Left to right: Michael Lachowski, Curtis Crowe, Vanessa Hay, Randy Bewley; photo courtesy of Pylon

Jordan Stepp, a/k/a Athens Music Junkie, is reporting via Twitter that Pylon guitarist Randy Bewley died shortly before 5pm today. (Now confirmed here.) Bewley had a heart attack while driving Monday in Georgia--his car drifted off the road and tipped over--and was rushed to the ICU, where "his family and bandmates were there by his side." Last December, Rob Trucks interviewed both Bewley and bandmate Michael Lachowski via video chat. "We're kind of back to where we started," Bewley told Trucks about Pylon's most recent reunion. "The first time it was for us. The second time it was kind of driven by external forces. Third time, just because we want to do it." This is very sad.

Pylon, "Cool" (MP3)

Pylon headlines WNYU 35th Anniversary Celebration's at the Knitting Factory this Monday, December 15. Tickets are available here.

Left to right: Michael Lachowski, Curtis Crowe, Vanessa Hay, Randy Bewley
photo courtesy of Pylon

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Pylon, "Cool" (MP3)

In the beginning there were the B-52's, Pylon and R.E.M. (in that order). And soon after Athens, Georgia, a once proverbially sleepy college town where bars closed at midnight, momentarily became the home of more bands per capita than any place in America.

All four Pylon members--drummer Curtis Crowe, lead singer Vanessa Briscoe (now Briscoe Hay), bassist Michael Lachowski and guitarist Randy Bewley--still live there, playing in their third incarnation (seemingly final breakups in 1983 and 2001 didn't quite take) of one of indie-rock's most important collectives.

Before just their sixth and final show of 2008, a headlining slot at Monday's celebration of WNYU's 35th anniversary at the Knitting Factory, we settled into a long winter's history lesson with co-founders Lachowski and Bewley via video iChat, the band's very first interview with the new technology (as well as ours), which began with Lachowski creating a backdrop of clouds, and then polka dots, for our viewing pleasure. --Rob Trucks

photos by Karan Rinaldo

Pylon
Mercury Lounge
November 7

Pylon frontlady Vanessa Briscoe Hay has a nonchalant hostility found only in substitute teachers and unsung post-punk vocalists. She’s standing up there all polite and demure, quietly absorbing the adoring whoops of the jovial fortysomethings that comprise her sold-out Mercury Lounge crowd, whistle hanging around her neck, as though she just finished refereeing a JV basketball game. And suddenly she starts screeching, a violent, amelodic, oddly appealing rasp, shifting between declarative statements (“We eat dub for breakfaaaaast! We eat dub for breakFAAAAAST!”) and polite suggestions (“Read a book!”). Occasionally she indulges in some goofy, hair-tossing air-guitar windmills or pogoes about the stage for a spell, but she’s most effective when immobile, casual, a little spaced-out, lulling you into a false sense of security, and then, GAHHHWRHHRHHHW, she’s snarling like a feral cat with a gym sock stuck on its head.

Tight Athens, Georgia, bros from way back when, Pylon are routinely praised for playing essentially the same role oh, say, Mudhoney played in Seattle—totally raw scene originators beloved by sister bands way way way more slick and poppy and famous. Gyrate Plus, a value-added first-time-on-CD reprise of their 1980 debut album (out now on DFA, but of course), basically sounds like the “There go the stingrays! (Whoop whoop whoop whoop!)” section of “Rock Lobster” stretched out for an hour or so, and its easy to trace the stern, stiff, gnarly riffs straight from R.E.M. to Sleater-Kinney. What those bands added to this racket is obvious: Vanessa is a far better frontwoman than a singer, but she knows what the role requires, when to bare her fangs and when to smile like she means it. “Feast on My Heart” hits hardest this evening, the surly hook burying itself a little deeper than usual, the bass and drums grumping about in impeccably militant lockstep, the fortysomething masses shaking their cosmic things with Awkward White Folks abandon. And Vanessa looms over it all, an atypical girl with both hands on the bad one. Like Chuck Norris, she doesn’t sleep. She waits.

Pylon plays the Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight, November 8