Pylon Reenactment Society / Kelley Stoltz

On sale Sunday, 11/19 at 10am!

$33 ADV | $39 DOOR

Doors 7pm | Show 8pm

PYLON REENACTMENT SOCIETY

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Much more than a tribute band, PRS have written new songs with Pylon as their guiding star. PRS have delighted old Pylon fans while making new ones. PRS features original Pylon vocalist Vanessa Briscoe Hay, guitarist Jason NeSmith, bassist Kay Stanton and drummer Gregory Sanders.

PRS was formed in 2014 to play a few Pylon songs for a one-off show as part of an arts retrospective exhibit named Art Rocks Athens - appropriate as the members of Pylon were all art majors at UGA. Vanessa decided to call the project Pylon Reenactment Society - an inside joke among the original band when they were relearning their material in the early 2000s. The Art Rocks show was enthusiastically received. Encouraged, and with the surviving Pylon members’ blessings, Pylon Reenactment Society became a real band.

Shows with Fred Schneider, Dressy Bessy, 75 Dollar Bill, and KAG of Priests soon followed. Requests for shows around the country and overseas began to flood in. What had started as a one-off project, has now wowed both long-time fans who thought they would never get to see this music performed live again as well as younger fans who have just discovered Pylon. The positive feedback provided impetus to keep moving forward and to write fresh material in the spirit of Pylon.

Since 2015 the band has released a 12” EP, a 7” single, a Bandcamp single, and three music videos. They are currently in the process of recording their first full length album. Festival and concert series appearances include Part Time Punks, Savannah Stopover, Sarasota Film Fest, U+N Fest, Barely Human Fest, Irrelevant Festival, Athens Popfest, Westobou, and Primavera Sound 19. A live concert was filmed in January 2019 for "Athens, GA/Inside-Out 2: Red Turns Into Blue" - a new documentary co-directed by Bill Cody and Tony Brazier, now available on DVD, streaming services and theater screenings.

KELLEY STOLTZ

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"The Stylist", Kelley Stoltz's 17th album finds him following up the Third Man Records reissue of his 2001 "Antique Glow", with a collection of 10 new songs. The album was recorded early in 2021, and has been languishing in the vinyl pressing log jam ever since - but luckily Stoltz writes timeless songs, the kind that might've appeared on the fringes of the late 60's or mid 80's.

Acoustic guitars, synthesizers, drum machines and strong melodies abound. As with his other classic records "Below the Branches", "Double Exposure" and "Ah! (etc)" Stoltz plays most of the instruments himself and records in his home studio in San Francisco. Kelley says, "I chose the title 'the Stylist' because musically I guess that's what I am… because of the way I write, at my leisure over a period of months at home, I kinda flit around between styles. It's all in the pop-rock vein, but there's usually a wide range of sounds and inspiration from song to song. It sort of fits together in a mix tape kind of way, rather than an exploration of one particular mood. That's always been the case with my albums."

The chorus-y guitar jangle of "Your Name Escapes Me" somehow name checks the New Bomb Turks, while reflecting on familiar if forgotten faces from Stoltz's past. On "My Island" insistent piano and saxophone solos take the listener on a tropical trip to the soft rock radio dial. Stoltz played rhythm guitar in Echo & the Bunnymen for a few years, and "We Grew So Far Apart" clangs like a lost Liverpool 80's classic. Stoltz says, "There's a touch more piano on this record... going back to my Sub Pop days, when I was writing more Beatle-y bits... Harry Nilsson... that kind of thing." Indeed, the piano led "It's a Cold World" plays like a holy union of Todd Rundgren and the Zombies where Stoltz declares, "it's a cold world at times, but I'm not ready to give up the fight."

Thankfully, after 23 years the beat goes on... and no matter what style Stoltz chooses, "The Stylist" is another platter of tuneful delight in the impressive catalog of one of the great songwriters of our time.