Women in the Athens music scene prevail over more than guitars and drums these days – they book bands, promote charitable events, run clubs and record labels. But truly, in this day and age, it’s not as strange as it used to be even 10 years ago. We all know, by now, that women rock!
I spoke with six women about the music scene in Athens. Most of them are veterans of the scene, having worked within it for 15 years or more. One is a newcomer and making waves of her own. (Photography by Justin Evans)
The Business of Rock n’ Roll
Velena Vego and Barrie Buck – The 40 Watt Club
Vego and Buck have worked together over 15 years. Vego books the bands
for the 40 Watt Club, while Buck does the day-to-day management of the
club itself. What keeps their fervor for the business alive is the
constant change in the bands they see.
“You think it’s not going to be anything special and it turns out to be
one of the best things you’ve seen in your life,” Buck says. “When you
have a relationship with a band that returns every touring season -
they come back every year and you keep up with them – you keep up with
their career, you read about them in the rock ‘n roll magazines and
then you finally see each other once or twice a year and it’s a great
homecoming kind of feeling when your old buddies roll back into town.”
Left to Right: Kathy Kirbo, Samantha Paulsen, Velena Vego, Michelle Roche, Barrie Buck, Vanessa Briscoe-Hay
One of the things Buck gets asked about a lot regarding running a club
is if it’s lucrative. “My answer is, ‘I guess it can be,’ but I think
that I would never put myself up there in the cut throat business
person world,” she explains. “I’m just not a corporate-line, business
suit type, so that’s one aspect people want to know about. A lot of
people think it’s all glamorous and I have to tell them you’re dealing
with equipment, tender egos and artists and things that break down a
lot and also people that might’ve had too much to drink – so that’s a
pretty volatile combination to try and manage on a regular basis.”
The 40 Watt also hosts many benefits throughout the year, but the
biggest ones include the Mental Health Benefit, which has been going on
now for over 15 years and benefits the Mental Health Association of
Northeast Georgia, and the Boybutante Ball, which benefits AIDS Athens
(formerly AIDS Coalition of Northeast Georgia).
Vego alternates between booking the 40 Watt and running Pitch-a-Tent
records and managing bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker.
“I’ve had this rich music life by not having to live in New York or LA.
Most people think you have to live in a major city to do all that I’ve
accomplished in the last 20 years,” she says.
Vego also has brought on a number of students to help her with her
label chores and club duties. Since women tend to be more nurturing,
she’s found that most of her assistants have been female.
Vego spoke at the University of Georgia’s school of business for their
Music Business Certificate Program, which has hosted speakers from law
professor and R.E.M.’s manager Bertis Downs to Buck Williams, who
manages Widespread Panic.
“People romanticize the music business in general,” Vego says. “The
business side of booking is not just going and hanging out with the
band at the end of the night - it’s advancing and guarantees and
percentages and losing money and making money and bars. There’s a lot
more to it.”
Michelle Roche – Michelle Roche Media Relations
“It’s [the music industry] very male-dominated,” publicist Roche
states. “You have to - as a woman - you really have to have a thick
skin. You have to be able to play with the boys.”
Roche originally arrived in Athens in the mid-’80s to attend college.
She graduated with a degree in journalism and later discovered the
music business after working at a jazz club in Buckhead. “It was like a
light bulb went off in my head!”
Her first client as a publicist was Athens’ band Allgood and after
that, over the years, she’s as a publicist for Sky, Ichiban, Capricorn
and Restless records.
As to why most publicists are women, Roche offers a theory. “There
definitely is a relationship between the male rock critic and the
female publicist.” A flirtatious one, sometimes, but generally a more
nurturing one.
She also loves helping students learn the business from the inside/out
by offering internships. “I’ve helped nurture a lot of careers and for
the most part it’s been girls,” she says, mostly because more women
apply than men. After 16 years in the business she now operates her own
publicity company in Athens and manages Ken Will Morton, who also
happens to be her boyfriend.
Women who rock, physically!
Kathy Kirbo – Jackpot City
Kirbo learned to play four instruments before she turned eight. Now,
she sings and plays bass and guitar for Jackpot City. She’s been in
Athens since the mid-‘80s and has worked on the last two mayoral
campaigns (O’Looney and Davidson) and has arranged numerous benefits.
An activist at heart, she works from her home in Athens as Executive
Director for the Reefball Foundation, a group that helps revitalize
coral reefs around the world. She ends up traveling abroad quite a bit,
usually without her guitars.
“I’ve used my music… and friends to do benefits,” she explains. “I know
it’s important to shape your community instead of letting it shape
itself.”
Kirbo says female students will sometimes ask her about being in a band
or whether or not they should learn an instrument. “That’s kind of nice
and inspiring and makes them think that it’s not as weird for them to
play drums - so the next generation of girls will be even better
musicians,” she says.
Jackpot City is also made up of Mamie Fike Simonds, Kelly Noonan and
various drummers including Ian Werden or former Counting Crows member
Ben Mize. Their music combines elements of alt-country, crunchy guitars
and loads of harmonizing.
Vanessa Briscoe-Hay – Pylon
Vanessa Briscoe-Hay, singer of Pylon has written a very descriptive
history of the band on their website (wearepylon.com) filled with the
makings of the early new wave of the Athens music scene. And while
reading through it can send goose bumps down your spine if you’re an
Athens music history buff, she is very nonplussed by the extraordinary
adventures the band has had over its 20-year history.
“It’s not like I’ve lived the most exotic life on earth,” she says.
“There’s something about you becoming part of the music - you become
outside yourself. The music is just so great - it’s the best feeling in
the world. There’s nothing really conscious or studied about it. When
the audience comes along with you, it’s really wonderful. For me that’s
what it is. We’re all dancing together, we’re all part of the same
thing - it’s not just me - everyone there is part of it.”
Inspired, in part, by such bands as the B-52s, Briscoe Hay realized how
much fun you could have with music. She even remembers seeing Patsy
Cline and Loretta Lynn when she was 4 with her dad. Her grandmother
also influenced her. “She never made me feel like I couldn’t do it just
because I was a girl. That’s important - everyone needs someone that
can believe in them.”
Besides fronting an amazing band, she is also a registered nurse. Her
husband Bob Hay once played guitar for the popular dance band The
Squalls and currently fronts Bob Hay & the Jolly Beggars. The
couple also has two daughters. Vanessa says Athens is a great place to
raise your kids.
Pylon is also made up of Curtis Crowe, Michael Lachowski, and Randy
Bewley. They are a highly influential, arty new wave pop band with an
insistent dance beat.
Samantha Paulsen –
We Versus the Shark / Hello Sir Records
Paulsen has only been in Athens for 2 1/2 years and at 23 is the
youngest of the women I spoke with. She’s not that familiar with
Athens’ musical heritage (though she has seen the movie Athens/Georgia:
Inside, Out) and doesn’t want to mix politics with her band.
“I don’t want to associate politics with music,” she explains. “I see
them as two very separate things. They’re more associated a while ago…
but now it seems that people want to keep politics to themselves and
not as much with the music. That’s how the Sharks are.”
To survive beyond the music she works in a coffee shop and tends bar.
But she’s hoping that the music and the label will become her solid
jobs. “Our goal as a band and as a label is to hopefully quit our day
jobs and just do music full time.”
The label Hello Sir was started with friends in the band Cinemechanica.
“It’s nice to have your own label and not give that control to someone
else,” she says. “Our album was on the CMJ charts and it was our first
album. When we tour we have good crowds and that’s pretty incredible to
have that at this point.” The label even had their own showcase at this
years’ SXSW (South by Southwest) Music Conference in Austin, Texas.
Her band, We Versus the Shark, plays what some call “math rock,”
precise, direct, hard-driving rhythms over a cacophony of guitars. Like
so many other young musicians, she and her band have completely
embraced the internet and do a lot of mail order business through it.
She probably sums up what younger musicians in Athens feel. “Right now
I just feel like I’m a musician in a band, that I’m not doing anything
particularly active. I’ve been supportive of the music scene, but I
don’t know if I’ve done anything to evolve it. I just want to play
music and have people hear my music.”
Overall, all these women are shaping the Athens music scene by
nurturing it and expanding upon it. Each, in their own way, will ensure
its survival for many years to come when one day they’ll be sure to
pass the proverbial microphone on to well-trained and passionate music
lovers like themselves.
Get out and see local bands! “I think everyone doesn’t realize how
fortunate we are to get the caliber of bands that live here and tour
here and sometime people feel that, ‘oh, this is always going to be
like that,’” says Barrie Buck, 40 Watt Club owner.
(This story originally ran in Athena magazine, Athens, GA in their Spring '06 issue).
Women in the Athens music scene prevail over more than guitars and drums these days – they book bands, promote charitable events, run clubs and record labels. But truly, in this day and age, it’s not as strange as it used to be even 10 years ago. We all know, by now, that women rock!
