I’m not able to readily access my private web space over at my ISP so I’ve been trying to find an acceptable work around while redesigning the blog and the rest of my pages. The ugly, though hopefully not too visible, solution has been to create multiple blogs all of which are linked to one another.

At the moment I’m running this journal, as well as a main site weblog (with accompanying info pages, and a new magazines and books received weblog. I think this should do the trick for a little while, at least.

I should also mention that, while I’d be happy to pretend otherwise, that the site redesign is basically a standard blog design that Douglas Bowman of www.stopdesign.com has done for Blogger. Some day I’ll have time to redo it myself.

Around the Sun is REM’s 13th album, and the third (following Up and Reveal) without drummer Bill Berry. Who thought the drummer actually mattered? I mean, I was never that convinced that Led Zeppelin couldn’t have continued without John Bonham. After all, The Who went on without Keith Moon. A drummer, I always figured, was great, but he was just some guy whacking something really hard. Right? Right?

Well, REM have conclusively proven, in the space of just 39 tracks, that the drummer matters, and is often the critical element in the architecture of a band and their sound. When Berry left he took discipline, melody and drive with him, and left behind an aural wash that tended to be a bit dark and a bit down, but not terribly interesting. Sure there have been outstanding tracks along the way – “Daysleeper” for example – but there haven’t been any outstanding albums, and it doesn’t seem like there will be. Compare, if you want to see what I mean, New Adventures in Hi Fi with Around the Sun. It’s not pretty. The latest issue of Mojo reviews the album and asks if we can’t go back to Rockville, after all. I agree. Bill Berry come home. We need you.