William Hoffman reflects on the growth of Athens Sessions, given the success of a live recording of bands at Casa Nueva.
One of the primary ways I discover music is through my YouTube subscriptions to video sessions — including KEXP in Seattle and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert — which feature new music from the best up-and-coming bands passing through.
It got us at The Post thinking that we have all the capabilities to make the same product happen here in Athens. So, a year ago we timidly started Athens Sessions in the Glidden Recital Hall with high ambitions of recording a live show.
The second week of this semester we were able to do just that with our Post Website Release show at Casa Nueva featuring Fathers of the Revolution (which can now be viewed here) and Blond.
It was a night filled with hectic scrambling on our part to get six cameras working and running on time with our audio engineer Steve Van Dyne, who ran his own equipment from Casa’s sound board, and timing that all with the band.
In the end we were only able to use four of the six cameras we had set up due to technical issues in post-production (apologies to Fathers of the Revolution guitarist Buddy Smith who received an undue lack of camera time), but it still captures the moment of that special night.
Fathers of the Revolution is a band we’ve wanted to snag for the series for a while now, mixing elements of folk, jazz, disco, rock and surf music for a self-described style of Swing Deco. I’m a sucker for large vocals, so lead singer Daniel Spencer’s all-in style of singing appealed to me the first time I saw him perform at The Union. It’s like the anguished screaming of Janis Joplin, who wouldn’t always hit the right note but struck a chord in your gut when it’s all laid out on the table.
All the members are in sync during this performance, playing off of one another with the fluidity and knowledge that only comes from years of friendship and live performances. There’s something to be said for a band that can start as a folk group, filling coffee shop stages, and move to an experimental rock group that mixes genres and commands an at-capacity bar venue.
You always hear about how bands are discovered at live shows, but it was illustrated that night as I was bombarded with people asking who had just played and giving praise to how much they enjoyed the acts.
We set out to make a professional music session video series, and at the end of the night, I can say I kind of felt like NPR’s Bob Boilen — if only for a moment.
William Hoffman is a senior studying journalism and the Culture Editor at The Post.
