Why I Am Heading to Athens, GA in 24 Hours

I never had the opportunity to see the mighty Pylon but this show sounds like a respectable plan B. Pylon vocalist Vanessa Brisco Hay is performing her songs with Athens musicians dubbed the Pylon Reenactment Society with Dressy Bessy as the opening band. Road trip!





And this first video was my introduction to them in high school.

Throwback Thursday : Lunachicks

Bands like Kiss, The Stooges, and the Ramones never appealed to me as a kid mostly because it seemed like a boys club. I liked heavy music but by the late '80s most of the hardcore and metal scene felt almost exclusively made by men and for men. The audience included women however at shows women were rarely up front by the stage where the pit was often violent or targeted any girl who dare enter that frenzied male dominated arena. 

It was frustrating to like a style of music, have the same aggression and teenage hormones as the boys in the room, but still feel pushed to the back of the room and unwelcomed. It wasn't until 1990 that I discovered bands like L7, Babes in Toyland, STP, Hole, and Lunachicks who were the first women I had ever seen not just play heavy music but dominate it. These bands were a tight unit of girls that looked like a gang (minus Hole who had a male member) and I wanted to be a part of. They were tough, loud, could play their instruments, drank, spit, cursed, screamed, had tattoos, performed in filthy dark clubs, and proved to me that there was room in punk / grunge / metal for ladies too. 

These women all seemed fearless and each member took on a slightly different shade of rebellion so there was room to be as feminine, masculine, or anything in between you felt best fit you. This is the stuff of awe to a teenage girl who didn't think there was room for women in hard rock. Riot Grrrl was just starting to bubble up on the other side of the country so for those of us who were teens in the '80s looking for women to inspire us on a stage who were loud and angry, these were our heroines and they came first. 

The Lunachicks were perhaps the biggest influence to me because I could see them perform the most often. They were a New York City all female band who played NY and NJ relatively often from the late '80s through the '90s. I enjoyed that they played heavy / fast music and looked tougher than any guy I knew. I mean this was a band that looked tougher than any local male musicians I knew and they were heavily tattooed before this was cool or accepted in popular culture. Hell, one of the members was a tattoo artist, something incredibly bad ass to teenage me.  

Their vocalist Theo Kogan depending on her over the top theatrical costume choices could also rival an exoctic runway model. She could magically morph herself into any freak character, had a sense of humor, carried kitsch like an extreme version of the B-52s, but was still insanely strong. I had never seen a women present such a intense balance of feminine and masculine characteristics.

I worshipped the Lunachicks but sort of feared for my life in their presence too. It was a lot to process while I was in high school trying to feel comfortable in my own skin but they were the perfect storm of bold to give me the inspiration to join a band a few years later. They are also probably why I got my first tattoo as a senior in high school much to everyone's horror. They and L7 are also why I had dreads in 1990. They were also the first band to deliver a mosh pit that welcomed women which is something to this day I rarely see. Thanks ladies.  

Throw Back Thursday : Pylon

It doesn't get much better than this '80s Athens, Georgia band fronted by Vanessa Briscoe Hay. Their music is like brittle sticks snapping under rhythmic punches. There are guitar melodies but even the vocals accent beats as if they too are a percussion instrument. There is nothing extracurricular about their songs, every note and beat is measured and executed with a dancing precision. Imagine a small and powerful motorboat skidding through choppy, rough waters. This is what their pioneering sound reminds me of.

Their unique version of post punk was inspired by (and peers to) bands like the B-52s, Gang of Four, Television, and Talking Heads but in a decades time would become an influence to the next generations of bands like: R.E.M., Sleater Kinney, Deerhunter, LCD Soundsystem, Wedding Present, Life Without Buildings, Fire Party, and Love of Diagrams to name just a small handful of the artists.