freak-outsider persona is. The music produced out of that was very much of its time.”
Cat Power was one of the most interesting bands playing in Atlanta in the early 1990s, but Chan didn't serve as an emissary for the entire Atlanta music scene. In fact, though Cat Power earned a decent following before moving to New York in 1992, those outside of the Cabbagetown family (and probably some of those within it) had not made up their minds about Chan's talent by the time she left. To some she was still just the cute girl from Fellini's. “I remember buying the first single and then going to see her at the Atomic or the Shoebox in Athens in 1994,” Owings remembers. “It just didn't leave an impression. Shortly after that,Sonic Youth drummer and Cat Power advocate Steve Shelleyput outCat Power's second album
Myra Lee
. I remember listening to it and I was like, I think this is great. But then she played here and in Athens all the time, and it never connected.”
Before the legendarily unhinged Cat Power shows began in the late1990s, Chan was already exhibiting unusual behavior onstage, and her fellow Atlantans didn't know what to make of it. “I went to the Earl, and I paid my ten dollars,” local journalist Chad Radford remembers of his first Cat Power show. “The place was packed with people sitting on the floor Indian style. She starts a song, and then stops. Then she starts playing again, and while she's playing, she starts crying. I'm just like, what the fuck's this? She's like, ‘I'm so sorry you people came to see me play, and paid all this money.’” Chad was horrified by the nonperformance he was seeing from this heavily hyped local artist. “I'm just like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” he remembers. “People in the audience were like, ‘You can do it!’ And I'm like, ‘God, what the hell did I just walk into?’ I stayed for about ten songs before I got so frustrated I just got up and walked out. I was just thinking and thinking and thinking about how terrible it was, but then it dawned on me that any artist that could make a person react so strongly has really created something special. If you can piss somebody off so much that they're going to storm out, you've done a good thing. That's punk rock!”
For someone like Owings, a promoter and well-versed rock geek with a low tolerance for bullshit, even before Chan started getting famous, Cat Power's shows seemed maddeningly disconnected from the recorded music. “She would just be onstage, doubled over with her hair in her face, mumbling songs,” Owings remembers. The
Chunklet
founder's love affair with Southern culture has been long and passionate, but he was never a Cabbagetown insider, and as such he was not part of the built-in musical family Chan felt close to. Around Owings and other nonintimates, Chan displayed a pathological shyness that her Fellini's coworkers and bandmates didn't see. “She was always sort of insecure, shy,” Owings remembers. “Any time you would ever talk to her, it would either end in her crying or walking off and then crying. When I first moved totown, I was putting on a show at Under the Couch and she came to it. I was withjournalist and Chan's friendSteve Dollar and I said something. I say a lot of semicrass things, but I mean them in the most respectful, friendly, jovial way. I was fucking with her in this way and I remember her tearing up and then walking away. She wasn't even performing. I mean, we were just talking.”
Over the years, when Cat Power would come back to Atlanta to play, Chan drew a wide audience of interested music fans, many of whom never heard her perform during her Cabbagetown days and were curious about what they had been missing. “The first time I saw her was opening for Liz Phair at the Center Stage Theater,” Steve Dollar, who works as a journalist, remembers. “I hadn't even heard about her. I just remember it being really, you know, offbeat, and people not digging it too much. There
Cat Power was one of the most interesting bands playing in Atlanta in the early 1990s, but Chan didn't serve as an emissary for the entire Atlanta music scene. In fact, though Cat Power earned a decent following before moving to New York in 1992, those outside of the Cabbagetown family (and probably some of those within it) had not made up their minds about Chan's talent by the time she left. To some she was still just the cute girl from Fellini's. “I remember buying the first single and then going to see her at the Atomic or the Shoebox in Athens in 1994,” Owings remembers. “It just didn't leave an impression. Shortly after that,Sonic Youth drummer and Cat Power advocate Steve Shelleyput outCat Power's second album
Myra Lee
. I remember listening to it and I was like, I think this is great. But then she played here and in Athens all the time, and it never connected.”
Before the legendarily unhinged Cat Power shows began in the late1990s, Chan was already exhibiting unusual behavior onstage, and her fellow Atlantans didn't know what to make of it. “I went to the Earl, and I paid my ten dollars,” local journalist Chad Radford remembers of his first Cat Power show. “The place was packed with people sitting on the floor Indian style. She starts a song, and then stops. Then she starts playing again, and while she's playing, she starts crying. I'm just like, what the fuck's this? She's like, ‘I'm so sorry you people came to see me play, and paid all this money.’” Chad was horrified by the nonperformance he was seeing from this heavily hyped local artist. “I'm just like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” he remembers. “People in the audience were like, ‘You can do it!’ And I'm like, ‘God, what the hell did I just walk into?’ I stayed for about ten songs before I got so frustrated I just got up and walked out. I was just thinking and thinking and thinking about how terrible it was, but then it dawned on me that any artist that could make a person react so strongly has really created something special. If you can piss somebody off so much that they're going to storm out, you've done a good thing. That's punk rock!”
For someone like Owings, a promoter and well-versed rock geek with a low tolerance for bullshit, even before Chan started getting famous, Cat Power's shows seemed maddeningly disconnected from the recorded music. “She would just be onstage, doubled over with her hair in her face, mumbling songs,” Owings remembers. The
Chunklet
founder's love affair with Southern culture has been long and passionate, but he was never a Cabbagetown insider, and as such he was not part of the built-in musical family Chan felt close to. Around Owings and other nonintimates, Chan displayed a pathological shyness that her Fellini's coworkers and bandmates didn't see. “She was always sort of insecure, shy,” Owings remembers. “Any time you would ever talk to her, it would either end in her crying or walking off and then crying. When I first moved totown, I was putting on a show at Under the Couch and she came to it. I was withjournalist and Chan's friendSteve Dollar and I said something. I say a lot of semicrass things, but I mean them in the most respectful, friendly, jovial way. I was fucking with her in this way and I remember her tearing up and then walking away. She wasn't even performing. I mean, we were just talking.”
Over the years, when Cat Power would come back to Atlanta to play, Chan drew a wide audience of interested music fans, many of whom never heard her perform during her Cabbagetown days and were curious about what they had been missing. “The first time I saw her was opening for Liz Phair at the Center Stage Theater,” Steve Dollar, who works as a journalist, remembers. “I hadn't even heard about her. I just remember it being really, you know, offbeat, and people not digging it too much. There
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