William Miller: “So Russell... what do you love about music?”
Russell Hammond: “To begin with … everything.”
— Almost Famous

And so it begins. Three days of the best local (and regional) music is coming to downtown Athens asAthFest officially starts today. Although the music doesn’t start until Friday night, there are plenty of other things to do. Some of those things are featured on the ABH’s AthFest page. That site will be updated throughout the festival with pictures and stories.

Well with the announcement of the AthFest headliners — Dark Meat (Friday), Modern Skirts (Saturday) and Dubconscious (Sunday) — it seems that the organizers are planning a little bit better this year.

Last year, Dark Meat played at Tasty World (to what I heard was a super-packed house) and Modern Skirts played a Little Kings, which I later found out has a fire code of something like 83. Hence the reason why scores of people who had to watch the band from the sidewalk and the fire marshal almost didn’t let the band’s drummer, John Swint, into the venue.