ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

So many goodies on the retro menu this week! We’ve got all the honky-tonkin’ ‘billy that’ll rev you up all week long! We’ve got classic cinema galore! And come on out for all the rockin’ garage, punk and old-school shows you could ever want, including the King of Surf Rock, Dick Dale; Bob Dylan; The Who and Joan Jett! Be the Kat’s meow and rock out in Retro Atlanta this week!

Monday, April 20

Stomp out those Monday blahs with a night of the old-school rockin’ blues of Denny Laine (Wings/Moody Blues) at Eddie’s Attic! Folk it up with Lily & the Tigers, Valley Maker and Gary Eddy at Mammal Gallery! Or make your way to Grocery on Home for a night with Alicia Witt, the Ghost of Paul Revere and Max Garcia Conover! The 20th Anniversary edition of F. Gary Gray’s ‘90s classic FRIDAY (1995) screens at several local theatres [Perimeter Pointe 10; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Southlake 24 (Morrow); Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); and Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville)] at 7:30pm! Get geeky with Blast-Off Burlesque as they start your week off right with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday night at 8:30pm! Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! 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! Blind Willie’s delivers a night of roots ‘n’ soul with Brandon Reeves! Get folksy with Jamie Laval at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! And for a night of tasty blues, make your way to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, April 21

It’s a night of folk rock and gypsy jazz at the Red Light Café with The Ragbirds and Carly Gibson! Folk it up with Willie Watson and Lauren Shera at Eddie’s Attic! The Georgia Tech Jazz Ensemble rocks out to the tunes of Radiohead, Soundgarden and Steely Dan at the Ferst Center! Holly Golightly on down to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern for their screening of Blake Edwards’ classic, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Or make your way to the Decatur Library for their screening of Anthony Asquith’s THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1952) at 10am! And catch the 20th Anniversary screening of F. Gary Gray’s FRIDAY (1995) at AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville) at 7:3opm! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with Kool Kat Jeff Clark and Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night! Fire it up with JT Speed at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get some soul with The Hollidays at Blind Willie’s! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Twain’s in Decatur every Tuesday at 9 pm! Or boogie on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta for a taste of Bill Sheffield’s acoustic roots and blues! And as always, The Entertainment Crackers get bluesy with their folksy Americana at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, April 22

Get vintage and stomp on down to Aisle 5 for a night with Miss Tess & the Talkbacks and Caleb Warren & the Perfect Gentlemen! Folk it up with Darlingside and Bombadil at Eddie’s Attic! SCENE MISSING Magazine presents Atlantarantino, at the Highland Inn Ballroom, delivering a night of writing, comedy and other performances based on Quentin Tarantino films! Emory Cinematheque screens John Boorman’s eerie tale, DELIVERANCE (1972) during their “Movies Made in Georgia” series at 7:30pm! Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern for their screening of Blake Edwards’ classic, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! And it’s your last chance to catch TCM’s presentation of the 50th Anniversary of Robert Wise’s classic, THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) screening in theatres across the Atlanta area at 2 pm and 7pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee), Perimeter Pointe 10; Merchant’s Walk Stadium Cinemas 14 (Marietta); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Avenue Forsyth 12 (Cumming); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); AMC Southlake 24 (Morrow); Regal McDonough Stadium 16; and Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville)]! Get funky in the Atlanta Room at Smith’s Olde Bar with the Wasted Potential Brass Band! Or hillbilly it up in the Music Room with Cash O’Riley, Wyatt Espalin and Maya Neiada! For a night of scrappy punk and cosmic sludge, rock on down to 529 for MTN ISL, Muuy Biien and Bataille (formerly Georges Bataille Battle Cry)! Blues on down t0 Blind Willie’s for a night with The Boohoo Ramblers! Get jazzy with Sal Gentile at the Elliott Street Pub! Blues it up with Lola at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as Kool Kat Rich DeSantis and his band Honkytonk get smokin’ hot during their Slim Chickens’ Honkytonk Extravaganza event, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes! Get some soul with The Hollidays at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, April 23

Surf on down to The Earl for a night with the legendary ‘King of the Surf Guitar’, Dick Dale (See ATLRetro’s feature here) and Moonbase! The Who, with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, invades the Gwinnett Center! The “Master of Suspense” invades the Palmetto Branch of the Atlanta Public Library with their Alfred Hitchcock Film Fest from 2pm-7pm, featuring his THE 39 STEPS (1959) and PSYCHO (1960)! Get old-timey at the Variety Playhouse with The Earls of Leicester! Rock out with Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah and The London Souls at Smith’s Olde Bar! Never grow up and make your way to the Fabrefaction Theatre Company for their presentation of the timeless Broadway musical, PETER PAN, running through May 10! Blues it up at The Star Bar with “Brassier Blues” featuring Julie Gribble, Katie Martin, Halle Johnson, Allie Lee, Mandi Strachata, Barb Carbon and Skye Paige! Get really retro at the Rialto Center for the Arts as Georgia State University ensembles present an evening of Finnish music celebrating the 150th anniversary of Jean Sibelius’ birth, with a reception to follow provided by the Atlanta Finland Society! Jazz it up with Bryan Bromberg at Suite Food Lounge! Stomp on down to the Red Clay Theatre for a night with The Secret Sisters and Dean Fields! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s, so hula on down for a night of smokin’ island tunes! Jazz it up with Frank Barham during Oakhurst’s Jazz Nights! It’s Bluegrass Thursday at Red Light Café, so stomp on down for a night with City Hotel, American Hologram and the Georgia Mountain String Band! Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs delivers a night of rockin’ Americana with Emily Kate Boyd! Blues it up with Sandra Hall & the Shadows at Blind Willie’s! 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! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! Get your boogie on at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village. And catch the 20th Anniversary screening of F. Gary Gray’s FRIDAY (1995) at AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville) at 7:3opm!

Friday, April 24

Make your way into the Final Frontier during Treklanta, Atlanta’s annual sci-fi con dedicated to space opera and Star Trek, running through April 26, at the Atlanta Marriott Century Center, celebrating the life of Leonard Nimoy! Kool Kat Andy Ditzler and Film Love Atlanta presents Jack Willis’ films chronicling the Civil Rights Movement [LAY MY BURDEN DOWN (1966) and THE STREETS OF GREENWOOD (1962)] at Emory’s White Hall at 7pm! Rock out at 529 (day shows) and The Earl (night shows) for Atlanta Mess-Around 2015! Daytime shows at 529 include Hector’s Pets, Paint Fumes, Slugga and the Zoners! Then make your way to The Earl for Pissed Jeans, GG King, Obnox, Whatever Brains, GHB and Wymyns Prysyn! The Dude invades the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema with their screening of the Coen Brothers’ THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) during their Midnight Bowling and Cocktail Party!

Get old-school and folk it up with Bob Dylan at the Fox Theatre! The Red Light Café delivers a night of rowdy bluegrass with Heyday Revival and special guests, Joe Dunn & Ajay Chavez and hosted by Salome Cabaret’s Big Gay James and more! Yacht Rock Revue performs the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and more at the Variety Playhouse! Get revved at Motorheads in McDonough with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles! Rumors and their Fleetwood Mac tribute rock out at The Star Bar! Get funky with Zach Deputy at Smith’s Olde Bar! Stomp on down to Java Monkey for a night with Blackfoot Daisy! Swami Gone Bananas rocks out ‘70s-style at Hottie Hawgs BBQ! The Villain Family, Mr. Blue Sky and Andrea Colburn deliver a night of garage country and folksy jazz at 529! Get some old-style southern blues at the Crimson Moon Café with Dave Boyd! 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! Houserocker Johnson & the Shadows get red-hot at Blind Willie’s! Make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues delivers a night of Americana and blues with Heather Luttrell! The HoboHemians deliver a night of old-time ‘20s and ‘30s jazz at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event, so shake a tail feather under the dinosaurs while sippin’ a few cocktails! Blues it up with Atlanta Boogie at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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, April 25

It’s that time of year again, folks! Rock on down to the 44th Annual Inman Park Spring Festival, running through April 26, featuring 3 stages of live music, home tours, a street parade, an artist’s market and more! Rockin’ retro performances include, Book of Colors, Mr. Blue Sky, the Myles Brown Band, 10 Degrees Off, Kool Kat Blair Crimmins & the Hookers, Brian Ashley Jones, Cooper Tisdale, Kool Kat Amy Pike and Bonaventure Quartet, the Georgia Soul Council, Diamond Thief, A Moment Electric, R. Garcia and more! And it’s day 2 of Atlanta Mess-Around 2015, so rock on down to 529 for the Barreracudas, OBN IIIs, Giorgio Murderer, The Secret Prostitutes, Uniform and Easy Magick! Night shows follow at The Earl with the Flamin’ Groovies, Gentlemen Jessie & His Men, Blaxxx, NOTS, PAMPERS and The Gaye Blades!

Rev on down to The Star Bar for a night with Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys and El Capitan & the Band With No Name! Or rock on down to Union EAV for a night of the nitty gritty with Woven In, Swank Sinatra, Denderea Bloodbath, The Gnar Wave Rangers and mtvghosts! Get funky and avant-garde at the Goat Farm Arts Center with Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra with James Harrar’s collaborative artist think-tank, Cinema Soloriens! Jazz it up at the Red Light Café with The Moonlighters and the Scott Draffin Quartet! Make your way to the Center for Puppetry Arts for their “Members-Only” screening of Jim Henson’s THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982) at 7pm! Get your horror punk fix with Kool Kats, The Casket Creatures as they pay tribute to The Ramones at the Mule Camp Tavern in Gainesville! Or get your horror surf fix with Genki Genki Panic at the Burnt Hickory Brewery in Kennesaw! Put on those dancin’ shoes and get ready for a night of retro rock, Motown, funk, Big Band and more at The Basement for Electric Western’s Keep on Movin’ Rock and Soul Dance Party! Punk out Cramps-style at Kavarna with Air Wolves! Stomp on down to the Atlanta Room at Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with American Hologram followed by Chuck Mead and Kool Kat Cletis & His City Cousins! Or get your classic rock fix in the Music Room with 68-75 and the Gasoline Brothers! For a night of dirty rock ‘n’ roll, head on down to the Elliott Street Pub for Nathan Kalish & the Wildfire! Jimbo Mathis & the Tri-State Coalition delivers a night of old-time blues and country at the Red Clay Theatre! The Family Dog delivers a night of Americana and folk with the Tyler Nail Trio! Stomp on down to Eddie’s Attic for a night with Jimmy Webb! Folk it up with Kate & Corey and The Good Graces at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Get the blues with Francine Reed & the Shadows at Blind Willie’s! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty with Damon Fowler! Make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! It’s a night of rockin’ blues with The Stooge Brothers at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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, April 26

Swing on by day 2 of the 44th Annual Inman Park Spring Festival featuring rockin’ performances by Flat Rock Swing, Black Lion, Larkin Poe, Sweet Claudette, Michelle Malone, the Rocket 88s, The Backyard Birds, The Rainmen, Webb Wilder, Ike Stubblefield, Sea Ghost, Woven In, Momcat, Man Up, Yancey, Plague of Pilgrams and more! Bluegrass it up at Smith’s Olde Bar for their Bluegrass Brunch with the Porch Bottom Boys! Stick around for a rockin’ night with Eddie Spaghetti (Supersuckers), Sean Thomason and Taylor Hollingsworth! Get some soul with Moonchild at Vinyl! Get your old-school radio drama fix with the premiere of Season 3 of HARRY STRANGE RADIO DRAMA on www.ksuradio.com at 10pm! Hula on down to The Lawrence and get your ‘50s and ‘60s surf and rock ‘n’ roll fix with Kool Kat Joshua Longino with Andrew & the Disapyramids! Jazz it up with Joe Alterman, Houston Person and The Hot Sardines at the Rialto Center for the Arts! Blues it up at Grocery on Home with Water Liars and Marshall Ruffin! Rock over to the Masquerade for a night with Buckcherry, Sons of Texas and Needeep!, For a night of rockin’ blues, come on down to Steve’s Live Music dishes out a Spring Cabaret featuring the students of funky folkster, Heidi Pollyea! Get some soul and tasty vittles at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack with Fatback Deluxe! And get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

The Georgia Ensemble Theatre presents Don Farrell’s “My Fair Lady” through April 26! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Shakespeare Tavern presents Andrew Houchins’ adaptation of Thornton Wilde’s “Our Town” running through April 26! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Marietta Museum of History gets Victorian as they present their “Peeling Back the Layers: Victorian Wedding Ensembles” exhibit through May 2, 2015!

The Fabrefaction Theatre Company presents the timeless Broadway musical, PETER PAN, running through May 10!

The High Museum presents “Gordon Parks: Segregation Story” (‘50s Life Magazine photos) and “Leonard Freed: Black in White America”, (1963-1966) exhibits through June 7!

The Georgia Renaissance Festival runs through June 7! William Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum’s, “Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendek in His Own Words and Pictures” getting wild through July 5!

Blast-Off Burlesque geeks it up with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday at 8:30pm!

HepCat’s Hop gets swingin’ every second Wednesday of the month at the 57th Fighter Group Restaurant!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

ICON 80s: Music Video Dance Night rocks out at the Famous Pub every Friday night with a different 80’s theme!

The Star Bar delivers Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night at 10pm, every Tuesday!

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.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Shake, rattle and roll in Retro Atlanta this week! Take a peek at all the shakin’ shenanigans we’ve found for you!

Monday, April 13

Rock on down to Vinyl for a night of rockin’ blues with Howlin’ Rain and Marshall Ruffin! The Resurgence Theatre Co. presents THE TAMER TAMED by John Fletcher at the Shakespeare Tavern, running through April 17! Make your way to the Lefont Theatre for their screening of GREY GARDENS (1976), directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Houde and Muffie Meyers at 7pm! Get geeky with Blast-Off Burlesque as they start your week off right with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday night at 8:30pm! Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-member big band gets to swingin’ at the Georgia Ensemble Theatre with his “One O’Clock Jump – The Sounds of Count Basie” concert! 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!’ Blues it up with Barrelhouse Bob Page at Blind Willie’s! Get folksy with Jamie Laval at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! And for a night of tasty blues, make your way to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, April 14

The Suffers and Black Linen deliver a night of classic American soul and rock ‘n’ roll at The Earl! Swing on by Eddie’s Attic, gypsy-style for a night with Caravan of Thieves and Caleb Warren & the Perfect Gentlemen! It’s a night of burly-Q shenanigans with Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and Syrens of the South, at the Red Light Café with their Tease Tuesday Burlesque event featuring Tuesday Laveau, Annette Coquette, Fianna Flowerchild and more! Spend an evening with Peter O’Toole at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema during their screening of David Lean’s classic tale, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) during the “Midtown Classics” series at 7pm! Or get adventurous at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern with their screening of Steven Spielberg’s INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Bluegrass it up with Curtis Jones & Primal Roots, Barbwire Bluegrass and One Fret Down at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with Kool Kat Jeff Clark and Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night! Fire it up with JT Speed at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Blind Willie’s delivers a night of rockin’ blues with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Twain’s in Decatur every Tuesday at 9 pm! Or boogie on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta for a taste of Bill Sheffield’s acoustic roots and blues! And as always, The Entertainment Crackers get bluesy with their folksy Americana at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, April 15

The tax man got you down? Let Retro Atlanta wipe it all away! The Goblin King invades the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) with their screening of Jim Henson’s ‘80s fantasy, LABYRINTH (1986) at 7pm! Flamenco down to the Red Light Café as Berdole Flamenco presents Vicente Griego and Joaquin Encinias! It’s your last chance to get adventurous at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern with their screening of Steven Spielberg’s INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Blues it up country-style with Tito & the Chicken Raiders at Blind Willie’s! The Earl delivers a night of retro rock with JD McPherson and John Paul Keith! Get funky with The 200s at the Elliott Street Pub! Or for your retro pop fix, make your way to Mammal Gallery for a night with Madeline, El Hollin and Femignome! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as Kool Kat Rich DeSantis and his band Honkytonk get smokin’ hot during their Slim Chickens’ Honkytonk Extravaganza event, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes! Get some soul with The Hollidays at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, April 16

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Bloodshot Bill dish out a ruckus and a half at The Earl! Honkytonk it up with Jesse Dayton Hardcharger at Smith’s Olde Bar! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s, so hula on down and get your ‘50s and ‘60s surf and rock ‘n’ roll fix with Kool Kat Joshua Longino with Andrew & the Disapyramids! Get your ‘80s glam metal and retro rock ‘n’ roll fix at the 120 Tavern & Music Hall with Faster Pussycat, Bigfoot and The Damned Angels! Gareth Asher gets some soul at the Buckhead Tavern! Rock on down to Mammal Gallery for a night with the Memes, Floral Print, Blis and Small Reactions! Funk it up with Kung Fu, Twiddle and Funk You at Terminal West! Jazz it up with The Upbeatniks with Kodac Harrison during Oakhurst’s Jazz Nights at the Solarium! It’s Bluegrass Thursday at Red Light Café, so stomp on down for a night with Bradford Lee Folk & the Bluegrass Playboys, 44 Smokeless and the Whoa Nelly Bluegrass Band! Russ Still & the Moonshiners deliver a night of traditional country and blues at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Blues it up with Sweet Betty & the Shadows at Blind Willie’s! 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! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, get your boogie on at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, April 17

Rock out during this year’s 3-day Sweetwater 420 Fest at Centennial Olympic Park with a whole rock harkening back to the 20th century, running through April 19! Tonight’s lineup includes Beats Antique, Cold War Kids and more! Then make your way to Terminal West for an after party featuring a Pink Floyd tribute, Pigs on the Wing! Or rev on over to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Motorama Pre-Party, hosted by Kool Kat Reverend Andy of Garage71 Internet Radio and featuring The Blacktop Rockets and more! Groove on down to the Red Light Café for a night of seduction during Sadie Hawkins’ Last Pasties Standing: Disco All-Star Invitational, featuring a sultry line-up of Kool Kat Lola LeSoleil, Scarlett DeWolfe, Kool Kat Roula Roulette, The Chameleon Queen, Ada Manzart, Sin Tillating, Kool Kat Ursula Undress, Kool Kat Talloolah Love and more!

Make your way to The Plaza Theater as they screen Jef Bredemeier’s documentary, DANTE’S DOWN THE HATCH (2014) about Atlanta’s landmark restaurant where you could dine inside an old pirate ship with live jazz and ferocious crocodiles (See our Retro Review here)! Or make your way to the Toco-Hill-Avis G. Williams Library as they screen Robert Mulligan’s classic, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) at 1:30pm! Rock out with Hot Tuna Electric at the Variety Playhouse! Five-Eight and James Hall rock out at The Star Bar! Celebrate 30 years of Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ at the Buckhead Tavern! Jazz it up with Michael Abene at the Rialto Center for the Arts! Rock out with Bryan Adams at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre! The Drunken Unicorn delivers a night of rockin’ punk and ska with Ye Flask, Trial by Stone, Chilled Monkey Brains and Ganges Phalanges! Rock out blues-style at The Family Dog with The Brotherland! Curtis Harding delivers his gritty, sweat-dripping, hip swingin’ blues at the High Museum! It’s an evening of classic soul from the ‘60s and ‘70s at Atlanta Symphony Hall with Capathia Jenkins and Darius deHaas! The Breeze Kings deliver a night of Chicago and West Coast blues with Carlos Capote at Hottie Hawgs BBQ! Get old-timey with the Georgia Crackers at the Crimson Moon Café! New Wave it up at the The Jungle Club during Fixation Smoke & Mirrors! The Yuppie Scum Band rocks out at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Francine Reed dishes out the bleus at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets the blues with Stoney Brooks! Fire it up with JP Soars & the Red Hots at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Salsa Dance Night at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event, so cha-cha under the dinosaurs with the Salsambo Dance Studio while sippin’ a few cocktails! Rock out with the Wild Hares at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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, April 18

It’s National Record Store Day! So make your way to Atlanta’s favorite independent record stores, including Criminal Records, Wax N’ Facts and Fantasyland Records and check out all the rockin’ shenanigans they have in store! The Music Room will be hosting a classic vinyl silent auction as well, so come on out and celebrate vinyl! Rock on down to day 2 of the Sweetwater 420 Fest in Centennial Olympic Park featuring Marc Broussard, The Wood Brothers, Anders Osborne, Gov’t Mule, Primus, MarchFourth Marching Band and more! After the festivities, groove on down to the Loft for a night with Cosmic Charlie, paying tribute to the Grateful Dead! Shake a tail feather at the Red Light Café during DJ Doctor Q’s Saturday Speakeasy Electroswing event, featuring Ada Manzart, Claire Voyant, Lucy Purr, Sadie Hawkins and dance lessons by Down South Swing! Or surf on down to Kavarna for Southern Surf Stomp at 8:30pm featuring Eddie Angel (Los Straitjackets), The Penetrators and Rodeo Twister! Get really retro in Fairburn and celebrate 30 years of the Georgia Renaissance Festival, running through June 7! Rock out for positive social change during ChangeFest 2015 at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, featuring rockin’ tunes by The Glenn Phillips Band with special guest, Cindy Wilson (B-52s); Robert Schneider of The Apples in stereo, new-wave legends, The Swimming Pool Qs, the Starboarders and more!

The Earl Smith Strand Theatre delivers an adventurous marathon of Steven Spielberg’s epic INDIANA JONES TRILOGY, with screenings of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) at 2pm, THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) at 5pm and THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) at 9pm! Dweezil Zappa performs his “Zappa Plays Zappa” show for the “One Size Fits All” 40th Anniversary at the Variety Playhouse! Get funky with Pimps of Joytime and Spectralux at The Drunken Unicorn! Let Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles fire you up at the Dixie Tavern in Marietta! Blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at the Elliott Street Pub! For a night of down and dirty rock ‘n’ roll, head on over to The Star Bar for Kool Kats The Blackfoot Gypsies, Stonerider and Brother Hawk! Tribute rocks out at 120 Tavern & Music Hall with Allman Brothers tunes! Bluegrass it up with Bluebilly Grit at the Crimson Moon Café! Get the blues with Randall Bramblett at Eddie’s Attic! Donna Hopkins delivers a night of rockin’ roots with Dyn-O-Mite at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Its night 2 featuring classic soul from the ‘60s and ‘70s at Atlanta Symphony Hall with Capathia Jenkins and Darius deHaas! Get jazzy with Earl Klugh at the Ferst Center! Kool Kat Mary Fahl performs at the Red Clay Theatre! Stomp on down to The Family Dog for a night with the Boohoo Ramblers! Sandra Hall & the Shadows get bluesy at Blind Willie’s! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty with Bobby Messano! The Northside Tavern celebrates Sean Costello with performances by Blues Fish with Robert Lee Coleman, the Cody Matlock Band, The Hollidays and more! Mr. Chapman’s Quarterly Revue fires it up at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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, April 19

It’s day 3 and your last chance to rock out at the Sweetwater 420 Fest! Come on down for a day with The Revivalists, Delta Rae, 311, The London Souls, the Wailers and more! Or stomp on down to Eddie’s Attic for ATL Collective and their presentation of Ray Charles’ “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music,” with two shows! TCM Presents the 50th Anniversary of Robert Wise’s classic, THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) screening in theatres across the Atlanta area at 2 pm and 7pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 in Chamblee, Perimeter Pointe 10; Merchant’s Walk Stadium Cinemas 14 in Marietta; Avalon Stadium 12 in Alpharetta; AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 in Lawrenceville; AMC Avenue Forsyth 12 in Cumming; AMC Barrett Commons 24 in Kennesaw; AMC Southlake 24 in Morrow; Regal McDonough Stadium 16; and Cinemark Tinseltown 17 in Fayetteville]! It’s your last chance to spend the day with the Goblin King at the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) with their screening of Jim Henson’s LABYRINTH (1986) at 2pm! Make your way to The Marlay House for the Atlanta Tolkien Fans April Meet-up! The BadAsh Allstar Team pays tribute to Stevie Wonder at the Red Light Café! For a night of rockin’ blues, come on down to the Variety Playhouse for The Waterboys! It’s Sultry Sunday with Michelle Marshall at Steve’s Live Music! The Bluegrass Flashmob bluegrasses it up at Smith’s Olde Bar! Jazz it up Diana Krall at the Atlanta Symphony Hall! Get some soul and tasty vittles at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack with Fatback Deluxe! Bluegrass it up at the Crimson Moon Café with Front Country! And get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

The Alliance Theatre presents Phillip DePoy’s gothic murder mystery, EDWARD FOOTE, haunting through April 19! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Georgia Ensemble Theatre presents Don Farrell’s “My Fair Lady” through April 26! The Shakespeare Tavern presents Andrew Houchins’ adaptation of Thornton Wilde’s “Our Town” running through April 26!

The Marietta Museum of History gets Victorian as they present their “Peeling Back the Layers: Victorian Wedding Ensembles” exhibit through May 2, 2015!

The High Museum presents “Gordon Parks: Segregation Story” (‘50s Life Magazine photos) and “Leonard Freed: Black in White America”, (1963-1966) exhibits through June 7!

The Georgia Renaissance Festival runs through June 7!

William Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum’s, “Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendek in His Own Words and Pictures” getting wild through July 5!

Blast-Off Burlesque geeks it up with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday at 8:30pm!

HepCat’s Hop gets swingin’ every second Wednesday of the month at the 57th Fighter Group Restaurant!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

ICON 80s: Music Video Dance Night rocks out at the Famous Pub every Friday night with a different 80’s theme!

The Star Bar delivers Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night at 10pm, every Tuesday!

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.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Hey kiddies! Spring has sprung, so come on out and see what’s on the Retro menu this week! ‘Tis the season for outdoor festivals promising rockin’ shindigs and shakin’ shenanigans! And of course we’ve got all the red hot jazz ‘n’ blues you could ever want, a week full of classic cinema and so much more! So, get up and get out in Retro Atlanta this week!

Monday, April 6

Boogie on down to Octane Coffee for stoked!, featuring a night of classic punk and rock ‘n’ roll! Or polka it up at Pallookaville as they and Blast-Off Burlesque present Atlanta’s only Dingus Day Celebration featuring a Polka dance party with accordionist Vincent Aleandri and DJ Barbilicious spinning Polka hits! Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! 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! Blues it up with Bill Sheffield at Blind Willie’s! Get folksy with Jamie Laval at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! And for a night of tasty blues, make your way to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, April 7

Get tempted with the best of ‘em at Landmark Midtown Art Cinema’s screening of Martin Scorsese’s THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988) during the “Midtown Classics” series at 7pm! Or go where no man has gone before, to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern for their screening of Nicholas Meyer’s STAR TREK II: WRATH OF KHAN (1982), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Eddie’s Attic dishes out a night of old-school doo-wop, R&B and soul with The Impressions! Groove on down to The Earl for a night with The Bright Light Social Hour and The Tontons! Funk on down to Aisle 5 for a night with The 200s, Progger and The Indie Revenge! Get really retro at Pallookaville with Jim Stacy’s culinary anthropological series, “Eat Like An American Colonist” at 7:30pm! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with Kool Kat Jeff Clark and Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night! Get folksy with the Wrinkle Neck Mules at Smith’s Olde Bar! Fire it up with JT Speed at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Blind Willie’s delivers a night of rockin’ roots with Joe McGuinness! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Twain’s in Decatur every Tuesday at 9 pm! Or boogie on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta for a taste of Bill Sheffield’s acoustic roots and blues! And as always, The Entertainment Crackers get bluesy with their folksy Americana at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, April 8

Holly Golightly to the Studio Movie Grill in Alpharetta during their screening of Blake Edwards’ BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) at 7:30pm! Take a voyage to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern for their screening of Nicholas Meyer’s STAR TREK II: WRATH OF KHAN (1982), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Jazz it up with Kool Kat Scott Glazer’s Mojo Dojo at Blind Willie’s! 529 rocks out with Glen Iris, Rope, Moonbase and SWOTS! Rock on down to Aisle 5 for New Car Caviar: A Jamgrass Tribute to Pink Floyd! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as Kool Kat Rich DeSantis and his band Honkytonk get smokin’ hot during their Slim Chickens’ Honkytonk Extravaganza event, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes! Blues it up with Lola at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! Get some soul with The Hollidays at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, April 9

Rev on down to Tannery Row Artist Colony as Garage71 Studio brings you a vintage motorcycle display and their Deep Eddy Vodka Artist Series, featuring Kustom Kulture Art and pin-stripe artist, Charles Tyre, and so much more! Kool Kat Spike Fullerton with the Ghostriders Car Club fires it up at the Clermont Lounge! Rock out with some punk cabaret at the Variety Playhouse with An Evening With Amanda Fucking Palmer (Dresden Dolls)! Jazz it up with Kebbi Williams during Oakhurst’s Jazz Nights at the Solarium! Get to the root of it all with Heather Luttrell at Blind Willie’s! The Earl delivers a night of rockin’ folk with Book Club and Hope for agoldensummer! Get old-timey and bluegrass it up with Whiskey Shivers and the Stovetop Ramblers at Smith’s Olde Bar! Get down and dirty at 529 with The Dirty Magazines, Alias for Now, Sex Snobs and Spray Tan! Get retro theatre-style as the Georgia Ensemble Theatre presents Don Farrell’s “My Fair Lady” by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, running through April 26! Have a saxxy good time with Pamela Williams, the “Saxtress” at Suite Food Lounge! It’s Bluegrass Thursday at Red Light Café, so stomp on down for a night with The Fustics and Brillig! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s, so hula on down for a night of fiery island tunes! 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! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, get your boogie on at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, April 10

Spring has sprung and so has the 3-day 79th Annual Atlanta Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park, featuring live music, an artist’s market, festival food, rides, games and more! Make your way to the main stage for a rockin’ good time with Dangerous Basement, The Space Time Travelers, Freddy’s Finest, Angelina Sheri, The Harlem Albright Band, Eric Thomas & Elevate the Quest and more! Geek it up and get your Sherlock Holmes fix at this year’s 221B Con promising a weekend chock full of Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, H.G. Wells, The Hobbit, fan fiction and more, being held at the Atlanta Marriott Perimeter Center and running through April 12!  The Star Bar delivers a night of retro rockin’ R&B and Delta psyche with Bipolaroid, A Drug Called Tradition and Jessica Lee Wilkes! Catch Jack Clayton’s cinematic adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, THE GREAT GATSBY (1974) at Earl Smith Strand Theatre at 8pm! Boogie on down with Yacht Rock Revue and their 6th Annual Reagan Rock Prom at Park Tavern! It’s a night of blues rock and soul at Smith’s Olde Bar with The Last Waltz Ensemble, Liz Brasher and The Georgia Flood! Swing on by Vinyl for a stompin’ good time with The Dustbowl Revival and City Hotel! Get musical at the Shakespeare Tavern with Andrew Houchins’ adaptation of Thornton Wilde’s “Our Town” running through April 26! Rock out with Radio Cult with Bambi Lynn at Hottie Hawgs BBQ! Make your way to the Red Light Café for a night with Jordan Igoe and the rock n roll soul siren, Rosey! Fancy it up with GSU’s Opera Theatre & Symphony Orchestra at the Rialto Center for the Arts as they present LA BOHEME by Giacomo Puccini at 8pm, running through April 12! The Variety Playhouse dishes out a night of roots rock with James McMurtry! Stomp on down to Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs for a night with Heather Luttrell! Blues it up with Selwyn Birchwood at Blind Willie’s! Get folksy with Mipso at Eddie’s Attic! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Diedre & the Ruff Pro Band get the blues at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! The Electromatics will have you shakin’ a tail feather under the dinosaurs as they deliver a night of Chicago and West Coast blues at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event! It’s a night of indie folk at the Tabernacle with The Decemberists! Blues it up with Larry Griffith at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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, April 11

Make your way to Piedmont Park for day 2 of the 79th Annual Atlanta Dogwood Festival featuring live music by Rhonda Thomas, the JP Blues Band, The Tin Man, the Natti Love Joys, Gareth Asher & the Earthlings, the Lefty Williams Band, Cigar Store Indians and more! Or spring onto Ponce for their 4th Annual Spring Festival on Ponce at the Olmsted Linear Park featuring 125 local artists, live acoustic music, gourmet food trucks and more, running through April 12! Oink on down to the Masquerade for Hogs & Hops Atlanta, featuring beer ‘n’ BBQ and rockin’ tunes by The Geeks and the Sweet Auburn String Band!

It’s a night of rockin’ punk poets at The Star Bar with their I’M BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT: A Tribute to Lou Reed event, featuring The Skylarks, Blake Rainey & His Demons, Bottlekids, Noel Summerall and Weary Heads! Rock on down to the Variety Playhouse for a night with The Bangles and A Fragile Tomorrow! Make your way to the Lefont Theatre for their screening of GREY GARDENS (1976), directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Houde and Muffie Meyers at 10:30am! It’s a night of punk, blues and voodoo funk at Union EAV with Sonic Graffiti, Momcat and Bully Pulpit! Disco it up at Kavarna with the Susi French Connection! Get bluesy in the Music Room at Smith’s Olde Bar with the AJ Ghent Band and Greg Humphrey’s Electric Trio! Or stomp on over to the Atlanta Room for a night with Tedo Stone, Kip Bradley and Cicada Rhythm! Haunt on down to the Historic Oakland Cemetery for their Malts & Vaults: Where Beer Meets History tour, from 7-8pm! Costume it up at Battle & Brew in Sandy Springs at their Disney Cosplay Night, with photo-ops, costume contests and more! Or boogie on down to the Famous Pub in your best immortal get-ups for RITUAL’s Gods & Goddesses Party! Radar delivers a night of rock ‘n’ roll at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs with a reunion show! Blues it up with Eddie Shaw & the Wolfgang at Blind Willie’s! Jazz it up with the Elgin Wells Group at the Red Clay Theatre! Get folksy for night 2 of The Decemberists at the Tabernacle! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty with The Cazanovas! Get funky with Swami Gone Bananas and Vanilla Gorilla at the Northside Tavern! Diedre & the Ruff Pro Band get the blues at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Bluegrass it up with Nu-Blu at the Crimson Moon Café! It’s a night of hill country and juke joint blues at The Family Dog with The John Sosebee Band! 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, April 12

Eddie’s Attic delivers their Gospel Brunch, featuring Eric “Ricky” McKinnie (Blind Boys of Alabama), Harold Holloway & Co. and Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck with the Atlanta Horns, at 11:30am! Then stick around for two rockin’ sets with Edwin McCain at 6pm and 8:3opm! Or brunch it up at Smith’s Olde Bar with Cedar Hill! It’s your last chance and day 3 of the 79th Annual Atlanta Dogwood Festival, so come on down and get funky with Alana Royal, Them Wagoneers, Crane and more! Support local artists and craftsmen/women at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club’s Lovecrafts: Treasures from the Deep event running from 1pm to 6pm! Bluegrass it up with Front Country and City Mouse at the Red Light Café! Get traditional, Celtic-style at Steve’s Live Music with the Cape Breton Trio! Get some soul and tasty vittles at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack with Fatback Deluxe! And rock on down to the Crimson Moon Café for their Boomers Gone Wild event, delivering a night of ‘60s and ‘70s covers!

Ongoing

The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center presents the “Gilda Radner Research and Translation Center”, an unofficial academic-ish platform for the analysis of Radner’s life and comedy, running through April 11! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Alliance Theatre presents Phillip DePoy’s gothic murder mystery, EDWARD FOOTE, haunting through April 19!

The Georgia Ensemble Theatre presents Don Farrell’s “My Fair Lady” through April 26!

The Shakespeare Tavern presents Andrew Houchins’ adaptation of Thornton Wilde’s “Our Town” running through April 26!

The Marietta Museum of History gets Victorian as they present their “Peeling Back the Layers: Victorian Wedding Ensembles” exhibit through May 2, 2015!

The High Museum presents “Gordon Parks: Segregation Story” (‘50s Life Magazine photos) and “Leonard Freed: Black in White America”, (1963-1966) exhibits through June 7!

William Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum’s, “Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendek in His Own Words and Pictures” getting wild through July 5!

Blast-Off Burlesque geeks it up with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday at 8:30pm!

HepCat’s Hop gets swingin’ every second Wednesday of the month at the 57th Fighter Group Restaurant!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

ICON 80s: Music Video Dance Night rocks out at the Famous Pub every Friday night with a different 80’s theme!

The Star Bar delivers Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night at 10pm, every Tuesday!

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.

Photo courtesy of SEX BBQ

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Kate Jan, New York transplant and guitar slingin’ skateboarding badass punk rocker chick and her beloved debaucherous band and partners in crime, SEX BBQ [current lineup: Kate Jan (vocals/guitar); Steve LaBate (guitar); Rob Bellury (bass); Steve Brown (drums); and Steve Albertson (everything else)] will be shakin’ a tail feather this Saturday, April 4, at the Drunken Unicorn, with Young Rapids and MammaBear to boot! So, come on down and have a smut slingin’ hell-raisin’ ruckus with SEX BBQ at the Drunken Unicorn this Saturday at 9pm!

Kate, not your typical psych-punk space cowgirl, has been slingin’ her guitar and writing music since childhood, major influences including Riot Grrrl punk rockers, Bikini Kill, as well as the Breeders, ‘90s skate thrash punk and even Chuck Berry. In 2012, Kate voyaged to the southern underground to continue her Neuropsychology education and decided to add a little rockin’ debauchery to the mix! SEX BBQ formed shortly thereafter and have shared bills with Hospitality, Single Mothers, Beach Day, Little Tybee, Concord America, Belle & Sebastian and Warehouse, just to name a few. They’ve also been featured in several national music outlets [PunkNews.org; Under the Gun Review; Speakers in Code; and Magnet Magazine]. SEX BBQ’s first single “Locus of Control” b/w “Wake Up” was recorded by Ed Rawls and Justin McNeight (The Black Lips; The Coathangers; Those Darlins) in the summer of 2012, with both tracks appearing on their new album, SEX NOIR CITY, debuting this spring. The album’s nine new tracks, recorded by Damon Moon [Rrest; Iron Jayne] in East Atlanta, are chock full of surf riffs and garage punk elements, destined to satisfy the retro rockers in us all!

ATLRetro caught up with Kate for a quick interview about SEX BBQ’s debut album, SEX NOIR CITY; her New York City underground roots; and her take on the band being described as “garage, surf, psych, prog, metal, dream pop, indie rock, Tom Waits-style junkyard blues, B-52s-esque, Spaghetti Western weirdness!” And while you’re checking at our little Q&A with Kate, get an earful of SEX BBQ’s vintage, noir rock ‘n’ roll sound, here!

Photo Credit: T.O. Lawrence

ATLRetro: What a cool name for a band! Sex BBQ! Can you fill our readers in on the funky story behind the name and how you got together?

Kate Jan: Thanks! Steve L. and I started playing songs together in my apartment in Atl – we just started writing, playing and having fun. We gradually found Steve #2 (drums), Steve #3 (keys and percussion), Laura Palmer (vocals and organ) and Everett (bass) through friends. The extremely talented and creative Laura Palmer introduced the name SEX BBQ to our vernacular from a satirical guide to decoding your teen’s text lingo (SBBQ). After briefly entertaining and then ignoring the possibility that we’d be set aside as a joke band or a frat-rock dad-rock sextet, we embraced it as the best combination of all words ever. And so SEX BBQ was birthed.

As a skateboarding, guitar-slingin’ neuropsychologist and rockin’ New Yorker chick to boot, what brought you to The Dirty Dirty?

I came for a Neuropsychology Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Emory after getting my PhD, and stayed for the medium bowl at the Old 4th Ward Skatepark.

Photo courtesy of SEX BBQ

The band’s sound has been described as having a “garage, surf, psych, prog, metal, dream pop, indie rock, Tom Waits-style junkyard blues, B-52s-esque, Spaghetti Western weirdness,” which of course sounds like a helluva good time! How would you describe your sound and your live show?

That pretty much nails our sound. Thankfully we’ve got tapes and records now! Our live show is a party all around. We don’t mess around with stage banter but we play, dance and mingle while we sling those axes and sing our hearts out.

We see that you picked up a guitar pretty early on. Can you tell our readers a story about how you got started playing music?

I got two stories. My mother was a huge Joni Mitchell fan and played acoustic guitar. She played and sang for me. My Dad played piano and actually now plays church organ, which is kind of weird because we are Jewish. But, you know, when music calls it calls. When I was 6, I picked up a guitar and wrote her a song for Mother’s Day. It went something like “I Love You. You’re My Mom.”

I took a few lessons when I was 12 or so, and learned the basics, you know – songs by The Muffs, Seven Year Bitch and most of THE CROW (1994) soundtrack. After that, lying on my floor devouring mid-90s punk and – after Kurt Cobain died – listening to Nirvana day & night went hand in hand with writing my own songs.

Your top retro influences are listed as the B-52s, Bikini Kill, the Pixies, Pink Floyd, and even film composer, Morricone, famous for so much, including his Spaghetti Western film scores. What influenced you the most with regards to such a wide-variety of music makers?

It’s a collective list from our variety of band members. I don’t even know who Morricone is, and I always liked the Breeders WAY better than the Pixies. I cried when they broke up way back when. Like bawled.  My major influences are Bikini Kill, Blake Babies and all of 1990s’ skate and thrash punk and NY Hardcore. Recently, I’ve been heavily influenced by The Delmonas, Chuck Berry (at least I hope) and Grace Slick.

As a musician coming from New York, the metropolis of underground music, how would you rate Atlanta and its rockin’ underground music scene? And who are some of your favorite local bands?

My favorite Athens band is straight-up grit-dirty garage party rock trio Free Associates. They rock my world. In Atlanta I really dig Concord America, Todaythemoon, Tomorrowthesun and Jungol. I spent my teenage years going to CBGB, ABC No Rio and Tramps seeing bands like The Skabs, L.E.S. Stitches, Agnostic Front, Bouncing Souls and my friends’ bands. It was just way easier then – there was still punk and hardcore. I think all those clubs are closed now.  While living in Queens in the 2000s, I honestly couldn’t afford to go out. To be verrrrry honest, I spent lots of time writing electronic music on Reason in my tiny apartment. I was dating a hip-hop producer for awhile – shout out to Beatnik & K-Salaam – and got to go to shows and meet people like Talib Kweli, M1 from Dead Prez, Pharaoh Monch and Wordsworth. I almost bowled with Talib Kweli when Brooklyn Bowl first opened. I also hung out with a metal engineering crew and got to see and chill with Lamb of God and my favorite indulgence, nu metal stylies Killswitch Engage. If I had lived in Brooklyn it would have been different in terms of exploring underground/indie music, but holy rent!!

Photo Credit: T.O. Lawrence

If you could put together a dream line-up of bands to play with [still around or not], who would it be and why?

Free Associates, Gun Party, Blake Babies, The Delmonas, Jefferson Airplane, Sick of it All, H2O and The Black Lips. Because they all have unique ways of playing energetic shows and they’re all really great. And the Descendents.

You’re touring in support of your debut album, SEX NOIR CITY. Can you tell our readers a little about it?

We haven’t released tour dates for this spring and summer. We are playing April 4th at the Drunken Unicorn and that’s all I can reveal now. Tehee!

Anything scandalous planned for your shakin’ shindig happening this Saturday at the Drunken Unicorn?

I could tell you, but then I’d have to involve you in our Master Plan and you might get in deep, deep shit. Seriously though, once, during a Drunken Unicorn show we created our own micro-economy by distributing SEX Bar-B-Bucks. It was the genesis of the sharing economy and our gateway to taking over the world. It was Everett and Laura Palmer’s idea. In sum, expect wizardry.

Photo courtesy of SEX BBQ

What’s next for Kate Jan and Sex BBQ?

We are SO STOKED for our release of SEX NOIR CITY, and we will have tapes and a limited run of white vinyls with hand-painted jackets for sale. I think we are even more excited about the new music that we’ve been writing in the meantime. I have a jam space and recording studio in my basement so I think we’re going to record an LP there soon in a collaboration with Jones Maintenance Revue.

Can you tell our readers something you’d like folks to know that they don’t know already?

Music and medicine are both great, but growing flowers and raising a puppy rock too.

What question do you wish somebody would ask you and what’s the answer?

Q: What does your wisest and oldest mentor say about SEX BBQ?
A:  My grandfather is 94, fought in the Royal Air Force as a pilot after escaping Poland, is wildly into classical music, and recently discovered the genius of Brian Jones and the Rolling Stones:  “Keep enjoying, Katie, the world of music, which adds a disproportionally large percentage to human happiness on this earth.”

Photo Credit: T.O. Lawrence

All photos courtesy of SEX BBQ and used with permission.

EIGHT (2014); Dir. Peter Blackburn; Starring Libby Munro; Screened at the Atlanta Film Festival, IMDB.

By Andrew Kemp
Contributing Writer

The term “high-wire act” is sometimes deployed by critics to describe a film or a performance that’s particularly high-risk, implying disaster should the performer slip up or go too far. EIGHT, an Australian film that just had its North American premiere at the Atlanta Film Festival, pivots on a performance that seems less like a high-wire act than a bungee-cord plunge. Star Libby Munro is in a perpetual state of free fall in the film, without a net to catch her, and the only question is just how hard she’s going to hit the pavement. Only when she doesn’t does the full weight of her accomplishment become clear.

Munro stars as Sarah, a woman crippled by agoraphobia and OCD that appears to have completely shut her in to her home. The entire film follows Sarah as she attempts to begin her day, and if that sounds like a premise that can’t support a feature, then be grateful for your perspective. Movie characters written into sweeping, plot-driven adventures rarely suffer as Sarah does just in the simple act of trying to get dressed. Her illness has trapped her in a paralyzing cycle of eights. She must tap her feet eight times to put on her slippers, make eight taps on the fridge door before opening it for water, and wash her hands violently eight times in a sink before she can convince herself they’re clean. Sarah’s body bears the scars and bruises from her daily struggle with tasks as simple as taking a shower, cleaning the sink, or making breakfast.

The film doesn’t reveal much about Sarah. We see she has an absent family, but we never learn what triggered her condition or how long it’s been with her. What we know for certain is that she wants to get better. Her house is papered with encouraging notes, and an occasional caller checks in with her progress over an answering machine. With this knowledge every lapse, every small mistake that repeats a cycle becomes all the more tragic. Sarah is not insane, she’s ill. She’s fully aware of her condition, but trapped by it, and EIGHT honors the grip of her illness by refusing to cut away from it. Indeed, EIGHT is shot as a single, uninterrupted take that keeps Sarah in the frame for almost all of the film’s 82 minutes. Far from being a showy gimmick, EIGHT’s ambitious single-take style is essential to the understanding of what the film wants to convey. Sarah has no escape, and the film provides a small glimpse of what it means to actually live that kind of life. The film can be brutal, unflinching, and, quite frankly, difficult to watch, but it evokes sympathy for mental illness in a way a more traditional film could not. Unlike other famous one-shot films (ROPE, BIRDMAN), there is no editing trickery on display. It actually is one single, punishing take providing only rare moments of audience relief (words cannot express my gratitude when the camera decided not to stay on Sarah for a third painful, compulsive shower. The camera instead chooses that moment to glide past pictures of the family Sarah has lost to her illness, twisting the knife in another way.)

After the AFF screening, director Peter Blackburn talked about how mental illness—especially OCD—is too often used as a comedic character quirk in Australian film. (Americans who’ve seen Jack Nicholson’s hammy, Oscar-winning performance in AS GOOD AS IT GETS (1997) can relate). Blackburn hoped that EIGHT would put the focus back on the reality of the disorder, and in that his film is a success. Munro’s performance is so raw and tortured that audiences will find themselves cheering for each tiny bit of progress Sarah makes. A stage actor in Australia, Munro masterfully depicts Sarah’s breakdown between the life she wants and the life her compulsions force her to live. Almost entirely without words—over 20 minutes passed before the first voice reminded me that the film is Australian—Munro is able to make Sarah a complete and pitiable human being. Her work here is remarkable, and despite that bungee-cord feeling that disaster could strike at any moment, she confidently sticks the landing.

I’m not entirely convinced that EIGHT does the same, saddled as it is with an ending that, although welcome, is a bit too tidy after the struggle that came before. But the film must still be considered an accomplishment, both in completing its incredibly difficult single shot and for depicting the real heartbreak of OCD through the power of the splendid, fearless performance that anchors the film.

Andrew Kemp is a screenwriter and game designer who started talking about movies in 1984 and got stuck that way. He can be seen around town wherever there are movies, cheap beer and little else.

THE KEEPING ROOM (2014); Dir. Daniel Barber; Starring Brit Marling, Hailee Steinfeld, Muna Otaru, Sam Worthington; Atlanta Film Festival, IMDB.

By Andrew Kemp
Contributing Writer

THE KEEPING ROOM opens with an onscreen quote: “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”

The quote is from General William Sherman, and it served as justification for both the destruction of Atlanta and the march that cut a burning scar into the South. It’s not poetry, but a blunt statement of purpose, and it serves the same function in Daniel Barber’s new film. Having unveiled the quote, the film spends the next 95 minutes attempting to prove it. 

THE KEEPING ROOM unfolds near the end of the war, in a place where all the men seem to have been chewed up in the conflict, leaving behind only Augusta (Brit Marling) and her younger sister Louise (Hailee Steinfeld) who struggle to maintain the family’s small farm with the help of their single slave, Mad (Muna Otaru). Louise resents the hard work and sulks at having to do the same jobs as Mad, but the practical Augusta understands the situation they’re in. The men have gone to destroy one another, and they’ve destroyed the old ways, too. The women are already living at the end of their world, but Sherman has not yet arrived to make it official.

But then like heralds, two roaming Union soldiers (including AVATAR’s Sam Worthington) invade the women’s lives. The soldiers are bent on murder and mayhem for reasons unclear. Perhaps they’re on a mission; perhaps they’re simply marking time. But for Augusta the existential scramble for survival suddenly becomes very present and very real.

THE KEEPING ROOM is a bleak, chilly movie punctuated by snaps of bloody violence. Based of the rural setting and the story’s slow burn, it could be a civil war cousin to Sam Peckinpah’s STRAW DOGS (1971), or at least as close as possible in a film where an action sequence requires long pauses while all parties stop to load their guns. The story compensates for these logistics with tension and suspense, meaning that at times it resembles more of a home invasion horror story—THE STRANGERS (2008) with bushy beards in place of kewpie doll masks. The horror analogy seems especially apt since men play the monsters in this story. Men have already laid the land to ruin and now they’ve come for all that the women have left.

Unfortunately, THE KEEPING ROOM wants to be two different films. The first, a tense survival story, works fairly well. The second, a message movie about the ugliness of war, is shakier. The film suffers from a tendency to wear its symbolism on its sleeve. This is the kind of movie where the villains are accompanied by a rabid dog named Battle, and where the heroine must recite an eye-roller of a speech about all the men dying at war and leaving the planet to the women. One of the soldiers—in advance of a liberating army, mind you—calls himself Moses, which even scored a few chuckles from the audience around me. In THE KEEPING ROOM, of course his name is Moses.

It’s as a thriller where the film shines, with director Barber showing the same aptitude with tension, payoff, and gritty realism he first displayed in the entertaining, if also a bit self-serious, HARRY BROWN. It’s unfortunate that so much of the film’s threat of violence is sexual in nature, but that’s to be expected given both the story and the theme, and, ultimately, doesn’t feel gratuitous, paying off in a marvelous speech by Otaru that gives the film its title.  In a film full of strong performances, Otaru is a standout, utilizing a lilting, affected accent to mask a deep pit of hurt and heartbreak.

THE KEEPING ROOM has secured distribution with the trendsetters at Drafthouse Films, ensuring that it will eventually find its way to a wide audience. What they’ll find is a strong, entertaining thriller about the evils of war, but one that tries a bit too hard to say a lot of big things. With an even hand, the film could have said more with less, but that shouldn’t take away from the excellent performances and characters that anchor the story. THE KEEPING ROOM doesn’t quite work as a message movie, but as a bit of survival horror, it more than handles the job.

Andrew Kemp is a screenwriter and game designer who started talking about movies in 1984 and got stuck that way. He can be seen around town wherever there are movies, cheap beer and little else.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Retro Atlanta dishes out all the funk, jazz, shenanigans of the circus variety, classic films, rockin’ shindigs and smokin’ hot blues you can handle! So get off that couch and live la Vida Retro!

Monday, March 30

Get geeky with Blast-Off Burlesque as they start your week off right with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday night at 8:30pm! Catch Sidney Lumet’s classic, 12 ANGRY MEN (1957) at the Charles D. Switzer Public Library’s “Brown Bag Lunch Film Series” at 12pm! Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! 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!’ Blind Willie’s delivers a night of funk ‘n’ soul with Greg Hester! Get folksy with Jamie Laval at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a taste of the Pork Belly’s and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, March 31

The Plaza Theater kinks it up with John Waters’ PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) at 7:45pm, kicking off their John Waters Festival, running through April 4! Get some sci-fi thrills at the Diesel Filling Station during Nerd Film Mafia’s screening of John Carpenter’s, THE THING (1982) at 10 pm following NerdCore Trivia every last Tuesday of the month! Make your way to the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema for their screening of George Lucas’ AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) during their “Midtown Classics” series at 7pm! Get epic with Charlton Heston at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern with their screening of Cecil B. DeMille’s THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! It’s your second chance to “Brat Pack” it up with a screening of John Hughes’ ‘80s classic, THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) at 7:30pm at movie theaters across Atlanta (Perimeter Pointe 10; Hollywood Stadium 24; Avalon Stadium 12 in Alpharetta; AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 in Lawrenceville; Carmike 12 in Snellville; AMC Avenue Forsyth 12 in Cumming; AMC Barrett Commons 24 in Kennesaw; AMC Southlake 24 in Morrow and Regal McDonough Stadium 16)! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with Kool Kat Jeff Clark and Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night! Funk it up with T Bird & the Breaks and The Breeze Kings at Smith’s Olde Bar! Stomp on down to 529 for a night with Joshua Fletcher, Adam Klein & the Wild Fires and Goldwing! Folk it up with Damien Rice at the Tabernacle! Blind Willie’s fires it up with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Twain’s in Decatur every Tuesday at 9 pm! Or boogie on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta for a taste of Bill Sheffield’s acoustic roots and blues! And as always, The Entertainment Crackers get bluesy with their folksy Americana at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, April 1

Haunt down to the Alliance Theatre for the world premiere of Atlanta playwright and author, Phillip DePoy’s gothic murder mystery, EDWARD FOOTE, running through April 19! Get bizarre at The Plaza Theater with their screening of John Waters’ FEMALE TROUBLE (1972) at 7:45pm, followed by PECKER (1998) at 9pm! Or get murderous with Michael Mann’s MANHUNTER (1986) at Emory’s White Hall at 7:30pm! Boogie on down 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 jive with the Savoy Kings! Get smooth at the Village Theatre with SONG MISSING PRESENTS: Hallanta & Oates, delivering a night of writing, comedy and other performances based on Hall & Oates tunes at 9pm! Get your retro rock, funk ‘n’ blues fix at The Earl with Think Never, Hobbiest, The Dirty Souls and Liz Brasher & Her Band! Funk it up with a night of rockin’ blues with The Georgia Flood at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Part the Red Sea at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern as they screen Cecil B. DeMille’s THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as Kool Kat Rich DeSantis and his band Honkytonk get smokin’ hot during their Slim Chickens’ Honkytonk Extravaganza event, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, April 2

Get hellacious at 7 Stages during Liquid Sky’s hell-raising event, “Dante’s Inferno”, featuring high-flying circus shenanigans with The Imperial OPA, Cirque Freaks and Inspire Aerial Arts, firin’ it up through April 5! The John Waters Festival continues with The Plaza Theater’s screening of DESPERATE LIVING (1977) at 7:45pm! Get artsy, punk rock-style at The Star Bar with Starbenders, Darling Norman and BlackFox! Mischief and mayhem ensues at the Masquerade with The Ataris, The Biters and wWAYLon! Rock out at The Earl with Chuck Prophet and The Tim Lee 3! For a rockin’ night of French chamber pop make your way to Mammal Gallery for Gage Gilmore, Peter Webb, Floral Print and Kool Kat Jeffrey Butzer! Folk it up at the Red Light Café with Jeremiah Daly, Logan Vath and Anthony Aparo! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s, so hula on down for a night of fiery island tunes! Blues it up with John Ginty at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! 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! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, get your boogie on at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, April 3

The Star Bar rocks out and revs it up with Slim Chance & the Convicts, Kool Kat Caroline & the Ramblers, The Rainmen, The Blacktop Rockets, The Lizardmen and Kenny Howes & the Wow! Kool Kat Rev. Andy with Garage71 Internet Radio slings a night of rockabilly, old-school punk, ‘80s metal and more, with a BonesArt exhibit at the Diesel Filling Station! It’s prohibition-era pandemonium at The Earl with Kool Kat Blair Crimmins & the Hookers’ Two Night Stand with The Darnell Boys! The John Waters Festival continues at The Plaza Theater with a screening of POLYESTER (1981) at 7:45pm! Groove down to the Variety Playhouse for a night with the Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular! It’s a night of ‘60s psychedelic pop and ‘70s-esque rock at the Red Light Café with Wussy and The Fairshake! 529 delivers a rockin’ shindig with Concord America, Shampoo, Monsoon and Daddy Issues! Bluegrass it up with Barry Waldrep at the Crimson Moon Café! The Drunken Unicorn delivers a night of garage rock ‘n’ indie pop with Coma Girls, Spines and Gold-Bears! Bluegrass it up at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs with the Jason Kenney Trio! Trullie Brae gets the blues at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get funky with Zydefunk and Laura Reed at the Northside Tavern! Rock out at Mammal Gallery with Man Up, Yancey, Wieuca, the Great American Noise Jihad and Femignome! Hottie Hawgs BBQ gets bluesy with Tito & the Chicken Raiders! Boogie down at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event while sippin’ a few cocktails with Platinum Band Atlanta! 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, April 4

Surf on down for a night of shakin’ shenanigans at the Drunken Unicorn with Sex BBQ (check out our Kool Kat interview soon!), Young Rapids and Mammabear! The Plaza Theater closes out the John Waters Festival with their screening of HAIRSPRAY (1988) at 4pm! Rock out at The Star Bar with The All Night Drug Prowlin’ Wolves, The Forty-Fives, Zoners, Skin Jobs, Blake Rainey & His Demons, Bully and Hot Ram! Stomp down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with The Ordinary Bitters and the Todd Prusin Experience! Get absurd and rock out with the madness that is, Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton at Good ‘Ol Days Pub! It’s night 2 of Kool Kat Blair Crimmins & the Hookers’ Two Night Stand, delivering a night of Dixieland jazz with Caleb Warren & the Perfect Gentlemen at The Earl! Barry Waldrep & Friends bluegrass it up at Eddie’s Attic! The Red Light Café delivers a night of jazz and spoken word with Kodac Harrison and The Upbeatniks, followed by the Yonrico Scott Band with Joseph Patrick Moore and Nick Rosen! Get funky with the Jeff Sipe Trio and Curtis Jones & Primal Roots at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Aisle 5 delivers a night of psychedelic funk fusion and vintage ‘70s rock with The Orange Constant and the Atlas Road Crew! Get hardcore and old-school at the Masquerade with Biohazard, Sworn Enemy and Cross Me! EG Kight delivers her southern-fried blues at the Crimson Moon Café! Boogie down to the Red Clay Theatre for a night with Banks & Shane! Beverly “Guitar” Watkins fires it up at the Northside Tavern! 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, April 5

Surf on down to 97 Estoria for a night of monstrous mayhem with Daikaiju! Smith’s Olde Bar delivers their Bluegrass Brunch with the Decatur Bluegrass Association (D.B.A.)! And get the blues with Snakelegs at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The 35th Annual Atlanta Fair is being held at Turner Field through April 5! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center presents the “Gilda Radner Research and Translation Center”, an unofficial academic-ish platform for the analysis of Radner’s life and comedy, running through April 11!

The Alliance Theatre presents Phillip DePoy’s gothic murder mystery, EDWARD FOOTE, haunting through April 19!

The Marietta Museum of History gets Victorian as they present their “Peeling Back the Layers: Victorian Wedding Ensembles” exhibit through May 2, 2015!

The High Museum presents “Gordon Parks: Segregation Story” (‘50s Life Magazine photos) and “Leonard Freed: Black in White America”, (1963-1966) exhibits through June 7!

William Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum’s, “Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendek in His Own Words and Pictures” getting wild through July 5!

Blast-Off Burlesque geeks it up with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday at 8:30pm!

HepCat’s Hop gets swingin’ every second Wednesday of the month at the 57th Fighter Group Restaurant!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

ICON 80s: Music Video Dance Night rocks out at the Famous Pub every Friday night with a different 80’s theme!

The Star Bar delivers Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm, followed by ‘80s Dance Night at 10pm, every Tuesday!

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.

FRAME BY FRAME (2015); Dirs. Alexandria Bombach, Mo Scarpelli; Documentary; Atlanta Film Festival; Trailer here.

By Andrew Kemp
Contributing Writer

Farzana Wahidy sifts through the books in her apartment, searching for one particular image among many. At last she finds the right one and holds it up for the camera. The picture is black-and-white and depicts three young, pretty Afghan women wearing shorts and loose blouses, their heads uncovered, arms cradling books. They are on their way to class at the university in Kabul. The picture is captioned: “Afghanistan in the 1970s.” When compared to modern Afghanistan, the picture seems to come from an alternate reality, not the relatively recent past. After the photo was taken came war, revolution, and the Taliban. Soon, taking another photo like it would become illegal. A generation of Afghan culture vanished under a Taliban regime that considered photography a crime. Today, without the archive of their struggles, people like Farzana sift through old books and wonder how they got here, and how they left so much behind.

FRAME BY FRAME, a new documentary from Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli, is a look at a nation awakening to find itself. When the Taliban ruled in Afghanistan, they came as redeemers and reformers under a banner of peace and with a mission to return the nation to the true Afghan people. As with too many such movements, it ended in suffering when the regime revealed its narrow, strict idea of who the true Afghans were. To retain control, the Taliban limited the media and made taking photographs a crime punishable by imprisonment, torture or even death. After the U.S. invasion ousted the Taliban from power, a few took up cameras and began to take pictures once again and now, for the first time in decades, the visual history of Afghanistan is back in the hands of its people. Challenges remain. The Afghan media is still new, standing on shaky legs and trying to gain momentum. In the face of an uncertain future, FRAME BY FRAME attempts to mark the moment and legitim
ize it for the world.

The documentary follows four Afghan photographers as they travel the country and encounter distrust, opposition, and bigotry. One man visits city slums to capture the face of opiate addiction. Another runs a photography school to develop the camera skills of the next generation. A journalist, Massoud Hossaini, runs into harm’s way to capture staggering images such as the photo of grief and violence that won him the Pulitzer Prize. Each faces cultural challenges as the lingering grip of the Taliban is still felt, but perhaps none more so than Farzana Wahidy, who seeks journalistic access and respect in a country where the rules work very differently for  women. Journalism is no longer a crime in Afghanistan, but even an act as simple as taking a woman’s photograph carries a deep social stigma, one that Wahidy bravely, and too often unsuccessfully, confronts.

Bombach and Scarpelli know what they have here. They’ve stated in interviews that the film began as a short subject, but refused to be contained, eventually swelling to feature length. There is something intoxicating about watching an oppressed people discover that the rights to their heritage are theirs. This is what the Taliban took away, the ability to define their country’s reality. Without photography, without media, there is no document of the now and no story of today except that which those in charge decide upon. This is the foundational idea behind a free press, that an informed populace can look past a false narrative and take action. By stealing away their right to document, the Taliban denied the Afghan people the ability to self-identify, made them conform to an identity of religious zealotry that still lingers at the edges of the frame. The film’s subjects point their lenses at poverty, addiction and bloody violence, but also at smiling children, marvels of Afghan architecture and an old man voting in his first election. There is both the destruction of the past and hope for the future—the country exactly as it is.

But with hope comes anxiety. Afghans nervously discuss the upcoming exit of US troops, and with it the possibility of civil war. Warlords still rule and hold sway in the outskirts, and the new free press could disappear if the Taliban returns to power. In one of the film’s episodes, Farzana visits a hospital in a western Afghan town. Women are said to be self-immolating at an alarming rate. Although she’s arranged the proper permissions, she’s greeted at a hospital by a male doctor who speaks over her, talks down to her, and tells her that she will not be able to take the pictures she’s there to take. His concern is for his own life. If the local warlord hears that a woman has been taking sensitive pictures of other women—who, the film implies, are not self-immolating but are instead the victims of abuse—then the doctor could be killed or the hospital burned. Farzana tries to explain that the people have a right to hear the story, that it’s her job to report the news. He has no problem with her reporting the news, he says, just so long as the stories are about men. Even in freedom, progress is slow and precarious.

FRAME BY FRAME mirrors its subject by becoming a snapshot of an Afghan moment in time—informed by, but unmoored, from its past and anticipating an unknown future.

FRAME BY FRAME screened at the Atlanta Film Festival. Click here for a schedule of upcoming films. For more information on FRAME BY FRAME, visit the film’s website for more information.

Andrew Kemp is a screenwriter and game designer who started talking about movies in 1984 and got stuck that way. He can be seen around town wherever there are movies, cheap beer and little else.

THE EDITOR (2014); Dirs. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy; Starring Paz de la Huerta, Udo Kier, Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy; Trailer here.

By Andrew Kemp
Contributing Writer

Giallo is a firecracker of a word. Sure, for most people, it doesn’t mean anything at all. If you speak Italian, you know giallo means “yellow,” but beyond that it’s just a word. It lies there on the page, dormant. But for the initiated—mostly cinephiles and lovers of pulp (including our ATLRetro editor)—giallo absolutely explodes with meaning. The word doesn’t just deliver a definition, but an entire state of mind. It’s music and color. It’s operatic and sleazy. Giallo is a complete reality, flung forward from a skuzzier past.

THE EDITOR, a new horror-comedy screened at the Atlanta Film Festival and presented by Buried Alive Film Festival, is drunk on giallo. The movie takes pains to replicate the peculiar charms of a 1970s Italian slasher film, hilariously sending up the genre’s goofier tendencies. It’s all here—the bad dubbing, the hilariously on-the-nose exposition, improbable moustaches. But multi-hyphenate creators Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy (who wrote, produced, directed and starred in the film) aren’t satisfied with an easy genre spoof. Beneath the corny riffs on Italian machismo and candy-red blood lies a vein of deep strangeness in THE EDITOR. Any homemade fan film can walk and talk giallo, but THE EDITOR’s beating heart pumps pure yellow.

Our moustachioed protagonist is Rey Ciso (Brooks), the titular editor who once had a promising career in prestige cinema before a freak accident cost him his fingers. Now Ciso, sporting a set of wooden replacement fingers, toils in the mucky world of low-budget slashers, searching for sublime truth in the jump cuts between a swinging axe and its doomed target. As fate would have it, life soon begins to imitate art, actors start dropping to a serial murderer, and Ciso finds himself living inside the type of film that he so thanklessly cuts. Even worse, missing fingers on the victims lead the presiding detective (Kennedy) to suspect that Ciso is cutting much more than film.

THE EDITOR is the latest genre exercise from ASTRON-6, a Winnipeg-based outfit who’ve staked claim on film festival midnight slots with romps like MANBORG (2011, which screened at Buried Alive) and FATHER’S DAY (2011). Over this cycle, Astron-6 perfected the art of taking a genre apart and reassembling it to suit their needs; with a bit more grain on their image, there would be little to distinguish THE EDITOR from the kinds of movies that it’s aping. Their style of meticulous homage jives with a larger trend in the indie scene that includes movies like BLACK DYNAMITE (2009) and HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2011), films use camera tricks and careful craftsmanship to copy the cheapo feel of yesterday’s trash cinema. The irony, of course, is that those old movies looked crappy on accident. Bargain filmmakers of the 70s and 80s would have flipped for today’s clean and easy digital technology, but guys like Brooks and Kennedy are working harder to look worse, rejecting the digital sameness often found in the independent scene in favor of styles that made even the worst films teem with an inner life.

Not everything lands perfectly with THE EDITOR. An actress’s hysterical blindness gets easy laughs; a running gag showing the male characters slapping their girlfriends does not. The movie also loses its narrative momentum somewhere in the middle, lingering perhaps a bit too long for audiences who get tired of the surface-level spoof. But a shorter run time would rob THE EDITOR of its best idea. Simply pointing at giallo’s singular tics would have made the film an empty execution of style—basically, an extended sketch. Where THE EDITOR earns its credentials is the sheer insanity it gets up to in its late stages as Ciso—who may very well be going insane—begins to question his own innocence, existence, and role in the murders. Haunted by the loss of a colleague, Ciso takes a bizarre inward journey through the cinema he loves, crawling into his editing machine, wandering through the landscapes of celluloid and peering out through the screen at those who would edit him. I

t turns out that there are real existential ideas at the heart of THE EDITOR, and the movie’s abject weirdness that elevates it to the surreal terrain that the best of the old giallo films sometimes played in. I’m not certain these sequences make sense, or that an already too-long movie absolutely needed them, but I do have the distinct feeling that I liked them, and that’s always the first rule of giallo—give the people what they want.

SATANIC PANIC 2: BATTLE OF THE BANDS (2015); Dir. Eddie Ray; Writer Max Fisher; Starring Matthew Gallo, Marlinda Phillips, Kevin Vickery, Cherry Delrosario; Friday, March 27 @ 6:30pm; 7 Stages; Tickets $10; Trailer here.

By Andrew Kemp
Contributing Writer

On Friday night, the Atlanta Film Festival is going to unleash a Satanic Panic.

I’m talking about the band, of course. The brainchild of local filmmaker and Kool Kat Eddie Ray, Satanic Panic is a world famous dance band who happens to throw their allegiance in with the Dark One himself, at least as long as the cameras are watching. After barely surviving a brush with real Satanists in their first short film, the band’s new adventure is taking the AFF stage.

We asked Eddie if he’d answer 666 questions, and well, he answered nine about the band, the movie, and that time he was mistaken for a Satanist.

ATLRetro: Where did Satanic Panic come from? Do you remember when you first got the idea?

Eddie Ray: The original concept came from me and a friend of mine named Matt Gallo. He plays B. Elza Bob in both films. We were watching JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS, and I said what about a Satanic Dance Band? Then we both got really excited about the characters and the concept for the first one and I sat down and wrote it. We came up with characters and costumes pretty fast. The sequel was written and directed by me and Max Fisher.

This is the second Satanic Panic adventure. How would you sum it up for people who may not have seen the original?

The first one is about a band called Satanic Panic, and they are the number 1 band on the planet. Their dance songs are about Satan and all things unholy, but offstage they are just normal people who are not into that Satan shit at all. They are just about the money. Their producer, Dick Dano, is up to no good and adds a subliminal message to one of their songs “6-6-Sexy” that tells real Satan Worshippers that they need to sacrifice the band. Luckily the Government steps in and forces Satanic Panic to secretly work for them. Now the chase is on. Why does Dick Dano want them sacrificed? Will the Satan Worshippers get them? Will Satanic Panic still be the number 1 band on the planet and government spies?

Satanic Panic stomp on a Satanist in SATANIC PANIC 2: BATTLE OF THE BANDS (2015).

A new band, When Tempers Flare, is challenging Satanic Panic. Are These The Misfits to Satanic Panic’s Jem and the Holograms? Where does the new band stand on the Satan issue?

Yes, When Tempers Flare is out to get Satanic Panic! They are The Misfits to Satanic Panic’s Jem for sure. When Tempers Flare is tough, and they don’t take no shit from nobody. Especially from no honkeys. They are not into Satan or Satanic Panic at all, and they want to be Number 1. Satanic Panic now has one more thing to worry about. An evil female rap group! The girls who play them are amazing, too.

These characters seem like spoofs on the 1980s, back when people saw Satanists everywhere, especially in the music industry. Were you trying to flip the script by putting the Satanists in the suburbs?

Totally, in the ’80s and early ’90s there was a “Satanic Panic” going on. Everyone was afraid they were going to be sacrificed or killed by Satan worshippers. I remember the principal in my school coming over the loud speaker saying there will be no talk of Satan in this school because the day before some cheerleader got a death threat from a “Satan Worshipper.” They literally brought people, who they thought might be Satan worshippers, up to the office to be interviewed. Even me! I was so offended. I wore a lot of black because it was fucking slimming. Let’s be real. The principal said this to me, “we know you worship Satan, son, tell us!” I just said, “Call my fucking mother!” I am serious. I was pissed. They called her, and she came up there and raised hell! She was like my son is not a goddamn Satanist! Haha. We found out days later it was a jock that sent the death threat to the cheerleader because she didn’t put out. I am serious. There were no Satan worshippers. I love that story though. Haha.

When Tempers Flare.

In a recent podcast, you talked about planning out the story beyond the current film. Is there a planned conclusion, or will Satanic Panic keep going for as long as you’re interested?

Yes, while we were writing and filming part 1, we were talking about part 2 and 3. Max Fisher and I know what happen in part 3. We knew the ending for 3 while doing part 1. Yes, there is an ending! The ending is amazing too. Well we think so. YOU WILL LAUGH AND SHIT YOUR PANTS!!!!!

Did you feel any pressure to try and top the first film’s humor and insanity?

I don’t know about pressure, but sequels should always be bigger and better than the first. They should change and take you in new directions and not be the same as the first films. Throw some surprises in there so you and the audience stay interested. Keep shit fun! When Tempers Flare keeps things fun for sure in part 2. There are a few more surprises, too. You will seeeeeeeee. The cast and crew do such an amazing job in the sequel they will blow your mind! Me and Max Fisher really gave you all the bells, whistles and cartwheels in this film.

Satanists conspire via seance to bring down Satanic Panic.

The Satanic Panic music videos are key moments in the films. What’s the process for developing the music? Do the songs influence the script, or do the scripts determine the songs?

I think it’s both. In the first film we show their music video for “6-6-Sexy” and how crazy and violent it is. Then later right before they shoot their music for “I Put A Hex On My Ex,” their real lives turn crazy and violent. So now their real lives become their music videos. That continues in part 2. Life imitates art and vice versa. I love how music influences all our lives and our emotions in the real world. Dan Foley writes our music, and he is a genius. Without his music, we would be lost.

These films resemble live-action cartoons, with bright color and madcap, rapid-style humor. Would you say your work at Adult Swim influenced your style?

I think so, in some ways. I think I came to Adult Swim because of those reasons to begin with. I love cartoons and animation, and I view life through those eyes. I wish people walked around with big hair and bright costumes.  The world would be more fun for sure. My office at Adult Swim looks like a Tiki Hut. I like to pretend I work on the beach in a SCOOBY DOO episode.

Are there any ideas you just deemed too out there for these films? Or just too difficult to shoot? If so, care to share one?  

I don’t know if we ever think anything is too much. I always say, “Too much? Umm not enough!” Fight scenes are always difficult to shoot. If we had the money or time, we would’ve had everyone on fuckin’ wires flying around kicking and punching like in THE MATRIX probably. That would’ve been amazing.  I also wish we had the band getting out of a helicopter.

SATANIC PANIC 2: BATTLE OF THE BANDS plays at the Atlanta Film Festival on Friday, March 27, @ 6:30 pm. Click here for more details.

Andrew Kemp is a screenwriter and game designer who started talking about movies in 1984 and got stuck that way. He can be seen around town wherever there are movies, cheap beer and little else.