I’ve made no secret of my love of former Sunday Vegetarians of Awesomeness R.E.M., but I don’t think I’ve yet mentioned my hypothetically-embarrasing love of the Lacoste brand.  You know.  The one with the little crocodile on it.  So I was intrigued when Pitchfork reported yesterday that Michael Stipe, lead singer of R.E.M., has been commissioned to design a limited-edition shirt for Lacoste’s holiday collection.  And, umm.  Here:

It also comes in colors like teal for men, and purple for women, in case the black and white isn’t loud enough for you.  So what’s the deal with this?

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Because holidays are fun, and October doesn’t have a good one until the end of the month that I can think of, someone somewhere decided to make today, October First, World Vegetarian Day!   Now, I don’t know who came up with this or when this happened, but the fact that it is, is good enough for me.

Now, every so often I write about the vegetarian musicians I like, or here and there write about sexy vegetarians, or whatever, for no other reason that as a vegetarian I can get a little closer to what I’m writing about, kinda sorta.   Or at least, it interests me more.   That being said, I’m going to make a really big admission, today, on World Vegetarian Day.   Here goes.

I don’t mind if you eat meat.   I’m okay with that.

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Your Sunday Afternoon Awesome Vegetarian Post of Awesome Vegetarianness is Johnny Marr, former guitarist for The Smiths and current member of Modest Mouse.   Now, I could actually talk about Marr’s most famous band, but whenever I talk about The Smiths, I get the uncontrollable urge to try and find Morrissey and beat him up.   WE GET IT.  You’re sad.   Go home.

So, let’s talk about Modest Mouse instead.   Marr surprised everyone by joining the band a few years ago, as Modest Mouse and The Smiths had never been mentioned in the same sentence together, ever.   The creative force behind Modest Mouse is Isaac Brock, who is not a vegetarian, as far as I know.   He is, however, possibly insane.   I would probably bet money on it.   But he can sure write a good song.   Here’s a non-video for “Trailer Trash,” off of Lonesome Crowded West, which happens to be my favorite album of theirs.

That’s pretty, isn’t it?

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So for the Sunday super-awesome vegetarian posts so far, we’ve gone through Ted Leo, Ian MacKaye, and Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Rós. Today we’re going for what may be seen as an obvious choice: Peter Buck and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. I don’t think I’m really going to catch any of you saying, “What is this ‘R.E.M.’ band you speak of, and where do you find these underground groups?” Well, bear with me here. R.E.M. may have been around for almost 30 years now, but my best guess is that you may have stopped paying attention to them sometime around Monster came out. Which means you might have missed this song, about Kurt Cobain and terribly touching:

Later-era R.E.M., though entirely different from the jangly rock they became famous for, is some of the most beautiful music they’ve ever created.

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Your Sunday Evening Awesome Vegetarian Post for today (the first two have been Ted Leo and Ian MacKaye) comes to us all the way from Iceland in the form of Jonsi Birgisson, better known as the lead singer of Sigur Rós.

Sigur Rós has become more and more a household name, which is pretty impressive for a band from Iceland that sings mostly in a made-up language (they call it “Hopelandic”). Also, they do things like name an album ( ) and don’t title their tracks all the time. Here is Untitled Track #8 from the album ( ). There’s no video, but listen to the full thing and be blown away.

If you got through all of that, you know how gorgeous the music is.

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Weezer, a little band you may or may not have heard of, has decided to cover the even more obscure R.E.M. on their next single. For the UK single release of “Pork and Beans,” the insanely catchy Weezer tune, Rivers Cuomo and company have tackled “Oddfellows Local 151,” off R.E.M.’s tremendously tremendous Document album.

For a former huge Weezer fan and current huge R.E.M. fan, this piques my interest. And when I read this news story, I had a thought (yes, sometimes it happens). I did a little research, and sure enough, both Cuomo and R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe are vegetarians. Which kind of makes me wonder why Weezer’s latest single is called “Pork and Beans.” But still, like I said, pretty catchy tune. So Cuomo gets a pass on this one.

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