I’m so sad to hear of the passing of Bill Doss (Olivia Tremor Control, The Sunshine Fix). Henry Owings wrote a touching remembrance of Bill you can read here. My deepest sympathies go out to all of Bill’s friends and family.

Tixie has recently expanded to include Athens, and I thought people who visit Southern Shelter might be interested. In addition to listing upcoming show listings, Tixie gives away free tickets to users. You get 10 chances each day, and use them to enter for free tickets to shows you’re interested in. So far they’re working with The Classic Center, Georgia Theatre, The Melting Point, and 40 Watt. Check it out, go win some tickets.

Just a note to let you know that in addition to several recordings I’ll be posting over the next few weeks, The Day Jobs has an Athfest Multimedia Page that will gather links to audio and video from the festival as they appear.

Just a note to let everyone know that I’ll be participating in WUOG’s community DJ “Seize The Airwaves” program this weekend.  I’ll be playing selections from the Southern Shelter archives (as well as a few “unreleased” tracks) Friday 2/19, 5-6PM EST.  You can listen on 90.5FM in Athens, or stream from WUOG worldwide.

Follow Southern Shelter on Twitter.

I’ve neglected until now to add a link to Patchndent, a new site featuring live recordings from Athens (and elsewhere).  It’s run by good friend Matt Redmond, who I’ve been recording with for years.  His site will set you up with some local shows I missed, as well as a few alternate takes on shows I post here.  Check it out.

Sadly, Athens’ historic Georgia Theatre was engulfed in a major fire this morning.  No injuries have been reported, but early reports indicate a likely total loss.  Check Flagpole for ongoing coverage.  My heart goes out to the Theatre staff and owner Wilmot Greene, who has steadily made improvements to the venue over the last several years.

Hey folks, I changed the comment settings a while back to try to eliminate the spambot activity. Didn’t realize it would make you register with Wordpress to comment. I’ve changed that back, and set it to have a user’s -first- comment approved by me; after that you can speak freely. Sound good?

Heads-up to my fellow Harvey Milk enthusiasts: Chunklet has reissued the Anthem DVD, this time with a 2nd disc.  The new material includes the ’05 Caledonia show and the ’06 40 Watt show where they opened for Melvins.  Guess who recorded the audio on those . . .

Order Here

Long after I meant to have unveiled it, here’s the new Southern Shelter. The primary change is that I’ve switched from Blogger to Wordpress to allow for the All Artists list on the left sidebar. I hope this will make it easier to browse the entire collection.

I’m also beginning to upload ZIP files of the MP3s for current posts for people who’d like to download entire shows with one click.  As time allows I will go back and add these for old posts, which will be a long-term process.

Thanks to Henry Owings for designing the new banner above, including a Mike White photo.  Please let me know if you find any area of the site that isn’t functioning properly.

Finally, after several years of driving from Atlanta to record these shows, I’ve now relocated to Athens.  This should mean lots of shows posted here for quite some time; I hope as well to include a wider range of artists than before.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Edit – Looks like the Archives links on the right aren’t working, I’ll look into fixing that.  Meanwhile you can still browse via the All Artists list or the Search box in the upper right corner.

Please keep the friends and family of Pylon guitarist Randy Bewley in your thoughts.

Since I don’t have any music ready to post (probably won’t until next week, sorry), I wanted to point out that Vice Records has reissued Dark Meat’s Universal Indians today. With live bonus tracks. One of which was recorded by myself, at Cine. So it all ties in. If you missed it the first time around, today would be a good time to check it out.

I noticed today that someone has started the Athens Music Family Tree Wiki, which looks like a great resource once it’s fleshed out a bit. Anyone with info should go sign up and start filling in bands and cross-referencing members, etc.

I want to point out the the Finest Worksongs CD is out now. Athens bands performing R.E.M. songs at a tribute show held at the 40 Watt, with R.E.M. members themselves guesting in spots. The show and sales of the CD benefit Community Connection Of Northeast Georgia and Athens Family Connection/Communities In Schools. The CD also has a track from Liz Durrett recorded by myself (!) later at The EARL in Atlanta (Liz was ill for the 40 Watt show, leaving an opening for R.E.M. to do a couple songs at their own tribute).

For those that don’t know me, this article in Flagpole gives a little info on what’s going on here.