The story of the photo…….

My relationship with REM started very early and has been very special throughout the years. I met Michael Stipe for the first time in Athens in a club where he was the

lead singer in a 60s cover band months before REM was formed. I met Peter where he was working at the Wuxtry record store and Mike and Bill at different parties

around Athens where I would occasionally show up with my camera.

I was the yearbook photographer at UGA in 1980 and my sister, Tammy, was the editor. It was early December 1980 and school was out, most people had gone home for the holidays but some finals were still happening etc. There was an end of the quarter art show at UGA art school where students display their work on the wall and parents and friends come look at all the wonderful stuff they’ve created, probably about 50 people total.
There were chips and dip and maybe a bottle or two of wine. REM, for some reason, was the musical entertainment! This was no shock as Michael Stipe was still in school at this point and was close to a lot of the art students. They brought in a small PA and drum kit, amps and a couple of mics and set up right in front of the chips and dip. They were friends of ours so we all knew they were playing and a handful of people who weren’t parents or art students showed up. My sister and I went out of boredom to take a break from working on the yearbook layouts and I brought my camera which happen to have a roll of black and white film in it and I snapped off about 20 frames of their set. It was one of those embarrassing situations as everyone stood about 15 feet away from them except one girl who got out alone on the floor and danced which made it even more embarrassing. The band was obviously was feeling frisky and started jumping around like maniacs, cutting up to amuse themselves. Stipe is trying not to laugh, Mills is up in the air, Berry was just hiding behind the drums and Buck was just trying to get through the song. This was Dec 4th 1980 a Thursday night I think.

Two nights later, Dec 6th on Saturday, REM opened for the Police at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. It was the first time they had ever played anywhere that large, small clubs in Athens and a few dates in the Carolinas were all they had done. Don’t think they were even signed to IRS yet but Bill Berry had worked with the Copeland brothers at Capricorn in Macon and had probably rung them up when the Police started making headway and thats how they got the gig. Later, someone told me that they had played the art dept show as a warm up for the Fox since they hadn’t played anywhere in about a month or so. I went to the show at the Fox but didn’t take any photos, I was preturbed that they were so far away in a large venue and it seemed out of place that they were playing on a big stage in front of thousands of people. They were much more comfortable in front of 400 or so. On the last song they invited all their Athens friends on stage to dance and have fun so it was more like home for them! Hilarious! I thought to myself, this isn’t going to work, them playing large venues……... Then, 2 days later on Dec 8th John Lennon got shot in NYC and it was the End of the World as we knew it!

A few days later, I developed the film and make a few prints and this shot stood out as the best. I think I bumped into Michael Stipe at the record store, showed him the

print and he loved it. A little later, they were sending out a demo tape they had recorded with Radio Free Europe, Sitting Still and White Tornado on it and asked me to

make about 20 8x10s to send with the tapes to clubs as a press kit and I did. They had no money to even pay for the cost of the paper so I said “Okay, lifetime guest list!”

sort of jokingly and they agreed! Interestingly enough, they lived up to this promise from then on! A copy of the print was stuck in a drawer or archived in some way

around their office and several years later, it was made into a poster and sent out to the fan club with no photo credit. Later, I got a nice note from them apologizing for that

saying that their was no credit stamped on the back of the photo which I never did in those days.

Somewhere in 2006, Michael called me and asked if they could use the photo on the “And I Feel Fine” box set, which was a real honor. The photo was the first and

maybe only time that a photo of the band has been used for one of their covers! It was also used a lot right after that when REM got inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall

of Fame. I was listening to some radio program around that time and Steward Copeland of the Police was commenting that he’d seen the photo in a Tower Records

window in New York and that we had somehow photoshopped Mike Mills jumping in the air because Mike Mills had NEVER jumped like that! I tried to call in and dispute

his claim but couldn’t get through!

So that’s the story. I called all the band members and friends to see if anyone had any memory of that night at the art department and everyone said the same thing…..

“If you were really there, you don’t remember anything!”