One of the R.E.M. posters on the wall at Weaver D's Delicious Fine Foods in Athens, Ga. The same poster hung in my bedroom when I was in high school.
I wrote this piece in January 2009, right after my first visit to Athens, Ga., a place that has long been marked with a bright star on my personal map of the world. Athens, of course, is the birthplace of one of the bands that first lured me left of the dial: R.E.M. Today, the group – one of just a handful of rock bands that truly deserve to be called seminal – ended its 31-year run.
I would like to note that, on my second trip to Athens, later in 2009, I finally got a chance to see Michael Stipe in person, when he made a quick stop at the local lunch spot where my friends and I were eating cold sesame noodles. To say I was thrilled is an immense understatement.
Each year, scores of people make pilgrimages to Graceland, the opulent Memphis estate owned by the late Elvis Presley. To those devoted fans, Elvis’ house is the true home of rock ’n’ roll.
Although I consider “That’s Alright Mama” to be one of the finest songs ever recorded, I’ve never felt the pull of Graceland. I prefer to remember Presley in his pre-mansion days, when he was all hunger and dangerous edges.
Like the Graceland faithful, however, I do tend to make my travel plans with my favorite musicians in mind. There’s not a monument or museum in the world that I find as enticing as the opportunity to peruse the same record store or hang out in the same club preferred by my idols. In fact, if I could conjure the ideal job for myself, I’d want to be a rock ’n’ roll tour guide.
My yen to walk the same ground as my musical heroes — most of whom do not possess Elvis’ household-name status — has sent me scrambling to unlikely tourist spots all over the country.
I’ve scanned miles of Minneapolis skyline searching for the scummy water tower that Paul Westerberg exalts in the Replacements song “Can’t Hardly Wait.” I’ve sped along Needmore Road in Dayton, Ohio, in homage of Robert Pollard’s shambling genius. I’ve even gotten to see the back side of Cleveland through the eyes of Cobra Verde’s John Petkovic on a tour led by the inimitable frontman himself.
I kicked off my 2009 expeditions with a jaunt to a place I’ve always wanted to visit, the city that spawned one of the bands that first ushered me into the cult of rock ’n’ roll: Athens, Ga. Most people know this Southern town as the site of the University of Georgia, but to me it’s the stomping grounds of R.E.M.
Until this trip, I’d never been to Georgia. I already knew exactly what Athens must look like, however, thanks to the murky cover of R.E.M.’s first album, “Murmur,” and the band’s sound redolent of the enigmatic landscape.
Even in the cold days of January, Athens gratified me by offering up the contrast of jangly sunlight and lush decay I’d envisioned so many times while listening to R.E.M. records.
My friends Amber and Marc, a fellow R.E.M. devotee, moved to Athens just a few months before my visit. But they’d already cased all the must-see spots on the map of the city’s musical heritage. (Athens also gave birth to the B-52s and one of the all-time-best new wave groups, Pylon).
We took a peek at the legendary 40 Watt Club, ground zero for the Athens music scene. We devoured a New Year’s Eve feast at Grit, a vegetarian joint favored by R.E.M.’s singer, Michael Stipe. And I’m not ashamed to admit that we rolled past Stipe’s home, a modest wooden structure distinguished only by the thicket of bamboo growing across the front lawn, not once but twice.
The sightseeing trip I enjoyed the most, though, was the afternoon we drove over to Weaver D’s Delicious Fine Foods. The restaurant was closed, but I took a few snapshots of the sign, which features the slogan R.E.M. borrowed for the title of one of its best albums, “Automatic for the People.” Peering into the windows, I squealed like, well, a teenager when I spotted the same R.E.M. poster that hung on my wall when I was in high school.
The site of Weaver D’s once boasted another choice morsel of R.E.M. lore, a big metal star that hung on the building and was photographed for the cover of “Automatic for the People.” Long before I got to Athens, however, someone stole the star.
Now that’s taking fandom a bit too far. I can understand the desire to own such a cool objet d’art. In stealing the star, though, that unknown thief swiped a chunk of rock ’n’ roll history. It’s those everyday artifacts, which inspired the musicians I admire the most, that I’m willing to travel any distance to see for myself.
Eleven years ago, Easter Sunday fell on a March 31. I remember that date distinctly, because that was the night I came closer to dying than, even now, I want to admit to myself. The brutal attack I survived that night forever cleaved my life into Before and After. I thought this would be the year that I could finally write about it, but I was wrong.
exile from guyville 