PHOTO BY CASEY SCOTT
Magruder presently pays a relatively low
rent for the amount of space he occupies
and says he can’t find anything even nearly
comparable downtown.
“Where can we go?” he says. “I’ve looked
at some, but the downtown rents have esca
lated so much that It’s very cost prohibitive
on being able just to pick up and move. I’m
more than willing to reach a fair settlement
once a new location has been found."
“(High rent is] a by-product of downtown
being so successful," says Art Jackson, exec
utive director of the Athens Downtown
Development Authority, a governmental
agency responsible for spurring downtown
economic development. “Rents are going up
simply because there are more businesses
wanting space than we have space avail
able."
Wuxtry Records opened at a time when
downtown Athens was a regional shopping
hub. Customers could shop at several large
department stores—Belk, J.C. Penney, and
Davison’s Cater Macy’s)—have lunch and
take in a first-run film without ever having to
move their cars. That all changed in 1981
with the opening of the 850,000-square-foot
Georgia Square Mall on Atlanta Highway. All
three department stores moved to the mall,
decimating downtown.
Many predicted that the departure of the
big stores and their patrons meant death for
downtown. Instead,
the dire situation led
to a strange brand of
urban renewal.
Athens was already
in the midst of gov
ernment-sponsored
downtown revitaliza
tion, and the city
soon financed the
refurbishment of the
block of College
Avenue from Broad
to Clayton streets
(up to Wuxtry’s
doorstep), calling it
“College Square.”
At the same time,
cheap rents and fed
erally funded low
interest loans made
it possible for
locally-owned businesses to reoccupy
vacant storefronts.
Helping downtown make its comeback
were University of Georgia students flocking
to several small music clubs. Up until then,
there wasn’t much for young and restless
students to do.
“In the past, the Last Resort (now the
location of The Last Resort Gill!) was one of
the few places to go that had live entertain
ment," recalls John Widmer, who coowns
the Encore women's apparel store on
Clayton Street with his wife, Kitty. “It was
small, kind of a coffee house atmosphere. All
this stuff used to start much earlier—the
band used to start at eight... The band
would start early, play two sets, and then
we’d go home or to someone else’s house.
We didn’t h&ve nearly the number of bars.
There’s no comparison.”
Kate Pierson of the B-52’s told Melissa
Link in a recent Flagpole interview,
“Compared to Athens nowadays, it was very
sleepy. It was a mix between the university
and a farm town.” That sense of ennui led
the B-52’s to make their own music. As
Pierson’s bandmale Fred Schneider put it,
“You really had to make your own fun/
When clubs started cropping up down
town—among them Tyrone’s O.C.,
Stitchcraft, and the 40 Watt Club—musician*
found a ready-made audience from nearby
UGA. Students could easily walk from club to
club, much as shoppers hopped from store
to store during the day. In addition to the
notable out-of-towners passing through (The
Replacements, Jason and The Scorchers,
Red Hot Chili Peppers), there was no
shortage of local bands making names for
themselves, around town and beyond By
the mid 1980s, Pylon, Flat Duo Jets and Love
Tractor were household words of the under
ground. Others, like the B-52’s—who moved
to New York in 1979, but are even now gener
ally considered an Athens band—lurked on
the fringes of mainstream stardom.
And of course, there was R.E.M. In his
1992 coffee table book, R.E.M.: Behind the
Mask, former Spin magazine editor Jim Greer
writes: “R.E.M. is, to this day, the single
biggest tourist attraction in town, and the
number one reason many students decide to
attend the University of Georgia."
In the 1987 film chronicling the Athens
music and art scene, Athens, GaInside/Out,
some of the most telliiig moments come
from interviews with local residents who
didn’t understand exactly why anyone
would be making a documentary about
Athens music. If they shot a sequel to
Inside/Out today, some still wouldn’t.
“People... tell me, ‘It amazes me when 1
go someplace and I say I’m from Athens,
Georgia, everybody asks about ihe music,
and they’re telling
me about it,’" says
Art Jackson. “So
folks traveling hear
about it, but it’s
something we don’t
all recognize here.”
Peter Buck told
Jim Greer years ago:
“It’s funny ‘cause the
city council, and all
these people, are
kind of admitting
that most of the
tourism of this town
now comes from
people coming
because of us.
because of the rock
’n’roll scene. And
they’re trying to
figure out a way to
promote it without giving away our phone
numbers." Buck, who now lives in Seattle,
recounted how fans would come to his
Athens home after getting his address from
the visitor’s center. “We had to call them ana
sort of, um, request that they stop doing
that,” he said.
Today, most members of the Athens-
Clarke County Commission “recognize the
music scene as a strong part of the economy,
though publicly there’s not a lot said,” says
Art Jackson.
According to Commissioner John Barrow,
“There are people like me who appreciate
downtown a lot more perhaps than others. I
think there are some folks who have less use
for the cultural and recreational opportuni
ties that it offers. I’m sure there are some on
the Commission who wish downtown was
like it used to be, when tney rolled up the
sidewalks at five o’clock."
There’s also the tension between daytime
businesses and the bars and clubs. Some
retailers feel they get the problems but reap
no benefits from the popularity of the bar
scene. As Commissioner Barrow explains,
“There’s a downtown that functions during
the day and one that functions during the
night. Neither one of them can get away from
the other, and there is friction between the
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