Athens didn’t disintegrate after the ’80s — R.E.M. and the B-52’s blew up the national air-waves and then the local music scene moved on. 

While those bands are certainly deserving of their status as local legends, the local scene kept producing. Although, based on all the available documentaries about the Athens music scene, you would think all the students were still teasing their hair and doing the electric slide downtown.  

Director Albie Garcia and producer Andrew Iden record Athens’ music after its heyday.

Atlanta based Outside Film — whose documentary of the Athens community is in production — is looking to update the outside world on Athens music in this millennium. 

The film was initially conceived by director Albie Garcia to be a piece on the Athens-based Elephant Six arts collective before Garcia and Producer Andrew Iden quickly found they were only scratching the surface of something much more comprehensive for their vision. 

“There was a much larger picture than just Elephant Six,” Iden said. “We used Elephant Six as a launching point and every time we turned over a rock we found another great story to throw in there.”

The only option for Garcia and Iden was to cover everything, all of it. 

 Outside Film has been burning the road from Athens to Atlanta filming everyone and anyone from the Athens scene in an attempt to carry the torch where legendary music doc “Athens, Ga. — Inside/Out” left off. 

“It’s a massive undertaking, it’s amazing how this little, small town can produce so much,” Garcia said. “We’re gonna try and do our best to encompass all of it.” 

As if the huge scale of the project isn’t challenging enough for the makers, Garcia and Iden are also shooting for an angle not common in most music docs. 

“We felt there needed to be a story about this town and its music told by the people in the community who aren’t necessarily the most famous folks, people you don’t recognize walking down the street but have been just as important to the music community,” Iden said. “We want them to be the people to tell the story,

It’s the people in the trenches that make the town really what it is, and nurture the music community in a way.” 

That’s not to say there won’t be footage of some of Athens’ most popular musicians — because there will be a lot of them. Included is what’s thought to be one of the last interviews Vic Chestnutt gave before his untimely passing, as well as a tour of legendary producer John Keane’s home studio. 

Iden and Garcia have painstakingly been filming all they can, but the duo — whose day jobs are as CNN producers — consider the work a labor of love. 

“Athens, I don’t think has ever gotten the credit it deserves outside of the music community synonymous with those ingrained in music culture,” Iden said. “We’d love for people to come see the movie and say ‘I had no idea that Athens still had that kind of music community,’” Iden said. 

The duo seem hell-bent on showing the world the Athens music community has been just as good as it’s always been, if not better. 

“I expect big things from Athens in the future. It’s definitely gonna be a force to reckon with,” Garcia said. “And who knows, maybe Athens is gonna open up the eyes of a whole new generation who wanna be a part of what’s going on.”

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