Rock-n-Roll...Athens Style
After leaving the Tennessee-Georgia game last night, our crew walked the streets of downtown Athens to hear some good old-fashioned country rock-n-roll. In Athens, football may be number one, but hometown music comes in a close second.
There is a great deal of pride in the music that has come from this small Georgia city. If you've ever rolled down the windows and blasted R.E.M's It's the End of the World as We Know It, or maybe you're more of a Shiny Happy People fan, then you've gotten a taste of Athens music. If you've ever rocked out to Love Shack by the B-52's, you might not want to tell your drinking buddies about that, but that's Athens music too.
"The band that put Athens on the map," is the way Ty Manning described R.E.M. Manning is the lead singer and guitarist for the Bearfoot Hookers. We saw the Hookers rock an Athens bar shortly after the game ended on Saturday night. Don't let the name fool you, they are very polite people who were generous enough to talk to us this afternoon.
Manning, who isn't a huge R.E.M. fan, still appreciates the band's importance and was, "screaming like a little 14-year old girl," when he saw them in concert recently.
Now the Bearfoot Hookers are trying to continue the legacy that other Athens bands started. The Bearfoot Hookers have been together for a little more than three years, compiling two albums in that time. Two of the band members came to Athens specifically for the music scene.
"This is probably the coolest town basically to come to as far as music," keyboardist Scotty Nicholson said. "I heard about Athens growing up as a younger kid. This is where I wanted to be."
For an outsider, it's easy to wonder, "Why Athens? What is it about this city that makes it a music factory?"
"Athens doesn't have the pretension that all the other cities have," Jon Tonge said. He is the bassist for a band that consists of guys who are musicians on the weekend and hard workers Monday-Friday. The lead singer, Manning, for example, is a high school art teacher.
"I think most bands in Athens are like that," Tonge said. "The guy playing Saturday night at the 40 Watt (a popular Athens club) is washing dishes Sunday."
Athens is not just a rock-n-roll town. The band that opened for the Hookers on Saturday was playing clarinets, a stark contrast to the sound the Hookers produce. You can get a taste of just about any type of music in Athens.
"There's no Athens sound, which is kind of cool," Manning said. "There's a little bit of everything."
If you walk through downtown Athens on a Saturday night, as we did, you could probably walk into more than a dozen places and hear live music. It's everywhere in this city. They sure do love their music, but not quite as much as they love their football.
The crowd was much sparser Saturday night for the Hookers because the Dawgs lost to Tennessee. Manning says the best way to get a crowd rowdier is to cheer for the Bulldogs or take a swipe at the opposing team.
"Sometimes it's good to schedule around football days," Manning said. "That's when all the people from all over come to town."
And if you dare schedule a show on the weekend of the Georgia-Florida game, you might end up playing for just the bartender, and he'd rather be watching the big game.
