Before being chartered as an official city in 1806, Athens, Georgia was flooded with the Native American music of the Creek and Cherokee tribes. By the 1860s, the city became a vital and prevalent region of musical entertainment in Georgia. As the Civil War struck through the rural southern city, music accelerated into the city’s most important source of entertainment. Athens suffered little destruction compared to the larger city of Atlanta; therefore, the music scene could continue to thrive without any setbacks due to economic recovery. Prominent touring groups like the Dixie Family and The Slomans aided the Athenians’ wartime distress. The major center for the city’s African American culture, known as the Hot Corner, came to be an established location for performance spaces: the legendary opera house in the Morton Building hosted such nationally acclaimed figures as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. The Morton Theatre was one of the most illustrious venues in Athens in the early 20th century and although it was shut down for a few years, it is the only theater in the city to survive through to the present.
By the 1960s and through the 70s, the foundation of venues and institutions allows locally prominent bands to grow from mostly cover bands into more musically diverse groups. Known as the Normaltown River of Music, this period influenced the emergence of trendy local bands such as the Normaltown Flyers, Hampton Grease Band, and the Dixie Grease. The Normaltown Flyers were based out of the downtown bar Allen’s Hamburgers, the oldest venue in Athens featuring live music. The local club scene surfaced when bars like The Last Resort opened, beginning regional fame for Athens. The city also became nationally recognized when the Hampton Grease Band signed with Colombia Records in the late 1960s.
Rock music became a rapidly growing phenomenon in the 1970s when the local music scene was centered around house parties, eccentric clothing styles, and a rebellious atmosphere. With college students pouring into the University of Georgia, the hallucinogenic drugs LCD became a widely used and accepted drug among the college music scene. Also a key element in developing Athens musical culture that was associated with the University of Georgia was the Lamar Dodd School of Art. As part of the University’s liberal arts curriculum, this school allowed for a musical interest to fuse with a creative aptitude that shaped the majority of Athenian musicians as well as the fan base.
One of the fundamental characteristic of Athens’ music scene, is its role in shaping an Americanized version of the New Wave movement. This movement developed in the United Kingdom in the 1970s as a sort of shift from punk rock music. The transition from the rebellious European punk rock influenced such genre categories as alternative rock, indie rock, and power pop, and post-punk. Athens was specifically dominated by the alternative rock categories of the overall New Wave genre. It began as an experimental genre that incorporated the synthesizer to replace many of the standard instruments used in European punk rock. Grouping of the Americanized New Wave genre categories creates a unified tie to the Athens music scene represented by cultural references to the city used by stylistically diverse bands such as R.E.M. and the Indigo Girls. Furthermore, because each band got their start in Athens, they are historically and fundamentally connected to the unique and culturally distinct city. However, the groups that developed in Athens are very diverse in their musical categories, therefore making it difficult to establish a concrete genre boundary. Because the bands based in the city produce and perform a wide variety of music, Athens has never had one characteristic or concrete style of music.
The synthesizer is the key element to the majority of New Wave music and vastly influenced such pop rock and alternative bands as The Talking Heads and The Cure. Keyboards were a common addition to the New Wave music through their ability to stop and start with short and punchy song structures. Fast tempos created by choppy rhythm guitars had the affect of generating an overall aggressive energy within New Wave music. The creation of MTV in 1981 helped transport the New Wave movement from the United Kingdom to America, specifically Athens, Georgia. The musically rich city perfectly personified the main idea of the New Wave movement: “One gets from critics and artists the image of new wave as unified not only by its attitude toward the mainstream, but also by similarities in many areas: hairstyles, fashion choices, musical influences, cultural references, onstage behavior, critical vocabulary.” (Kronengold, 46). Known as the “Second British Invasion”, New Wave artists poured into the unconventional city where their flourished and shaped Athens’ eccentric identity.
Two of the most renowned Athenian New Wave artists of the late 1970s and early 80s were the B-52s and R.E.M. Known for their thrift store fashions and unusual music videos, the B-52s were quick to fame in Athens with such hits as “Rock Lobster” and “Love Shack”. They began with little musical knowledge, but became an instant hit with their iconoclastic image and humorous sound. They were the first band to bring the city to national prominence, but were soon overshadowed by R.E.M. Band member Michael Stipe was enrolled in the University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art, while bassist Mike Mills and former drummer Bill Berry worked in downtown Athens. Established in 1980, the band became popular among the college students as the single “Radio Free Europe” reached local fame. In the early to mid 1980s, R.E.M. was featured only out of Athens, but soon broke into the mainstream with the 1987 hits “The One I Love” and “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”. In the 90s, the band reached back to their Athens roots by featuring vocals by Kate Pierson of the B-52s in their album Out of Time and by titling their album Automatic for the People after the motto of a local Athens soul-food joint, Weaver D’s. Known as one of the first popular alternative rock musical groups, R.E.M. specifically pioneered the spread of the alternative rock category of the New Wave genre throughout the nation. Locally, Athenian bands received a boost of moral as the success of the B-52s and R.E.M. brought attention from major music labels and popular media to the city. Their development of the New Wave movement in Athens, Georgia inspired other local artists such as Widespread Panic and the Indigo Girls who strengthened the city’s peculiar yet capturing personality.
After thirty years of business, The 40 Watt Club in downtown Athens has earned the reputation as the most legendary venue of the Athens music scene. The B-52s and R.E.M., as well as Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, and the Drive By Truckers performed on the notorious stage at the start of their careers. With the nationally recognized success of the B-52s and R.E.M., the 40 Watt Club has become a desired venue for up-and-coming bands to launch their music. The venue adds to the unique image of Athens by featuring mostly old-school New Wave musicians and new-school indie/alternative rock bands. The immense talent that flows through the amps of the local venue has given the 40 Watt Club the credibility to turn unknown bands into revolutionary musicians. Furthermore, it was brought Athens to even more fame when Rolling Stone magazine noted the city as the best college music scene in America in 2003.
As Charles Kronegold notes, “new wave prizes individuality and unconventionality” (Kronegold, 61). The B-52s’ hit “Love Shack” embodies the New Wave identity through their original style and alternative approach to music-making. The song was inspired by the band’s roots to Athens and features distinct cultural references: the road trips down the Atlanta Highway which runs through Athens, as well as the cabin with a tin roof in Athens in which singer Kate Pierson lived during the 1970s. The lyrics of the song portray a New Wave theme with their humorous and quirky phrases: “Boy's in bikinis/Girls in surfboards/Everybody's rockin'/Everybody's fruggin’”. Likewise, R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” epitomizes the punchy and short-corded tempo of the New Wave movement. With a foundation based in Athens, R.E.M. broke into the mainstream scene with this 1987 single that remains a favorite hit at the 40 Watt Club. The rant-like lyrics and rapid chord progression symbolize an individual and innovative style of the band as they establish an almost automatic and mechanical sound. Inspired by the fame of the B-52s and R.E.M. and their development of Americanized New Wave music, Love Tractor formed in Athens in the early 1980s. The single “Party Train” represents a key integration of the New Wave synthesizer to develop the song’s chord progression. With a catchy melody and unique vocals, this hit allowed for Love Tractor’s recognition as one of the founding bands of the city’s idiosyncratic music scene.
With a musical history dating back to the 1800s, Athens, Georgia has been stamped on the map as one of the most influential and significant music towns in the country. Known for a rapidly progressing cord structure on the guitar and unclear vocals, R.E.M. is by far the most prominent bands to flow from local venues such as the 40 Watt Club all the way to an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. R.E.M as well as the B-52s’ influence on other local bands to achieve nation recognition set the foundation of the Athens music scene. The New Wave movement swept through the southern town and was transformed into Americanized genre categories, the foremost being alternative rock. The unique and genre-diverse music that flows throughout the city gives Athens its eccentric and ever-evolving identity that will continue to generate unconventional yet superior music for years to come.
Bibliography
Ellis-Christensen, Tricia. "What is New Wave Music?." WiseGeek. Conjecture Corporation, 2010. Web. 14 Mar 2010.
Gordon, Stephanie. "40 Watt Club." THe New Georgia Encyclopedia. Georgia Humanities Council, 2003. Web.
Kronengold, Charles. "Exchange Theories in Disco, New Wave, and Album-Oritented Rock." Criticism 50.1 (2008): 43-82. Web. 14 Mar 2010.
"Music of Athens, Georgia." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 16 Mar. 2010.
Paulsen, Mike. "A Brief History & Reflection on New Wave." New Wave Outpost. N.p., 2009. Web. 14 Mar 2010.
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