Athens

While alt rock graduated from the college scene ages ago, it never forgot its roots: a small university town about 20 miles north of the road that connects Georgia's capital to the ATL. You can't talk about Athens without starting with alt-rock titans R.E.M., who, after nearly 30 years, a handful of GRAMMYS®, and more than 30 million albums sold, still call the city home. Like the double-barreled cannon that stands outside Athens' City Hall, R.E.M.'s lo-fi jangle-punk masterpiece, "Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Single)," fires a shot that couldn't be — and wasn't — ignored. Fred Schneider's 30-grit sing-speak pairs with Kate Pierson's new-wave-angel harmonies like backwoods hooch with chocolate mousse, but somehow the B-52's make it all work in "Rock Lobster," from their 1979 (and pre-R.E.M.) debut. And from the first speaker-rattlin', fuzz-filled twang of the Drive-By Truckers' "Never Gonna Change," you're on a deep, dark ride down a gravel-strewn road to the rootsy side of hard rock.

In Next Steps, we plunge deeper into Athens' scene for some local faves who have more or less stayed local.

Now that we've left all of that gold and platinum behind us, we can drill down to the bedrock underlying today's Athens music scene. Barbara Cue — not a person, but a side-project "supergroup" of sorts — tosses country, rock, blues, and a dash of voodoo swampiness into their brooding "Talking to Myself," thick and murky as Georgia mud. If They Might Be Giants and XTC had an illegitimate child that they reared south of the Mason-Dixon Line, it might sound something the Fairburn Royals with their smarty-pants psychedelipop confection "K.I.S." (the abbreviation stands for "Keep It Simple," which they do). And Iron Hero grabs the D.I.Y. reins on their self-produced debut album, igniting a mini-'80 s revival in "Pilot" while navigating between the potentially treacherous shoals of the Smiths and the Cure.

In Deep Cuts, we'll introduce you to some up-and-comers keeping Athens' underground flame burning white-hot.

If our Deep Cuts is any indication, Athens' hard-fought reputation is safe . . . and still developing. Acetate's "Can't You Can't You" blows out of the power pop gate already jammed into maximum overdrive, with Keith Moon-y drum fills and a double-tracked harmony vocal that's tighter than Joan Rivers' next facelift. On the other hand, OverflO dials down their eight-cylinder energy to a lazy riverbank stroll in "Out of Line," the kind of tune you might play after you'd worn the grooves off your favorite Allman Brothers LP. And, sometimes, really great music is concealed behind a really questionable band name; such is the case with Nutria (named for an overgrown, swamp-dwelling, rat-like creature). Perfecting the garage formula of balancing a magnetic melody with a fistful of ragged edges to keep it interesting, the indie-pop duo's "Heard It from a Friend" sticks in your brain like sonic peanut butter.

Who would've guessed that a small burg hard up against the Blue Ridge Mountains and 60 miles east-northeast of the ATL would emerge as ground zero for the alt-rock revolution? Sure, the so-called "Liverpool of the South" is a university town — college and alt rock go together like Peaches and Herb — but never before has a smaller dot on the map made a bigger impact. From R.E.M. and Widespread Panic to the B-52's and Neutral Milk Hotel, the Georgia locals had (and still have) a nonstop stream of label execs beating a path to their garage door in search of the next Next Big Thing. New Wave, jangle pop, Americana, electronica, folk, and more are on the menu, and we've put together a plateful so tasty, we guarantee you'll be coming back again for an extra helping.