December 2007, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga.
I can’t say I knew about Pylon; I was never hip enough to do that. No, the first time I heard about Pylon was from a Bill Berry interview from the early 1980s, where he said one of his favorite bands was Pylon. We don’t always love the bands the bands we love love (it makes sense), but after hearing Pylon, I was smitten.
I got hold of a beaten up cassette of Gyrate and listened to it for a week straight. The music of the time was changing — college radio had filtered through and the ubiquitous top 40 was not as dominant as it once was — but nothing was like Pylon. Rhythmic, pounding, relentless. Short of Black Francis, there is no better screamer than Vanessa Briscoe Hay, who can change the dynamic of a song in an instant. Listening to Gyrate was like seeing a UFO, it was so original and new you can’t be sure it was real.
Pylon had two other albums, Chomp and Chain, but I was never in a situation where I could see the band live. And then I moved to Athens, the band’s hometown, and while a Pylon show wasn’t a common occurrence, it was a possibility. In December 2007, at the 40 Watt (which was founded by Pylon drummer Curtis Crowe), it was.
Some 25 years after first hearing about the band here they were in front of me, wearing red T-shirts with “Cool” written on the front. Vanessa, Randy, Michael and Curtis, pumping out sounds as good as I imagined.
All the songs I wanted to hear were there — “Working is Not Problem,” “Read A Book,” “Cool,” “Crazy,” “Beep,” “Volume,” “Gravity”. The band was tight, what you expect from a band playing together for nearly 30 years. When “Stop It” started the room, which was full but wasn’t packed, was moving to the beat. The song starts with Vanessa singing low before her voice explodes in sharp punctuated jabs. There’s nothing like it.
It was one of my favorite shows, one I waited a long time to see, and one that did not disappoint. I would see the band again at Athens’ Melting Point, the final Athens show before Randy died in 2009 from a heart attack. The world lost a true talent, I was just fortunate enough to see him, and his band, before he was gone.
