I need to bring a showing to DC
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 10 April 2014 21:07 (ten years ago) link
New Interview with Vanessa.
http://punkglobe.com/vanessabriscoehayinterview0315.php
― nickn, Thursday, 5 March 2015 06:32 (nine years ago) link
Interesting even if some of the questions are not the best ("the new wave sound")
― curmudgeon, Friday, 6 March 2015 15:52 (nine years ago) link
http://flagpole.com/blogs/homedrone/posts/yes-that-was-a-pylon-song-in-that-lexus-commercial
― the 'major tom guy' (sleeve), Friday, 26 February 2016 03:51 (eight years ago) link
Commercial was mentioned on this other Pylon thread
PYLON
― curmudgeon, Friday, 26 February 2016 04:02 (eight years ago) link
I hadn't actually seen it yet, the music works very well.
Also, 2 record live album is great news, and the line "someone with major post punk band mastering experience" made me smile for some reason.
― Retro novelty punk (Dan Peterson), Friday, 26 February 2016 15:10 (eight years ago) link
"first final show" also made me smile, haha. i didn't know about the live album, i think they buried the lead there
― Karl Malone, Friday, 26 February 2016 15:21 (eight years ago) link
Briscoe is quoted by xpost Flagpole re live double album, on *vinyl*, so OK, I give up: what kind of turntable should I get, for plugging into wall and listening on headphones (I'm told USB turntables are garbage, true? Speakers wouldn't be cool in this household)(yes there are turntable threads, but I want to know what Pylon heads think)
― dow, Friday, 26 February 2016 16:55 (eight years ago) link
(a live single for April in Amazon MP3 store, so alb may not be vinyl-only)
― dow, Friday, 26 February 2016 16:57 (eight years ago) link
update:
If you're not familiar with PYLON, they were contemporaries of The B-52's and R.E.M. in the Athens, GA scene in the early 80s -- this new double live album documents their incredible last show in 1983. DFA also reissued their two studio albums back in 2007 & 2009. They also released a split single with Deerhunter in 2011 where they covered each other's songs. This live album captured them at their peak as a band, absolutely essential for any post-punk fan.
PYLON - LiveStreet Date, July 25th, 2016, Chunklet
"(PYLON) stands as shockingly modern and unparalleled these many years later.”-Michael Stipe, R.E.M.
“PYLON is still my favorite Athens band, in fact, one of my favorite bands!”-Fred Schneider, The B-52s
“Randy Bewley and Michael Lachowski’s simple lines display untoward rhythm and melody, respectively. Curtis Crowe bangs away so obdurately it’s hard to understand why he didn’t become rich. Vanessa Briscoe Hay barks and brays whatever incantatory phrases seem called for. Timeless. Cool.”-Robert Christgau, Dean of American Rock Critics
1983 was a banner year for PYLON. The Athens quartet released their second album, Chomp, on Atlanta-based DB Records, toured the country extensively, and played several opening slots for then-up-and-comers U2. And then, without a hint of explanation, they quit.
Their final show at the Mad Hatter in Athens, Georgia, was, as was always the case, a frenzy of minimal disco thud, post-punk guitar scree, and deliriously inspired howl. Oh, and dancing – always dancing – both in the crowd and on stage. The gig was recorded (both audio and video) for a failed PBS pilot called Athens Shows, and the tapes were put away and forgotten. That is, until now.
Around three years ago, after PYLON’s DFA reissues hit the street, Chunklet CEO (and card-carrying member of the PYLON Fan Club) Henry Owings emailed the band bemoaning the lack of bonus material on the CDs(meaning "previously unreleased," I take it, since Gyrate Plus and Chomp More do add singles, prev album-ized only on Hits) which sparked a larger conversation. “My favorite PYLON is live PYLON,” said bassist Michael Lachowski, with which Henry wholeheartedly agreed. Following a cordial sit-down at Michael’s apartment over the New Year’s holiday of 2015, an exhaustive search began for live recordings by PYLON. More specifically, live recordings from Athens in the early ’80s. Oh, and that sounded as good, if not better, than their proper full-length albums.
Numerous dead ends followed, but finally, and somewhat fittingly, the multitrack recordings of PYLON’S final performance at the Mad Hatter in 1983 were unearthed. Once the tapes were transferred and subsequently mixed, the explosive and compelling sounds raised one very significant question: Why in the world did PYLON quit?
For a band whose legacy, in their original incarnation at least, was two full-length albums and a handful of singles, PYLON were first and foremost a live band who weren’t as interested in working in a studio. PYLON’s raison d’être was performing for a crowd, and now there’s conclusive validation.
PYLON LIVE is a double vinyl album recorded on the band’s home turf at the culmination of their powers, and the results could not be more stellar. An all killer, no filler set with nothing left on the cutting room floor, PYLON LIVE includes powerful versions of the PYLON canon from their first and second LPs and even the hard-to-find song “Party Zone” (previously available only on a DB Rec comp) and their never-before-released rendition of the “Batman Theme.”
When compared to the band’s prior body of work, PYLON LIVE bookends all of it; some might even say it’s a better representation of this Athens quartet, who thrived on bouncing around on stage infinitely more than sitting in a studio.
There’s little arguing that the Athens powerhouse trifecta of R.E.M., the B-52’s, and PYLON is peerless. And while all three bands have achieved great critical acclaim, only the first two had the commercial acclaim they deserved. PYLON LIVE intends to correct that.
Limited to 200 on magenta vinyl.Limited to 200 on clear vinyl.Unlimited on black vinyl.[(also as downloads, maybe CDs)
Track List:
SIDE AWorking is No ProblemDriving SchoolNo ClocksAltitudeGravity
SIDE BCrazyKCoolItalian Movie ThemeBuzz
SIDE CDangerReptilesStop ItFeast On My HeartBeep
SIDE DM TrainVolumeWeather RadioParty ZoneBatman
PYLON REENACTMENT SOCIETY TOUR DATES:
07/29 Atlanta, GA – The Earl07/30 Athens, GA – 40 Watt
― dow, Tuesday, 14 June 2016 20:07 (eight years ago) link
Listening now. Haven't heard a lot of their shows, but clear sound, music's cool & rough, not too dry, best for dancing, incl. vs. and with "Gravity": "Yew can't. Yew can't." Yes I can! Bumping into counts.
― dow, Tuesday, 14 June 2016 20:14 (eight years ago) link
dizzy among "Reptiles," drawn into wet tunnel of pedals & bass
― dow, Tuesday, 14 June 2016 20:17 (eight years ago) link
The gig was recorded (both audio and video) for a failed PBS pilot called Athens Shows
WANTWANTWANT VIDEO!
― Dan is a #VegetablePuppet, he is NOT REAL. #flatearth (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 14 June 2016 20:17 (eight years ago) link
They have three studio albums, dagnabit!
― Harvey Manfrenjensenden (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 14 June 2016 22:00 (eight years ago) link
Funny, all these years, I've been remembering a genius track on the Athens, GA: Inside/Out soundtrack, Golden as being Pylon and remembering/forgetting to search it out. Searched and now find it was Dreams So Real. Only available on the soundtrack and a bootleg cd comp Discogs lists.
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Wednesday, 15 June 2016 21:23 (eight years ago) link
I need to hear this
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 16 June 2016 14:37 (eight years ago) link
the live Pylon album and the Dreams So Real track
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 16 June 2016 14:38 (eight years ago) link
ooooh, i always forget i have a copy of inside/out, it gets buried down in the soundtracks/comps. will pull that out for today's listening, thanks.
― Harvey Manfrenjensenden (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 16 June 2016 15:35 (eight years ago) link
Report back to us on that, please. They have three studio albums, dagnabit! Yep, and Chain is worthy, but the press release is all about hyping Phase One: this is "the last show" until reuniting and it sure felt goood.
dizzy among "Reptiles," drawn into wet tunnel of pedals & bass On headphones, now think they're all fingers, fingers, fingers
― dow, Thursday, 16 June 2016 17:58 (eight years ago) link
Good interview--- maybe source for the press sheet's backstory of Pylon Live, but other good bits too, like debunking the source of their name, also another name they considered. w visual deal, both still worth another band/solo artist's consid:http://www.eldredgeatl.com/2016/07/01/art-punk-perfection-deerhunters-bradford-cox-interviews-pylon/
― dow, Friday, 1 July 2016 19:02 (eight years ago) link
Vanessa & Michael make a mixtape of early 80s Athens bands, comment on 'em too---some deep out-of-catalog listening here:
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2016/07/22/pylon-a-sonic-reminiscence-of-1980s-athens-ga/
― dow, Friday, 22 July 2016 22:52 (eight years ago) link
Yep, remember the names of many of those groups (the Squalls, etc.) but not the songs
― curmudgeon, Monday, 25 July 2016 14:14 (eight years ago) link
Interview with Vanessa and Michaelhttp://observer.com/2016/07/americas-other-best-band-pylons-brilliant-punk-minimalism-lives-on/
― Brad C., Monday, 25 July 2016 18:29 (eight years ago) link
Nice. I remember them opening for U2 at the U of MD in 83, and eventually I will find the never published interview I did with them then that was going to go in my fanzine's next issue, but we ended the zine before that could happen.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 16:54 (eight years ago) link
The dancing crowd shots in that Side Effects footage make me so nostalgic. That's how I spent my early 20s too.
― this is a salad for the BALSAMIC REVIVAL (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 26 July 2016 17:28 (eight years ago) link
Saw Pylon Reenactment Society the other night. The band is not quite Pylon, but they re-do the tracks pretty well, and Vanessa still powerfully switches between her screetch and a more melodic tone
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 24 September 2016 12:53 (seven years ago) link
In addition to the Reenactment Society tour, the Pylon Live in 83 album is out, music from "Cool" is in a Lexus commercial, and they're namedropped by young hip Baltimore post-punk artist Sneaks (recently signed to Merge)
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 24 September 2016 12:56 (seven years ago) link
PRS is touring again this summer.
http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2018/06/12/pylon-reenactment-society-tour-dates/
― nickn, Tuesday, 12 June 2018 22:16 (six years ago) link
Chomp More disappeared from Apple Music! Gah.
― Davek (davek_00), Tuesday, 12 June 2018 23:55 (six years ago) link
Spotify too. Main thing left seems to be live album
― And Nobody POLLS Like Me (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 13 June 2018 00:16 (six years ago) link
Chomp More was on DFA
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 13 June 2018 04:18 (six years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_3sPmTRsFs
live 1981
― Brad C., Sunday, 8 July 2018 15:40 (six years ago) link
thank yoouuuu
every time this thread is revived i hope it's with footage like that
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 8 July 2018 16:17 (six years ago) link
haha, were bewley and lachowski toying with the idea of coordinated stage dancing during that era? (see 7:10 in for a glimpse)
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 8 July 2018 16:23 (six years ago) link
How do you guys feel about the quality of the reissues? I liked them but maybe sound a bit more dense than they should? I haven't heard the originals. Feel like I should have enjoyed these albums more.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 21 July 2018 21:49 (six years ago) link
Top 3 tracks: Yoyo, Human Body, Cool.
Kinda wish there was more stuff with the sound of the Cool/Dub single.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 21 July 2018 21:52 (six years ago) link
A Tourist in the Land of Rock 'n' Roll: Vanessa Briscoe Hay
A long interview that includes a lot of details about the early history of the band
― Brad C., Sunday, 5 August 2018 13:06 (six years ago) link
Wow, thanks
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 5 August 2018 13:45 (six years ago) link
Here's my ancient review, with a little update added to the blog archive clip:
Originally published in Village Voice,Tuesday, OCTOBER 9, 2007 AT 4 A.M.
Pylon, Gyrate Plus (DFA)
"Cool" begins with a march, which Pylon's guitar propeller finely chops, letting the chips fly and fall where they may. No hurry. But nothing too laid-back, either—not in a small Southern town, where everybody who isn't dead is aware that too-easy fuh-un is as boring as everything else. So, despite not being as biz-adaptable as Athens, GA neighbors and admirers like the B-52s and R.E.M., Pylon were and are practical, in their own way. Their lyrics have been called surreal, but it's all part of the protocol, as vocalist (and registered nurse) Vanessa Briscoe often murmurs her way into a surgical strike, around which Michael Lanchowski's bass, Curtis Crowe's drums, and Randy Bewley's guitar channel a sinuous, sensuous, yet non-anesthetic groove, on Gyrate Plus: Pylon's 1980 debut album plus bonus tracks, including earlier singles ("Cool" and the equally voracious "Dub"), now opening Gyrate's first appearance on CD. They both sneak up on "Danger," which has often infiltrated DFA/LCD Soundsystem co-founder James Murphy's DJ sets. A few tracks here are too arty-mundane, which can happen when you're flying DIY through another date with "Gravity," like this brainy slam band did around the dawn of the big '80s, briefly in the '90s, and several times since '04. But, as Vanessa growls on the previously unreleased "Functionality": "There's something to be written on the air," always, and never much room for typos.
(update: Briscoe later told an interviewer that her combo's name came from the stripey road cone, not Faulkner's novel, Still, the way that his stunt-flying crew's inner tumult added to the momentum of their unified front always has appealed as a rockband description too.)
― dow, Wednesday, 8 August 2018 02:06 (six years ago) link
For some reason Gyrate Plus got pulled from Spotify.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 8 August 2018 13:45 (six years ago) link
Got pulled back in June from Spotify as was noted earlier in this thread. Still not there.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 8 August 2018 13:54 (six years ago) link
Pylon founder Michael Lachowski remembers the punk band's rise and fall
https://www.redandblack.com/culture/uga-employee-and-founder-of-pylon-michael-lachowski-discusses-the/article_b5c1f5e4-efd7-11e9-8ccf-3fc7ef6cc833.html?fbclid=IwAR2oZSeqh-BhSzImZLvtsrthRmEG3eEw-F6j5MSJ2l7ki64T-RQtfB2HREo
― nickn, Saturday, 19 October 2019 21:59 (four years ago) link
Vanessa has been working on a Pylon timeline and asks for help filling in gaps
― Brad C., Saturday, 19 October 2019 22:07 (four years ago) link
Nice
― curmudgeon, Friday, 1 November 2019 23:28 (four years ago) link
https://vimeo.com/411617086
part of the video from the 1983 show released as Pylon Live
― Brad C., Thursday, 14 May 2020 12:32 (four years ago) link
Haven't had time to read all of this yet, but good, brisk-not-breathless detail so far (lots of it I didn't know), also video links:https://slate.com/culture/2020/07/pylon-band-athens-georgia-history-video-cool-town.htmlAdapted fromCool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture by Grace Elizabeth Hale, in stores now from the University of North Carolina Press. Yes way overselling past the colon, but may not have been her idea---got to watch those university presslords.
― dow, Friday, 10 July 2020 04:02 (four years ago) link
― Brad C., Thursday, May 14, 2020 7:32 AM
yes, i've had too much to drink and shit has been weird, but yes, that brought me to tears by the end. jfc
― Karl Malone, Friday, 10 July 2020 04:44 (four years ago) link
I've had Cool Town on the shelf for months and am finally three chapters in. I'm struggling here and there with Hale's romanticism and nostalgia, but that reaction has more to do with my personal perspective on the early Athens scene than with the way her utopianism occasionally drifts over the top.
As history, it's excellent, meticulous on details and documentation and (judging from what I've so far) the best account yet of how the scene evolved from the B-52s to Pylon to R.E.M. I thought Lurie's Begin the Begin was exhaustive, but Hale's broader context lets her show better how skeptically R.E.M. were received by the Pylon-centric faithful and why R.E.M. became so much more successful (tl;dr Pylon didn't have the same industry connections and weren't willing to tour pizza parlors to build a regional audience).
Pylon rules.
― Brad C., Friday, 10 July 2020 14:39 (four years ago) link
I somehow missed news of this book. I'm pretty much a romanticist and a nostalgist when it comes to stuff like this, so count me in.
― Album Moods: Rambunctious; Snide (Dan Peterson), Friday, 10 July 2020 14:46 (four years ago) link
I am torn on the romantic and nostalgic approach but want to read the book to hear more about the early days of Pylon, and yes to cherish my memories of seeing them back then and playing their music on my college radio show.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 10 July 2020 16:45 (four years ago) link