It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 186 Pylon Reenactment Society - Magnet Factory

 

Whn I first discovered R.E.M. in 1983 I was so overcome by the discovery and everything about the band  that I did everything they told me to in their music paper interviews, This meant chasing down every single band that  they raved about, Because if R.E.M. rated them they just had to be great.

So I bought records by Let's Active, True West, Replacements and dB's and loved them all..Most of all I craved records by fellow Athens, Georgia scenesters Pylon, who R.E,M. drummer Bill Berry insisted were the best band in the world. 

In Pylon's case it wasn't by any means easy. Their records were not released on UK shores at the time and so were unavailable to me, I was not detterred. In 1987 when my dearest girlfriend from university went to the US on a BUNAC summer course experience I gave her a little kiss and asked her to return with a Pylon record, In retrospect it feels like a moment from Beauty & The Beast.

Loving me as I loved her she returned a couple of months later. with a copy of Gyrate Pylon's debut. I played the record ragged. Pylon were clearly every bit as wonderful as R.E.M. said they were. I've loved them ever since.

In 1992 I went to New York City for the first time to see my brother Michael.  Typically for Michael this entailed living and working out of a fabulous brownstone building in Greenwich Village. He never did and still never does anything by halves.

I used the opportunity to get myself a copy of Pylon's fabulous sophomore album Chomp. I've played Gyrate and Chomp regularly ever since.

Now Pylon are back. Or at least  Vanessa Briscoe Hay their singer is, With Pylon Reenactment Society an offshoot band and a new record Magnet Factory.

Typically ir's every bit as magical, kinetic, danceable and lovable as her first band and their records and performances were,. It's like an incredible swimming pool slide that you get to the bottom of in childhood and are so thrilled in every ounce of your being that you race immediately back to the stairwell because all you want is to do it all again.