The music of Athens, Georgia, includes a wide variety of popular music and was an important part of the early evolution of alternative rock and new wave. The city is well known as the home of bands such as R.E.M., Widespread Panic, The B-52's and several long-time indie rock groups. The city is the home of the Athens Symphony Orchestra and WUOG, the radio station of the University of Georgia (UGA). Much of the modern Athens music scene relies on students from UGA. UGA sponsors Western classical performances and groups specializing in other styles.
Athens became a center for music in the region during the Civil War, and gained further fame in the early twentieth century with the founding of the Morton Theatre, which was a major touring destination for African American performers. The city's local rock-music scene can be traced to the 1950s, with live music at Allen's, a hamburger restaurant in Normaltown. International attention came in the 1970s, when The B-52's began releasing the first of several best-selling recordings. Athens-based rock bands have performed in a wide array of styles, and the city has never had a characteristic style of rock; most of the bands have been united only in their quirky and iconoclastic image.
Music author Richie Unterberger describes the town as an unlikely center for musical development, as a "sleepy [place where] it's difficult to imagine anyone working up a sweat, let alone playing rock music." The contributions of Athens to rock, country music and bluegrass have earned it the nickname "the Liverpool of the South", and the city is known as one of the American birthplaces for both modern alternative rock and new-wave music. Athens was home to the first and most famous college music scene in the country, beginning in the 1970s.
Music venues and institutions Athens's local music is based primarily in the small downtown area of the northern part of the city.
College Avenue
The 40 Watt Club is among the most famous indie rock venues on the East Coast; the club unofficially opened at 171 College Avenue on Halloween 1978 with a band called Strictly American, featuring Curtis Crowe, the club's founder and future drummer for the band Pylon.
A second location of Downtown Records opened at 114 College Avenue, a former bank building dating to the 1920s, in the late 1980s. It was there in 1995 that local musician Monte Koster opened Lunch Paper, a bar and music venue, before moving to Washington Street in 2004.
At 128 College Avenue stood Ruthless Records during the making of Athens, GA: Inside/Out. It became the original location of Downtown Records and, later, Big Shot Records. Big Shot later moved to 264 East Clayton Street before closing.
170 College Avenue was the home of R.E.M.'s offices between 1995 and 2011, having moved from West Clayton Street (where their rehearsal studio remained).Spin, November 1992, volume 8, number 8
Oconee Street Stitchcraft, a former sewing factory, was located at 393 Oconee Street. It hosted performances by The Replacements, Pylon and R.E.M. It became the i&i Club in 1982, then the short-lived Buckhead Beach. Lunch Paper began at the location in 1984, owned by Chris DeBarr and Paul Thomas. Also on Oconee Street, at number 286, the B&L Warehouse hosted rock bands throughout the 1970s.
Hancock Avenue The Rockfish Palace nightclub opened in 1987 at 433 East Hancock Avenue, owned by Brian Cook and later taken over by J. R. Green. It became several other ventures, including Boneshakers, which closed in 2005.
On West Hancock Avenue, Joey Tatum opened the Manhattan Cafe, a bar popular with musicians, in 2004. A reformed Pylon played there that August. It later moved to 337 North Hull Street and was still in business as of 2024.
Broad Street
The three-storey Frigidaire Building, at 312 East Broad Street, was originally the Athens Opera House in the 1880s. After being the home of Athens Refrigeration for 54 years, it became Tasty World in 1997. The Whigs and Modern Skirts got their start there.
At 229 East Broad Street was the Foreign Legion record store. Its upstairs storage room was used a performance space. The Cramps played there in 1979. The venue later became Chapter 3 Records, owned by Chris Rasmussen. Pylon made its debut above the store on March 9, 1979. It was in the store, while a party (possibly a fraternity party featuring Pylon) was in progress above him, that R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills wrote the guitar line for the band's debut single, 1981's "Radio Free Europe", on an unplugged electric guitar. The chorus and bridge were later added by guitarist Peter Buck.
Tyrone's Old Chameleon stood at the corner of East Broad Street and Foundry Street between 1978 and 1982, when it burned down.
Clayton Street
Wuxtry Records, founded by Dan Wall, opened its doors at 197 East Clayton Street in 1975. Peter Buck worked there in its early days.
The Downstairs, a cafe and live music venue, opened at 140 East Clayton Street in 1988. It became DT's Down Under in 1995.
At 184 West Clayton Street, The Last Resort music club was in existence between 1966 and the late 1980s. The Last Resort Grill opened there in 1992.
Prior to becoming the third iteration of the 40 Watt Club, 256 West Clayton Street was the home of the Koffee Klub 11:11. It was closed down during an R.E.M. show in 1980 for not having a proper license.
The Georgia Bar in business at 159 West Clayton Street between 1986 and 2018. Beck played a show-after-a-show there in 2006. It formed a "Barmuda Triangle" of bars at the corner of Lumpkin Street with The Globe and The Roadhouse, which opened in the early 1990s.
Washington Street
The Uptown Lounge opened in 1984. Located at 140 East Washington Street, it later became The Chameleon Club (or "Ham Leon", after two letters fell off its sign), The Shoe Box and Atomic Music Hall (from 1990 to 1997).
The Engine Room music venue operated out of 243 West Washington Street during the early years of the 21st century.
Hoyt Street TK Hardy's Saloon occupied 137 Hoyt Street, in an old train depot complex, between 1971 and 1975, when it became Locomotion, a short-lived coffee house. The original Grit restaurant was located there until the building burned down in 1996. The Grit moved to 199 Prince Avenue, which was formerly Coffee Club, which musicians and artists frequented in the 1970s and 1980s.
Lumpkin Street 199 North Lumpkin Street, where The Globe operated from 1990, became Athens Yacht Club, which hosted blues and cover bands in the late 1980s.
Other major music venues in the city include the Georgia Theatre, a converted cinema at 215 North Lumpkin Street which hosted both local and touring performers. The theater burned down in 2009, but was remodeled and reopened two years later. Other venues include the Caledonia Lounge, the historic Foundry Music Venue (which was originally built in 1850 as an iron foundry), and the UGA Performing Arts Center, home to the Ramsey Concert Hall and the Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. Monroe Morton's Morton Theatre, at 195 West Washington Street, became a major part of the city's African American community in the early twentieth century; it claims to be the only theater from that era remaining in operation.Athens is home to the summer music festival Athfest, Athens Popfest and the late-spring Athens Human Rights Festival and North Georgia Folk Festival. The college radio station WUOG (90.5 FM), the low-power (100.7) FM WPPP-LP and the free weekly Flagpole are the city's most prominent modern music media. Athens has never produced a major local label like many similar indie-rock towns; the most important label of the 1970s and 1980s was DB Records, based out of Atlanta, though jangle-pop pioneers Kindercore Records were also Athens-based. Athens is home to long-running indie label Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records, which has been operating consistently since 1999.
Local music institutions include the Athens Symphony Orchestra, Athens Choral Society (founded in 1971), Athens Youth Symphony and the Athens Folk Music and Dance Society. The Athens Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1978 as a firmly non-profit, strictly volunteer organization, conducted by Albert Ligotti of the University of Georgia. The first performance came in 1979; the orchestra now has two regular performances, one in the summer and one in the winter, and has also done shows for young people, pops concerts and Christmas concerts. In 1996, the Athens Symphony moved into its modern home, the Classic Center Theatre at 300 North Thomas Street in downtown Athens. This location was Sparky's, a seafood restaurant which hosted local bands and musicians, in the early 1980s. In the building's loading bay, on Hancock Avenue, was the Mad Hatter. R.E.M., the Blasters and Jerry Lee Lewis played there.
UGA's campus has long been an important part of local music. Country Music Hall of Fame songwriter and performer "Whispering" Bill Anderson attended the college and used to play guitar around campus.Bill Anderson. Country Music Hall of Fame. 2001. The faculty of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music operate the Georgia Brass Quintet and Georgia Woodwind Quintet. Student institutions include the ARCO Chamber Orchestra, Men's and Women's Glee Clubs, several concert choirs, jazz bands and brass and woodwind ensembles, the Redcoat Marching Band, the University Philharmonia and a Symphony Orchestra. UGA also has multiple a cappella groups, including With Someone Else's Money, Noteworthy and the Accidentals, who are regionally known. The Georgia Bulldogs baseball team, who play at Foley Field, feature organist Matthew Kaminski.
Barber Street In the summer of 1980, Love Tractor made their debut on Barber Street. The band was composed of Michael Richmond (guitar), Armistead Wellford (multi-instrumentalist), Mark Cline (guitar) and Kit Swartz (drums).
Many bands lived on Barber Street, which runs north from Prince Avenue to northwest of downtown. "Mike Mills and Bill Berry lived next door to me," said Cline. "I lived with Michael [Lachowski] and Curtis [Crowe] from Pylon and Kit [Swartz] from the Side Effects, who also was in Love Tractor. It was at the house they called Pylon Park. Peter [Buck] lived four houses down. Michael Stipe lived next door to that house. On the eastern side of Barber Street, when they repaved the sidewalks, Linda Hopper, Maureen McLaughlin and Leslie Michel—these women helped support the scene—went out and wrote all the bands' names in the [cement], and they're still there. I’ve told the city they need to lift that up and preserve it."
While Pylon was playing their first show, across town R.E.M. played a benefit for Bertis Downs's lawyer friend John Kupris at the 40 Watt East at 100 College Avenue.
Michael Lachowski had a phone number called the Party Line. Locals would call Lachowski and tell him where the party was that night, and Lachowski would relay the information to the Party Line.
History The earliest music in North Georgia, including what is now Athens, was that of the Native Americans of the area, principally the Creek and the Cherokee. Athens was officially chartered in 1806, and began growing rapidly near the middle of the nineteenth century.
By the time of the American Civil War in the 1860s, the city was an important part of musical life in Georgia. The war accelerated the development of the city's musical importance, as Athens was largely spared widespread destruction while the larger city of Atlanta took a long time to recover. Major touring acts like the Dixie Family and The Slomans visited Athens during the war; the Dixie Family, a prominent touring group, performed disastrously, according to local newspapers, who said that the highlight of the performance came from four local African American musicians, and the Dixie Family had absconded with the concert's proceeds, which had been promised to the local Ladies Aid Society. p. 246–247.