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and Athens Popfest founder Mike Turner
specializes in taut indie and post-punk
gems; and Nate Mitchell, who fronts Nate
and the Nightmares and DJs as Nate From
Wuxtry, has an ear for classic garage-rock,
soul and R&B. Bins feature a selection of
employee recommendations, guiding cus
tomers towards albums they may not ever
encounter otherwise.
The clerks themselves have also been cre
atively enriched. In 1998, Wall hired Brian
Burton, a UGA student, WUOG staffer and
aspiring club DJ. Burton, now better known
as the Grammy-winning musician and
producer Danger Mouse, had been toiling
unhappily at a mall Sam Goody and wanted
to make the jump to the big leagues.
“I used to go into Wuxtry a lot,” says
Burton. “I was in there one day, talking to
Dan about why they didn’t have any hip
hop records. He said, ‘Well, I don’t know
which hip hop records to buy.’ I said, ‘Maybe
I could help you with that...’ I kinda talked
my way into [the job].”
Burton’s Wuxtry experience was forma
tive. He credits Fernandes in particular for
turning him on to a style of music that has
informed his work with groups like Gnarls
Barkley, the Black Keys and Broken Bells. “I
got really into psychedelic rock stuff right
around then, based on John giving me a lot
of music,” Burton says.
Another former Wuxtry employee,
Manfred Jones of garage-rockers The
Woggles—that band
will play the store’s
40th birthday party
Saturday—says his time
working there was like
wise integral to his musi
cal growth.
“The ancillary threads
to the Wuxtry web include its social func
tions—allowing like-minded music souls a
place to commune,” says Jones. “That dis
course provides the foundation and inspira
tion for continued musical adventure.”
It’s not only insiders who have been
inspired. With its reputation as a pillar of
Athens music, Wuxtry has also acted as a
magnet for new locals and out-of-towners
curious about the scene, as well as various
visiting musicians, some of whom have left
their own mark on the store.
“Robyn Hitchcock came to town one
time,” Jones recalls. “We had a poster on
the glass door facing out, so you could read
it as you came in the store. We asked him
if he would sign the poster. He said he’d
love to, took a Sharpie, walked over to the
glass door and signed the glass. He handed
back the Sharpie, and with a twinkle and a
‘cheers,’ bade us goodbye.”
Forever Changes
Wuxtry’s 40-year existence is especially
remarkable considering how much down
town Athens has changed since 1976. As
big-budget development has come to the
city’s university-adjacent core, many busi
nesses have either closed or decamped to
neighborhoods like Normaltown or the
Eastside.
Wall reflects on all he’s witnessed with
quiet amazement. “When we first moved
to town, there were still chickens and goats
running around on the street downtown,”
he says with a puckish grin. “It was a differ
ent town and a different time.”
Brown, whose book chronicles a down
town Athens teeming with creative life
and light, says the transformation that has
occurred is more than simply a physical one.
“What the intensity of development has
done... is limit those empty spaces—both
physical and imaginary—where people
could just make stuff up without being
aware of the fact that they’re in ‘Athens,’”
says Brown. “Consider that in Party Out of
Bounds, I write about how dramatically dif
ferent the town was in 1984 compared to
1980. You can only imagine how much addi
tional change has taken place.”
Equally troubling is the apparent rise in
the number of UGA students—who make
up nearly a third of Athens’ population—
who are unappreciative or, more likely,
unaware of the city’s cultural history. A
recent Red & Black op-ed that straight-
facedly praised the convenience of chain
stores and dismissed locally owned busi
nesses as irrelevant drew ire and conster
nation from townies already sweating the
corporatization of their beloved burg.
But Wall, who is surprisingly calm about
such matters, isn’t worried about a shift in
students’ attitudes. “It can’t be a good thing
that kids are interested in the franchises
only,” he admits. “But one would hope that
after a year or two in town, they wake up
and get around some hip friends and things
change for them. I’ve seen that happen.”
The homogenization of downtown does
bother Wall, and he scoffs at the lack of inti
macy and care exhibited by competitors like
Urban Outfitters, which
opened last year on the
same downtown block
as Wuxtry and features
a few racks of unimagi
natively curated vinyl,
as well as cheapo record
players and other acces
sories. Nonetheless, Wall thinks Athens will
always be a center of creativity.
“Over the years, I get asked that ques
tion: ‘Is the scene over? Have we had our
golden age?’ And my answer has always
been, absolutely not,” he says. “We get
new energy and new creative people all the
time... There’s no question it’s continued
on, and it’s as good as it’s ever been. I don’t
know about downtown, but Athens will
always be a music town. There are too many
people who have made it their life.”
Of course, there is a bigger picture to
consider. Even as he celebrates this mile
stone, Wall is unsure about the state of his
industry. He expects the widely acknowl
edged vinyl bubble to burst as we move
closer and closer to all-digital everything,
joking that “as times get more and more
modern, we will find that fossils made of oil
derivatives are not going to be the format
people use.”
But Wuxtry has weathered storms in the
past, and its owner isn’t overly concerned
about the future.
“I’m not one of those that believes
[physical media] is here forever. In 20 years,
we’ll all be walking around with something
implanted in our heads that picks up musi
cal signals from Mars,” Wall says. “But if
vinyl goes out of style and everything’s dig
ital—then we’re an antique store. And we’ll
still be around for a few more years.” O
WHAT: Wuxtry’s 40th Birthday Party
WHERE: Little Kings Shuffle Club
WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 24,7 p.m.
HOW MUCH: FREE!
Athens will always be
a music town. There
are too many people who
have made it their life.
NORTHEAST
GEORGIA’S
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SEPTEMBER 21, 2016 • FLAGPOLE.COM 15