Party Out of Bounds: the B-52s, R.E.M. and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia. by Rodger Lyle Brown. everthemore books. 2003.
Reviewed by Dave Van Kleeck
Just think about the wonderful trajectory of some of the centers of creativity in American popular music over the last few decades. It seems like you could skip effortlessly back and forth across the country, at least a couple of times, in trying to get to each one. Traveling from the Folk scene of Greenwich Village, out to the vibes of the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles, then back to Detroit for the Motown sound, and down south for the Southern Rock scene coming out of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, then to the College Rock milieu of Athens, Georgia, and finally back out west to Seattle for the Grunge Rock scene, you could easily cover a lot of ground. Think about the lives and times these trajectories have covered too. Stopping at each of these centers of inventiveness you'd work your way through the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties, and the Nineties. Whew!
Just visualize some of the artists and bands that have come from each of these pivotal places: there is Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan singing in Greenwich Village; Big Brother & the Holding Co., Country Joe & the Fish, and the Grateful Dead playing in San Francisco; the Byrds and the Buffalo Springfield launching folk rock in L.A.; Smoky Robinson, the Temptations, and Martha & the Vandellas shaking in Detroit; the Marshall Tucker Band and the Allman Brothers Band jamming in the 70s South; the B-52s, Love Tractor, and R.E.M. rocking in Athens; and finally, Pearl Jam and Nirvana putting Seattle on the map. Kind of restores your faith in America, doesn't it?
In view of the release of R.E.M.'s Accelerator album this past week, I thought it would be fun to highlight a book in the library's collection that focuses on the Athens, GA scene of the 1980s. Entitled Party Out of Bounds: The B-52's, R.E.M. and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia and written by Rodger Lyle Brown, it lays out much of the carrying on that went on in the town where College Rock stirred itself out of dingy clubs and frat parties into the mainstream of popular music. Originally published in 1991 and reprinted with a new introduction in 2003, it "tells the story of a town and a time that has become legendary in the history of contemporary popular art and music. Witten by someone who was at the center of the Athens music scene, the book is a 'you-are-there' account of wild kids rampaging in ramshackle houses jamming on pawnshop guitars, creating the scene that gave birth to such important bands as the B-52s and R.E.M."
As you'll learn from the book there was so much more going on in Athens than just the rise of these two bands. It was also a cultural nexus of highly talented and highly original artists, musicians, and poets. The B-52s and R.E.M. were but a part of this vibrant, peculiarly Southern vortex. Some of my favorites from the Athens scene include Jim Herbert, the painter, filmmaker, and Michael Stipe's art professor at the University of Georgia with his eccentric, yet highly engaging aesthetic; the band Pylon (all you have to do is watch the footage of them in the film "Athens, GA: Inside Out" to see why); and Love Tractor, another unconventional band that pushed boundaries and stirred a friendly rivalry with R.E.M. Even the visionary folk artist Reverend Howard Finster appears in the book.
All in all, this is a fun read. As the author freely admits, it’s a “conjured” history and certainly not scholarly, but for those of you interested in this stop on the trek across America's musical landscape, it's way worth your time!
Reviewed by Dave Van Kleeck
Just think about the wonderful trajectory of some of the centers of creativity in American popular music over the last few decades. It seems like you could skip effortlessly back and forth across the country, at least a couple of times, in trying to get to each one. Traveling from the Folk scene of Greenwich Village, out to the vibes of the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles, then back to Detroit for the Motown sound, and down south for the Southern Rock scene coming out of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, then to the College Rock milieu of Athens, Georgia, and finally back out west to Seattle for the Grunge Rock scene, you could easily cover a lot of ground. Think about the lives and times these trajectories have covered too. Stopping at each of these centers of inventiveness you'd work your way through the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties, and the Nineties. Whew!
Just visualize some of the artists and bands that have come from each of these pivotal places: there is Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan singing in Greenwich Village; Big Brother & the Holding Co., Country Joe & the Fish, and the Grateful Dead playing in San Francisco; the Byrds and the Buffalo Springfield launching folk rock in L.A.; Smoky Robinson, the Temptations, and Martha & the Vandellas shaking in Detroit; the Marshall Tucker Band and the Allman Brothers Band jamming in the 70s South; the B-52s, Love Tractor, and R.E.M. rocking in Athens; and finally, Pearl Jam and Nirvana putting Seattle on the map. Kind of restores your faith in America, doesn't it?
In view of the release of R.E.M.'s Accelerator album this past week, I thought it would be fun to highlight a book in the library's collection that focuses on the Athens, GA scene of the 1980s. Entitled Party Out of Bounds: The B-52's, R.E.M. and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia and written by Rodger Lyle Brown, it lays out much of the carrying on that went on in the town where College Rock stirred itself out of dingy clubs and frat parties into the mainstream of popular music. Originally published in 1991 and reprinted with a new introduction in 2003, it "tells the story of a town and a time that has become legendary in the history of contemporary popular art and music. Witten by someone who was at the center of the Athens music scene, the book is a 'you-are-there' account of wild kids rampaging in ramshackle houses jamming on pawnshop guitars, creating the scene that gave birth to such important bands as the B-52s and R.E.M."
As you'll learn from the book there was so much more going on in Athens than just the rise of these two bands. It was also a cultural nexus of highly talented and highly original artists, musicians, and poets. The B-52s and R.E.M. were but a part of this vibrant, peculiarly Southern vortex. Some of my favorites from the Athens scene include Jim Herbert, the painter, filmmaker, and Michael Stipe's art professor at the University of Georgia with his eccentric, yet highly engaging aesthetic; the band Pylon (all you have to do is watch the footage of them in the film "Athens, GA: Inside Out" to see why); and Love Tractor, another unconventional band that pushed boundaries and stirred a friendly rivalry with R.E.M. Even the visionary folk artist Reverend Howard Finster appears in the book.
All in all, this is a fun read. As the author freely admits, it’s a “conjured” history and certainly not scholarly, but for those of you interested in this stop on the trek across America's musical landscape, it's way worth your time!
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