On Monday, May 11, Athens-based guitarist, composer, and improviser Shane Parish plays two sets as part of Eyedrum’s Monday Night Creative Music Series.
The first set features Parish performing solo selections from his latest album, Autechre Guitar, a striking collection that recasts the intricate electronic structures of British duo Autechre for acoustic guitar. What seems an unlikely translation becomes, in Parish’s hands, an act of revelation—stripping away circuitry to expose the skeletal beauty of Autechre’s looping, asymmetrical phrasing and shifting repetition, rendering each number with breathtaking precision and warmth.
This kind of imaginative transformation has long defined Parish’s work. Whether fronting Ahleuchatistas or reinterpreting sea shanties on Liverpool, Shane Parish has long balanced Appalachian roots, experimental composition, and a quietly dazzling command of the guitar.
On Repertoire, he turns his attention to a wide-ranging set of compositions—from Alice Coltrane to Kraftwerk—recasting them as intricate solo guitar studies that highlight both his technical virtuosity and instinct for reinvention.
For the second set, Parish reunites with longtime collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Libro (Michael Libramento). Libro joins Parish on drums for an improvisational duo performance, offering another glimpse into the pair’s deeply expressive approach to sound.
Pylon Reenactment Society’s “Christmas Daze” captures that peculiar mix of frantic motion and quiet clarity that settles in around the holidays. The song was born on instinct during a late-2021 rehearsal: bass player Kay Stanton dropped a riff that snapped the room into sharp focus. Within minutes the group had a new song on their hands. They carried that momentum straight into Chase Park Transduction, tracking the tune on December 29, 2021, while the season’s energy still hung in the air. The song was initially released via Bandcamp on December 1, 2023.
“Christmas Daze” follows a lone traveler who runs out of gas on the way to and from a family gathering. But the breakdown serves as a reset. Instead of leaning into frustration, the song’s narrator reconnects with the small charms that make the holidays worthwhile. Tiny flashes of warmth are found in roadside stillness, the glow of passing decorations, and the quiet pause between obligations.
Pylon Reenactment Society. Photo by Christy Bush
PRS delivers it all with their signature taut and wiry pulse. Vanessa Briscoe Hay’s voice cuts through like a cold wind, carrying equal parts wry humor and wonder. Jason NeSmith’s guitar sparks and coils around Gregory Sanders’ crisp drumming, and Stanton’s riffs propel the music forward. ‘Christmas Daze’ hums with the notion that life moves better when you stay present enough to catch the beauty flickering in every passing second.
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Fresh off a year of renewed energy sparked by Marc Pilvinsky’s documentary Weirdo: The Story of Five Eight, the group released their first new single in over six years, a ramped up number titled “Take Me To the Skate Park.” A successful run at SXSW served as a sharp reminder that Five Eight’s fire still burns with undeniable force.
Now, Five Eight is one of the first 100 bands announced to play SXSW 2026. In the meantime, the group hits the Music Room stage with the force of a band that’s lived through triumph, tragedy, and chaos, only to come out swinging.
Their latest single, “I’m Alone,” arrived on Nov. 7, offering a sharp, emotional snapshot of the songwriting depth that has elevated Five Eight from an underdog to a bonafide Georgia music fixture. With a new album slated to arrive next Spring via hardcore label Static Era, the show offers a chance to catch the band as they embark on a bold new chapter.
Singer and guitar player Mike Mantione, bass player Dan Horowitz, guitarist Sean Dunn, and drummer Patrick “Trigger” Ferguson share the stage with the Ladies Of… featuring James Hall, whose hybrid of glam, punk, hillbilly boogie, and dark-edged poetry turns every set into a spectacle. Hall’s presence alone brings an electric gravity to the room—equal parts swagger, invocation, and celebration. Together, Five Eight and The Ladies Of… promise a holiday show that trades sentimentality for sweat, noise, and raw, communal release.
In the true spirit of the season, the Music Room will also feature a photo booth. There will also be blind contour drawings by artist Kayti Didriksen, adding a visual counterpoint to the evening’s sonic fireworks.
Before the show at Smith’s, Five Eight’s Mike Mantione and James Hall make a stop at Criminal Records on Thursday, December 4, hosting a listening party for their new holiday tune “Christmas Without You.”
The Criminal Records in store show is free. Music starts at 4 p.m.
For the Smith’s Olde Bar show, doors open at 7 p.m., showtime is 8 p.m. $20 (advance). $30 (day-of show). $48 (VIP pre show meet-and-greet, includes a signed poster).
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Shane Parish: Solo at Cafe Oto (Red Eft Records). Cover photo by Petra Cvelbar.
Shane Parish has unveiled details for an evocative new album, titled Solo at Café OTO, due out July 1, via his own label, Red Eft Records.
Captured live in London on November 14, 2023, the album showcases Parish in full exploratory mode, performing an instrumental fingerstyle electric guitar set drawn from a deep well of British and American folk traditions. The performance took place during a sold-out evening of solo sets the night before Bill Orcutt’s Guitar Quartet appearance at the London Jazz Festival.
The album’s first single, a rendition of Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch’s “Sycamore Trees,” from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, sets the tone for a dark, drifting, and emotionally resonant album. Parish also leans into the melancholy and mysticism of folk ballads by Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins, and John Jacob Niles, reinterpreting them with his own idiosyncratic voice and a minimalist rig: just a Fender Squier Telecaster plugged directly into the house amp. It’s the same guitar he used for 4 Guitars Live at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht the night before—a gift from Bill Orcutt, passed down when Parish joined the four-guitar ensemble.
Parish’s 2024 release, Repertoire (Palilalia Records) featured tight arrangements of outsider standards from various musical genres—Kraftwerk’s “Europe Endless,” Alice Coltrane’s “Journey Into Satchidananda,” Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th,” John Cage’s “Totem Ancestor”—allowing their melodies and their vital essences to take on a gently glowing body via the resonating steel strings of his guitar. With Solo at Café OTO, Parish summons a raw and intuitive performance that’s closer in spirit to 2016’s Undertaker Please Drive Slow(Tzadik). Here, each melody becomes a jumping-off point for spontaneous invention, with Parish letting the songs drift, fracture, and reform as if guided by wind and water. The result is both intimate and expansive—an arresting document of a singular guitarist at the height of his expressive powers.
Patrick Ferguson recalls the instant when a life-affirming revelation hit him while he was lost in his thoughts recently.
The moment struck him while he and his fellow bandmates in Athens’ post-grunge, post-punk, and indie rock outfit Five Eight were sitting around their house, fielding questions from filmmaker and decades-long fan Marc Pilvinsky.
“I remember looking around and thinking, ‘Wow, is it good to be here,” Ferguson says. “It’s great to get old with these guys beside me. It’s amazing to me that anyone cares, but I’m just so glad to be alive and to have these guys as friends. What a journey!”
Ferguson plays drums for Five Eight. The group formed circa 1988, and Ferguson joined shortly after, settling into a current lineup that includes singer, guitar player, and frontman Mike Mantione, guitarist Sean Dunn, and bass player Dan Horowitz. Since then, the group has turned out driving rhythms that punctuate aggressive and melodic songs bearing titles such as “Behead Myself,” “She’s Dropping the Bomb,” and “Weirdo.” Each number is guided by the band members’ personal struggles with mental health, coping with the complexities of human relationships, and overcoming the standards of a flawed music industry.
All of these elements combine in Five Eight, yielding tales of a band that has garnered an intense local following over the years, but mainstream success has remained frustratingly out of reach. Despite a seemingly insurmountable obstacle course that the band has navigated over its 36-year career, the group’s principal players remain disarmingly optimistic.
Pilvinsky lived in Athens between 1991 and 1997. At the time, R.E.M. had already broken worldwide. A new generation of bands were playing in Athens, ranging from the dark sludge and Southern depravity of Harvey Milk and the Martians to the atmospheric pop of Now It’s Overhead, and the rich Americana of Vigilantes of Love. Pilvinsky wrote about music for Athens’ arts and entertainment weekly Flagpole Magazine, and even served as the paper’s Music & Film Editor between 1995 and 1997.
He was immersed in the local music scene. “Over and over, I would see these life-changing shows happening on a Tuesday night at the 40 Watt Club, with 50 other people in the audience,” he says.
There were other clubs putting on shows as well, such as The Shoebox (later called The Atomic Music Hall), and The High Hat Club. Whenever Five Eight played they always sold out the club. Hundreds of people were blown away every time they played.
“The idea that a band could do that and then not go on to have a career as full-time musicians was surprising,” Pilvinsky says.
For him and many others, Five Eight was primed to ascend to the stadium-sized fame of ‘90s alternative rock stardom alongside the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Wilco, and more.
But it hasn’t happened yet.
“Five Eight’s records are great,” Pilvinsky goes on to say. “Their songs are great. Everything about them is great, and they have an interesting story.”
After leaving Athens, Pilvinsky spent time living in Dallas, TX, and later in Los Angeles, building a career as a film editor. His IMDB page shows credits for his work on behind-the-scenes specials—bonus content accompanying films from Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland to Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail.
In 2013, he returned to Atlanta with his wife and kids, and was looking for a film project to peruse outside of his day job.
Earlier, back in 1994, while he was writing for Flagpole, Pilvinsky had interviewed Five Eight for a story when their album Weirdo was newly released.
“I went to their practice space and interviewed all four of them together, which was a huge mistake,” Pilvinsky says. “I was a pretty green journalist, but they just steamrolled over me. They were probably sick of doing interviews. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of anybody. They were just entertaining themselves with lies, essentially.”
But he never stopped being a fan of their songs. “They kept making better and better records,” Pilvinsky adds. “So I walked away from that thinking, ‘Okay, we’re not gonna be friends, but I love this band and I’ll just enjoy them from afar.”
At some point, Mike Mantione sent Pilvinsky a Facebook friend request. “I thought, there’s absolutely no way he remembers me,” he says. “I was the music editor of Flagpole for two years. This guy doesn’t know who I am.”
In 2014, Five Eight’s Weirdo album from 1994 was being remixed and remastered for a rerelease with five extra songs.
Pilvinsky reached out to say hello, and to say: “Just so you know, I make music videos and short films. If you guys have any video needs, let’s talk!”
First, they created a short, 20-minute documentary about why the Weirdo LP had to be remixed and remastered. At the time of its release, Nirvana’s Nevermind was dominating the music world. Five Eight’s label, Sky Records wanted the album to sound more like Nirvana, so they took a recording that had already been mixed and mastered by Dave Barbe, and did a second remastering job on the finished product, which essentially blew a hole in the middle sound information.
Filming that project led to Pilvinsky working on other short pieces with the group’s members, including a video for the song “Thanksgiving 1915” by Mantione’s other band Bad Ends.
As the longer Weirdo documentary unfolds, the story of Five Eight emerges telling the story of the band’s long and tangled career.
The story begins with frontman Mantione suffering a nervous breakdown, believing that he was the anti-Christ incarnate. This landed him in an in a mental health facility. Despite the doctors’ urgings, Mantione’s mother took him out of the institution. Soon after, he started playing music, which became a means for coping with his situation.
From there, the band’s story is a roller-coaster ride of extreme highs, frustrating lows, missed opportunities, and a revolving lineup.
From there, the band’s story is a rollercoaster ride of extreme highs, frustrating lows, career near misses, and a revolving door for band members.
Drummer Mike Rizzi played played on the Good Nurse and the Black album, He also played drums when the group toured with R.E.M. in 1999.
When Rizzi left the group, Ferguson returned to his place behind the kit.
Guitar player Dunn left the group in ‘98, but rejoined Five Eight during the making of Your God Is Dead To Me Now in 2011.
“I have not been the easiest person to play with and somehow Marc seemed to find a way to make sense of why the band has stuck together,” Mantione says. “I would say we have grown closer in some ways having weathered the 1990 major label frenzy that surrounded the indie college rock scene that we grew up in. I think our optimism, our almost childlike naïveté in the power of music to transform lives is why we’re still at it and I know Marc understands that.”
The documentary is filled with friends and contemporary artists— Bill Berry of R.E.M., Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers, Kevn Kinney of Drivin ’N’ Cryin, Vanessa Briscoe-Hay of Pylon, and producer David Barbe of Mercyland—testifying to the group’s strengths.
There is also a striking sense of humor woven throughout the film.
Participating in the film has sparked more activity for the group, hinting at more to come. There is a new album recorded and ready to be released in 2025. There’s also talk of a best-of album materializing down the line, which would be apropos, as the film could introduce Five Eight to a new audience. It also has the potential to cast new light on a band that’s become a staple of Athens indie rock scene.
“During the insanity of the grunge explosion, Five Eight missed a lot of opportunities, and we talk about that in the film, but somehow all of that now feels like the hand of providence on our shoulder,” Ferguson says. “I am so grateful for the life I have now. I love going to band practice. I love these guys I play music with. We still get to make records and play shows, and yeah, it’s not to stadiums full of people or whatever, but we’re all still alive. None of us are on “Celebrity Rehab,” he adds. “Nobody cares if we’re a little thin on top and thick in the middle. The incredible freedom that’s allowed us is such a gift.”
The Garden Club at Wild Heaven West End is hosting a screening of Weirdo: The Story of Five Eight on Friday, February 14. The band is playing a live set following the film, and Mike Mantione’s mom is leading an audience Q&A.
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This story originally appeared on the September 2024 issue of Record Plug Magazine.
Pylon Reenactment Society is fronted by Vanessa Briscoe Hay, whose voice brought Pylon’s kinetic energy to a fine point in the early ‘80s. With PRS, she fronts a wholly new group rounded out by guitar player Jason NeSmith, bass player Kay Stanton (Supercluster, Casper & the Cookies), and drummer Gregory Sanders (Casper & the Cookies). With their recently released debut album, Magnet Factory, the group expands upon Pylon’s angular style with a more pastoral approach in songs like “Educate me, ” “3 x 3, ” and “Fix It.”
Maybe they’ll roll out the seasonal hit (?), “Christmas Daze,” which materialized around this time last year.
Is/Ought Gap embodies the wild side of the no-frills ethos that fueled Athens’ heyday. “Artsy Peace and Love,” “Lucky 7,” “He Said,” and so many other ramped up numbers are defined by singer Bryan Cook’s razor-tongued and fun-loving invectives.
This show is a victory lap for Is/Ought Gap, who’s playing songs from this year’s long overdue discography LP, SUA, released via Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records.
After more than a decade between releases, the March Violets return with Crocodile Promises, a sleek and muscular new album that is as much a return to the group’s classic gothic rock and post-punk form as it is a bold step forward. The secret to the Violets’ success has long been their penchant for crafting undeniably catchy songs that thrive in an atmosphere of rich imagery and ambiance. Press play on the ‘80s hits: “Walk Into the Sun,” “Snakedance,” “Grooving In Green,” “Crow Baby,” et al. The art of balancing complex harmonies and melodies with lyrics steeped in perfectly compelling abstraction is the March Violets’ strong suit. For Crocodile Promises, core members vocalist Rosie Garland and guitar player Tom Ashton were joined by former Violets bass player Mat Thorpe (also of the group Isolation Division). Together, they fleshed out nine new numbers at Ashton’s SubVon Studios in the rural countryside near Athens, Georgia, where Ashton produced the record.
Crocodile Promises opens with “Hammer the Last Nail,” a song that’s bound by billowing and shadowy textures that slowly open up to reveal the album’s vast and majestic palette. Thick and undulating guitar riffs and constrictive hooks match Garland’s bewitching traipse into modern terrain. “Bite the Hand” and “Virgin Sheep” kick up the energy with a full-bore punk charge.
The “Kraken Awakes” and “Mortality” are slow-burners invoking tales of revenge and deceit. “This Way Out,” builds into a roaring and hypnotic groove, with its thumping beats and Garland’s pointed delivery.
The March Violets: Mat Thorpe (from left), Rosie Garland, and Tom Ashton. Photo courtesy Jace Media.
There’s a real sense of urgency at work in Crocodile Promises. The production is as subtle as it is sweeping when it needs to up the intensity, pushing heaviness, real-world angst, and aggression into new dark realms, alternating between understated tension and unleashed power.
Friday, October 25 March Violets, Korine, Tears for Dying, House Of Ham, Vincas, Panic Priest, and Miss Cherry Delight. Find Friday night tickets here.
Shane Parish returns, this time performing a solo set of acoustic numbers from his most recently released albums, 2022’s Liverpool (Tzadik) and 2024’s Repertoire (Palilalia Records).
The Athens-based guitarist is the driving force behind the math-punk mania of Ahleuchatistas, and is a member of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet. Armed only with an acoustic guitar, Parish leads an emotional, contemplative journey, where each song becomes a new canvas for his introspective artistry.
“Parish possess a seamless ability to rise above his highly evolved technical skill level as an improviser, arranger, and composer, always allowing the true beauty of the music he’s playing to shine above all else.”
Robocromp is a duo featuring Atlanta saxophonist Jeff Crompton (also of Anagrams) and Chattanooga-based guitarist Rob Rushin. Together, they channel an eclectic blend of avant-garde jazz and experimental rock into mostly original numbers and occasional covers by Ornette Coleman, Abdullah Ibrahim, and the likes.
$15. 8 p.m. Sat., Sept. 28. First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta, 470 Candler Park Dr NE.
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The Electric Nature, Magic Tuber Stringband (NC), Mute Sphere, and Magicicada play Magic Lantern in East Point on Thursday, April 11. Majid Araim will be performing a sound installation piece between sets. $15 (suggested donation, no one will be turned away at the door). 8 p.m. 2171 Star Mist Dr. SW Atlanta 30311.
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