Michael Stipe

The Golden Palominos is an American musical group headed by drummer and composer Anton Fier, first formed in 1981. Aside from Fier, the Palominos... membership has been wildly elastic, with only bassist Bill Laswell and guitarist Nicky Skopelitis appearing on every album. While the Palominos' records usually featured a core set of musicians and a certain emotional continuity throughout the bulk of an album, various guest appearances resulted in stylistic changes from track to track. The group first featured Fier, singer-guitarist Arto Lindsay, saxophonist John Zorn, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and violinist/guitarist Fred Frith. Their self-titled debut album was released on New York's Celluloid Records in 1983, and featured guest appearances by bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, percussionist David Moss, turntablist M.E. Miller and others. The album has some of the first recorded turntable scratching outside of rap music, courtesy of Laswell and M.E. Miller. M.E. Miller also used vocal splitting technique to create harmony on the song he sings.
more

Hindu Love Gods was an American pop/rock and blues band that was, in essence, an occasional side project of members of R.E.M., with Warren Zevon and... Bryan Cook. The band debuted with 3 scattered gigs in 1984. The group played mostly cover tunes, though a few unreleased originals also made it into the mix. The first gig took place on Valentine's Day, 1984, and featured Bryan Cook , and R.E.M. members Bill Berry Peter Buck and Mike Mills . The follow-up gig took place two weeks later; added to the line-up was R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe on vocals and drums, and Warren Zevon on vocals. Zevon performed his hit "Werewolves Of London", as well several other songs that were, at that point, unrecorded The final 1984 gig took place in June, and featured the Cook/Berry/Buck/Mills line-up. The group entered the studio as a quintet that summer, with the line-up of Berry/Buck/Cook/Mills/Zevon. They recorded two songs for release as a single, which were eventually released in 1986.
more