Peter Buck Takes Flight

Peter Buck is best known as the guitarist for REM. His career with that great band has pretty much had him in the background behind Michael Stipe, a place it also seemed from general observation he was happy to occupy.

After the retirement of REM last year (I don't say break-up because it wasn't an acrimonious split, just a band deciding that was it...for the time being at least), Peter Buck is the first out of the chute with a solo record. Interestingly it is a vinyl release, and since I have recently gotten onto a crazy vinyl kick I reckoned I would track it down. Even though they only made a couple thousand copies it wasn't hard to find a copy thanks to the internet. It arrived last week.

Last night I gave it the headphone experience. Listening through headphones is the best way to listen to music, especially vinyl. It's an all encompassing experience, especially when it is later in the evening and the lights are out and you are just chill in enjoying the music, like I was last night. The only sad part is I was too lazy to go down and fetch a beer. Through the headphones you can really hear everything that's going on; every string struck, every snare hit, every pump of the organ comes through nice and clear.

Buck takes special care to note this record was recorded all analog. No digital shortcuts, no studio trickery, it is all done to magnetic recording tape, then mastered "onto a half-inch Scully deck at 30 ips." That's from the notes along with the record and I cannot say I know what that means but I will guess it's old school.

With such attention to old-school detail, the record comes off more as an experiment than a statement. Nothing wrong with that but it keeps the record from being a drawn-in experience. At the end of the second song of side two, titled "It's Alright" Buck says "if that isn't music I don't know what is." That is a statement I can support, but that doesn't mean it's great.

Buck is helped out by old friends Mike Mills and Scott McCaughey from The Minus 5. McCaughey also did a side thing called The Baseball Project where he and some friends (Buck included) did two records worth of baseball-inspired songs. The music here is much in that vein, but the negative is it sounds very thrown together, a bit too ramshackle, a bit too all-over-the-place. Buck has an interesting voice; hard to describe except that it is deep and not what you immediately think of as musical.  Reminds me why you don't give a lead guitarist a microphone a lot of the time! That said there is no doubting the quality of musicianship on display. Buck is a seriously talented guy and it is here in spades.

Best songs on the album are the Byrds-y "Some Kind Of Velvet Sunday Morning" and the album closer "I'm Alive" which has a loose Stones-y Exile On Main Street vibe. But then there are songs like the aforementioned "It's Alright" and "L.V.M.F." which stands for little-village-mother-fucker. There are lots of curse words shouted in a few of the songs which doesn't bother me but seems sort of pointless.

All in all a good record. I don't expect it to be among my favorites for 2013 but I recommend it to hard core fans of REM, not neccesarily casual fans, though.

Here's "I'm Alive" for your listening pleasure!