Pylon

ived upstairs. Curtis Crowe heard them playing through the floor and offered his services as a drummer until they could find a permanent one. They had one goal, to play in New York City and to be written up in New York Rocker. In February 1979, Vanessa Briscoe Hay was recruited as a vocalist. In March, they performed their first show above Chapter Three Records with the Tone Tones—a precursor to the Method Actors. A few shows later, the B-52's saw them at a party while on a visit back home and offered to help them get booked in NYC. They and a close friend Robert Molnar—who worked at the Mudd Club—helped them land their first New York City show in August 1979 opening for the Gang of Four at Hurrah. On the basis of that booking, Vic Varney (Tone Tones, Method Actors) helped them to also get bookings in Philadelphia and Boston. New York Rocker took no notice of their NYC debut, but Interview Magazine writer Glenn O’Brien who’d championed the B-52's in his column Beat was smitten. O’Brien wrote an admiring review which closed with the assertion,”These kids listen to dub for breakfast.” Pylon were flattered, but didn’t know what dub was—so they wrote a song about it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Vanessa declares at the beginning of "Dub,"before exclaiming on the chorus, “We eat dub for breakfast!” “Dub” became the B-side to their first single with the anthemic "Cool" on side A. It was released in January 1980 on the Atlanta-based DB Records who had issued the B-52s’ first single, “Rock Lobster,” the year before. It was reissued on clear red vinyl by New West Records for Black Friday Record Store Day in November 2019. In 2020 “Cool”/“Dub” was named one of the "100 Greatest Debut Singles of All Time" by Rolling Stone—a list which also included the debut singles by fellow Athenians R.E.M. and the B-52's. After the B-52’s moved to New York, Pylon took up the mantle to help maintain an active scene in Athens, GA—a scene which has produced important bands like R.E.M., Love Tractor, Method Actors, Oh-OK, Side Effects, Squalls, Widespread Panic, Vic Chesnutt, Drive-By Truckers, Elephant 6 Recording Company, producer Danger Mouse and many more up to the current day .“We saw them very early, and they were absolutely amazing,” says Mike Mills, bass player for R.E.M., a band that is by its own admission deeply indebted to Pylon. “They were melodic and driving and machine-like in a really good way. And very human. It was all so new to us. Pylon made us want to be better.”

Pylon had now attained the project's goal of performing in New York and soon were getting reviewed in New York Rocker—but they were having too much fun to make good on their pact to break up the band. In 1980, they recorded their debut full-length, ‘Gyrate’ for DB Records at Stone Mountain Studios near Atlanta with engineer Bruce Baxter and Kevin Dunn (the Fans) assisting with production. ‘Gyrate’ was tracked live with minimal takes and overdubs. As a result, the album captures the frantic urgency of their live shows and remains one of the finest records released by an Athens,GA band. For their follow-up album, Pylon initially went to Christian Broadcasting Studio in Atlanta to begin tracking songs. The single "Crazy" / "M-Train" resulted from these sessions. But, looking for more production guidance—and after discussion with DB Records head Danny Beard—Beard brought in producer Chris Stamey and engineer Gene Holder from the DB's. On Stamey’s recommendation, they traveled to Mitch Easter’s Drive-In Studio located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. R.E.M. had just recorded Chronic Town there. The single "Beep"/"Altitude,” was released from these sessions. But, because of the sessions being squeezed into everyone's tour schedules, it would take some time for the new album to be completed. In the meantime they landed on the cover of New York Rocker. Chomp was barely off the press in July, 1983, when Pylon were booked to open a run of dates for the hot new Irish band U2. Most bands would have jumped at the opportunity, but Pylon were skeptical. At a critical point in the life of Pylon, they opted to become a cult band rather than stretch their defining philosophy too far. “There were a lot of people putting pressure on us about what we were supposed to do or what we had to do,” says Vanessa. “It didn't sit well with us. We realized that we didn’t have to do anything. Ultimately it was a good life decision. And it was our decision. We made it together and we went out at the top of our game.”

Pylon played their final show at the Mad Hatter on December 1,1983 with local band Love Tractor opening. A recording of this show wqs taken from an unaired pilot for the proposed TV series “Athens Shows” was released by Chunklet industries on a double LP titled ‘Pylon Live’ July 2016. Pylon II
R.E.M. sang Pylon’s praises in interviews and even covered “Crazy” for the B-side of the single “Driver 8.” That along with footage and testimonials by local fans about the band in the 1987 documentary “Athens, Ga: Inside/Out,” fed the band’s legend as local heroes even after they had split. As the four friends went about their lives—Vanessa as a nurse, Michael as an artist and magazine publisher,Curtis as the founder of the legendary venue the 40 Watt and later as a construction
coordinator in the film industry, and Randy as an elementary school art teacher—they would reunite their band a handful of times over the next few decades. The second reunion resulted in a DB Recs release of a CD with the tongue in cheek title "Hits" in 1988. A full length LP of newly penned songs titled Chain released on Atlanta based Sky Records followed. This period found them opening for their friends B-52's and R.E.M. in arenas and at large festivals. After being unable to dissuade Randy from leaving the band, Pylon disbanded again with the last show for “Pylon II” on 11/22/1991 at the 40 Watt Club, Athens, GA with opener The Yams. The next day, Pylon had a “Going out of Business” sale at the 40 Watt Club and sold much of their equipment and some ephemera like posters. Pylon III
In Spring, 2004 Randy approached the other Pylon members individually wanting to play again just for fun. Interim rehearsals took place on and off through the Spring and Summer according to Curtis’ work schedule. Pylon rehearsed first at R.E.M.’s practice space and then at Nuci’s Space. As things began to gel, Curtis got a call to work in Hawaii on the TV series “Lost.” The band decided to play one show before he left town for several months. 08/05/2004 Pylon played a “Secret Show” at the unnamed and unopened Little Kings. A good bit of excitement ensued and WUOG, the local station at UGA went off the air so the DJs could attend it. The band decided to work on reissuing their now out-of-print albums on CD. So, Randy with the help of friend Jeff Calder worked on gathering tapes, while Vanessa handled the business and legal side with help from Georgia attorney Philip Walden,Jr. This effort resulted in the DFA reissuing remastered versions “Gyrate Plus” and “Chomp More” on CD. When Randy unexpectedly died on February 25, 2009, the other band members couldn’t consider going on without him. They knew Pylon was the sum of its four distinctive parts. However, recently Vanessa has fronted Pylon Reenactment Society, who use Pylon as their guiding star to both perform Pylon’s music and write original songs to the delight of new and old fans. “A lot of younger fans have discovered the band either on their own or through friends or maybe even through their parents. When we play shows, there’s a much younger audience and then there’s the audience that’s my age,” reflects Vanessa.

“We fully intended Pylon to be an almost seasonal thing that we were gonna do for a minute and then get on with our lives,” says Curtis. “But it just never went away. It still doesn’t go away. There’s a new subterranean class of kids that are coming into this kind of music, and they’re just now discovering Pylon. That blows my mind. We didn’t see that coming." BOX
For several years Pylon members and their team members who share production credits—Jason NeSmith (restoration / mastering /cataloging/ digitizing the original tapes) and Henry Owings (Grammy award winning graphic designer)—had sought and assembled material belonging to “Pylon I.” The culmination of this effort, ‘BOX’ was released on vinyl and digital by New West Records on November 6, 2020 —along with free standing versions of ‘Gyrate’ and ‘Chomp’ on vinyl, CD and digital. Jason NeSmith said some of the tapes he restored were on the verge of being lost forever—so it was good timing to say the least. Members of Pylon along with good friends like Chris Rassmussen, Danny Beard, Jeff Calder, Terry Allen, Blair and Adam Bewley, Jeff Calder, Mitch Easter, Laura Levine, Paul Butchart, Todd Polharski, Sandra-Lee Phipps-and many more-contributed original tapes, unheard recordings, unseen photographs, and ephemera. Besides ‘Gyrate’ and ‘Chomp,’ the boxset includes an early field recording done in Pylon’s practice space titled ‘Razz Tape’ which was done just prior to the studio recording of “Cool"/"Dub.” ‘Razz Tape,’ was recorded on a Nakamichi deck using only 4 mikes by Chris Rasmussen and captures the energy of early Pylon. Also included is an album of singles and unheard rarities, titled ‘Extra.’ A 200 page hardbound book filled with rare photos, art, photos of ephemera by Jason Thrasher, posters, a bio written by Stephen Duesner, along with testimonials from many friends and musicians is also included in ‘BOX.’ The first 1500 books in ‘Box’ were autographed by Curtis, Michael and Vanessa. To everyone’s astonishment, the preorders for the color vinyl version of BOX sold out in less than 3 days. The first pressing on black vinyl also sold out, and has now been repressed . If possible, we try to help people know where our product can be found, so they find “good homes,” as one fan put it. The project ‘BOX’ was brought to fruition by executive producer Brady Brock for New West Records who insisted that Pylon have everything exactly the way that Pylon wanted it. Brady encouraged them to go even deeper for ‘BOOK’ A large portion of the uncovered ephemera from Pylon's collection has now been donated to the Special Collections library at the University of Georgia. An exhibit of some of the Pylon collection was up through May 21, 2021. —And in some cosmic synchronicity, Pylon was named one of the first ten bands on the new Athens Music Walk of Fame. The plaque is on Washington Street very close to The Morton Theatre. Upon the announcement for the release of ‘BOX,’ Fans demanded a CD version. New West Records listened and put it into production. The full sized book, along with added pages of the original album artwork, was redesigned by Henry Owings to include slots in the back of the book to hold the four CDs. The book fits neatly in a slimmer version of the slipcase CD ‘BOX’ was released worldwide April 2, 2021. For “Cassette Week 2021,” New West Records issued ‘Gyrate’ and ‘Chomp’ on cassette. These are bundled with a reissue of 1980 Pylon button and a Pylon pencil for sale October 10-16, 2021.