It’s purely by chance that Marcel Sletten stumbled upon Banned 37’s scant few 1984 recordings while scrolling through Ross Shapiro of the Glands’ old YouTube channel, “The Forgotten Man.”
“Someone had suggested that I check out a Club Gaga song that’s uploaded there, and I started poking around the site,” Sletten says. “I found the Banned 37 songs, and I fell in love with them instantly.”
Sletten is a Northern California by way of New York transplant who moved to Athens in 2021. Since 2018, he has owned and operated Primordial Void, a cassette and CD label that has released music by an eclectic roster of contemporary acts ranging from the understated folk songs of Little Wings to the post-noise electronics of Twig Harper.
“‘Honest music’ is kind of a tagline that I used to use when talking about Primordial Void, and that’s what I’ve always been attracted to,” Sletten says. “I’m always looking for groups that stand apart from the pack.”
And that’s what he found when he pressed play on Banned 37. The songs on Shapiro’s YouTube channel fuse grit and radiance with elements of the so-called kudzu pop of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s—a somewhat dated term for Southern alternative rock and jangle pop ranging from Memphis’ Big Star to Athens’ R.E.M.
Like prehistoric paintings discovered on a cave wall, three songs were all that remained of a band that’s been described as one of Athens’ “best kept secrets.”
Hearing it for the first time is like discovering that in the lineage of great Athens bands of the early ‘80s—R.E.M., Pylon, the B-52s, Current Rage, Kilkenny Cats, Guadalcanal Diary, Mercyland—there was one more band in the mix that until now was lost to the sands of time. Banned 37 may be less accomplished than the bands with whom it shared stages, but the songs are equally compelling, and they cast more light on a music and social scene that made Athens what it is today. Now, a restored release of the group’s long-buried tracks stamps Banned 37’s pace in time in the secret history of Athens music.
Banned 37’s songs on Shapiro’s YouTube channel “Guns ‘n’ Cameras” and “Drive Safely” are cut from whiplash and jangling guitar lines that yield poignant yet ramshackle pop tempered by the sweet and languid harmonies of “Ordinary Day.” The sound there is gritty, but undeniably catchy.
When Sletten dug a little deeper, he found that there wasn’t much information about the band available anywhere. Later, while talking with Flagpole writer Gordon Lamb about a different release, he asked about Banned 37. Lamb pointed him to vocalist Kenny Aguar, who also performed as 8-Track Gorilla and with Melted Men. As fate would have it, Aguar was already in the process of cleaning up and compiling a small batch of studio recordings and two live sets that he wanted to release as an homage to two of the group’s fallen members, singer and guitar player Newt Carter, who died in 2015, and bass player Eric Agner, who died in 2023.
“When I first discovered the music, I didn’t know if I wanted to put it out on the label, but I knew I wanted to interview Kenny for my blog Cosmic Trattoria, so I could tell their story,” Sletten says. “Right after we did the interview I proposed the idea of doing this as an archival release. He immediately said ‘Yes!’”
The Banned 37 tape is a mile marker for Primordial Void: It is the label’s 40th release. It is the first time the label has released music by an Athens-based artist. It also marks PV’s first archival release.
“I am looking forward to working with more Athens artists now that the label is based here,” Sletten says.
Banned 37’s name, Aguar says, is a passing reference to the Velvet Underground and Nico’s “Femme Fatale,” in which Nico sings, “You’re written in her book / You’re number 37, have a look.” But as with the songs and everything else, meaning is best left to the ears of the beholder.
“We didn’t often talk about what the songs mean,” Aguar says. “They mean one thing to me, but I can’t speak for anyone else in the group.”
After Carter died, Aguar met with drummer Rob Neal to get a box of Banned 37’s tapes. The reels had been damaged in a flood where they were being stored and could not be salvaged. This album was culled from five different cassettes.
“I met with Dave Barbe for advice on what steps to take,” Aguar says. “I took notes, and it was a play-by-play for how to turn a record out in nine months. I followed that and took the tapes to Jason NeSmith. From those, we culled the tracks together and sequenced them. He had to do a lot of noise reduction. The songs had never been mastered in the first place, so I don’t know if they were mastered and then remastered or just mastered,” Aguar laughs.
The release was stalled briefly last year while Aguar recovered from an altercation with a housemate in which he was shot in the arm.
The cassette tape is limited to 60 copies, and will be streaming via Bandcamp beginning on Aguar’s birthday, which falls on Valentine’s Day. The A-side features seven cuts recorded at John Keane’s studio in 1984. The B-side includes seven live recordings from two shows at the 40 Watt Club Uptown in July and August of that same year.
None of the material has ever seen a proper release until now. “I had this dream in which I recalled an actual memory of talking with Newt,” Aguar says. “In the dream he told me that we can’t release these songs because they haven’t been mastered. I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s mastering?’ Then he went into a long explanation that ended with him saying that we have to go to Nashville and hire an engineer. That costs thousands of dollars. That’s why this tape has been delayed for so long.”
Aguar moved to Athens at the age of 5 when his father relocated the family from Duluth, MN in 1970 to work with the University of Georgia’s environmental design and landscape architecture program. When he joined Banned 37, the group had been playing together for three years, largely as an instrumental outfit. Aguar had attended high school at Clarke Central. The rest of the band had attended Cedar Shoals. Aguar was only 19 years old. Agner, the youngest member, was 17. Second guitarist Mark Craig joined in 1985 after parting ways with the post-punk group the Kilkenny Cats. He also did a stint playing with Mercyland.
“Newt wrote most of the songs, and he could sing, but he wasn’t into that part,” Aguar says. “Newt sang a couple of songs and often joined in on backing vocals.”
Carter’s voice comes through loud and clear in the live recording of “Somewhere Down The Line,” which opens the live side of the tape. Elsewhere, their voices blend in “Oh Sheila,” giving rise to a psychedelic Americana dimension of the group’s jangle pop and post-punk song dynamics.
Banned 37 was hitting its stride around the same time the Athens Inside/Out documentary film crews rolled into town. The group had opened for every band that’s included in the film, yet it was not mentioned in the film.
“That hit me,” Aguar says. “I remember thinking, ‘What am I even doing?’ That’s when I left Athens to go to Young Harris College in North Georgia to begin my formal art training.”
Banned 37’s final show happened at Young Harris College in January 1986. Aguar returned to UGA where he was accepted on the strengths of his portfolio. He even attended folk artist Art Rosenbaum’s upper level art class.
The group drifted apart—pretty much amicably, Aguar says. “There were outside forces that were pulling us apart,” he adds. “Newt was such a great player that everybody was trying to get him in their band.”
Carter went on to perform with many other bands over the years, including the El May Dukes, Elephants Gerald, the Deacons and the Vigilantes of Love. He ran sound for Perpetual Groove and monitors for the Drive-By Truckers, among various other endeavors around town.
Now, Banned 37’s music can be heard. Of the recordings that were gathered for this release, one studio cut was left off, which may appear on a compilation album—eventually.
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