“On December 1,1983 Pylon and Love Tractor played what we thought would be Pylon’s final show,” Vanessa Briscoe Hay, singer of Athens, GA post-punk greats Pylon, tells us in regards to video we’re premiering today. “Pylon were keeping a pact we had made at the outset of the band—to quit while we were still having fun. The concert was documented and packaged by local filmmakers The Aguar Brothers with funding from a local group of businessmen for a public TV pilot not unlike the fairly new at the time Austin City Limits. Athens Shows premiered locally in February of 1984 and quietly disappeared.”
Vanessa continues: “Years later the audio reappeared on the 2016 album ‘Pylon Live’ put out by Chunklet’s Henry Owings. Owings showed an unrestored version of this video at the release shows for that album in Atlanta and Athens. While working on the video “Flowers Everywhere” by my current band Pylon Reenactment Society, I reconnected with director Dan Aguar. Dan broached the subject of restoring The Athens Shows — if we could find it. I knew the 40th Anniversary for this show was coming up, so I contacted the parties involved in the 2016 transfer and, long story short, the video had been left behind at an Atlanta company who had gone under during the pandemic. It was retrieved by our friend Tom Branch and per Dan’s direction taken to another company in Atlanta who specialize in film restoration for entities like Turner Classic Movies. Aguar worked remotely with them on restoring the video. The audio mix was retrieved from Derek Almstead who had worked on ‘Pylon Live’ and then mastered by Jason NeSmith. My hope of having the full video ready in time for our 40th Anniversary obviously hasn’t worked out and it is still not finished. Dan will be going to Vietnam soon to work on a documentary about activist Chuck Searcy. Further work on finishing the restoration will have to wait until he comes back in March. In the meantime,we would like to offer this portion of the video as a holiday present to you all — ‘Beep.’”
“Beep,” of course, is one of Pylon’s classic singles (their last of their original run) and they sound great here — and the video looks (and sounds) great as well. Watch below and look out for the whole restored show next year.
These days, Vanessa leads The Pylon Reenactment Society, who will release their new album Magnet Factory on February 9 via Strolling Bones. They have a few 2024 shows lined up and those are listed below.
The Pylon Reenactment Society – 2024 Tour Dates
Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024 – San Francisco – The Great American Music Hall with Kelley Stoltz
Friday, Jan. 26, 2024 – Ojai, CA – Ojai Deer Lodge
Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024 – Los Angeles – The Moroccan Lounge
March 2024 – Austin – SXSW
