Musical palate cleanser, Classic City edition

Athens supergroup the Bad Ends pack a lot of punch. In the collective are: Mike Mantione of Athens staples Five Eight (guitar/vocals), Dave Domizi (bass/vocals), Geoff Melkonian (keys/vocals), Christian Lopez (guitars, mandolin), former R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry. In fact, this will be Berry’s first band since his R.E.M. days. Today, the Bad Ends are announcing their debut album, The Power And The Glory, out January 20 via New West Records. They’re also premiering a rollicking lead single, “All Your Friends Are Dying,” which comes with a video directed by Lance Bangs.

The “All Your Friends Are Dying” video also features cameos from friends of the band such as Mike Mills of R.E.M., Vanessa Briscoe Hay from Pylon, Jody Stephens of Big Star, producer David Barbe, and more. The band will also play their first-ever show on November 27 (the Sunday after Thanksgiving), which will be at Nuci’s Space — constructed at the site of St. Mary’s Church, where R.E.M. played their first show in 1980.

All pretty cool, but what really caught my ear from the single was this:

Here’s what Mike Mantione had to say about “All Your Friends Are Dying”:

The song and the video are a celebration of Athens. The song is also a tribute to Big Star and The Glands. I’m really singing it to a friend who missed this special performance of the Big Star Third album and I’m warning my friend not to miss stuff because life doesn’t last very long. We thought there was only cell phone footage of the show, but our friend Dan Jordan ended up having three cameras rolling that night. We were able to grab shots of Jody singing ‘Thirteen’ and Frank playing his guitar (which was a telecaster that night, which is why he plays an SG in the van, as namechecked in the song).

He had me at “Big Star”.

Here’s the single.  The surroundings might look familiar to you.