PYLON! C or D?

I haven't listened to it in a long while but I'm sure Pylon's original version of "Crazy" had more of an edge to it than REM's.

I was just glancing at an interview with Roger from Mission of Burma and he said his peers that he liked back circa '82 were Gang of 4 and Pylon.

burma played a few shows with pylon back in the day (and gang of four)

I wanna know if some great post-punk group just flew under my radar.

After Gang of Four, Mission of Burma and Pylon (whom I'd leave out, truthfully), I'd suggest THE POP GROUP, Public Image Ltd. and --- WAIT FOR IT -- early Killiing Joke (up through Revelations).

Magazine and PIL are too dull/somber/grey I'm not on that Joy Division shit. Some PIL songs I've heard are great though.

Maybe these are too obvious, but: I'd go The Embarrasment, ESG, and The Feelies - all from the US. All three of these I prefer to Pylon. I really like The Embarrasment because the world (ie me) needs nerdy midwestern post-punk.

Ah, for an Embarrassment/Pylon/Feelies/ESG reunion bill. At least I've seen the Feelies.

In "Beep," when Vanessa sings "FOUR MINUTES!", I think my sister thought she was singing "VARMINTS!".

would have to put the auteurs on that list.

pylon = classic [funny this thread should come up as i just grabbed "hits" off of ebay.]

Great stuff... ...and not nearly as "fancy" as Let's Active.

gawddammit,may is right ...i meant the au pairs.

My parents saw that tour...R.E.M. were so uninspiring and Pylon so thrilling that everyone here was talking about Pylon for the next month.

http://fairmountfair.com/flagpole/main/articles.php?fp=231
http://fairmountfair.com/flagpole/main/articles.php?fp=230

Don't rock and roll. Don't rock and roll. Don't rock and roll, nooooooo.
NOW ROCK AND ROLL NOW! NOW ROCK AND ROLL NOW! NOW ROCK AND ROLL NOW! NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!

Best comp ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_3sPmTRsFs

live 1981

thank yoouuuu

every time this thread is revived i hope it's with footage like that

haha, were bewley and lachowski toying with the idea of coordinated stage dancing during that era? (see 7:10 in for a glimpse)

How do you guys feel about the quality of the reissues? I liked them but maybe sound a bit more dense than they should? I haven't heard the originals. Feel like I should have enjoyed these albums more.

Top 3 tracks: Yoyo, Human Body, Cool.

Kinda wish there was more stuff with the sound of the Cool/Dub single.

A Tourist in the Land of Rock 'n' Roll: Vanessa Briscoe Hay

A long interview that includes a lot of details about the early history of the band

Wow, thanks

Here's my ancient review, with a little update added to the blog archive clip:

Originally published in Village Voice,Tuesday, OCTOBER 9, 2007 AT 4 A.M.

Pylon, Gyrate Plus (DFA)

"Cool" begins with a march, which Pylon's guitar propeller finely chops, letting the chips fly and fall where they may. No hurry. But nothing too laid-back, either—not in a small Southern town, where everybody who isn't dead is aware that too-easy fuh-un is as boring as everything else. So, despite not being as biz-adaptable as Athens, GA neighbors and admirers like the B-52s and R.E.M., Pylon were and are practical, in their own way. Their lyrics have been called surreal, but it's all part of the protocol, as vocalist (and registered nurse) Vanessa Briscoe often murmurs her way into a surgical strike, around which Michael Lanchowski's bass, Curtis Crowe's drums, and Randy Bewley's guitar channel a sinuous, sensuous, yet non-anesthetic groove, on Gyrate Plus: Pylon's 1980 debut album plus bonus tracks, including earlier singles ("Cool" and the equally voracious "Dub"), now opening Gyrate's first appearance on CD. They both sneak up on "Danger," which has often infiltrated DFA/LCD Soundsystem co-founder James Murphy's DJ sets. A few tracks here are too arty-mundane, which can happen when you're flying DIY through another date with "Gravity," like this brainy slam band did around the dawn of the big '80s, briefly in the '90s, and several times since '04. But, as Vanessa growls on the previously unreleased "Functionality": "There's something to be written on the air," always, and never much room for typos.

(update: Briscoe later told an interviewer that her combo's name came from the stripey road cone, not Faulkner's novel, Still, the way that his stunt-flying crew's inner tumult added to the momentum of their unified front always has appealed as a rockband description too.)

For some reason Gyrate Plus got pulled from Spotify.

Got pulled back in June from Spotify as was noted earlier in this thread. Still not there.

Pylon founder Michael Lachowski remembers the punk band's rise and fall

https://www.redandblack.com/culture/uga-employee-and-founder-of-pylon-michael-lachowski-discusses-the/article_b5c1f5e4-efd7-11e9-8ccf-3fc7ef6cc833.html?fbclid=IwAR2oZSeqh-BhSzImZLvtsrthRmEG3eEw-F6j5MSJ2l7ki64T-RQtfB2HREo

Vanessa has been working on a Pylon timeline and asks for help filling in gaps

Nice

https://vimeo.com/411617086

part of the video from the 1983 show released as Pylon Live

Haven't had time to read all of this yet, but good, brisk-not-breathless detail so far (lots of it I didn't know), also video links:
https://slate.com/culture/2020/07/pylon-band-athens-georgia-history-video-cool-town.html
Adapted from
Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture by Grace Elizabeth Hale, in stores now from the University of North Carolina Press. Yes way overselling past the colon, but may not have been her idea---got to watch those university presslords.

https://vimeo.com/411617086

part of the video from the 1983 show released as Pylon Live

― Brad C., Thursday, May 14, 2020 7:32 AM

yes, i've had too much to drink and shit has been weird, but yes, that brought me to tears by the end. jfc

I've had Cool Town on the shelf for months and am finally three chapters in. I'm struggling here and there with Hale's romanticism and nostalgia, but that reaction has more to do with my personal perspective on the early Athens scene than with the way her utopianism occasionally drifts over the top.

As history, it's excellent, meticulous on details and documentation and (judging from what I've so far) the best account yet of how the scene evolved from the B-52s to Pylon to R.E.M. I thought Lurie's Begin the Begin was exhaustive, but Hale's broader context lets her show better how skeptically R.E.M. were received by the Pylon-centric faithful and why R.E.M. became so much more successful (tl;dr Pylon didn't have the same industry connections and weren't willing to tour pizza parlors to build a regional audience).

Pylon rules.

I somehow missed news of this book. I'm pretty much a romanticist and a nostalgist when it comes to stuff like this, so count me in.

I am torn on the romantic and nostalgic approach but want to read the book to hear more about the early days of Pylon, and yes to cherish my memories of seeing them back then and playing their music on my college radio show.

Hale was in Athens in the 80s, so some of her romantic/nostalgic tone is that of a memoir ... it combines a bit oddly with the research-backed reportage, but it's earned and she maintains a careful balance between those voices

More difficult for me are some strong claims (suggested by the subtitle) about the Athens scene's unique influence, rarity, creativity, freedom, etc. ... as a cranky old townie, my first reaction to these is rmde, but she frames her arguments in ways that are making me reflect on my skepticism, so I'm enjoying that cognitive dissonance as much as the factual content

it's too close to home for me to be objective, but just based on the quality of the writing and research, I'd recommend it to anyone into Our Band Could Be Your Life and similar books

Dissatisfaction, what?
Let's take a look at that ink
B-L-O-T

I'm tired of moving my jaw
Gonna call and pa and ma
M-A, 10 points
Mamamamamamamamamamamamama, 10 points

Life is nothing
But death and taxes
And all the trees
That get the axes
A-X-E-S
Ohhhhhh, 22

You aren't the status quo
I just thought that you
Wanted to know
N-O, 8 points
Nonononononononononononono, 8 points

Let go of my sleeve
Or I'll turn you over my knee, knee
K-N-E-E
K!

The Camaro has a
D-E-N-T
Dissatisfaction
What!

is "K" about scrabble?

Y-E-S, 6 points

https://creativeloafing.com/content-161391-vanessa-briscoe-hay-s-top-5-pylon

haha, that's awesome! the whole anecdote about the making of that song is cool:

2) "K" from the album Chomp

This song that fell together by chance. The lyrics came from a scrabble game that bassist Michael Lachowski and I played together in a session where we were consciously trying to write lyrics. When we first performed this song live, it fell completely apart. We were sort of embarrassed, but our friend John Seawright came up to us after the show and was raving about that new song. We went back and listened to the tape of it and realized that it was better than what we were originally trying to do. So we spent hours dissecting that tape and learning the song the way it accidentally happened. Chris Stamey and Gene Holder from the DBs worked with us at Mitch Easter's studio to make it happen in an interesting way.

vanessa hay is a lovely person

From Rolling Reissues, re 2020 Soul Jazz comp The World of Keith Haring: "Danger" certainly held its own among stiff competition (these are the ones I liked):
3. Pylon – Danger£0.99
6. John Sex – Bump and Grind It£0.99
8. The Girls – Jeffrey I Hear You£0.99
10. Talking Heads – I Zimbra (on CD version only)
12. Class Action – Weekend (Larry Levan Mix)
13. Adiche – Chuka-Ja (Get Ready)£0.99
15. The Golden Flamingo Orchestra – The Guardian Angel Is Watching Over Us
16. Gray – Cut It Up High Priest£0.99
19. Yoko Ono – Walking On Thin Ice

That's almost half, better than I thought.

― dow, Monday, July 27, 2020 6:41 PM (five days ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAOILacn8Dw&t

Video of full show, Cleveland, 6/22/90

let's try that YouTube link again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAOILacn8Dw&t

bah, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAOILacn8Dw&t

sigh ... search YouTube for "pylon cleveland"

maybe try a different browser? Chrome won't do this any more for me, Firefox sometimes.

vinyl remasters and a comprehensive box set, out Nov. 6

https://pylon.band/

Chomp in print! Wow, that's awesome. I can't tell but it looks like the two bonus discs of rarities and unreleased stuff are only for the box set, which is kind of a bummer if so. But great that this stuff is getting out there.

i've managed to snag nice OG copies of Gyrate and Chomp, so i probably won't be picking this up. but damn, it's really cool and i hope that it makes some money for the pylon crew (i'm not sure how much the Dead Letter Office royalties provide, these days)

Thanks for the news!
Still got my ancient CDs Gyrate Plus and Chomp More, have heard Live enough times online to agree w those who say it takes quite a while to achieve liftoff (although it all sounds pretty confident: maybe they're teaching patience, loyalty)---but had not heard of the Buzz Tape, hmmmmm----among Other Options here, bandcamp pre-order for digital is $40.00, and they're already streaming 25 tracks. Looks like nothing from Chain, but I've still got the pre-recorded cassette somewhere, pretty good reunion album. Hope it'll get a nice remaster someday.
(XXpost: I was right to incl. Pylon and those others as keepers from The World of Keith Haring, but so is most of it! I should have listened again before posting.)

Love this band to pieces, but for a short-lived group with a limited discography I feel like I already own all the Pylon I need. Maybe I'll just order a new t-shirt, although my ancient 'Lefty Loosey Righty Tighty' shirt is still holding up surprisingly well.

I wish they'd do a CD version of the box, but I'm just glad to see everything back in print

*except 'Chain'

I saw elsewhere that there are 13 previously unreleased demo recordings in the box, fwiw

new interview: https://www.spin.com/2020/09/vanessa-briscoe-hay-looks-back-at-40-years-of-pylon/?utm_source=Mailing+List&utm_campaign=2edd1860c8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_09_25_02_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9d7f017887-2edd1860c8-415586925&goal=0_9d7f017887-2edd1860c8-415586925&mc_cid=2edd1860c8&mc_eid=3ce2be0c08

The Pylon box will get a CD release.

https://store.newwestrecords.com/collections/pylon/products/pylon-pylon-box-cd-box-set

$85

nice article by Gordon Lamb, in some ways better than Hall's book in its evocation of Athens c. 1980

https://bittersoutherner.com/2020/persons-places-and-things-pylons-passage-to-permanence-athens

aww, nice to see GL's name pop up here

... and a good read, too! Thanks for linking that, it filled in the details of their story a lot for me.

Thanks for sharing that - the book in the box is very good, and this is a nice story supplement!

Ha, good quotes in here:
Razz Tape also includes the first recorded versions of two iconic Pylon songs: the rushing “Cool,” marked by an urgent Briscoe Hay slogan (“Everything is cool!”), and the contorted howler “Dub.” In his review of their NYC show, O’Brien guessed that “these kids eat dub for breakfast.” In reality, the quartet had never even heard of dub, but they were happy to use O’Brien’s claim as material. “I don't know what you're talking about,” snarls Briscoe Hay before chanting, “We eat dub for breakfast!”
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/pylon-pylon-box/

47 tracks here, incl. instrumentals, work tapes, remixes: https://pylonband.bandcamp.com/album/pylon-box

Michael and Vanessa are doing a live interview right now on WNYC

thanks for the link, dow. that schitt is bought!

https://magnetmagazine.com/2023/10/27/magnet-exclusive-premiere-of-pylon-reenactment-societys-flowers-everywhere-video/

Pylon Reenactment Society new song and video. Singer Vanessa is only one who was in Pylon. Current group new album coming out in February 2024

yeah I think I'll go see them, obv never saw Pylon but this band is great. That's a fun video and decent new song.

Old guy me has seen Pylon and Pylon Reenactment Society.