Kathleen O’Brien Layson has a birthday today. I have no idea how old she is. I have never met her. But the party she threw for herself in 1980 – when I was 11 years old – changed the face of rock history.

KO, as her friends called her, convinced four friends of hers to form a band for her party. She needed a while to convince Michael, Peter, Mike, and Bill to do it. Thank God for her powers of persuasion and party planning or R.E.M. might never have gotten together.

I think the intrigue of the party helps keep the R.E.M. mystique alive. How good were they? Was Michael as crazy as ever? Did Peter jump up and down then too? The fact that so many of their early shows exist on tape – the earliest took place just about a month after the church show – only fuels the fire.

And we wonder all of this because KO wanted everyone to celebrate her birthday. What an awesome present shegave all of us.