It was that magical autumn of 1998. President Bill Clinton was a month shy of his ridiculous impeachment. It was the first fall TV season sans Seinfeld , The Larry Sanders Show, and Phil Hartman. Okay, it wasn’t magical at all. Except for me on November 16, 1998...the day I got to sing with R.E.M.
When I first found out that R.E.M. was going to be on Sesame Street, I was thrilled. "Automatic For the People" was and still is one of my favorite albums of all time...I bought my first copy on cassette, made it last by transferring it to CD when it started to wear out, eventually replaced it with the real CD, and I rarely traveled without it, even back in the days when you had to carefully choose your traveling music because there were only so many tapes or CDs that you could carry. Even now, it still gets a lot of play on my iPod, as does the rest of their discography. (I have devoured “Accelerate” ever since its release, and it is not a fly-by-night affair.)
Anyway, celebrities are common on the Street, and in that 30th season, I’d already gotten to work with Ben Stiller, Conan O’Brien, Garth Brooks and Liam Neeson, all fabulous and friendly. But R.E.M. - that was going to be really special.
Luckily, it was announced that the band was going to do a parody of “Shiny Happy People” called “Furry Happy Monsters,” which meant that a bunch of us would be cast as the monsters. At that time, there was a Sesame segment called “Monster Day Care,” and so the producers wanted to use the Daycare Monsters, and since I normally played the green one (they didn’t have names, just numbers, like Monster #1, etc.), I’d essentially be “reprising” this character in the R.E.M. bit.
One day, about two weeks before the insert was supposed to tape, Danette DeSena, who was the talent producer at the time, came up to me and said, "You know how on the record there's this girl who sings? Do you think you could sing like her?" I didn't even let her finish the sentence, really, before I shouted "yes, yes YES!" I had assumed that they'd get a session singer to do it, and I was thrilled that Danette had thought of me.
Of course, with good news comes bad-ish news...while I would get to sing the track, I wouldn’t get to puppeteer the Kate Pierson puppet...I’d still be puppeteering my green monster. Kevin Clash (who plays Elmo and is the Muppet Captain...and now an Executive Producer of Sesame Street) wanted to puppeteer the Kate Pierson puppet and lip-synch my vocals, because he knew that the puppet was going to be heavy. (And it was... he did an amazing job.)
But the week before the bit, I found out even better news. I had assumed that I would record the Kate Pierson track ahead of time and that the band would sing live on the floor, which often happens. Not this time: I would actually be recording in the studio side by side with them. Holy crap.
The bit was to tape on Monday. The previous Thursday, I went out to Tower Records to buy "Up," which had just been released. It was 45 degrees. I didn’t wear a scarf. On Friday, I started getting a cold. Yeah. Bundle up, kids.
I spent the entire weekend in bed, loopy from the antihistamines and listening to "Up," but of course, the title belies its contents, and I would always fall asleep before “Airportman” ended and have very odd dreams...
So on Monday, I dragged my sorry self to the pre-record. I brought along my copies of "Out of Time" because it had "Shiny Happy People" on it and "Up," since it had just come out, to get autographed. And why did I not bring my treasured “Automatic For the People?” Because at the time, I still owned it on cassette. You don’t ask anyone to sign a J-card.
I met Mike Mills and Michael Stipe in the control room and I tried not to be too geeky. (Peter Buck came late, since he was just doing some banjo overdubbing after the vocals were done, and of course this was post-Bill Berry.) Turns out Mike was getting over a cold and Michael was in the throes of one, so we were all a little worse for the wear. We went over the song, and Michael and Mike were saying things like, "Do I sing this part? Where do I come in?" I knew they hadn't performed it since the initial recording 7 years before, but it was kind of weird to realize that I’d heard it more recently than they had.
Anyway, we went into the studio, where the microphones were situated in a Y and separated by rolling sound dampening walls with windows, so I could see Mike Mills really well, but my angle was such that I couldn't really see Michael Stipe.
I absolutely fell in love with Mike Mills, who was so funny, sweet and supportive. And he wrote the nicest things on my CDs. And Michael Stipe actually complimented my voice and encouraged me to keep at it, which was odd at the time because I listen to that recording now and I know I could have done so much better if I'd been healthier.
The recording went by quickly, and when we taped the bit on the floor, it was chaos, with all those Muppets running around everywhere. I was still on cold medicine, so it was all rather a blur, and unfortunately, the one photo I have of myself and Michael Stipe (taken by someone else - yes, I had forgotten a camera...) shows a very bloated, makeup-free, circles-under-the-eyes Stephanie. I also recently found a group photo, but Elmo is blocking most of my face. Probably for the best. (No, Elmo wasn’t in the bit, but Elmo is a popular request in photo ops. Surprised?)
A gorgeous day, considering I was so out of it that I never thought to get a photo with all of the guys. And even more than a decade later, I’m still on the fence about whether or not I should have gushed more.
An interesting side-note: An old Sesame Workshop web page about some of their celebrity appearances mentioned that I performed not the Kate Pierson puppet, but rather the “Kate Monster” puppet. Total mistake and freaky coincidence: the first readings of AVENUE Q were a year and a half away. They also said I manipulated the puppet. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet, kids.
The song was included on the “Songs From the Street” box set, and on that I am credited as Muppet Rocker. Don’t ask me where that name came from. I have no idea. Nice to know it still lives on, through the CD and on YouTube and that people seem to like it so much. In all my years on Sesame Street, this is the most amazing thing I’ve gotten to do on the show. It’s still unfathomable.
my day with r.e.m.
in more than a haiku’s worth of syllables
So, what have we learned, kids?
1.Wear a scarf
2. Don’t ever assume you’ll ever have a second chance to encounter rock legends
3. Wear makeup no matter how lousy you feel because someone’s always got a camera
4. Be the one with the camera
