ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Contributing Writer

You may be wary of the Ides of March, but we promise you’ll have a rockin’ good time in Retro Atlanta this week! We’ve got a goodie bag full of swell Kool Kats on top of all the vintage shenanigans you’ve been craving! So, get off that couch and live le vida Retro!

Monday, March 10

If Monday’s got you down, Retro Atlanta has the cure! For a night of raunchy garage revival and old-school punk, rock on down to the Masquerade for The Orwells, Twin Peaks and The Silver Palms! Or rawk on down to 529 for Dino’s Boys’ LP release party with Paint Fumes, The Brothers Gross and Draw Blood! For something a little unique and nostalgic, catch Kool Kat Jeffrey Butzer and the Bicycle Eaters along with Bear’s Den at The Earl!  Blind Willie’s gets rootsy with Brandon Reeves! Get funky and groove on down to Café 290 every second and fourth Monday of the month for a taste of Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’ 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 11

Get tortured at The Plaza Theater as Splatter Cinema gets super gruesome at their presentation of David Cronenberg’s bizarre science-fiction and horror-filled flick, VIDEODROME (1983) at 9:30, and don’t forget to come early for some chilling lobby shenanigans and classic horror trailers!  Or for something a little lighter and a whole lot more seductive, shimmy on down to the Red Light Café for Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and her Syrens of the South’s Tease Tuesday: March of Madness Edition, featuring a spicy evening with the fiery Ruby Redmayne and so much more! You can’t beat 10 acts for 10 bucks, so, come on and get teased with a little burlesque, a little Vaudeville, a whole lotta variety and everything saucy and tasty!

Rock out and drink alone with George Thorogood & The Destroyers as they deliver 40 years worth of rockin’ blues along with Fifth on the Floor at Center Stage! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires up his rockin’ blues at Blind Willie’s! Or get roots n’ bluesy at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint tonight with the Bob Page Trio! M.O.T.O delivers a rockin’ night with their 80s garage punk along with The Selfish Lovers at a special early show (8 pm) at The Star Bar followed by a rockin’ disco inferno with The Funk Godfather, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Quasi Mandisco!  Or get you’re your 60s neo-tropical pop folk fix at Eddie’s Attic with Adron and Faye Webster! 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.  Drag out those shoulder-padded suits, fluff your hair and get ambitious 80s-style at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern during their screening of Mike Nichols’, WORKING GIRL (1988) during their Happily Ever After series’ screening at 7:30 pm! And for all you pretty girls and bad boys, all you need is a girl and a gun at the Midtown Art Cinema’s screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s BREATHLESS (1960), film noir at its sexiest!

Wednesday, March 12

Rock on down to The Earl for some avant-garde blues and psychedelic post-rock with The Locksmyth, England in 1819 and Absence of Ocean!  The Dirty Bourbon River Show will douse you in their New Orleans Gypsy Brass Circus Rock tonight at The Star Bar! Or for a night filled with surf rock and some high-energy ‘mosh pit polka’, cha-cha on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for Brave Combo! 529 rocks out Cramps-style at their Air Wolves CD release party along with the punk rockin’ Hip to Death and The Fire Tonight! Get soaked in rockin’ folk tinged with R&B at Eddie’s Attic with The Shadowboxers, Daniel Dewitt and Faye Webster!  Blind Willie’s gets bluesy with a dash of jazz and southern soul with Kool Kat Scott Glazer & his Mojo Dojo!   Big Tex’s Widespread Wednesday event has some bluegrass and reggae blues with Escape Vehicle!  Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint gets rockin’ with the Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings. 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.  Get to work with Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern during their screening of Mike Nichols’, WORKING GIRL (1988) during their Happily Ever After series’ matinee screening at 11:30 am!

Thursday, March 13

It’s a night of sex, drugs and bluegrass at the Red Light Café tonight with Grits & Soul, the BorderHop Trio (BorderHop Five) and Good Natured Children! Get dreamy and rock out with some blues and folk at Smith’s Olde Bar with The Stacktone Slims, Back on the Freakout and Rented Mule! Eddie’s Attic delivers a night of bluegrass and Americana with the Barry Waldrep Band and Sweetwater Road! The Earl rocks out with a little folk and psychedlia with Ben Trickey, Madeline and Montanus (Long Shadows)!  If you have a mischievous taste for some seething Scandinavian 90s heavy metal, rock on out to the Masquerade  for a Finnish fest of rock with  Children of Bodom along with Death Angel and Tyr! 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 or head down to Blind Willie’s for a blues-filled night with Tommy Brown & the Shadows! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! Get a taste of some New Orleans funk with The Mar-Tans and a side of finger lickin’ BBQ at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! Donna Hopkins dishes out her rockin’ soul at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! 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 rockin’ island tunes! And it’s your last chance to get ambitious 80s-style at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern during their screening of Mike Nichols’, WORKING GIRL (1988) during their Happily Ever After series’ screening at 7:30 pm!

Friday, March 14

Atlanta is the Kat’s meow tonight with Kool Kats galore! Throw on your boots and honky-tonk on down to The Star Bar for Kool Kat Cletis Reid & His City Cousins throwin’ one hell of a boot stompin’ CD Release party along with Julea & Her Dear Johns (keep your eyes peeled for Julea’s Kool Kat interview this week!) and the Blacktop Rockets! Or rev on over to The Alamo in Newnan to catch Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-DeVilles delivering a night of rockin’ psychobilly that’ll have you dancin’ all night long! Kool Kat Ruby Velle & the Soulphonics dish out some Georgia soul and 50s/60s R&B with a side of Factory’s doo-wop at The Earl! And you won’t want to miss our BFF blogger Kool Kat Jonathan Williams’ Wrestling with Pop Culture 3^rd Anniversary Party at Famous Pub! Don’t miss all the wrastlin’ shenanigans with Kool Kat Shane Morton, a.k.a. Prof. Morte,  Atlanta’s ghost host with the most, as he gets in the ring with the Kentucky Wolfman!  Monstrosity Championship Wrestling delivers a night of classic monsters vs. wrestlers, with terrifying tunes by Kool Kats Ryan Howard, Derek Obscura and Jamie Robertson of the Casket Creatures waking you from the dead with their horror punk from the unknown! So, come on out for a horrific night of monsters, rockin’ tunes and wrastlin’!

Release your inner zombie at Legend Café during their Bloody Gold Event! It’s a St. Patty’s Day party with a heavy tinge of zombie, so, rock on down and get your zombified leprechaun fix!  Smith’s Olde Bar delivers a rockin’ night with The Last Waltz Ensemble, the Glen Pridgen Band and Adam Klein & the Wild Fires! Stomp on down to Terminal West for a bluegrass hootenanny with The Infamous Stringdusters and Fruition! Fatback Deluxe delivers a blues-filled night at Hottie Hawgs BBQ!  It’s a night of blues and soul at the Variety Playhouse with veteran bluesman, Tinsley Ellis and Diane Durrett! Rock out blues and Americana-style with two live recordings at Eddie’s Attic with Delta Moon at 7pm and 9:30 pm! Get swanky at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event with Bogey & the Viceroy’s old-school rock n roll, while boogying under the dinosaurs! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at Billy George & Mo’ Lightnin’s CD Release Party!  Blues on down to Blind Willie’s for a night with Houserocker Johnson & the Shadows or rock on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a taste of the Rockaholics! Get jazzy at Elliott Street Pub with the Wasted Potential Brass Band! 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 15

Hey kiddies! It’s G.I. Joe’s 50^th Anniversary, and what better way to celebrate than surround yourself with pop culture’s favorite toys! Make your way to the Marriott Century Hotel for the G.I. Joe/Great Atlanta Toy Convention! The two-day toy extravaganza includes 200 new and classic dealer tables, celebrity guests including comic book artist, Tom Feister and C. Martin Croker, Animation Director at Cartoon Network, panels and a car show featuring the Batmobile, The General Lee and so much more!

Get your St. Patty’s Day party fix at the Masquerade at their 2^nd Annual Shamrock Music Fest being held in the music park with a musical lineup paying tribute to Journey, U2, Van Halen, The Blues Brothers and the Rolling Stones!  Big Tex celebrates the arrival of spring with their 3^rd Annual Spring Block Party featuring a musical lineup of the Codey Bearden Band, Ralph Roddenbery, the High Strung Stringband, The Bluefields, Dangermuffin and Copious Jones!  Or rev on down to Douglasville to catch Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt with the Psycho-DeVilles at the Irish Bred Pub! The Family Dog gets funky with The Deep Fried Five’s rockin’ disco! Get old-fashioned at the High Museum’s Culture Shock event featuring the tunes of The Muleskinner MacQueen Trio along with Heather Luttrell & the Possumden!  The Red Light Café dishes out some rockin’ soul with Diane Durrett and Melissa ‘Junebug’ Massey!  Or make your way to the Variety Playhouse for Roxie Watson’s CD Release Party delivering a night of old-country, rockabilly and bluegrass with Jamie Lynn Vessells! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets bluesy, Americana-style with EG Kight! Takenobu gets honkytonkin’ with a cello at The Earl with a little retro-revival of Casper & the Cookies and Virginia Plane’s 80’s alt rock inspired tunes! Get your Irish pride on at Eddie’s Attic as they deliver a night of Celtic Americana from the 80s with The Buddy O’Reilly Band! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack offers up a hoppin’ plate of some rockin’ BBQ and blues with Little G Weevil! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, March 16

It’s day two and your last chance to catch the G.I. Joe/Great Atlanta Toy Convention! It’s a toy extravaganza for the kiddie in all of us, so come on down and celebrate G.I. Joe and all the classic toys of your childhood! Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs offers up a jazzy plate of Big Band Atlanta during their Jazz Brunch at 12:30!  In the Wheelhouse dishes up some country and bluegrass at Big Tex’s Bluegrass Brunch! Slither on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for some rockin’ blues with Snakelegs! Get leathered up and rock on down to the Masquerade for a night with the ‘original OC punk surf power trio’ Agent Orange, along with Burns Like Fire and The El Caminos!  And get psychedelic at the Tabernacle with Bob Weir, guitarist for Grateful Dead, and his band Ratdog dishing out some Grateful Dead tunes along with some Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry covers!

Ongoing

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

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 (LAST CHANCE!)

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.