The Inside Story of the Athens Music Scene – Garden & Gun

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Video: max-o-matic | Photos: Terry Allen and Paul Natkin/WireImage (Widespread Panic)

For the past half century, bands and musicians from Athens, Georgia, have shaped what the world hears. The B-52s and R.E.M. have sold millions of records and landed top-ten pop hits. Widespread Panic and Drive-By Truckers have toured relentlessly. The Elephant 6 collective has created some of the most acclaimed indie rock of all time. Hundreds of other Athens artists fill the spaces in between—some lost and beloved, some tragically cut short, others making fresh music today.

The musician Brian Eno coined the term scenius—the collective genius that comes from a group of creative people contributing ideas and supporting one another. And there’s no better example of scenius in action than Athens.

What follows is an oral history of the music scene there, told by people who have lived it. Even they’re not sure how a midsize Georgia city known for football and frat parties became one of the most important music towns on the planet.

But they have some theories. And they definitely have some stories.

Photo: TERRY ALLEN<br>College Avenue in downtown Athens in 1977.

The big bang of Athens music happened on Valentine’s Day 1977, when five friends—Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, and siblings Ricky and Cindy Wilson—played a house party, their first show as the B-52s.

Dana Downs (bassist for the Tone Tones1 and more): The show was insane. The girls had on white wigs. The floor was shaking. Everybody was dancing. And we were so excited, because we did love Patti Smith, Talking Heads, people like that. But we were like, We have our own band. We have our own band.

Arthur Johnson (Bar-B-Q Killers2  drummer): The B-52s, their origin story’s amazing—they were at a Chinese restaurant and decided they were gonna be a band. I don’t know that they had a lot of experience, but they got good really fast, and wrote incredible songs really fast.

Jim Tremayne (entertainment editor of The Red & Black3 ): They weren’t necessarily doing it to become big stars. I mean, who in the world would ever think a band like the B-52s would become as big as they did? I go back and listen to the B-52s, and they sound miraculous to this day to me.

Dave Schools (Widespread Panic bassist): I heard about the B-52s in middle school, because I listened to this radio station in Richmond. They’re playing an interview with Debbie Harry [of Blondie], and she proselytized about the B-52s. Then I saw them on Saturday Night Live. I took my allowance money, and I went and bought that record immediately.

Velena Vego (booker for the 40 Watt Club4 ): When I moved here [in 1983], I went to house parties, and there’s Cindy Wilson and Fred Schneider. You just can’t even believe that your idols are there. They’re just people, right? And as sweet as they can be, you know?

Photo: Kelly Bugden<br>Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, and Cindy Wilson of the B-52s at the band’s first performance, at a 1977 house party.

The B-52s moved away in the late seventies but returned often to play shows or visit friends. Those who saw them perform at the beginning began to form new bands with new sounds, such as the lean art-rock of Pylon5

and the textured instrumentals of Love Tractor.6 Athens had the right recipe for young musicians: a thriving University of Georgia art school, a hollowed-out downtown, lots of part-time jobs, and cheap rent.

Vanessa Briscoe Hay7 (Pylon lead singer) : The whole idea when I came to UGA in 1973 was to study art education. But once I was here, I realized the people I had the most in common with in the art department were over in drawing and painting, and so I switched majors, but there’s not really a whole lot of careers you can do [with those].…Then I found a weekend job at DuPont [Textiles], where a lot of other musicians worked, including some of the future members of Pylon and Method Actors.8 [Athens] was so cheap at the time that I could support myself.

Mark Cline (Love Tractor guitarist): I got to Athens for school in the fall of ’77, and I was in the art school, where I met Vanessa. I met all the guys from Pylon. The music scene originated at the art school, really as an art project for everybody. We were all bored shitless because there was nothing to do. So we would make our own fun.

Mike Mills (R.E.M. bassist): There was a relatively small group of people in Athens in the late seventies, early eighties that were into the same sort of music. So naturally you all drew together. The other thing was that when they built the mall in Athens, all the big stores left downtown, so downtown was open and available for people to do whatever they wanted.

Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers singer/guitarist): That’s not...