Pub Date : 2020-03-23DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0007
G. Hale
After the signing of many bands from Athens, the city was hardly a secret. Alternative music fans wanted to not only go to Athens but to UGA for college. With a constant churn of new people moving to town and new bands forming, the scene in the late eighties continued to expand and fragment. Many bohemians also got involved in local politics for the first time. In the second half of the 1980s, the place-based structure of alternative culture played a key role in propelling this new political engagement. In Athens, growing activism around the effort to save the old parts of town turned many scene participants into registered voters concerned about historic preservation, environmentalism, and homelessness. The growing level of political energy coincided with unprecedented levels of success for the Athens scene’s bands.
{"title":"New Town","authors":"G. Hale","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"After the signing of many bands from Athens, the city was hardly a secret. Alternative music fans wanted to not only go to Athens but to UGA for college. With a constant churn of new people moving to town and new bands forming, the scene in the late eighties continued to expand and fragment. Many bohemians also got involved in local politics for the first time. In the second half of the 1980s, the place-based structure of alternative culture played a key role in propelling this new political engagement. In Athens, growing activism around the effort to save the old parts of town turned many scene participants into registered voters concerned about historic preservation, environmentalism, and homelessness. The growing level of political energy coincided with unprecedented levels of success for the Athens scene’s bands.","PeriodicalId":289974,"journal":{"name":"Cool Town","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127864503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-23DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0004
G. Hale
As the 1980s opened, the UGA art school taught that anyone could be an artist, and punk and other new music broadcast on the radio announced anything could be a musician. These ideas eroded the traditional boundaries between cultural producers and consumers, a process made concrete in the small space of downtown Athens. The emergence of a music underground in Athens was also part of a trend dubbed “regional rock” by critic Tom Carson of the Village Voice. Regional rock offered one way of thinking about a larger shift in which a new generation rejected older forms of political organizing and turned instead to cultural rebellion. The participants in these new scenes adapted for their own purposes a model of cultural rebellion with a long history—Bohemianism. The band R.E.M. emerged in this scene, drawing on the fluidity that had characterized the Athens scene from the start to build a new model. R.E.M., many argue, represented an authentic expression of the southern present. As one member of the “scene” put it, R.E.M. made the South look better.
{"title":"Barber Street","authors":"G. Hale","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"As the 1980s opened, the UGA art school taught that anyone could be an artist, and punk and other new music broadcast on the radio announced anything could be a musician. These ideas eroded the traditional boundaries between cultural producers and consumers, a process made concrete in the small space of downtown Athens. The emergence of a music underground in Athens was also part of a trend dubbed “regional rock” by critic Tom Carson of the Village Voice. Regional rock offered one way of thinking about a larger shift in which a new generation rejected older forms of political organizing and turned instead to cultural rebellion. The participants in these new scenes adapted for their own purposes a model of cultural rebellion with a long history—Bohemianism. The band R.E.M. emerged in this scene, drawing on the fluidity that had characterized the Athens scene from the start to build a new model. R.E.M., many argue, represented an authentic expression of the southern present. As one member of the “scene” put it, R.E.M. made the South look better.","PeriodicalId":289974,"journal":{"name":"Cool Town","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128273793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-23DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0008
G. Hale
The conclusion offers remarks on what happened to the Athens scene, Hale, and its bands in the 1990s. The success of some bands, including R.E.M., meant locals thought they had stopped being alternative acts. Athens also began to gentrify, and UGA became a much more selective school. The broader culture of Athens changed during these years due, in part, to the role played by bohemians. Athens became more liberal, more open to the LGBTQIA+ community, less white supremacist, and more generous in providing social services. Overall, Athens, and other scattered sites of indie America, played a mostly unacknowledged role in creating a new kind of place-based, cosmopolitan, and forward-looking American culture as well as a renewed interest in the local. Like America, Hale concludes, the Athens scene was a collective creation.
{"title":"Hunting Divine","authors":"G. Hale","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"The conclusion offers remarks on what happened to the Athens scene, Hale, and its bands in the 1990s. The success of some bands, including R.E.M., meant locals thought they had stopped being alternative acts. Athens also began to gentrify, and UGA became a much more selective school. The broader culture of Athens changed during these years due, in part, to the role played by bohemians. Athens became more liberal, more open to the LGBTQIA+ community, less white supremacist, and more generous in providing social services. Overall, Athens, and other scattered sites of indie America, played a mostly unacknowledged role in creating a new kind of place-based, cosmopolitan, and forward-looking American culture as well as a renewed interest in the local. Like America, Hale concludes, the Athens scene was a collective creation.","PeriodicalId":289974,"journal":{"name":"Cool Town","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126343251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-23DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0005
G. Hale
Many of the young people who would become local musicians, artists, and bohemians in the mid-1980s arrived in Athens already knowing the local scene. Bands emerging in these years as part of a new way of local music-making worked to fill gaps in the local sonic landscape. Influenced by different performers and art than that of the earlier scene, the guiding principle was the same—diversity. Participants brought do-it-yourself (DIY) methods of production to bear on other kinds of creative projects. In all of these mediums and forms, participants pushed against the styles, aesthetics, and concerns of the bands, artists, and other bohemians that came before. What was important was to be more than a passive consumer of art and music; you had to make your own culture. Much of this new music was called “college rock,” suggesting it was produced for a small audience and came from a middle-class background with a certain level of intellectualism. The designation also meant most participants were white. Critics and fans pushed back on the “college rock” label, instead adopting the labels “indie” or “alternative,” which they found more expansive and “real.”
{"title":"Tasty World","authors":"G. Hale","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Many of the young people who would become local musicians, artists, and bohemians in the mid-1980s arrived in Athens already knowing the local scene. Bands emerging in these years as part of a new way of local music-making worked to fill gaps in the local sonic landscape. Influenced by different performers and art than that of the earlier scene, the guiding principle was the same—diversity. Participants brought do-it-yourself (DIY) methods of production to bear on other kinds of creative projects. In all of these mediums and forms, participants pushed against the styles, aesthetics, and concerns of the bands, artists, and other bohemians that came before. What was important was to be more than a passive consumer of art and music; you had to make your own culture. Much of this new music was called “college rock,” suggesting it was produced for a small audience and came from a middle-class background with a certain level of intellectualism. The designation also meant most participants were white. Critics and fans pushed back on the “college rock” label, instead adopting the labels “indie” or “alternative,” which they found more expansive and “real.”","PeriodicalId":289974,"journal":{"name":"Cool Town","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121904170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-23DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0006
G. Hale
On Saturdays, students enrolled in the Aspects of Folk Culture class at UGA visited tiny Georgia town to meet “folk” artists. Visiting folk artists became a bohemian rite of passage in Athens. For UGA students from the suburbs, folk artists suggested a rootedness in place and connection to older ways of living that seemed racial and interesting. For UGA students from small towns, folk artists provided a way to link childhood experiences with current interests in art and music as well as alternative ways of seeing the world. The work of folk artists, like the indie scene, seemed like a secret as most Americans ignored it. In these exchanges, Athens bohemians travelled in the well-worn paths of earlier waves of folk revivalism. By the mid-1980s, the folk aesthetic had become a profound influence in the Athens scene. Beyond art and music-making, going to folk artists’ and musicians’ houses and studios exposed Athens residents to alternative ways of living. As they began to pay attention to rural vernacular culture, these scene participants gradually developed their own bohemian version of southern pride. But Athens bohemians never quite solved the problem of creating an alternative culture that people of color wanted to join.
每逢周六，就读于佐治亚大学 "民间文化"（Aspects of Folk Culture）课程的学生们都会到佐治亚州的小镇拜访 "民间 "艺术家。拜访民间艺人成了雅典的一种波希米亚仪式。对于来自郊区的佐治亚大学学生来说，民间艺人意味着扎根于当地，与古老的生活方式联系在一起，这似乎具有种族色彩，也很有趣。对于来自小镇的加大学生来说，民间艺人提供了一种方式，将童年经历与当前对艺术和音乐的兴趣以及看待世界的另一种方式联系起来。民间艺术家的作品，就像独立音乐场景一样，似乎是一个秘密，因为大多数美国人都忽略了它。在这些交流中，雅典的波希米亚人走的是早期民谣复兴浪潮的老路。到了 20 世纪 80 年代中期，民谣美学在雅典舞台上产生了深远的影响。除了艺术和音乐创作，去民间艺人和音乐家的住所和工作室也让雅典居民接触到了另一种生活方式。随着他们开始关注乡村乡土文化，这些场景参与者逐渐形成了自己的波希米亚版南方自豪感。但是，雅典波希米亚人始终没有解决创造一种有色人种愿意加入的另类文化的问题。
{"title":"Local Color","authors":"G. Hale","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"On Saturdays, students enrolled in the Aspects of Folk Culture class at UGA visited tiny Georgia town to meet “folk” artists. Visiting folk artists became a bohemian rite of passage in Athens. For UGA students from the suburbs, folk artists suggested a rootedness in place and connection to older ways of living that seemed racial and interesting. For UGA students from small towns, folk artists provided a way to link childhood experiences with current interests in art and music as well as alternative ways of seeing the world. The work of folk artists, like the indie scene, seemed like a secret as most Americans ignored it. In these exchanges, Athens bohemians travelled in the well-worn paths of earlier waves of folk revivalism. By the mid-1980s, the folk aesthetic had become a profound influence in the Athens scene. Beyond art and music-making, going to folk artists’ and musicians’ houses and studios exposed Athens residents to alternative ways of living. As they began to pay attention to rural vernacular culture, these scene participants gradually developed their own bohemian version of southern pride. But Athens bohemians never quite solved the problem of creating an alternative culture that people of color wanted to join.","PeriodicalId":289974,"journal":{"name":"Cool Town","volume":" 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141221203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-23DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0002
G. Hale
The chapter focuses on the career and lives of the B-52’s. It opens with Hale’s recollections of meeting Jeremy Ayers of the B-52’s. Ayers, like other suburban and small-town kids who lived in the university town, modeled an essential bohemian act—he made his life into art. Cross-dressing and drag were an important part of the “scene” in both Athens and New York, where many members of the “scene” had connections. Athens was a place, like New York or San Francisco, that drew “small-town eccentrics,” and it started to reflect their sensibilities and interests. By the mid-1980s, what was happening in Athens proved that people did not have to move to the big city to live an alternative life. The B-52’s started finding success in New York—playing to and with their audiences’ expectations about southerners. With their lyrics, performances, and music videos, the band also managed to buck the growing conservatism that was shutting down the seventies’ sexual revolution.
{"title":"The Factory","authors":"G. Hale","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654874.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"The chapter focuses on the career and lives of the B-52’s. It opens with Hale’s recollections of meeting Jeremy Ayers of the B-52’s. Ayers, like other suburban and small-town kids who lived in the university town, modeled an essential bohemian act—he made his life into art. Cross-dressing and drag were an important part of the “scene” in both Athens and New York, where many members of the “scene” had connections. Athens was a place, like New York or San Francisco, that drew “small-town eccentrics,” and it started to reflect their sensibilities and interests. By the mid-1980s, what was happening in Athens proved that people did not have to move to the big city to live an alternative life. The B-52’s started finding success in New York—playing to and with their audiences’ expectations about southerners. With their lyrics, performances, and music videos, the band also managed to buck the growing conservatism that was shutting down the seventies’ sexual revolution.","PeriodicalId":289974,"journal":{"name":"Cool Town","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128661465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-23DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/7811.001.0001
G. Hale
Chapter 2 focuses on the band Pylon. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the University of Georgia’s (UGA) art school introduced suburban and small-town Georgia kids—like members of Pylon—to the possibilities of a creative life. If drag pushed some people in Athens to dress up and perform, art school taught people to make things. These young students who loved punk music were inspired to experiment with music-making and learned about the rise of performance in their art classes. Pylon may have started as performance art, but the band did more than any other local group to transform a network of gay and queer artists and their friends into a real bohemia. Pylon expanded the B-52’s’ fusion of pop art ideas and performance art practices. Around the same time, the UGA’s art school and art professors had an experimental curriculum that blurred the boundaries of art and life. Learning took place both within and outside of the classroom, with art professors modelling alternative ways to live to their students. Yet many of the few women in the art program experienced sexism. In the art crowd, sexuality and gender did not map easily onto conventional dichotomies.
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