In Conversation: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music

Bill Teck is a director and producer based in Miami. He recently directed the documentary One Day Since Yesterday: Peter Bogdanovich & The Lost American Film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, was nominated for Best Documentary. As Producer/Exec Producer or Director Teck is responsible for the television programs for PBS and USA Broadcasting such as OutLoud, generation ñ, LIVE!, A Peña Family Album: The Best of Que Pasa USA, Content Miami, New Florida, Nuestra Risa and ñ Life with Melissa Hernandez. He’s the co-writer of the humor book, The Official Spanglish Dictionary: Un Users Guía to more than 300 words and phrases that aren’t exactly Español or Inglés ( Simon & Schuster Fireside Press) and his writing has appeared in Latina, The New York Press, Street Magazine, Rock & Rap Confidential and The Miami Herald

Grace Elizabeth Hale is a Professor for History and American Studies in the University of Virginia and the author of Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940, and A Nation of Outsiders. She has also contributed articles and essays to publications, including Southern Exposure, Southern Cultures, Labor History, Georgia Historical Quarterly, and Atlanta History. The conquest of the New York underground by the B-52’s in the summer of 1978 and the band’s later success in the music sales charts called attention to the southern college town of Athens, Georgia. Soon, more Athens bands followed, leading what came to be known as alternative, including R.E.M. In Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture (University of North Carolina Press) history professor Grace Elizabeth Hale, who experienced the Athens scene in the 80s as a student, small-business owner, and band member, offers the inside story of an unexpected mecca of music, experimental art, DIY spirit, and progressive politics. The New York Time Book Review noted that “…with this meticulously reported microhistory, Hale, who once played in a band and ran an underground club in Athens, delivers more than a love song to the music. Cool Town also serves up a textured portrait of a generation caught between baby and tech booms, wriggling under the thumb of the mainstream.”