ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Contributing Writer

‘This Week’ in Retro Atlanta offers up a varied rockin’ menu of shenanigans galore! Get fat and happy with a taste of the Big Easy’s jazzy goodness! Or get wickedly horrified with maniacal musicals! We’ve got foot-stompin’ honky-tonk,  bluegrass, Americana and all the ‘billy you’ve been craving! And for those with dark little Retro hearts, we’ve got all the hard rock and dark-wave spanning decades of the morose! Don’t be square! Get out and get Retro!

Monday, March 3

Get ready for a night of rockin’ audio and visual shenanigans as Eyedrum delivers a not so gentle nod to psychedelic glam, electronica and Philip Glass with Darsombra, Easily Suede and In Sonitus Lux!  Be a Goonie and catch The Fratellis reviving some garage and blues rock at the Masquerade with Ace Reporter and The Ceremonies! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month.  Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues it up at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack  for an extra helping of the blues with The Pork Bellys and some finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, March 4

It’s Mardi Gras! And boy do we have some shindigs that’ll make you fat and happy tonight! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and the Atlanta Horns get down dirty at D.B.A. Barbeque for their Fat Tuesday celebration! Two-step on down to Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs for a night of spicy cajun’ blues and honky-tonk with Hair of the Dog at their Mardi Gras Party! Trek on down to the bayou by way of The Plaza Theater as they screen Jon McBride’s crime drama, THE BIG EASY (1987), starring Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin, John Goodman and Ned Beatty! Or celebrate blues style at Blind Willie’s with Bob Page and his Mardi Gras Trio!

If love brings you down in real life, get your fill in your dreams! It’s Part III of Film Love’s Avant-garde Czech New-Wave affair celebrating the films of Jan Nemec, with their 35mm screening of MARTYRS OF LOVE (1967) tonight at Emory’s White Hall at 8 pm! Get a taste of Lou Reed inspired rock at Smith’s Olde Bar with a night of acoustic punk and spoken word with Hamell on Trial! Rock out to some dark-wave and post-rock, Joy Division and The Cure-inspired tunes of JoyCut, Where.Are.We and the Breathers (members of Qurious and Wowser Bowser) at The Earl! The Farewell Drifters deliver a night of 60s-inspired folk rock at Eddie’s Attic! Stomp on down to Big Tex for a night with Moira Nelligan & The Dixie Jigs and their old-fashioned Americana! Or boogie on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta for a taste of Bill Sheffield’s acoustic roots and blues! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Twain’s in Decatur every Tuesday at 9 pm. The Entertainment Crackers gets bluesy with their folksy Americana sounds at the Northside Tavern. Have an adventure with Dread Pirate Roberts at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern during their screening of Rob Reiner’s tale of adventure, THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) during their Happily Ever After series’ screening at 7:30 pm! Or for something a little more deadly and adventurous, get your martial arts fix at Midtown Art Cinema as they screen Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI (1954)!

Wednesday, March 5

Tonight’s a night of kinky Kool Kats and saucy seduction at The Brickyard as they tease with a little kink at their post- ‘Valentine’s Burlesque at the Brickyard’ event!  Celebrate love and lust with an evening of striptease, tassels and feathers with performances by aerialist Sadie Hawkins, mysterious magician Chad Sanborn, Kool Kat Talloolah Love, Meredith Greer, ‘The Chameleon Queen’, Stormy Knight, Lola Le Soleil, Tora Torrid, Kool Kat Ursual Undress, Kool Kat Fonda Lingue, Sunny Midnight, Lala Leialoah and so much more! Proceeds go to support SOJOURN (Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender & Sexual Diversity), so shimmy on down and get saucy for a cause!

Put on your dancin’ shoes and swing on over to East Atlanta’s Graveyard Tavern for their Graveyard Swing Night, held the first Wednesday of every month, promising an evening of swingin’ jazz and jumpin’ jive, offering free lessons from Down South Swing! Smith’s Olde Bar rocks out 60s and 70s-style with NRBQ, The Rainmen and The Western Sizzlers! Stomp on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack ‘cause it’s a flood of rockin’ blues and funk with The Georgia Flood! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! It’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.  Skip school and take a trip with a princess, a pirate and a couple of miscreants at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern during their screening of Rob Reiner’s tale of adventure, THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) during their Happily Ever After series’ matinee screening at 11:30 am!

Thursday, March 6

The Earl has Local H and Nobody’s Darlings in all their 90s alt-rock, grunge and indie punk glory! Or stomp on down to the Masquerade for July Talk, Wild Party and Verge of Bliss! For a little homegrown Georgia bluegrass with a touch of some rockin’ punk, stomp on down to Red Light Café for My Dixie Wrecked! Shimmy on down to the Elliot Street Pub for a night with Kool Kat Talloolah Love and all things Burlesque at Atlanta Burlesque & Cabaret Society’s March meeting! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Make your way to the Crimson Moon Café for The Tom & Julie Show featuring tributes to tunes from the 60s to the 90s every Thursday! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! Get your boogie on at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.   Hula on down to Trader Vic’s for a couple MaiTais and some music harkening from the islands! Get a fill of blues’ history at the Atlanta Cyclorama as they screen Christine Dall’s riveting tale documenting how the blues was born and focuses on the lives of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox and more in, WILD WOMEN DON’T HAVE THE BLUES (1989).  And it’s your last chance to spend the night with a romantic pirate at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern during their screening of Rob Reiner’s tale of adventure, THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) during their Happily Ever After series’ screening at 7:30 pm!

Friday, March 7

The Conant Performing Arts Center and the Capitol City Opera Company offer up a chilling presentation on a bloody platter with Stephen Sondheim’s  maniacal musical masterpiece, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at 8 pm, terrifying through March 9!  Or get dark and psychedelic at the Variety Playhousewith the Black Lips and Deerhunter! Famous Pub has your 80s fix at their ICON: Music Video Dance Night featuring videos and music from Madonna to Duran Duran! Let’s Dance! at The Earl with the Wham Bam Bowie Band performing Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’ in its entirety plus his classics from the 60s to the 80s! It’s Blaine Cartwright’s (Nashville Pussy) 50^th Birthday Bash, so rock on down to The Star Bar and celebrate with a little cowpunk and 90’s rock of Nine Pound Hammer, The Forty-Fives and introducing The Night Terrors! For a little rockin’ soul and dirty funk, blues on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds and Gibson Wilbanks! Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt gets acoustic and wildly solo at the Buck Creek Tavern in High Falls!  Eddie’s Attic gets toasty with the Smokin’ Novas and Cumberland Collective! It’s a Local Punk Rock Showcase in Heaven at the Masquerade with Triangle Fire, Eliminate Earth, White City, Forsaken Profits, Rotten Stitches and Values! Groove on down to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event for a night of 60s and 70s Jamaican soul with Lloyd’s Rocksteady Review, while boogying under the dinosaurs! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets cookin’ with Biscuit Miller & The Mix while The Stooge Brothers deliver a night of down and dirty blues at Big Tex!  Rock on down to Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs for Tommy Talton (Cowboy) and Kenny Head! And as always, Time-Warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, March 8

Sell your soul to the Devil with The Atlanta Opera as they get wicked at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center in their presentation of ‘Faust’ with music composed by Charles Gounod, getting sinful through March 16^th!  Or rev on down to the Dixie Tavern in Marietta for some rockin’ psychobilly with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt with the Psycho-DeVilles!  Darwin’s Burgers & Blues offers up a plate of blues and old-fashioned ragtime with Brad Vickers & His Vestapolitans! Stomp on down to Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs for a night of Americana with the Tim McDonald Band and Jimmy T & Tunetrain! For a night of retro-rockin’ garage punk, rock on down to The Star Bar for the Coathangers at their LP Release Party along with The Biters, Cousin Dan and the Zoners! Or sludge on over to The Basement and rock out with the Whores, Pretty Please and Dropout! Get some deep roots and honky-tonkin’ Americana at Smith’s Olde Bar with Willie Sugarcapps, The Grahams and Lilly Hiatt! Swing on over to Big Tex for the Kris Youman’s Band delivering a night of roots, Americana and Western swing!  Get some soul at The Family Dog with The Hollidays! Hottie Hawgs BBQ delivers a night of Chicago/Delta blues with The Breeze Kings! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack offers up a hoppin’ plate of some rockin’ BBQ and blues with Mr. Chapman’s Quarterly Review! And, it’s DJ Romeo Cologne’s 1000^th funk show at the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge, so, get funky and boogie into his ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, March 9

Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs delivers their Gypsy Jazz Brunch offering up a plate of Hot Club jamming and Parisian Swing with Kool Kat Amy Pike and the Bonaventure Quartet from 12:30 to 3:30 pm every 2^nd & 4^th Sunday!  Cedar Hill delivers some stompin’ bluegrass at Big Tex! For some bohemian cabaret and funky gypsy jazz, blues it on down to Vinyl for a night with Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas! Go back to the 90s for a night with Sharon Corr (The Corrs) and her celtic pop-rock at the Variety Playhouse! Slither on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for some rockin’ blues with Snakelegs or stomp on over to The Family Dog for the BooHoo Ramblers!

Ongoing

The Conant Performing Arts Center and the Capitol City Opera Company’s chilling presentation of Stephen Sondheim’s maniacal musical masterpiece, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at 8 pm, terrifies through March 9!

The Atlanta Opera’s presentation of ‘Faust’ at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center gets wicked through March 16^th!

Georgia Ensemble Theater presents Simon Levy’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic tale of the love, obsession and the roarin’ 20s, ‘The Great Gatsby’, through March 16

New American Shakespeare Tavern presents ‘Romeo & Juliet’ until March 30^th!

The Star Bar gets groovy with The Funk Godfather, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ QuasiMandisco every other Tuesday!

Steve’s Live Music’s Gypsy Jazz Brunch offers up a plate of Hot Club jamming and Parisian Swing with Kool Kool Kat Amy Pike and the Bonaventure Quartet from 12:30 to 3:30 pm every 2^nd & 4^th Sunday!

Boogie on down into Disco Hell at The Family Dog as DJ Quasi Mandisco delivers a night of classic funk, soul and disco the last Friday of every month

The Plaza Theater Time-Warps it up as they screen, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Every first and third Mondays are Big Band Nights at Café 290, featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-piece orchestra playing jazz and swing standards in the tradition of The Glen Miller Orchestra and other legendary groups.  Second and fourth Mondays are Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’

Every first Wednesday is the Graveyard Tavern’s Graveyard Swing Night, featuring the swingin’ jazz and boogie-woogie sounds of the Savoy Kings!

If you have a suggestion for a future event that should be included in This Week in Retro Atlanta or see something we missed, please email us at atlretro@gmail.com.