Sites and Sounds of Athens, GA

One of the stops on our vacation last week was the lovely college town of Athens, Georgia, the home of the University of Georgia as well as the home base for the band R.E.M. Now anyone that knows me knows I'm a big music fan, and a lot of what I listen to these days was heavily influenced by R.E.M. I'm still a big fan and wanted to take a trip to Athens at some point to see some of the sites of interest to those of us who are complete music geeks. Therefore, if you couldn't give a rip about music or R.E.M., you can safely skip this post. Otherwise, read on...

First off, I'd like to thank Flagpole Magazine and its Athens Music History Walking Tour for info on many of these sites, as well as the similarly named walking tour provided by the Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau. Please note that you should be able to click on any of these pictures for a closer view.

We began our little Athens voyage at the former St. Mary's Episcopal Church. This is the church where members of R.E.M. lived and practiced early on. They played their first show here on April 5, 1980. Since then, the church itself has been torn down, but the steeple remains. It's sort of an R.E.M. shrine at this point. Here's a picture of the building before it was torn down, along with a pic of its current state.



R.E.M. still runs its operations primarily out of Athens. Their offices are currently located in the second floor of the building shown here, above the cookie shop.



Erin has joked ever since our Athens visit that we took "more pictures of sites that used to be "The 40 Watt." "The 40 Watt" is a music venue in Athens that has been in, I believe, five locations since the early 1980's. Peter Buck of R.E.M. has had some ownership in the locations over the years, and it's still considered to be one of the best music venues in the eastern portion of the U.S. I got pictures of four of the locations, but forgot to snag the fifth. The original location was opened in 1979 in the space directly above what is now "The Grill."



The second location opened in 1980 above what is now Starbucks.



The third (and fifth!) location from 1982-1984 was in the space shown on the left here, which is now the Caledonia Lounge. In the late 1970's, it was known briefly as the 11:11 Club, where R.E.M. played their first club show on April 19, 1980. The show was infamously stopped by a police raid due to the lack of a liquor license. Charming, eh? The building is adjacent to a building which was previously restored by R.E.M. and housed the fanclub offices and rehearsal space for a number of years (I wore a T-shirt in high school featuring a picture of this building). I warned you that this would be geeky:



And finally, the current 40 Watt which also houses a lovely tattoo parlor. This location opened in 1990 and is still very active today.



Wuxtry Records was where Pete Buck worked in the late 1970's and apparently met Michael Stipe. It's still a cool little music store.



The Georgia Theater is another current music venue in Athens. It was open from 1978-1981, then closed, then reopened in 1989. Lots of bands have played here, and R.E.M. filmed part of the somewhat atrocious "Shiny Happy People" video here.



This is the home of the Geogia Bar which opened in 1986. The bar forms part of what locals refer to as the "Barmuda Triangle" with a couple of other bars on the adjacent corners. R.E.M. still claims this as their favorite Athens bar.



The space now housing The Grit used to be a club called the Coffee Club in the late 1970's. The building also housed Micheal Stipe's film company, C-00, upstairs, and I believe Stipe was responsible for restoring the building.



This is the John Keane Studios where R.E.M. has frequently recorded. Wilco and various other relatively large acts have also recorded there.



This is Weaver D's, whose slogan was used as the title for R.E.M.'s "Automatic For the People" album. The food here was tremendous and was partially responsible for my meltdown on the second night of our trip.



This is what is affectionately referred to as "The Trestle" by R.E.M. fans. It was featured on the back of their debut album, "Murmur", and a campaign to save it from demolition has been going back and forth for the past few years.



Philomath appears somewhat prominently in R.E.M.'s 1985 single, "Can't Get There From Here." The song couldn't have been more accurate, but it was on the way to Hilton Head, so...



Well that wraps up my rather lengthy picture tour of Athens/R.E.M. sites. I'm sure I'll endure endless abuse from my family and friends for the obsessiveness contained within.

Cheers,
Bret