Bands I Would Join if I Had a Time Machine

REM, early 1980s
How fun would it have been to be in REM way back when they were just another little rock band, before they crossed over into the realm of crap? Super fun, that’s how much. You’d get to make jangly rock and go out banging your head playing "Radio Free Europe" live in little crudholes all over the south. Stipe would have been weird back then, what with the dying-his-hair-with-mustard stuff and all, but a lot easier to deal with than he would be today, I bet. Actually, I think I was meant to travel back in time and join REM at their inception, given that I look a lot like Mike Mills and play guitar about as well as Peter Buck did back then.

One thing- I’d urge them strongly to go with one of the alternate names they considered, like the Cans of Piss. REM’s a perfectly good name, but nothing holds a candle to the Cans of Piss.

The Beastie Boys, around 1987
I don’t think I’m man enough to handle all of the License to Ill craziness, but it sounds like Paul’s Boutique would have been a ton of fun to work on. Of course, I have no idea what role I’d fill in the Beasties, especially right then- I can’t rap any more than I can fly a plane, and any attempts to learn would just end up sounding like a parody of a stiff Midwestern guy with a bad Minnesotan accent. Maybe I could just stand in the background and say “Hell, yeah” for emphasis.

I might start being useful when they begin playing their own instruments. Who knows? Maybe my instrumental help and “Hell yeah”s would make the back half of Ill Communication more listenable.

Matthew Sweet’s backup band, early 1990s
I’d say, “Matthew, I am a traveler from the future. I have seen your fate unfold. You shall go on to a career of moderate success, although you’re going to pudge out pretty badly in Clinton’s second term. Your credibility will come into question when you cover the Scooby Doo, Where Are You? theme song, but you’ll weather that crisis more or less unphazed. You rock pretty well, but come on, how about we make the songs in the middle of Girlfriend sound a little bit different from each other, huh pal?”

The Who, mid-1960s
There would be two very good things to come from joining the Who. First, since I’d be playing rhythm guitar behind Townshend, my job would mainly be jumping around the stage and hitting big, easy chords that rock like all hell. How much would it rule to be able to knock out the chords to "Baba O’Reilly" or "Won’t Get Fooled Again?" Second, I’d finally be able to live out my lifelong fantasy of exposing Roger Daltrey as the pantywaist pretty boy he is. He’d be taking some heavy shit for that fringe jacket at Woodstock. And the bare-chested mike-swinging bit? Not on my watch.

Wilco, 1995
1995 might not have been the musical high point for Wilco, but it looks like the last period wherein it'd actually be fun to be in the band. I'm sure that, given Tweedy's creepy habit of chewing up and spitting out a band member with each album, I wouldn't last too long (I doubt I have John "Rasputin" Stirrat's mysterious ability to survive the Tweedy purges), but as long as I got to play on Being There, I'd be perfectly happy. Getting to help make Summerteeth would just be gravy.

The E Street Band, any time
Why not? There’d be so many other people on stage, you wouldn’t even really have to do anything. You could be like Linda McCartney in Wings. Just blend in with the mob, collect a check, and get to see Springsteen every night.

The Police, 1979
Not so much because I think the Police would be fun to play with (actually, I think it would suck trying to stick an oar in their water) or because I think I could contribute anything, but, rather, in the hopes that I could use some judicious assassination to spare the world from what Sting would become in the 1990s.

If we were lucky, maybe I could be there for a Police-Genesis double billing and save us all from the Phil Collins phenomenon as well.

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Bands I Like But Would Not Join Through Time Travel

Uncle Tupelo
Awesome band, but I think I’d spend all of my time being afraid of Jay Farrar. He’s an intense little mofo.

Husker Du
The early years would be hard to deal with musically. A little too hard-core for me. It would be better after they chilled out slightly, around New Day Rising, but I still think I wouldn’t fit in, not being a speed freak and all.

This is also why I wouldn’t join the Ramones. Well, probably not.

U2
It would be tempting to join just in time for, say, the period stretching from Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby, just to be a part of the great music. And you have to assume that, at some point in there, you’d get to see what The Edge looks like without a hat on, which would be very interesting. But do you really think you could be around Bono for more than a couple of hours without attacking him with a broken-off bottle? No way, pal.

The Rolling Stones
Of course it goes without saying that, after Tattoo You, the Stones wouldn’t be worth joining because they’d descended into cruddy self-parody. But I wouldn’t want to time-travel back to the late 60s and join them, either, even if it meant that I’d get to play on Let It Bleed and Exile. Not that it wouldn’t be awesome, I just can’t shake the feeling that Keith Richards and I would end up sitting in a corner, pointing and laughing at Mick Jagger, who would then have a hissy fit and quit the band. And would it really be fair do deprive the world of the Stones at the height of their powers just for my own amusement?



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