this is my last post for the day.
automatic for the people, and rem in general, is one of those ubiquitous influences for me. i've told this story before, about checking green & document out of the public library when i was about eight or nine. mom was into sabbath & zeppelin. dad was into floyd & genesis. i grew into some of that as i aged, but the public library was a useful resource for me at the time in finding what i really wanted to listen to, beyond the standard beatles records lying around. i've described michael stipe as a kind of a weird, distant uncle. automatic for the people dropped when i was eleven, and was at least as defining as any other experience in my life. by early 1998, i was waiting patiently for up - which is the last rem record that i was able to connect to strongly.
i'm not citing this record as a direct influence, so much as i'm citing it as an aesthetic one. it's a feeling, not a thought. and, i'm leaning more towards the instrumental tracks and the string arrangements. there's a little new orleans instrumental in there. there's a bit of that cello from drive.
about a year later, i would do a cover of drive that is in a similar style to this.
(relevant tracks: wish, drive, symphony 0, anything in the ambient list and really anything at all)
