Think New­port Folk Fes­ti­val and what comes to mind? Pete Seeger, right? John­ny Cash, Mud­dy Waters, Joan Baez? Or, more recent­ly, The Avett Broth­ers, Ali­son Krauss, Lucin­da Williams? You’re def­i­nite­ly think­ing Dylan, freak­ing out the folkies in ’65 by plug­ging in his Strat. Are you think­ing of the Pix­ies? No? Me nei­ther. Prob­a­bly one of the last bands I’d think of. And yet, the Pix­ies played the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val, or—as Pix­ies front­man Frank Black jokes above—they went “reverse Dylan,” swap­ping their big amps and elec­tric gui­tars for acoustics and a whole lot of low-key charm. Yes, it’s true, as Spin points out, that the fes­ti­val has “a rich his­to­ry of unit­ing dis­parate gen­res of music,” but to be hon­est, I wouldn’t have imag­ined an acoustic Pix­ies set, wouldn’t have thought such a thing were pos­si­ble, had I not seen it in the “Acoustic Ses­sions” film above.

Yep, the band best known for quiet/LOUD dynam­ics and muti­lat­ing walls of sound rose to the folk chal­lenge in 2005. Above, we get to see them rehearse in Hart­ford and take the stage in Albany for a dress rehearsal (where Black goes around and asks each mem­ber of the band if they are “scared”). They had only just reformed the pre­vi­ous year, after an eleven year hia­tus dur­ing which it seemed we’d nev­er hear from them again. Through­out the nineties, Singer Frank Black (or “Black Fran­cis” in the Pix­ies hey­day) had plen­ty to do with his Frank Black and the Catholics. Bassist/singer Kim Deal hit a rich vein of suc­cess with The Breed­ers and their mas­sive hit “Can­non­ball.” While every­one pined for a Pix­ies reunion, few peo­ple expect­ed it to hap­pen (and when it did, for them to rock as hard and loud as they did). And maybe the last thing on any­one’s mind was what’s hap­pen­ing above. The band seems pret­ty shocked them­selves, espe­cial­ly Deal. In one exchange, Black says, “You know what acoustic means? Not too loud.” She responds dri­ly, “I’d rather get shot in the face.”

But it’s fan­tas­tic! The songs come through crys­tal clear, just as tune­ful, melod­ic, and strange as the first time you heard them blast­ing from your car stereo cas­sette deck (espe­cial­ly “Wave of Muti­la­tion” at 14:00). And their off-the-cuff ban­ter is price­less. Enjoy it, and Hap­py Fri­day.

The full New­port Con­cert is avail­able on DVD. This site has the setlist.

 Relat­ed Con­tent

The Pix­ies’ Black Fran­cis Cre­ates Sound­track for Famous Ger­man Expres­sion­ist Film, The Golem

Bob Dylan’s (In)Famous Elec­tric Gui­tar From the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val Dis­cov­ered?

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

There are always those bands that you’d wish you’d seen live—bands that seem like they’ll go on for­ev­er (maybe so long you wish they’d quit already). But then you nev­er get around to it, and, Bam!, one day the chance is lost. One of those bands for me is R.E.M., the only U.S. band in my book whose ear­ly work stood up to almost every­thing The Smiths put out. Since I was such a young lad when I first heard them cir­ca-Doc­u­ment, it wasn’t easy for me to get out to con­certs. And by the time I was old enough, they’d moved on some from their ear­ly jan­gle and stomp, garage-rock, post-punk sound, and I’d moved on to oth­er favorites. That’s a shame, in hind­sight, but now thanks to the heav­en­ly mag­ic (or dev­il­ry) of YouTube, I can (and do) spend hours catch­ing up on con­cert film of bands like R.E.M. that I was born too late to see live in their prime.

Whether or not you had the priv­i­lege of see­ing Michael Stipe and com­pa­ny in per­son, there’s lit­tle chance that you were at the show above (if so, speak up!). It’s prob­a­bly one of their first, at the 688 Club in Atlanta, open­ing for Tex-Mex “Nue­vo wavo” gui­tarist, Joe “King” Car­ras­co.

This gig took place on either Feb­ru­ary 2oth or 21st, 1981, a full eigh­teen months before their debut release, the EP Chron­ic Town. There are a few tunes here that nev­er resur­faced in lat­er record­ings (“Nar­ra­tor,” “Dan­ger­ous Times”) and a cou­ple that became clas­sics (“Gar­den­ing at Night,” “Radio Free Europe”). The film opens with them in the midst of cov­er­ing the Son­ny West-penned 1950’s clas­sic “Rave On” (one of Bud­dy Holly’s last hits). And of course it makes per­fect sense that they would owe a debt to this sound, but they trans­formed it so com­plete­ly in their orig­i­nal song­writ­ing that it isn’t always evi­dent. They pull it off with panache.

The whole gig is a tes­ta­ment to what a togeth­er band they were even at this ear­ly stage. It’s all there—Stipe’s vocal quirks and full-body dance attacks, Mike Mills’ bounc­ing bass lines and angel­ic vocal har­monies, Peter Buck’s right-hand­ed Rick­en­backer arpeg­gios (and dap­per vest), and drum­mer Bill Berry’s ever-reli­able back­beat. Nev­er known as over­ly tech­ni­cal musi­cians (an over­rat­ed qual­i­ty in rock, in my opin­ion), what R.E.M. may have lacked in vir­tu­os­i­ty, they made up for in per­son­al­i­ty. Anoth­er com­plete con­cert film below, from Octo­ber 10th, 1982, shows them on a high, two months after Chron­ic Town’s release. Filmed at the Raleigh Under­ground, this gig includ­ed a num­ber of songs that would appear on their first full-length, the moody, con­fi­dent, and time­less Mur­mur.

via Slic­ing Up Eye­balls

Relat­ed Con­tent

R.E.M.’s Final Live Moments in Mex­i­co (and a Vin­tage Ear­ly Con­cert)

R.E.M.’s “Los­ing My Reli­gion” Reworked from Minor to Major Scale

Live in Rome, 1980: The Talk­ing Heads Con­cert Film You Haven’t Seen

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Here’s some­thing to get your week start­ed on the right note: John Coltrane in 1961, play­ing his hyp­not­ic, dervish-like modal arrange­ment of the pop­u­lar Rodgers and Ham­mer­stein song, “My Favorite Things.”

The per­for­mance was record­ed by Ger­man pub­lic tele­vi­sion in Baden-Baden on Novem­ber 24, 1961–the same year as the release of Coltrane’s break­through solo album, also named My Favorite Things. The quin­tet includes Coltrane on sopra­no sax­o­phone, Eric Dol­phy on flute, McCoy Tyn­er on piano, Reg­gie Work­man on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. You can see the com­plete TV broad­cast, along with two oth­ers, in our Novem­ber 21 post, “John Coltrane: Three Great Euro­pean Per­for­mances, 1960, 1961 and 1965.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed con­tent:

John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ Ani­mat­ed

John Coltrane’s Naval Reserve Enlist­ment Mugshot (1945)

Charles Min­gus Explains in His Gram­my-Win­ning Essay “What is a Jazz Com­pos­er?”