Our ancestors   Most of us trace our musical origins to the Bs but past the Bs everything and I mean everything is due to The Fans Pylon and Vietnam  The Fans had records on db Danny Beard  db records  Their single True in particular is a fantastic distillation of half of what Athens would be avail on Squares Blot Out the Sun a db sampler  Vietnam was never recorded  The Fans split up with Kevin Dunn remaining about the scene as a solo act Kevin Dunn and the Tribe of Women were on db  Alfredo Villar the singer of The Fans went back to his day job    The other thing is Pylon  There just are    not     words for how important they wereare  REMs favorite band is Pylon  The Bs favorite band is Pylon  Everyones favorite band wasis Pylon  The other huge starting point is in Atlanta  The Hampton Grease Band despite being Atlantans was a kick off to the whole idea that we could be weird and successful  Although they claim that Music to Eat sold fewer albums than any in Columbia history not true as a Yoga instructional record undersold them they looked successful to us because they had integrity and played and got to pay their bills that way  In particular although that bands career was very brief Bruce Hampton never went away  Both in The Late Bronze Age and Aquarium Rescue Unit later as well as the various incarnations as Hampton B Coles and Colonel Bruce Hampton he was a magnet for musicians  Furthermore Glenn Philips who played guitar with the Grease Band when he was  years old stuck around and continued to gig  Im a stinkin expert on Athens     After that I quit my band and wandered away to academia but I was one of Them back then