Presenting: Pylon's own Vanessa Briscoe Hay! Georgia's own New Wave goddess, gives Punk Globe the scoop on life in Athens, and hanging out with all of the coolest people! It is great to stroll down memory lane, to a time of innocence, care free, living life, and having fun!


Plyon was formed during the magical time that graced Athens in the late 70's, tell us some of your fondest memories from those days?

After graduating from the University of Georgia art school in 1978, I hung around Athens ,GA waiting for my husband at that time -Jimmy Ellison (The Side Effects) -to complete his degree. I had a part-time job at Dupont and another part-time job working for J.C. Penney. There were not many music clubs in town at this point, mostly college beer bars, but the parties when they happened were really, really good. My best friend Rhonda Fleming and I took advantage of the happy hour at the Georgia Hotel on Friday afternoons and used it as an excuse to play dress up. We danced together a lot and invented a dance called "Time For Fashion" which involved doing little performance pieces like painting each other's toenails on the dance floor or looking at our watches and freezing in various poses. We were also back up singers (WUOGETTES) along with our friend Penny for a one off group called theWUOGERZ backing up Spencer Thornton at a birthday party for the student station WUOG in October, 1979. The drummer was Bill Berry and the dancer was Kathleen O'Brien. The K.O. at whose birthday party several years later, R.E.M. had their first performance.

Life in Athens at this point was idyllic. Cheap rent, art, keg parties, sprinklers thrift store clothes, vinyl records all collided to make something new and different. The B-52's were starting to make it really big. They were like nobody else, and they came from Athens, GA of all places. We drove into Atlanta to see the B's and bands like Elvis Costello, the Ramones and Blondie perform. We dropped by Chapter Three Records to see what new releases were out by bands like Wire, Devo, the Talking Heads, etc. We ate at the Eldorado (a vegetarian restaurant) when we could afford it. It was a fun time to be young, Bob Croker, a painting instructor at UGA had a party for his 40th birthday which lasted 24 hours called the 24 Hour Party. People were passed over each others heads on the support of the dancer's hands while listening to Devo and such. Michael Lachowski started a "gang" called the Scrapes at this party. The purpose of the Scrapes was to scrape off old posters downtown on vacated buildings. The initiation consisted of having your arm scraped with a pinecone and having mecurachrome poured onto to the scrape and then a band-aid haphazardly plastered on. This went on well into the evening until Michael himself was initiated and realized it was a painful experience. The Scrapes actually did get together and scrape off two large windows downtown. We applied a small label in the corner of each window after we were done that said "cleaned by the Scrapes."

Did you feel a special bond with the girls from the B52's, and do you stay in touch?

I was a very early fan of theirs and they were tremendous supporters of Pylon right from the beginning. Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson got us our first booking in NYC. They are great, fun people. We do stay in touch, even though they no longer live in Athens.


Was there really a semi-rivalary between Atlanta and Athens bands? I don't remember one, and I was around back in the day.

I don't remember any rivalry. I used to go to Atlanta all the time. DB Recs is based in Atlanta and I was fortunate to meet and become friends with a lot of Atlanta musicians like Kevin Dunn, the Swimming Pool Cues, the Brains and with people like Danny Beard (DB Recs) Margaret Adams (super music fan) and Debbie Heidel. (Useless Knowledge magazine). Some of our biggest supporters were based in Atlanta.

You were able to tour with some of rocks greatest artists. Which ones made you the most nervous, and why?

I can't think of anyone who made me nervous. It seemed that the bigger the star or more talented they were, the more gracious they were. The audience or size of the venues or their location within the city could a bit threatening sometimes. There was no true indie circuit at that point. You might perform for 5 people one night and 2000 the next. The biggest audience we ever performed for, was opening for the B-52s in Central Park. Hundreds of thousands of people were there. The trees were covered with B's fans. I was so tired from driving straight there from Athens, I wasn't scared. I should have been, but I wasn't.

Our first year or so, we spent a lot of time sleeping on floors. During this time, one night after a show in Boston, we slept on a squatter's floor (who happened to be our sound man) in the "combat zone." That was a very rough neighborhood complete with rats, strip clubs and hookers. We sometimes moved through neighborhoods like this late at night, carrying all of our cash and equipment. It was usual for us to carry everything into our room and sleep with our equipment. We stuck together. Safety in numbers.


Pylon is considered one of the founding bands of the New Wave Sound, how does it feel to have left such a fantastic mark on music history?

I feel very lucky to have gotten to do what I did at that time. I became friends with some remarkable people. Some friendships continue to this day. I am glad that there are recordings, though we always felt our live performances were better than the recordings. Pylon fans are the nice and pretty interesting people.

Was it hard being a woman in the music industry surrounded by mostly men, and did you find yourself playing the motherly role in the band?

It could be hard sometimes. Mostly it was a lot of fun. We were more like siblings and took care of each other in our own way. Michael Lachowski, our bassist, handled most of the business on the road. Back then, that involved a rolodex and invoked a lot of calls from phone booths to advance the show while out on the road. Those were the pre-cell phone and pre-MTV days. All business decisions were made as a group. We used maps which Michael would order from AAA. The guys all shared driving. Randy Bewley, our guitarist,was the best driver and would take over when parking a van with a trailer became necessary in the city. Our drummer Curtis Crowe could build and repair almost anything. They kept an eye out for me and just let me do my thing. On the road, I did some fine tuning of lyrics and listened to a lot of cassettes and kept the late night driver company and awake -and looked up directions when necessary. They were cool guys and I am glad I got to spend time with them and hear their thoughts and stories.


How did you come up with your image? Pylon grew out of the Athens, GA UGA art department. We were all students there. We were looking for a word which had a direct visual image associated with it which could translate into our image and logo. One of the other ideas we had was the word diagonal. diagonal did perform once as a instrumental band the first time Pylon performed. Our bassist, Michael Lachowski chose our typeface -microgramma bold extended -and most of his graphics were minimalist and very clean. He is responsible for the look of Pylon.


What brings you the most joy these days?

Spending time with my family and close friends. In the last year, I have been to Douglasville a few times to see my old friend Edna Lori and to Atlanta to a few events. My girls are in their 20's. One is in college and works part time and one works full time for a screen printer. My husband Bob Hay still occasionally performs with Bob Hay & the Jolly Beggars or the Squalls. I am on hiatus from performing or recording right now. I had fun with a recording project called Supercluster for a few years. I am looking forward to soon retiring from my job as an RN. Maybe I'll make some more music. It is enjoyable to be part of a group and write songs.


Do you have any advice to share with the younger generation concerning the music business?

1. Don't sign your publishing away if you are at all serious about your music. 2. Have fun.