RADIO FREE EUROPE (HIB-TONE VERSION)

"'Radio Free Europe'" '(Hib-Tone version)' was a 1981 single by R.E.M.. It was released on the short-lived Hib-Tone label. The song was re-recorded for the band's debut album, 1983's ''Murmur''.

Contents

Recording process

Cover art

Track listing

Reviews

Notes

References

Recording process

Shortly after its formation, Hibbert expressed an interest in releasing a single by the then-one-year-old R.E.M. in exchange for the publishing rights to their songs "Radio Free Europe" and "Sitting Still", which they had just recorded at the Drive-In Studio in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with Mitch Easter. The band, desperate to release something and attracted by the fact that Hib-Tone would become an Athens label, agreed. Despite the reservations of the band's friend, Bertis Downs, who was acting as their lawyer, the songs were initially published by Hibbert's Dorothy Jane Music. Downs partially renegotiated the deal, shortening it to six months with no options, but the other parts of the deal - the publishing and the remixing - stood.
At the time, R.E.M. wanted to go with Mitch Easter's recording of "Radio Free Europe", but Hibbert insisted that it needed to be re-mixed. "When Johnny Hibbert came back up to re-mix it, I thought, 'What for?'" Easter recalled. "I thought it sounded okay. I didn't know a whole lot, and I didn't have a whole lot of equipment to change things with. But he came up anyway, and we spent hours mixing it and it sounded pretty much the same."
On May 25, 1981, a day after the band returned to the Drive-In to record overdubs for "Radio Free Europe", Hibbert re-mixed the two songs. He then let the band listen to them. "One day, my good friend Johnny Hibbert showed up at my door with the band," recalls producer Joe Perry. "They had just come from Mitch Easter's place, and they wanted to use my studio to pick which version of "Radio Free Europe" to use for the record. I suggested the one with the louder snare (Easter's mix), but I wasn't crazy about either one. I asked why they didn't use the tracks we did at Bombay and they said they weren't happy with the background vocals, etc. To this day, I don't think they know how hot those tracks really are.”
Hibbert ignored Perry and decided to go with his own mix. However, when the track was mastered, Hibbert and bassist Mike Mills, according to guitarist Peter Buck, "drove up to this place in Nashville with this 80-year-old man who had a cigarette and who actually dropped ash into the first master, so we had to throw it away and start over." Buck felt the second mastered version was "muddy and hi-end" but Hibbert was persistent.^[1]
The band returned from a gig supporting Gang of Four to find Hibbert had chosen it as the single, which was released in July. The band were less than happy with the result. "The original tape was really good," Buck told ''Bucketfull of Brains'' years later. "The guy who was putting the record out took it to be mastered [at Masterfonics in Nashville, Tennessee]. He told a friend of ours that when he got the master, we were out of town and said, 'I've got to put it out before they get back, because they won't approve of it and I can't afford to have it remastered.' So it came out and it was pretty horrible. Basically, I don't know what went wrong. I know it's not the mix, because the mix is really good. I know it's not the master: I've heard that, and that was good, so I guess it's the pressing - that was the only part we weren't there for, because we were on the road."
"We hated it," said Buck of the sound. "It was mastered by a deaf man, apparently."^[2] The guitarist took out his frustration on a copy of the single. "I remember the first promo copy that I got, I took it and ceremoniously broke it at a party at my house. I smashed it and taped it to the wall. I still can't stand to hear that thing. If friends of mine have it on tape round at their house, I go, 'God, how could that thing ever have escaped?' It was kind of innocent. We could certainly never be called naive people, but in a way it was kind of a naive record."
This version of the song was eventually re-released on R.E.M.'s 1988 compilation, ''Eponymous'' and the two-CD version of their 2006 best-of ''And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987''.

Cover art

The cover art to the single came courtesy of Michael Stipe. "Michael brought those negatives over to our place," explains photographer Terry Allen. "He said, 'Can you make a print of these?' and we said, 'What, you want a picture of this blur?' He said, 'Yeah,' and so I said, 'I've got a picture that's probably better than this that you can use,' but he said, 'No, I want this blur!'"
Around 600 copies of the first pressing were sent out for promotional uses, but these omitted the Hib-Tone contact address. It was included, however, on the 6,000 copies of the second pressing.

Track listing

# "Radio Free Europe" – 3:46
# "Sitting Still" – 3:07

Reviews

"They echo classic sounds and remind you of things you can't exactly place, but never descends to imitation. Innocent charm and magic at work." (''New Musical Express'')

Notes

1. Black, Johnny (2004). Reveal: The Story of R.E.M.. Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-776-5.
2. ''Rolling Stone'' article

References

★ Classic Rock Albums: Murmur, , John A., Platt, Schirmer Books, 1999, ISBN 0-02-865062-X