Athenaeum (band)

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Athenaeum
Origin	Greensboro, North Carolina
Genre(s)	Pop rock
Years active	1990 - 2004
Label(s)	Atlantic Records
Former members
Grey Brewster Nic Brown Mike Garrigan Mark Kano Alex McKinney Mike Mitschele Cullen Strawn Jeremy Vogt

Athenaeum was an alternative pop rock four-piece band from Greensboro, North Carolina, USA formed in 1990 at an eighth grade dance by Nic Brown and Mark Kano.

After several personnel changes, Kano and Brown recorded an eight song EP in 1995 with bassist Alex McKinney and lead guitarist Grey Brewster. The "Green Album," as it is widely known, sold about 10,000 copies.. The album was self-released and also distributed by Redeye Distribution.

In 1996 the band was signed by Atlantic Records. They released their major label debut, Radiance, in 1998. The first single, "What I Didn't Know," was a minor hit. During the recording phase for their next album, Brown left the band to attend college. He was replaced by Jeremy Vogt, who performed with the likes of Tonic and The Connells. Brewster also dissolved his membership with the group and was replaced by Mike Garrigan, the lead singer and songwriter of Collapsis.

This new line up played their first show on March 31, 2001, at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The new set included Garrigan's Collapsis anthem, "October".

Athenaeum's second major label album Athenaeum (originally titled "Plurabelle" until weeks before it's release) was released on September 18, 2001. However, it received little promotion in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

Athenaeum was eventually dropped by Atlantic Records. They toured for an additional three years and released their final record, Hourglass, a collection of rare outtakes and demos, before performing their last show at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on December 28, 2004.

Kano and Garrigan subsequently formed the band mg4 (with Alex McKinney, the original bassist for Athenaeum and Jeremy Vogt), who released an EP in the summer of 2004 titled Gravity Affects Me. Mike Garrigan has since stepped back into his solo career and production work, including production and engineering on the first Mark Kano solo disc, due in Summer 2008

Brown went on to record and perform with bands such as: Skeleton Key, Claire Holley, Longwave and Ben Lee. He finished a creative writing degree from Columbia University in 2002 and occasionally surfaces around Chapel Hill, NC mostly doing sessions work for local artists or former bandmates. For a brief time Brown worked as a publicist for Yep Roc Records with former Athenaeum manager, Stephen Judge who has been with Redeye Distribution and Yep Roc Records since 2002 and is currently listed as General Manager of the company. Judge also helped start Eleven Thirty Records in 2004 and has worked with artists such as: Concrete Blonde, The Gourds, Daniel Lanois, You Am I, The Hothouse Flowers, Public Enemy and The Alarm.

The song "Flat Tire" from Radiance was a hit and had wide radio airplay in the Philippines particularly the radio station NU 107. It was in the top ten list for almost a year in NU 107 mid-night countdown.

Grey Brewster went on to form a local Greensboro, NC cover band who played for several years before he finally settled in Charlotte, NC to begin work as a singer-songwriter/session musician