About this blog

The Birth of Early Evening

The critical formative years of my young adult life were spent in Atlanta, two of them in a small brick cottage on Timm Valley Road in Buckhead. The house has been pushed over now and much nicer digs built in its place, but from 2001-2002, it was Ground Zero for some incredibly enlightening times with an energetic, eclectic, and wonderful group of friends that changed me forever.

Many ideas were kicked around in the den of that little house under the Rolling Stones posters (passed out Keith, young lads staring) and piles of magazines of the same name. I could not repeat the conversations here but to say that they ranged wildly from the profound to the depraved. One idea that was born in that little den that stuck with me (among the hundreds that did not) was that my friends and I would start our own magazine. It would focus on, of course, music, the "jam" variety on which we were thoroughly hooked at the time. There would be album and show reviews and commentary on whatever we wished to comment on. The arts and literature would be tied in somehow. The slate was blank and the possibilities endless. This creation of our collective imaginations even had a name -- "Early Evening." I will never remember who came up with it and I do not remember whether there was consensus on the topic, but now it matters not. I could never identify everyone who participated in the conversations, but I recall that Mitch Gray, Neil Bowen, Kendall Gunn, Jennifer Costa and Rusty Coleman contributed at one time or another and are owed credit for the idea. (Please forgive me if I've omitted a contributor). We did not have the time, resources, or determination necessary to give the project any life (we had no idea at the time how fast true adulthood was approaching). At least in my own head, however, it never died. This blog is to pay homage to those now decade old discussions and the heady times from which they arose. "The music never stopped."  

A note of thanks is due to my dear friend Cornelia Shuford Bowen Gregory for designing the blog's header and helping me with early direction. Apparently getting married and pregnant in the last six months has her creative juices flowing! Thanks, Neil. 3.31.11