Peter Buck

Peter Buck
Background information
Birth name	Peter Lawrence Buck
Born	December 6 1956 (1956-12-06) (age 51) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Genre(s)	Alternative rock
Occupation(s)	Guitarist, Songwriter, Producer
Instrument(s)	Electric guitar, Acoustic guitar, Mandolin, Banjo, Keyboard, Bass
Years active	1980 - present
Associated acts	R.E.M. Hindu Love Gods The Minus 5 Tuatara

Peter Lawrence Buck (born 6 December, 1956 in Berkeley, California) is the guitarist and co-founder, along with Bill Berry, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe, of the alternative rock band R.E.M. He is the oldest member of the band.

Biography

After spending time in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Buck family moved to Atlanta, Georgia. After high school, Peter attended Emory University in Atlanta; however, he eventually dropped out. He later moved to Athens, Georgia, and attended the University of Georgia as well. While in Athens, he worked at the Wuxtry Records store through which he met regular customer Michael Stipe as well as R.E.M.'s future legal and managerial representative, Bertis Downs.^{[1] [2] [3]} Buck currently lives in Seattle, Washington. This is notable considering the remainder of R.E.M. (Mike Mills and Michael Stipe) still live in Athens, Georgia. Peter has twin girls with his ex-wife Stephanie Dorgan, Zelda and Zoe, born in 1994. He is twice divorced. Peter, Mike Mills, Bill Berry and Warren Zevon recorded an album under the band name Hindu Love Gods, while the R.E.M. bandmates and Zevon were recording tracks for Zevon's 1987 album Sentimental Hygiene. Hindu Love Gods is one of many names the members of R.E.M. have used performing around the Athens area. Buck is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of music, as well as his extensive personal record collection. On March 12 1999, in an interview on Wiese, a television music show based in Oslo, Norway, Buck estimated his collection to be around the 25,000 mark. In the late 1990s, he estimated he had 10,000 vinyl singles, 6,000 LPs and 4,000 CDs.^[4]

Music

Buck's style of guitar playing is simple and yet distinctive. He makes wide use of open strings while chording to create chiming and memorable pop melodies. His sound, especially on mid-period R.E.M. albums that saw the band breakthrough to international popularity, has been associated with Rickenbacker guitars, particularly a black model 360.^[5] However he has also used a wide variety of other instruments as the group has continued to experiment and develop. On some more recent R.E.M. releases, the guitar has been noticeably less prominent, often turned down lower in the mix in deference to the band's increasing use of synthesizers, strings and other atmospherics. Buck has produced many bands, including Uncle Tupelo, The Fleshtones, and The Feelies, among others. Buck also has made contributions on many other musicians' albums, including The Replacements, Robyn Hitchcock, and several Eels albums. Buck also coproduced the 1992 Vigilantes of Love album, Killing Floor, with songwriter Mark Heard. Along with R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey, he has been a partner in The Minus 5, for which he plays bass, and has been a member of the instrumental band Tuatara. Additionally, In October 2005, he joined R.E.M. studio drummer Bill Rieflin and four others in forming an improvisational performance band called Slow Music. His voice can be heard on one R.E.M. song: "I Walked With a Zombie" from the Roky Erickson tribute album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye. He also recorded an EP with Keith Streng of The Fleshtones as Full Time Men in 1985. In 2006, Buck toured with Robyn Hitchcock, McCaughey, and Rieflin as lead guitarist for Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 in the wake of the band's first release, Olé! Tarantula. Buck has contributed liner notes to a number of compilations, reissues, and special editions, both of R.E.M.'s own material (the best-of compilations Eponymous and In Time, and the special edition of New Adventures in Hi-Fi) and of other artists' work (such as the Beach Boys' Love You).

Disturbance on a flight

On April 21, 2001, Buck was aboard a transatlantic flight from Seattle to London to play a concert at Trafalgar Square. Witnesses alleged that Buck exhibited various bizarre behaviors on the flight, including shoving a CD into a drinks trolley thinking it was a CD player, tearing up the "yellow card" warning notice handed to him by the flight crew, claiming "I am R.E.M." and being involved in a struggle over a yogurt pot with two stewards, which resulted in the exploding of the pot. Buck's actions led to two charges of common assault on the stewards, one charge of being drunk whilst on a plane, and one charge of damaging British Airways cutlery. At the ensuing trial in London, Buck's defense claimed that the small amount of wine he had drunk had reacted adversely with the brand of sleeping pill he was taking and rendered him unable to control his actions. The prosecution, on the other hand, argued that he was simply intoxicated from supposedly consuming fifteen refills of wine. After the trial, which included testimony from Bono of the rock band U2, Buck was cleared on the grounds of non-insane automatism.^{[6] [7]}

References

1. ^ Waldman, Matt (December 2002), "Bertis Downs . . . in his own words", Georgia Magazine (University of Georgia) Vol 82 (No 1), <http://www.uga.edu/gm/1202/Pro3.html>. Retrieved on 2007-03-13
2. ^ "entry for Peter Buck", New Georgia Encyclopedia (The Georgia Humanities Council & The University of Georgia Press), <http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.com/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-978>. Retrieved on 2007-03-12
3. ^ entry for Peter Buck. www.nndb.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
4. ^ http://www.murmurs.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=17327&d=1024329453
5. ^ RIC makes the list with REM - 8/7/2005. www.rickenbacker.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
6. ^ "R.E.M. star cleared of air rage attack. 5 April 2002". BBC News website. Retrieved on 2006-08-01.
7. ^ Vasagar, Jeevan (6 April 2002), "R.E.M. guitarist cleared of air rage", The Guardian, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,679895,00.html>. Retrieved on 2006-08-01

Further reading

• Buckley, David (October 2003). R.E.M. Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin Publishing. ISBN 978-0753508701. 
• Grey, Marcus (1997). It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo. ISBN 978-0306807510. 

External links

• The Crocodile Café, Stephanie Dorgan's now defunct club