Grace Elizabeth Hale, "Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture" (UNC Press, 2020)

UNC Press Presents Podcast · Jul 3, 2020 · 1h 20m

In Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture (University of North Carolina Press), Grace Elizabeth Hale tells the epic story of the Athens, Georgia music scene.

Hale explains how a small college town hard to get to even from Atlanta gave rise to dozens of great bands. Some of them are household names like R.E.M. and The B-52’s, but perhaps more interesting is the great music you might not know: the jittery dance-punk of Pylon, or the anguished, poetic songwriting of Vic Chesnutt.

Hale also explores how these bands negotiated questions of race…