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sinceileftyoublog · 10 months ago

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Pylon Reenactment Society Interview: Different, But Related Beast

Photo by Christy Bush

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Up until now, it still feels like we've been slowly closing the book on Pylon. Since initially disbanding in 1983, the Athens, GA post-punk band reunited and broke up many times, coming out of retirement for the final time in 2004 for a show. A few years later, in 2007, lead singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay and guitarist Randy Bewley, along with other staples of the Athens music scene, joined supergroup Supercluster. Pylon technically ended with Bewley's tragic death of a heart attack in 2009, but for the next decade-plus, they kept getting their critical flowers as post-punk influences increasingly infiltrated independent music. 2020 saw the release of the excellent Pylon Box (New West), which consisted of remasters of the Athens, GA post-punk band's first two albums, a collection of singles and alternate mixes, a previously unreleased recording of a band practice, and an accompanying essay and book telling the band's story. So that's it, right?

Sort of. Maybe on Friday.

It might have been, if not for Pylon Reenactment Society. Initially formed in 2014 as a one-off entity for Art Rock Athens, PRS--featuring Casper & the Cookies guitarist and Hay's fellow Supercluster member Jason NeSmith--continued to play shows, release Pylon covers, and even share a few original songs over the years. Now, Hay, NeSmith, bassist Kay Stanton, and drummer Gregory Sanders are set to drop the first PRS album, Magnet Factory, Friday via Strolling Bones. Almost as a way to bridge the gap between Pylon and Pylon Reenactment Society, the album features two songs that Pylon wrote and played live many times, but never recorded. Even better, its nine original songs combine the best aspects of Pylon--sharp guitars, slinky bass, steady, yet forceful four-on-the-floor drums, Hay's oft-dadaist poetry--with a newfound appetite for more varied song structures and moods. The first song PRS released for Magnet Factory was one of those aforementioned Pylon-penned tunes (credited to all four original members--Hay, Bewley, bassist Michael Lachowski, and drummer Curtis Crowe--as the band was famously democratic in process). "3x3" builds up with a thudding kick drum and arpeggiated lead guitar line, as Hay yelps a party-like to-do list of buying beer and playing music, breathlessly honoring the most ordinary of activities. But if you put the needle down or press play on Magnet Factory, the first song you'll hear, "Spiral", gradually arises, flickering with wiry guitars, a much more subdued sound from a band that never really was so. The diversity differentiates PRS from Pylon.

Yes, there are plenty of throwbacks on Magnet Factory. "Heaven (In Your Eyes)" is another Pylon-penned original, pre-dating their first album Gyrate, featuring a screamed chorus, courtesy of Hay's mighty gravel chucker of a voice. "Fix It" is, amazingly, Hay's first recorded collaboration with Kate Pierson of The B-52s, a band to which Pylon has forever been linked in the cultural consciousness of Athens. And "Flowers Everywhere" juxtaposes speedy disco drum fills with tremolo guitars, Hay mixing singing and spoken word about the innate self-worth of people, showcasing her longstanding ability to write anthems out of simple lyrics as much as exude pearls of stream-of-consciousness wisdom. But the standouts on Magnet Factory would have been outliers on Pylon albums, from "Spiral" to the album's equally deliberate closer "I'll Let You Know". Best, in an act of affection-as-resistance, Hay's first gutturally screamed words don't come until 1/3 of the way through the album, and they come with a declaration of devotion. On the militaristic march "Messenger", she sings, "No one wants to fight," before belting, "Sending love to you!" It's a look to the listener, her bandmates, the world, and one of the most exhilarating recorded moments of her career.

Around the new year, I spoke with Hay and NeSmith over Zoom, calling from their respective homes in Athens. At the time, the band was practicing for a few shows later in January in California, though they didn't have any actual tours planned, and still haven't revealed any tour dates. "It's difficult to tour financially for independent artists like us," Hay said. Thankfully, fans can get a taste of at least PRS' live presence with the videos for "3x3" and "Flowers Everywhere", which films the four band members on stage. "A video is a way to share art with the world," Hay continued. Still, PRS is playing an album release show at Hendershot's in Athens with Organically Programmed Orchestra, and they're slated to play SXSW in Austin in March. "I'm excited to get this band in front of people who have or have not seen that we're a different, but related beast from Pylon," said NeSmith.

Below, read my conversation with Hay and NeSmith, edited for length and clarity. We spoke about many of the songs on Magnet Factory, the history of the Athens scene, and playing live.

Since I Left You: You've taken the time to contextualize Pylon Reenactment Society: It's not Pylon, though it has Pylon in the name. The band has been around now for 10 years. Is it hard for fans to differentiate between the two? Are there people who have come to see Pylon Reenactment Society who don't know about Pylon?

Vanessa Briscoe Hay: It's a bit of both. Every new generation that comes up discovers music. To the younger folks, we're a new band. They may have heard of us or seen us in [Tony Gayton's 1986 documentary] Athens, GA: Inside/Out, or saw the [Athens, GA Inside/Out 2: Red Turns Blue] movie we were in, or saw the Pylon box set Jason and I worked on along with Henry Owings and Michael Lachowski that came out in 2020. When we go play shows in other areas of the country, our audience may have a group of [20-]year- olds, and there will be another group that are older, in their 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and even a few 70-year-olds who were around when Pylon first got together back in 1979. I think we're a multi-generational band with a multi-generational audience.

SILY: There's a lot of contemporary music that, to my years, is very influenced by Pylon, the Athens scene, or post punk in general. So when people hear a Pylon record or hear Pylon Reenactment Society live, it seems fresh and relevant.

Jason NeSmith: I agree with you there. The Pylon records from the 80's still sound pretty fresh and relevant. If they remained unreleased until this year, they'd sound current to me. I guess that's partially a blessing of them not getting overexposed back in 1980-1983 the way they might have. They weren't overplayed the way you might think of U2, another one of those bands tagged early on as post-punk but who are now part of the landscape. They had a Joy Division influence, too, but they're an arena band. The way that Pylon seemed to put their material together was so sui generis, a genre of one. You might hear reverberations of the time period, but nothing that sounds so much like something you already know too well. People are still influenced by that era and that sound, and these particular sounds are still relevant. It's great, and we're happy to add to that feeling with the new material.

SILY: Pylon Reenactment Society has released some recorded material, but Magnet Factory is your debut album. "3x3" definitely seems like the perfect segue from one chapter to the next because it was a Pylon song not recorded until now. How does "3x3" fit as a Pylon Reenactment Society song?

JN: I love performing Pylon's released material in a live context. It's so much fun. We did do a covers EP, which was kind of by accident. We clearly don't want to be known as a strict covers band. We already planned a long time ago on writing new material and have done it a lot already. The pandemic interrupted things, as it tended to do. We weren't going to cover existing Pylon material for our debut record--that would just be ridiculous. But it absolutely made sense for us to pick up on where Pylon had not completed something. They played "3x3" for years at dozens of shows. It was one of Randy's favorite songs, and Vanessa brought it up a lot to us. When we were thinking about what could possibly go on the debut record, a lot of things were floated, and it was one we all thought was appropriate. It's so elemental. It's such an indestructible song. There was no chance we were gonna mess it up, so we went for it. [laughs]

SILY: When I was listening to "it"3x3" for the first time, it immediately had that classic creation of tension from he words Vanessa is singing, sort of mundane things like buying beer and playing music at a party. When I watched the video, the vibe was so much more celebratory and cathartic. Do you think the song straddles those two lines or exists as both tense and celebratory at the same time?

VBH: I think it is tense and celebratory, celebratory just from the sound. There's something about the sound of the instruments, and maybe what I'm singing. The overall sound is very joyous. It's something easily tapped into by people who like to dance and go to shows. It's a lot of fun to perform live. Before Randy passed away, I kept saying, "We need to go into the studio and record the song." Unfortunately, he passed away before that could happen. We even though about bringing in Michael and Curtis and getting Jason to play. But this is so much better. It's a bridge between then and now. Like Jason's saying, it's hard to mess up. [laughs] But it's a lot of fun! That's the most important thing.

JN: It's almost like a Stooges song. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is two chords, though "3x3" is three chords. It's got that more...you know what, I'm done talking about that song. [laughs] That's how elemental it is. It describes itself.

VBH: Yeah, you don't wanna start picking things apart too much. You lose a little bit of the magical feeling of just listening to it. People should just listen to it and make up their own minds.

SILY: The record is bookended by two songs that, were you familiar with Pylon, have sounds, tempos, or moods you might not expect. "Spiral" is subdued, and "I'll Let You Know" ends the album a bit more gently. Was that an intentional decision?

VBH: I came up with an unspoken theme for the album, and Jason helped me decide how to put the songs in the order to get there, but I was thinking about a French movie about the seven ages of woman, [1960's Love and the Frenchwoman], and human beings and the process they go through, starting with before you're born and [ending with death]. But I'm not promoting the lifespan of a human as the frame for the album, and maybe I shouldn't be talking about it here because people might start reading too many things into it. But it's nice to have an idea to wrap something around.

JN: I saw it as an organizing principle as much as a theme. [This] way to organize the material necessitated bookending the record with sounds a little bit outside of the palette that Pylon used. That's where you might hear some things poking through from the individual players: the way Kay plays bass, the way Gregory plays drums or adds other sonic textures. The new elements that they introduce and that I introduce. It sounds more at peace with the past because Vanessa's voice is familiar and still strong, but it's a whole new mood.

VBH: Do you want people as they're making music to stay stagnant? [We don't want] people [to] say, "They sound exactly like they did in 1981. They really are just a cover band with no new ideas." People change and grow, and I've learned and changed and grown as I've worked with these particular musicians. I've worked with Kay and Jason for a long time now--we had a recording project called Supercluster that was basically a writing project. Randy was in there, too. We can't stay still or pretend to be something we're not. We've lived, we've learned, we bring part of that process to how we make our art.

SILY: One thing that seems to have stayed consistent, though, between Pylon and Pylon Reenactment Society is Vanessa's penchant for occasional moments for lyrical absurdism or mantras. When you write, do those come out of the blue? Like, "Haven't you heard about candy?" on "Boom Boom", or, "Seek facts without fear," on "No Worries"?

VBH: [laughs] It's really strange, but when I write--and this sounds kind of pretentious--I try to empty my mind and see what happens. I'll let the music suggest things and ideas to me, and these things sometimes very easily pop up and almost write themselves, on the spot, like our Christmas song "Christmas Daze", which isn't on the record. Sometimes, I'll have to work with it, and I'll write a lot of words and end up crossing them out. Sometimes, things are so awkward, we don't even record them. They don't even make it that far. A lot of the time, I feel like the blame would be on me because I was awkward and wasn't able to fully get in touch with what I wanted to do with that particular song. [On Magnet Factory,] we ended up with 9 songs that we wrote and 2 songs we arranged that were Pylon songs, and I'm really happy at this stage in my life to be able to record and put this out and to write. I never stopped writing. I write something almost every day. I'll fill pages and pages on my iPad, or a scratchpad with a lot of words, and I'll start paring them down, crossing them off, and get the words to something more universal.

SILY: None other than The B-52s' Kate Pierson features on "Fix It". With The B-52s on their farewell tour, does it feel like an end of an era in the Athens music scene?

JN: I got here in 2000, and the Athens scene had already died many deaths. [laughs] "You should have been here in '84," or, "You should have been here in '73," or, "You should have been here in '98." It's over and over again. People age out of it. There's always a new band coming that may or may not have been influenced by what came before them. It's a cliché to say there's something in the water, but the scene keeps reinventing itself. As for The B-52s, I think it's quite possible for somebody to come to town, fully take part in the scene, and not even know that "Rock Lobster" was written a mile away from where they're standing. In a way, that's really unfortunate, but in another way, it's a testament to the power of the island of misfit toys we have here that remains. In a way, that era is still here, but the players have changed.

VBH: Just like there are layers on time on top of each other here, you'll be moving down the street or past this corner that 45 years ago other kids were hanging out on, making their music. If you are sensitive, you can feel those vibrations. What's important is they existed here and created the music they created and will be part of Athens. It's the beginning of the modern music scene. We had other bands before that were very good. The B-52s changed it all.

Photo by Karen Allison

SILY: "Fix It", along with a few other songs on the record, builds up in volume and intensity and plays with tempo. "Heaven (In Your Eyes)" plays with dynamics. Vanessa, do you think this record is some of the most instrumentally dynamic music you've ever recorded?

VBH: Me personally, perhaps. Jason has a band called Casper & the Cookies that are quite well known for tempo changes and dynamics. [laughs]

JN: From my perspective, looking at Vanessa's catalog with Pylon, maybe that's true. Supercluster had some dynamics. Pylon was more in the habit of being a steady state band.

VBH: A four on the floor kind of beat.

JN: "Heaven" being an early Pylon song, the live recordings of it are also very dynamic. That's why we wanted to do it. It's tender and ferocious in turns, and we wanted to try that on. [Magnet Factory is] maybe the most dynamic Pylon-related music that's been released, but not performed.

VBH: I definitely used a lot of dynamics singing live.

JN: I wonder if Black Francis/Frank Black ever listened to Pylon, just because of the loud-quiet-loud thing. He could have gotten it from several places, but it could be because he was listening to Gyrate.

SILY: I'd be surprised if he hadn't! It seems like notable musicians from specific eras often devour the notable musicians from 10 years prior.

VBH: Perhaps he did. I know we were in the studio for our 3rd album [Chain], and Gary Smith from Fort Apache [Studios] had come down to work with us, and Black Francis called him while we were in the studio. I don't know what they were talking about. [laughs] Talkin' about somethin'.

SILY: Vanessa, it took you a few songs in on this album to scream. Vocally, you have a lot of interplay between speaking, singing, and your quintessential raspy sort-of scream. When you record or write, how often are you trying out different vocal deliveries? Or do you know how you're going to sing from the get-go?

VBH: I don't know from the get-go. Jason can tell you that. I'll try all different kinds of ways, and often, he'll be the first to suggest, "Why don't you do it like you did it last time when you were singing it higher?" They give me input about what might sound better. Playing with phrasing is a lot of the fun of being a vocalist.

SILY: Have you played all of these songs live at some point?

VBH: Not all of them. We have quite a few of them in our regular set, but we've been practicing them.

SILY: Are you planning a larger tour, and--fingers-crossed--coming to the Midwest?

VBH: I'd love to come back to the Midwest, to Chicago and maybe Ohio, Kentucky, go up through the middle of the country. We haven't set any dates yet. I know we're going to South By Southwest in March. We'll do a Northeast type of tour a little later in the year. I'm hoping we make it to the Midwest, because I really like it there.

JN: Me too. All we need is the right person to ask us. We'll be hoppin' in the van on the way up there.

VBH: We played the Barely Human Festival in Detroit in 2017 and added a Chicago date to it at the Beat Kitchen. It was February, so it was so cold. The Festival had Xeno & Oaklander and John Bender. I thought John Bender was the perfect name for what he was doing. He looked like a mad professor, like a circuit bender. He gave us business cards. There was a band called Black Marble that played after us. They were all electronic musicians except for us. [The festival] got this beautiful drum kit just for us. We went on at 2 A.M. It was great playing in Mexicantown in Detroit at El Club. It went on all night.

JN: ESG played, but we missed them.

VBH: When we played in Chicago, we played with Ovef Ow and The Baby Magic, two local punk bands.

JN: The Baby Magic were crazy! They were really good.

SILY: When you practice performing, are you adapting the songs to the stage or getting a feel for how you might like to jam them out?

VBH: There are some added sounds on the album, but when we wrote the songs, and when we recorded them, we made the decision to use these four particular people in the band, other than Kate Pierson. We wrote them in a way they could be performed live. Not to say there isn't some studio witchery going on sometimes, but you will definitely recognize the song live from the album. You're not going to be saying, "Oh, what is that?" [laughs]

JN: That is one of the things we're carrying over from Pylon: the self-contained nature of the arrangements. If the guitar part I came up with in the practice space, that I thought was going to make it all the way through the song, is now two guitars, I have to rewrite it so I can play it again live. The intention is sleek, simplified arrangements that four people can play.

SILY: Is there anything either of you have been listening to, reading, or watching that's caught your attention?

VBH: That's a good question. My mind always goes blank when I have to come up with anything. [My husband] Bob [Hay] and I watch a TV show during dinnertime. We started that during the pandemic. We made it through all the seasons of The Sopranos. Then all 20 seasons of NCIS. Both seasons of NCIS: New Orleans. Now we've moved over to Fargo. We have murder with our dinner.

I like to read a lot of different things. I'm just interested in the world. I like to know what's going on. I read a lot of articles. The last book I read I truly loved all the way through was [Jessica Handler's] The Magnetic Girl.

JN: I've been reading a bunch of music books. I'd recommend The Story of the B-52s: The Neon Side of Town by Brigette A. Herron and Scott Creney. It convincingly reframes The B-52s as a band that actually matters a great deal, which might come as a surprise to people who only know them from their hits.

Musically, my job as a mastering engineer means I listen to music as work, and I enjoy my job, but when it's time for elective music, I need things that are going to turn my brain off, so I'll listen to things like Jon Hassell, especially his record with Brian Eno, Fourth World, Vol.1: Possible Musics. I just bought Pere Ubu's Dub Housing, which I've known for a long time but just own now on vinyl. It's tremendous. And Thinking Fellers Union Local 2082. Those are kind of my favorite sounds right now. That and Earth, Wind, & Fire in the car, because it makes you feel really good.

SILY: It probably makes you a better driver.

JN: Oh yeah. It keeps you alert. You're blood pressure's going. Defensive driving!

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