R.E.M. ON BROADWAY

I. A Band Grows in Georgia

R.E.M., whose chiming, soaring guitar and vocal harmonies and rhythmic drive have not yet made them a household word, might have been called Cans Of Piss. "We couldn't think of a name at first. I liked Twisted Kites," guitarist Peter Buck confided. "Then we thought maybe we should have a name that was real offensive, like Cans Of Piss. That was right up there at the top. Then we thought we didn't want to be called something that we couldn't tell our parents or have to mumble. R.E.M. just popped out of the dictionary one night. We needed something that wouldn't typecast us because, hell, we didn't even know what we were gonna do. So R.E.M. was nice—it didn't lock us into anything.