Vanessa Briscoe Hay
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Vanessa Briscoe Hay (born October 18, 1955, Atlanta, Georgia) is an American singer, vocalist for the Athens, Georgia band Pylon.
[edit] Biography
She graduated from the University of Georgia art school, Athens, GA, 1978.She became the singer for Pylon (band) after being auditioned by Michael Lachowski,Randy Bewley, and Curtis Crowe. A few short months later Pylon were the opening band for the U, K. group the Gang of Four (band) in New York City at the club Hurrah after being brought to their attention by Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider of the B-52's.
Danny Beard, from Atlanta, GA helped Pylon to record their first single Cool/Dub in 1979 at Stone Mountain Studios in Atlanta and Pylon began to tour the U.S. The album Gyrate followed and was released in late 1980.Early career highlights included a performance at Central Park opening for the B-52's, a tour of the U.K., opening a few dates for U-2 on their first major U.S. tour and the release of the album Chomp.
Pylon decided to quit while they were still having fun.They broke up for the first time in 1983 after playing a "final" show, which was taped for The Athens Show. This was never formally released. In 1986 she was filmed for the movie Athens, Ga inside/out and spoke about her experiences with Pylon. She and Bob Hay were married in 1986. In 1987 they had their first daughter Hana Hay.
In 1989,Pylon reformed. Career highlights the second time around included tours with both R.E.M. and the B-52's, performances at SXSW and CMJ. Hits, a compilation of their early material was reissued by DB recs in 1989. Pylon recorded their 3rd album "Chain" for the Atlanta label Sky records in 1991. Pylon broke up a second time in 1992.
Vanessa became an RN in 1994. In 1993, She and Bob Hay had their second daughter, Victoria Hay. In 1997, Victoria was diagnosed with a brain tumor (ependymoma) and underwent successful surgery and radiation treatment.
Randy Bewley approached the other band members about reforming Pylon, just for fun in 2004. In August, 2004 Pylon played an unannounced show at Little Kings in Athens, Georgia. In 2005, they played a series of dates in Athens and Atlanta, Georgia including Athfest and at the Atlanta Heroes awards by the invitation of the B-52's. Jason Gross, Perfect Sound Forever encouraged them to look into reissuing their first album, Gyrate on CD. Jeff Calder (Swimming Pool Cues) restored the tapes at Southern Tracks Studios in Atlanta and remastered them at Rodney Mills Masterhouse in Duluth, GA. DFA records in New York approached Pylon about reissuing this material, unaware that Pylon were already working toward this. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, had been including Pylon's song "Danger" in his DJ sets for several years and was interested in re-issung Pylon's first album Gyrate on his label DFA. Gyrate Plus was reissued on October 16, 2007.
Vanessa is also a member of the music project Supercluster (band) who are recording new material in Athens, GA with Jason Nesmith. Other members of this project include Hannah Jones, Kay Stanton, Bob Hay, Bill David, Randy Bewley and John Fernandes.
