some of the very same venues today might net us $125 if we’re lucky. So for awhile there we had a tour manager, guitar techs, lighting people, etc. and everybody got paid. We never had a very good manager, alas. Most of the business was conducted by us, the tour manager, and the booking agency, FBI.

These days I do some shows under my own name, and it is a super money-losing enterprise that I just do for… those few people out there who came to the show! So I really just have to save up for it, knowing that I can’t afford to stay out for long. It’s too bad, because it really is fun to play onstage.

This change is the result of the fact that my audience is going to be people who heard about me 25 years ago, and the number of them who still go to clubs dwindles by the hour. After Let’s Active, I didn’t do a lot of performing, so naturally I would pretty much fade away from people’s thoughts. Not to mention that this isn’t one of those clear-cut times with a rock scene that I’m part of, etc. but despite all that, I’m always astounded at the number of people who do remember me and ask about the next record or whatever. So, that’s OK!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Mitch we know you play guitar, what other instruments do you play and what other strengths do you bring to the table?

Mitch

Towards the end of high school, my friend Chris Stamey got a Teac 2340, a 4-track tape machine that had a sync mode so you could do overdubs. We really got into trying to make our version of “studio” recordings with this machine, which was boring to the other guys in our band, so the band sort of fizzled out but Chris and I hardly noticed because we were so busy trying to make records! I kind of figured out how to play drums by tapping on my desk at school and became, therefore, the drummer for this enterprise. Because my hero at the time was Roy Wood, I rented a cello, borrowed the high school baritone sax, started plinking on an electric piano, and generally started seeing myself as somebody who would make records above all, and learn instruments as required to accomplish this. I’m still really just a guitar player but I got to be OK on drums, still do plinky keyboards, and I especially like playing bass.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Tell me about your latest CD Dynamico released in 2007. How was it put together and in particular what help if any did you enlist to write, arrange, record, produce and distribute this fantastic piece of work.

Mitch

Thanks for your very generous assessment of my disk! In the summer of 2006 I had a bit of time to get started on pulling a record together, which I figured I’d better do before a comet hit Planet Earth or whatever. As much as I liked the idea of going into the studio with a band and knocking a record out in a couple of weeks, it was more likely I’d actually get finished if I made use of some of the many tracks I had on hand, in various stages of completion, which nobody had heard, after all. Whenever I get the chance, I’ve always done pretty decent demos of songs I make up, and I had plenty to choose from, going back to 1990 or so.

All this material had been recorded with me playing all the instruments, and me engineering, on tape. Just for convenience, so I could easily look over the possibilities, I copied a batch of songs into the computer and just sort of looked at the list and started randomly finishing things. While doing this I also wrote some brand-new songs, and when I got to 14 I just stopped and that was the record. I forced myself to stay as un-picky as possible and not do multiple mixes, etc. My overriding concern was just getting something finished and out the door! So there you have it.

In the end there are a few cameo appearances by others, but it’s mostly me. And I just pressed it up myself, and got sales and distribution help from my friends at 125 Records in California. Having a record company, whatever that means these days, would be nice, but I was in a hurry and I really didn’t think it made any sense to argue with anybody over what songs to use or whatever!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Tell us a bit about your experiences with R.E.M.

Mitch

They came into my little studio, one of my first sessions, on the recommendation of Peter Holsapple. Arriving at my house the night before the session, they sat around playing records and we had a great time! I remember thinking that this studio thing was really great, I was meeting new cool rock people at a fast clip… anyway, we recorded Radio Free Europe, Sitting Still, and White Tornado the next day and I thought they were just great! The songs were straightforward but they had that “something special is going on here” quality, not to mention the fact that Michael Stipe was always a Star! At that time I think he saw himself very much as an art student who was dabbling in this funny “singing” thing, but he was always great.

Anyway, I really lobbied to get them back for the sessions which became the Chronic Town EP, and this was a splendid session, where we had more time, knew each other better, and we did some sort of sound-effecty and musique concrete type things which they really had fun with. This recording was picked up by I.R.S. and things were moving fast for them.

I was able to work on the Murmur and Reckoning LPs, along with Don Dixon, who I asked to help me since I was completely inexperienced and for these records we were required to record on 24 tracks, meaning I had to leave the comforts of my own little place and work in a real, proper studio! Don had done loads of sessions at Reflection Studios, in Charlotte, NC, and we went there for the LPs. These were great sessions, too, very quick and productive. And those guys were always confident and determined to do what they wanted to do, so there was no worrying about having a “hit” or whatever. This sentiment was not exactly shared by I.R.S., their label (!), but it didn’t matter because the fans loved them, Murmur was Rolling Stone’s Record of the Year, and all sorts of things were going right!

Aside from a few bits later on, that’s all I did with them. Their next record was produced by Joe Boyd, which I thought was a very cool move and I didn’t blame them a bit for moving on and checking out other situations. Why not?

I’ve seen them now and then over the years and they have always been absolutely excellent fellows to be around. Their whole operation has always been a real class act!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

I understand that you appeared on Conan O’Brien’s show. Tell us about that experience.

Mitch

I did a record with Velvet Crush in the early 90s called Teenage Symphonies to God, which I played guitar on, too. When the record came out I did a few weeks of touring with them and along the way we played on Mr. O’Brien’s show. What fun! The best monitors ever, and the tech staff was really gracious. After the sound check, the audio engineer asked us to come in the control room and listen to her mix in case we wanted any changes. I was really impressed with that, and of course, the mix was great.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Mitch, where do you see yourself in five to ten years?

Mitch

Probably in the same place, thinking the same thoughts…it dawned on me recently that I pretty much have made no progress in the Goals department (guitars, motorcycles, girls, records…) since I was about 13! If I can get out some more recordings in that time and play some good shows I’ll be pretty satisfied. At this point, I am happy if any of my recordings 1. Exist, 2. Are well-received by, like, a few people, and 3. Sound cool to me when I hear them later.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Do you have an agency promoting your live appearances? How are you looking after that aspect of band management?

Mitch

Ha ha! This is what everybody seems to be looking for in particular nowadays, booking agents. It seems like the only reliable non-megastar booking scene is for jam bands, which leaves me out! We get shows by emailing and calling clubs, one at a time.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

After you released your latest CD did your penetration of the North American market go as planned and hoped for? How are you managing this aspect of your business?

Mitch

I got good reviews on the record, sold out the first pressing, did some shows here and there which went over pretty well, and although it wasn’t exactly “penetration”, nobody told us to never come back or anything, so in these times, hey, that was all right! I’m not sure if this is what you’d call managing anything, but it’s what we did.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Mitch by all reports you have worked with some major artists as a studio musician, tell us some interesting stories about those experiences.

Mitch

I have? Well, I have played on a lot of records, but they are all pretty darn “indie”, aside from the R.E.M. records where I played a fair bit of acoustic. Some of these indie recordings are beloved in some circles, for example the Someloves record from the late 80s, which is seen as a sort of definitive “power pop” record by some. The two guys who created the project, Darryl Mather and Dom Mariani are guitar players, with Dom being a pretty righteous lead player, but they wanted me to do some bits and pieces and I remember playing a lot of things with a Rickenbacker 365 OS which worked well against their guitars. I was hired to play “lead” guitar, in a sort of American bar band style, for that Velvet Crush record, which was a challenge because I had always sort of avoided playing that way! The aforementioned Darryl also had me play a lot on his Orange Humble Band “supergroup” projects, which was fun. In my current studio work I do a lot of mixing and now and then I get asked to play solos on finished tracks. I think 70s guys like me can crank this stuff out in our sleep in a way that is apparently something of a lost art. There’s almost always this gratifying “whoa!” reaction from the artists, but really, it seemed like half my high school class could do that!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Let’s talk about the videos that you have recorded. Walk us through a typical video shoot day and the days leading up to and after the shoot.

Mitch

Our band’s video heritage ranged from the Very Humble to the Tragic, so maybe I’m not the one task! The “Every Word Means No” video, the most popular one, was shot in a few minutes for the Cutting Edge show, and we were asked about a simple “concept” beforehand. Our idea was “dogs”, but what the people organizing the shoot were able to come up with was a box of tiny, darling puppies. The results instantly and forever cast as us definitive lightweights, even though there are fans for that sort of thing… years later, Weezer did a video that was pretty much exactly what we were thinking of originally, which was big dogs, running around and being generally chaotic! Oh well. After we signed to I.R.S. we did a video in England that was so bad it was never used, which was notable since I.R.S. had already paid the director and I don’t think super-strict quality control was their top priority. A mini documentary of this shoot would be a great warning about “videos” in general, though. We met with the director, a very pleased-with-himself attempted hipster who had the most clichéd and terrible ideas possible. I was aghast, but we pretty much had to forge ahead. At the studio, it dawned on me that the many people standing around eating sandwiches were doing it all at our expense, and meanwhile we were marched into the makeup room to receive weird and highly unflattering makeup, and then we were sent to the set, which was a pile of garbage, to pantomime “Blue Line”, a great song by Maggie Beck which we covered on our “Cypress” LP, while a box kite decorated with Japanese characters (so 80s!) flew overhead. The big payoff is when Sara cuts the string with a razor and the kite flies off. This must be deeply symbolic but above all it was terrible! Anyway, we did a few more but the best of the later ones was probably the “home movie”- style one done on a VHS camera by Warren Chilton, who managed Guadalcanal Dairy. No high concept, just people playing at the old Drive-In Studio, my original garage setup.

Apparently some of these still pop up on MTV because people tell me they’ve seen them. Weird!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Tell us about your “other” passion which is recording and producing (Fidelitorium Recordings). How did you get started in that business and how far have you progressed with your goals?

Mitch

In college I started trying to figure out how I could get some professional recording gear. This is no problem today, but 30 years ago “pro” gear was truly pro and stunningly expensive. I found a used pair of 3M pro machines for sale at a studio in Atlanta, bought a small console and some microphones and declared myself to be in the studio business in the summer of 1980. The timing was perfect because there had been an explosion of bands, all with the idea that making an “indie single” was essential! I had these good tape machines and could get a sound that was closer to “real” records than some of the places using things like ½” 8-tracks, and I got lucky by recording bands that actually went somewhere. And the studio business is all about word of mouth and the last cool band you had in.

So I got busy with that and soon found myself listed as the producer on a lot of these records. It had not occurred to me that I was doing anything beyond operating the equipment, but naturally I was making comments as we went along, plus nobody knows what a record producer is, exactly… I found this slightly embarrassing but I figured it was a compliment and other bands liked the idea of it so, I had apparently become a producer without realizing it!

But I was never terribly ambitious about it, and have stayed in the “studio” business as much as I was ever a “producer”. These days I do sessions where I am involved in the creative decisions and some where I’m mainly the engineer. It’s all OK with me.

I got sort of famous for doing this back in the 80s and now I’m still busy in the studio with much less of the “fame” part! You really do only get 5 years or so of attention, with of course, a few notable exceptions. And of course, the studio has evolved over the years, going from a garage to a big purpose-built building with very comprehensive equipment. This sort of thing is vanishing now, but I’m hopeful that people will always understand that for some things, you still need to use a proper recording studio!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Tell us what drives you to be focused on business and art and how the two can co-exist in your world?

Mitch

I’m only focused on art and am terrible at business! Of course, the business partly takes care of itself if the art part is good enough that people notice. Recording a successful band can improve a studio’s business for years.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Have you had any experiences that have just “blew your mind” and if so tell us about the one experience that stands out for you?

Mitch

The first time I saw some guys playing electric guitar (in a basement, all plugged into the same Heathkit amp, naturally), my mind was definitely blown! I would love to hear what that sounded like now. It had to have been just awful!

The next one has to be going to my first-ever big rock show- Boyce & Hart and the Monkees in the Winston-Salem Coliseum (yep, days after Hendrix left that tour). The sound was almost frightening! I’m sure by modern standards it was frighteningly bad but my memory of it was that it was OK. I remember hearing an announcement that there would be delay while more Vox amps were being rounded up. I was playing guitar by then and was paying close attention because you always heard that The Monkees couldn’t play, etc. And at my school there was much talk about Mike Nesmith’s White Falcon, which was reported to cost…$5000, which might as well have been $5,000,000. Anyway, they were great, they could play just fine (Davy was good drummer!), Mickey was a fabulous singer and Mike and Peter were completely solid. When I got home my parents were watching the local news, and The Monkees had gone over to the TV station after the show and did the weather. It was awesome, they were so funny, and what stars!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

What advice do you have for those who want to become a successful musician?

Mitch

You should be as uncompromising as you can get away with, while bearing in mind that you need to actually have something to offer!

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Where can we listen to and then go to buy your music?

Mitch

All the old Let’s Active stuff has been reissued by Collector’s Choice, and the Dynamico disk is available at stores and also through the 125 Records web site, and at iTunes. You can go to the mitcheasterband listing on MySpace and hear several tracks from Dynamico.

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Check out Mitch Easter at:

http://www.mitcheaster.com
http://www.myspace.com/mitcheasterband
Check out Shalini:
http://www.interbridge.com/shalini

It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll

Mitch on behalf of It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll and The Rickresource forum I would like to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to participate in this most enjoyable interview.

Mitch

I’m honored to appear in your series!

[whojamfan]

What a geat and informative interview Brian, and what a history Mitch! Very cool!

[scotty]

What a great read! thanks for that very informative and interesting stuff!

[ozover50]

Fantastic read, Mitch and Brian. I now know where I went wrong.............. everywhere!!!

[scotty]

Brian ive just had a call from Madonna and Prince,they have agreed to do a interview as soon as you stop splashing small kids with your jet bike!

[shamustwin]

Very cool!
Yeah, making recordings at home on a Teac (I still have my 3340s)...
Many a cool song started that way, I'll wager!

[winston]

Brian ive just had a call from Madonna and Prince,they have agreed to do a interview as soon as you stop splashing small kids with your jet bike!

Thanks for the comments so far guys. Mitch did all the hard work and if anyone deserves accolades it's him.

Scotty,

Bring em on mate. I am always looking for fresh "victims" for this series. Btw if you can pull some strings with that Scottish group of bad boys who live near you I would love to interview them.

As far as splashing small kids with my waverunner goes; I promise you that I went past the beach and the private docks so slowly that some of the images are indelibly marked in my mind.

[rkbsound]

We all read a lot of interviews, and most are really bad and predictable. Perhaps I'm a bit biased because I'm such a big fan of Mitch Easter and have been since "afoot",(I think I can play the fan card on this thread!), but what a great interview! Great questions lead to really interesting answers. Answers that beg more questions! If that is possible, I've been curious to know what songs on Dynamico were written earlier - back towards 1990. I think I might be able to guess...but inquiring minds want to know! Also, what later work was done with REM?

Thank you Winston and Mitch. And Mitch, I hope you hate your new 610!

[expomick]

Great stuff. I LOVE Velvet Crush's "Teenage Symphonies To God". Just listened to "Weird Summer" today. Worth tracking down if you don't already have a copy. A couple of those guys have backed up Matthew Sweet on album and in concert.

The song "Crows on a Phoneline" still reminds me of the cold, cold Ottawa winter of 1984-85. My roommate and I played that Let's Active album all the time. It went well with a snowed-in Ottawa winter night.

[scotty]

Brian ive just had a call from Madonna and Prince,they have agreed to do a interview as soon as you stop splashing small kids with your jet bike!

Thanks for the comments so far guys. Mitch did all the hard work and if anyone deserves accolades it's him.

Scotty,

Bring em on mate. I am always looking for fresh "victims" for this series. Btw if you can pull some strings with that Scottish group of bad boys who live near you I would love to interview them.

As far as splashing small kids with my waverunner goes; I promise you that I went past the beach and the private docks so slowly that some of the images are indelibly marked in my mind.

Very titillating!

[marc61]

Brian I enjoyed the interview very much. Having some connection to him in the past and others from the Winston-Salem area(most notably the Dbs), it was nice getting an in-depth view from Mitch's perspective. I recently read some stuff on Peter Holsapple. Boggled my mind. Whether mainstream music recognizes it or not, musicians like Mitch are an important part of our culture.

Quick story which I probably told before on these boards - one day my friend's band was an opening act at CBGB's. The band they opened for was a three piece group fronted by a female singer,guitarist. I remember thinking to myself that some of the songs were good, but the bass player was terrific. Turned out he was just part time dude from down south, and, by accident(and a Village Voice ad) I ended up replacing him in the group. The bass player was Mitch.

It made a lot of sense the part of the article where he mentioned he enjoyed playing bass. It certainly seemed that way to listen to him perform.

[rkbsound]

I'm on vacation and happened into a record store (yes, records, too!) and saw REM and the Beatles on the cover of the current MOJO magazine, so I picked it up. It's got a great couple of articles on REM including the story behind Murmur. There's a photo of Mitch Easter, and Mitch is given great credit in the article for helping to maintain the band's sound.

The Beatles articles focus on the White Album, and I would encourage anyone to pick up the September issue -- it's really good!

[winston]

Great story Marc! What a cool way to be linked to Mitch.

[winston]

I'm on vacation and happened into a record store (yes, records, too!) and saw REM and the Beatles on the cover of the current MOJO magazine, so I picked it up. It's got a great couple of articles on REM including the story behind Murmur. There's a photo of Mitch Easter, and Mitch is given great credit in the article for helping to maintain the band's sound.

The Beatles articles focus on the White Album, and I would encourage anyone to pick up the September issue -- it's really good!

Have a nice vacation and thanks for the tip.