Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture

This entertaining history takes a nostalgic look at the 1970s and ’80s indie music mecca of Athens, Ga. A onetime devotee of the scene—having helped run a local music venue and café, and played in a band—Hale (A Nation of Outsiders) paints a generous portrait of how artistic kids turned a semiremote college town into “the first important small-town American music scene.” Cheap rents; a hip, avant-garde arts scene; and a cool historic downtown made for a fertile cultural petri dish. Athens birthed such bands as the new wave B-52s, post-punkers Pylon, and college rock band R.E.M. Hale then puts on her critic’s hat (“My historian self has interviewed everyone who will talk to me”) and zooms out to analyze how regional bohemias such as Athens feed into a society’s creative gestalt. The writing at times can get knotted with hipster detail, but Hale’s rich, personal narrative draws readers in (“I knew every cracked sidewalk and narrow back alley and flaking brick façade”). This colorfully rendered reverie will delight indie music fans. (Mar.)