ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Spring is just around the corner, guys and gals! And while we wait, why not get hep to the jive this week in Retro Atlanta! Come see what we’ve found for you. From  ‘60s rockin’ blues to classic films to a whole lotta funky shakin’ shenanigans!

Monday, February 23

Let The Earl shake those Monday blues with Blake Rainey & His Demons, Ben Trickey and Dang Dang Dang! Or get your retro-rock fix, harkening back to The Monkees and pre-disco Bee Gees, with Hartle Road at 529! 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! Get some soul and funk out at Blind Willie’s with Greg Hester! Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! 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!’ Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! Get folksy with Jamie Laval at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ! And make your way to the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema for their screening of Mary Dore’s 2012 documentary on the “movers & shakers” of the feminist movement from ’68-’71, SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY, screening through Feb. 26!

Tuesday, February 24

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema kicks off their “Midtown Classics” series with Terrence Malick’s BADLANDS (1973) (See our Retro Review here) at 7pm! Or get immortally dark at the Diesel Filling Station during Nerd Film Mafia’s screening of Robert Zemeckis’ DEATH BECOMES HER (1992) at 10 pm following NerdCore Trivia every last Tuesday of the month! The Northlake Festival Movie Tavern screens Michael Curtiz’ classic, CASABLANCA (1942), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Surf on down to the Masquerade for a rockin’ night with The Expendables, Ballyhoo! and Katastro! Stomp on down to the Red Clay Theatre for a night with Roxie Watson! Blind Willie’s delivers a night of rock ‘n’ soul with The Hollidays! 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! The Crosstown All Stars dish out a night of stompin’ rock ‘n’ blues at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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, February 25

SCENE MISSING Magazine presents Raising Atlantizona at the Highland Inn Ballroom, delivering a night of writing, comedy and other performances based on Coen Brothers movies, at 9pm! It’s your last chance to catch Humphrey Bogart at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of CASABLANCA (1942), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Folk it up at Eddie’s Attic with The Vespers with special guest, City Mouse! Or get your retro-rock fix with Lucero, Ryan Bingham and Twin Forks at The Buckhead Theatre! Blues it up with Lola at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! Jazz it up with Jacob Deaton at the Elliott Street Pub! Blind Willie’s delivers a night of Chicago and West Coast blues with the Electromatics! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as they get smokin’ during Slim Chickens’ Honkytonk Extravaganza, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes (Keep your eyes peeled for our Kool Kat interview soon!) Blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission 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, February 26

Swing on over to Eddie’s Attic for a jazzed-up night with Annie Sellick & the Hot Club of Nashville! Get your ‘60s blues rock fix with SIMO, the Gasoline Brothers and 68-75 at Vinyl! Funk it up at Terminal West with CBDB and Jerry On the Moon! Get Victorian at the 57^th Fighter Group Restaurant for the Pre-AnachroCon Party at 7:30! Kristen Englenz delivers a night of rockin’ Americana at Java Monkey! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s, so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes! Rock over to The Earl for their screening of Bill Perrine’s 2014 documentary, IT’S GONNA BLOW: SAN DIEGO’S MUSIC UNDERGROUND (1986-1996), followed by Dan Sartaine! Smith’s Olde Bar delivers a night of classic rock with The Free Byrds and The Dirty Doors! Bluegrass it up at the Red Light Café with Tito & the Chicken Raiders and Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck! 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! Blues it up with Sandra Hall & the Shadows at Blind Willie’s! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! 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, February 27

For those who prefer alternate history to reality and Victorian-era lifestyles and fantasy, travel back in time to the 18^th Century Rococo and Revolution-Themed AnachroCon 2015, a 3-day event celebrating historical reenactments, Steampunk, science-fiction, classic horror, literature, fashion and a cornucopia of indulgences! So, catch a train and head on over to the Atlanta Marriott Century Center, where you’ll catch informative panels discussing Steampunk as Victorian science-fiction, time travel, Gothic literature, vintage tales of terror (Lovecraft, Poe, Stoker), ghost stories and the classic monster flicks of Universal and Hammer and a vendors room chock full of goodies, including our pals at Horror in Clay (see our Shop Around feature here)! And don’t miss out on performances by The Ken Spivey Band, Valentine Wolfe, the Vauxhall Garden Variety Players, Atlanta Baroque Dance and more!

Get rocked at The Star Bar with Hammerhead Fest IV: Weekend at Burnouts with two nights of rockin’ mayhem! Tonight’s lineup includes Attractive Eighties Women, Bigfoot, Dropout, Magoo’s Heroes, Shehehe and Divided Heaven! Willie Nelson delivers a night of old-school country at the Tabernacle! Or make your way to Union EAV as Blood Drunk Records presents the BDR Arcade, featuring video games and rockin’ tunes with Ebony Eyes and Antarcticats! It’s a night of gypsy jazz at the Variety Playhouse with Al di Meola! Bluegrass it up with The Gibson Brothers at the Red Clay Theatre! Get your fill of southern rock, funk and soul at Vinyl with the Royal Southern Brotherhood and the Lefty Williams Band! Rock out at Hottie Hawgs BBQ with the Rockaholics! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues deliver a night of blues, soul and jazz with Fatback Deluxe and Leonard Blush! 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! Jam it up at Smith’s Olde Bar with Tribute, homage to the Allman Brothers Band! Get your rockin’ blues fix at 120 Tavern & Music Hall with Whiskey Bent, featuring John Popper (Blues Traveler)! The Chieftains deliver over 50 years worth of traditional Irish music with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Atlanta Symphony Hall! Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs delivers a night of blues and Americana with Lindsay Rakers and Jackson County Line! Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles rev it up at Motorheads in McDonough! Blues it up with Billy George at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get bluesy with Jarekus Singleton at Blind Willie’s! Funk on down to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event for a night of rockin’ blues and funk under the dinosaurs! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! 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, February 28

Get your second rocking’ helping of Hammerhead Fest IV: Weekend at Burnouts at The Star Bar with Death of Kings, Hatestomp, Gunpowder Gray, Spray Tan, The Vaginas and Bottle Kids! And it’s day 2 of AnachroCon 2015, dishing out anything and everything Victorian, steampunk, Rococo fashion and more!

It’s a night of ‘60s-era rock ‘n’ roll at the Masquerade (Purgatory) with The Woggles, The Blacktop Rockets, The Mystery Men? and The Lizard Men! Or make your way to Hell for a night with Helmet and his “Betty” 20th Anniversary Show! Get your retro-rock fix at Kavarna with the Floating Coats, Dangerous Basement and Bill Taft performing “Hamlet”! Stomp on down to the Drunken Unicorn for a night with I Want Whisky, the Darnell Boys and Book of Colors! 529 delivers a night of “Reagan-era” punk rock with Ralph (Final Show!) Spend the night with the “Piano Man”, Billy Joel at Philip’s Arena! Mammal Gallery presents a night of rockin’ Americana with Brock’s Folly, Blood on the Harp and Caleb Warren & the Perfect Gentlemen! Eighties it up at Craze Tavern in Duluth with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch and Denim Arcade! 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! Folk it up at the Red Light Café with Kevin Jackson (Jackson County Line) and Daniel Parrish followed by The Porch Bottom Boys’ jazzy bluegrass blues! Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles deliver a night of rockin’ mayhem at the B3 Bar & Grill’s 2 Year Anniversary Party! Get bluesy with the West Side Blues Band at Hottie Hawgs BBQ! Get lucky at Park Tavern as Yacht Rock Revue shamrocks you with a set of U2 covers and your favorite smooth sounds! Wrenn retro-pops it up at Smith’s Olde Bar in the Music Room with Sara Rachele! Or make your way to the Atlanta Room for a night with The Chris Massey Band, Geoff Ferris & the Wheels and Buck-O-Five! Kool Kat VJ Anthony delivers his Clash of the Decades: ‘80s vs. ‘90s Music Video Party at the Opera Nightclub! The Family Dog delivers a night of rock ‘n’ soul with The Hollidays! Blues it up with Gracie Curran & the High Falutin’ Band at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack gets the blues with Cody Matlock! Michelle Malone rocks out at Steve’s Live Music! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! Get bluesy with Big Bill Morganfield at Blind Willie’s! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, March 1

Step right up folks! It’s day 3 and your last chance to experience the Victorian life and alternate history at AnachroCon 2015! Get psychedelic at The Earl with Desert Noises and Sol Cat! The Red Light Café delivers an early old-time outlaw Americana show with Reverend Hylton and Brian Revels, followed by the BadAsh Allstar Team’s (BAAT) tribute to Hall & Oates, Duran Duran and Tears for Fear! Bluegrass it up with Chatham County Line at Eddie’s Attic! Smith’s Olde Bar delivers their Bluegrass Brunch with Control Burn in the Bar Room. Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar! Stephen “The Blues Dude” gets bluesy at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And rock on down to the Crimson Moon Café for their Boomers Gone Wild event, delivering a night of ‘60s and ‘70s covers!

Ongoing

OnStage Atlanta dishes out the infamous horror rock musical, “Little Shop of Horrors”, horrifying through March 28!

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

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 Fueling 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.

BADLANDS (1973); Dir. Terrence Malick; Starring Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek and Warren Oates; Tuesday, Feb. 24 @ 7:00 p.m.; Landmark Midtown Art Cinema; Tickets $11; Trailer here.

By Aleck Bennett
Contributing Writer

If you’re looking for a reason—any reason—to go see a movie, look no further. The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema kicks off its “Midtown Cinema Classics” series with one of the greatest modern American films, Terrence Malick’s debut feature BADLANDS.

Some filmmakers take decades to find their voice. Yet there are others who seem to arrive on this earth fully formed. Orson Welles stormed out of the gate in 1941 having assembled his influences into an entirely identifiable personal style with CITIZEN KANE. David Lynch emerged from the shadows in 1977 with the most David Lynch-iest film ever made, ERASERHEAD. Martin Scorsese captured everyone’s attention with the first example of what can only be called a Martin Scorsese Movie with 1973’s MEAN STREETS (while not his debut, his two previous features were the atypical BOXCAR BERTHA, a project-for-hire under the auspices of Roger Corman, and WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR?, a short film he expanded over the course of several years into a very different feature). And that same year, Terrence Malick debuted his own idiosyncratic means of storytelling with the brooding, brilliant BADLANDS.

Told from the viewpoint of Holly (Sissy Spacek), a 15-year-old girl growing up in The Middle of Nowhere, South Dakota, BADLANDS examines Holly’s infatuation with 25-year-old greaser Kit (Martin Sheen) as they slowly fall in love. While she obsesses over him romantically as they explore each other’s philosophies on life, his own psychotic and amoral side reveals itself and together they violently remove any obstacle that threatens to stand between them and the life with each other they desire. Based loosely on the real-life murderous exploits of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, BADLANDS also stands as a poetic examination of life, love and death set against the dusty, sun-baked plains of the Midwest.

Contemplative in tone and deliberate in pace, BADLANDS set the tone for Malick’s further career as he examined such subjects as war (THE THIN RED LINE), the founding of Jamestown (THE NEW WORLD) and the meaning of life itself (THE TREE OF LIFE). Even at this early stage of his career, though, he proves himself a master of imagery and composition and creates an experience that is pure cinema. Painterly tableaux fill the screen and slowly reveal their emotional heart as Spacek’s narration combines with the haunting strains of experimental classical composers such as Erik Satie or Carl Orff. Moments of incredible beauty are carved out of nothing but light, color and shadow. Divorced from attempts to emulate the rhythms and cadences of literature or stagework, Malick’s world can only exist in those rays of light captured by a camera, painstakingly edited into a cohesive statement and then projected onto a screen.

But lest this sound like a movie full of art-film clichés that holds you at arm’s length with its own sense of pretentious self-importance, BADLANDS is instead Malick’s most accessible film and a perfect entry point for those unfamiliar or intimidated by the visionary director’s work. It may perhaps be his masterpiece (with DAYS OF HEAVEN running close behind). Malick’s singular approach is wed to an incredibly compelling story, so that the dynamic of the narrative propels the audience through even the film’s most low-key moments. When you combine this with the career-making performances of Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, you have a film that it is nearly impossible to look away from.

Presented as part of Landmark Midtown Art Cinema’s “Midtown Cinema Classics” series, you have the rare opportunity to immerse yourself in one of the modern classics of American cinema in its natural habitat—on a theater screen. Please do not let this pass you by.

Aleck Bennett is a writer, blogger, pug warden, pop culture enthusiast, raconteur and bon vivant from the greater Atlanta area. Visit his blog at doctorsardonicus.wordpress.com

Splatter Cinema and Enjoy the Film present THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991); Dir. Jonathan Demme; Starring Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and Ted Levine; Saturday, Feb. 21 @ 8:30 p.m.; Cinevision Screening Room; Tickets $10 (cash only); Trailer here.

By Aleck Bennett
Contributing Writer

Splatter Cinema returns to the Cinevision Screening Room with the help of Enjoy the Film! This time, they’re delivering a 35mm archival print of what is probably the most celebrated mainstream horror film of the 1990s: Jonatham Demme’s staggering THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. But don’t be fooled by its widespread appeal. Demme serves up a disturbing dinner of pure horror. With some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Trivia time: how many horror films have won Academy Awards? Precisely one—Jonathan Demme’s THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Sure, you could make an argument that it’s not really a horror film, but a police procedural or crime thriller. However, if the horror film has taught us anything, it’s that some of its best examples transcend the artificial divisions of genre and the common tropes to be found therein. Michael Reeves’ 1968 masterpiece WITCHFINDER GENERAL, for instance, could be accurately described as simply a period drama depicting the all-too-human hypocrisy and fear-mongering of a 17th century opportunist who falsely labels his victims “witches” to further his power-grabbing. But that doesn’t dilute the weighty sense of pure horror that pervades and permeates the entire film. Likewise, LAMBS cannot be excised from the horror genre by a reductive view of its mechanics. Its function is to frighten, to shock. To horrify. And Demme knows how to twist nerves alongside conventions.

The plot is something that could have come out of any television franchise (and has been copied by many on multiple occasions): a serial killer is on the loose, and the only way to capture him is by turning to an imprisoned serial killer for assistance. Simple enough. But it’s in the details and execution that the film’s true horror is summoned.

The imprisoned serial killer is the infamous cannibal psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), whose game plan for liberation involves offering up information in exchange for weaseling into the mind of the investigating FBI officer, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster). Starling is seeking out murderer Jame Gumb (Ted Levine), nicknamed “Buffalo Bill” in honor of his penchant for skinning his female victims’ corpses. The film does not shy away from Gumb’s deeply disturbing actions, which are based on the gruesome case histories of Ted Bundy and Ed Gein (Gein having been the inspiration for horror films such as DERANGED, PSYCHO and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE), among other real-life serial killers.

But while the portions of the film devoted to Gumb are the source of incredible dread, it’s the shadow of Lecter that extends over the entire film that provides so much of its horrors. From his gothic-influenced asylum cell, Lecter’s influence over the movie’s proceedings colors every frame. Whether it’s how he directs Starling’s perception of every event that takes place or how the audience constantly questions in what manner he will use those events to his advantage later on, his presence is felt throughout. And from what we know of him, this presence can be nothing but malevolent. When the film culminates in pulse-pounding setpieces of tension and repulsion, we do not walk out of the film having been thrilled. We walk out having been put through the ringer and looking over our shoulders.

Though the performances of Hopkins, Foster and Levine are all vitally important to the film’s success, as is the screenplay by Ted Tally and the source novel by Thomas Harris, SILENCE is largely Demme’s show. In the hands of a director with less genre experience, the almost surreal sense of the gothic in Lecter’s scenes and the seedy feel of Gumb’s house of horrors might have been toned down. The temptation would be to make Lecter’s environs clinical and sterile (as his Atlanta-based cell in the High Museum is depicted in Michael Mann’s MANHUNTER, based on Thomas Harris’ earlier novel RED DRAGON), and Gumb’s small-town home more under-the-radar normal. But Demme—then an arthouse fave for MELVIN AND HOWARD, SOMETHING WILD, STOP MAKING SENSE, MARRIED TO THE MOB and SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA—came from the world of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. There he labored on exploitation movies like ANGELS HARD AS THEY COME and THE HOT BOX before directing such twisted takes on 1970s genre fare as CAGED HEAT and CRAZY MAMA. Under Corman’s tutelage, he learned his way around the worlds of exploitation and horror filmmaking, and applied those lessons well to this big-budget studio project. (Corman himself gets a cameo appearance as a Congressman.)

It’s a masterful evocation of influences from horror and exploitation’s past, and Demme conjures these elements in a subtle way, melding them with a more “mainstream” Hollywood approach that manages both to satisfy genre aficionados and invite in a more general public. It’s an approach that has been mirrored by the contemporary TV series HANNIBAL in its own telling of the mad doctor’s exploits. Meanwhile, Demme also manages to echo his earlier work for Corman by playing around with expected gender politics and slyly undercutting authority figures without alienating his audience. Demme is sure-footed every inch of the way, and while many of his films are as good, I’d be hard-pressed to say that any of them surpass this achievement. And for once, I agree wholeheartedly with the Academy voters who awarded this film Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay—only one of three films in history to sweep all five top awards.

As 35mm presentations are becoming rarer and rarer, it becomes exponentially more important to catch landmark films such as this—well-projected in their intended format—when the chance arises. That’s why I’m thrilled that Splatter Cinema is bringing this to Cinevision Screening Room in partnership with ATLRetro Kool Kat Ben Ruder’s Enjoy the Film. Ben has long been committed to expert 35mm projection, and his presentation of this archival print should be a beautiful experience. Add in the fun that Splatter brings to every screening they host, and you’ve got an event that cannot be missed.

Aleck Bennett is a writer, blogger, pug warden, pop culture enthusiast, raconteur and bon vivant from the greater Atlanta area. Visit his blog at doctorsardonicus.wordpress.com

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Nashvilles’s Blackfoot Gypsies will make a rockin’ pit stop in Atlanta during their Winter 2015 Tour, opening for old-school folk, rock ‘n’ alt-country punkers, Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ and fellow Nashville rocker, Warner E. Hodges of Jason & the Scorchers at The 120 Tavern & Music Hall in Marietta, this Saturday, Feb. 21 at 8 pm! If you’re looking for a fresh sound harkening back to the days of classic rock ‘n’ blues, come on down for the ruckus that will being goin’ down this Saturday night at The 120 Tavern & Music Hall!

Blackfoot Gypsies, hailing from Music City USA and formed by Matthew Paige (vocals/guitar) and Zack Murphy (drums) in 2010 have expanded into the rock outfit they are today with the addition of Dylan Whitlow (vocals/bass) and Ollie Dogg (harmonica). The band’s just a few short months shy of releasing their new LP, HANDLE IT (April 2015), put out by Nashville’s famed genre-bending, Plowboy Records! “Under My Skin,” their first single from HANDLE IT was released Jan. 2015 and will soon be made into their first music video for the LP. And if that wasn’t enough, after delving into their deep grooves and rockin’ riffs, you’ll just have to get your grimy little hands on the band’s earlier releases [2010’s EP BLACK GYPSIES – self-released; 2011’s EP DANDEE CHEESEBALL – self-released; 2012’s LP ON THE LOOSE– self-released; and 2013’s Limited 7” “The New Sounds of TransWestern” – released by Fat Elvis Records). Blackfoot Gypsies headlined the Muddy Roots Music Festival in 2013 and have shared bills with Alabama Shakes, Trampled by Turtles and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Catch ‘em while you can, because these fellas are on a rockin’ voyage with no end in sight!

ATLRetro caught up with Paige and Murphy for a quick interview about the band’s retro rock influences; their upcoming LP “Handle It”; Nashville’s music scene; and their take on the current state of Rock ‘n’ Roll!

And while you’re takin’ a gander at our little Q&A with Paige and Murphy, why not take a peek at the Blackfoot Gypsies and their Jan. 9, 2014 live recording on Nashville’s The Written Record: Sessions at Electric Kite Studio <here> and get an earful of their news single off their soon-to-be released LP, “Under My Skin.”

L-R: Matthew Paige, Dylan Whitlow, Zack Murphy, Ollie Dogg

ATLRetro: So what’s the secret origin story of the Blackfoot Gypsies and how did you get your name?

Paige: The secret is a secret, so I’ll tell you a lie that may be the truth. When you’re from nowhere and you’re headed to the same place, you grab hold of all the resources you can. You hold onto your friends until they become family — generating a channel of common earthly vibrations that are streamed into a concentrated beam that transforms your world, if even for a minute, to a plane of love and understanding within our hilarious existence. The Blackfoot Gypsies are a distraction for your distractions that are distracting you from your passion. We’ve developed a unique walk as we tread down many over-walked paths, garnering us blackfeet, while our gypsy eyes are transfixed on the present. Travel till you die. Home is for the birds. Smoke on that for a while.

Murphy: We got our name from the cosmos. There are no secrets within the cosmos, only our naked truths of the origin of all nature.

You’ve listed the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Faces and MC5 among your top influences. All of these were founded in the ’60s, which it’s hard to believe is 50 years ago. Why do you think these acts and musicians have stayed relevant for so long? Are they the Beethovens of the 20th century?

Paige: They had a similar approach to living the music, not just playing it, that we do. It feels so pure. They were pushing their limits to reach the world — expressing their lives and having people connect over it. That’s all we’re really looking for after all, a genuine connection. It’s magic when it happens, and it happens around magic. Real, live music is magic.

Murphy: There’s only one Beethoven. There’s no need for any more Beethovens. The Stones, Dylan, Faces & MC5 are definitely all influences. They’ve stayed relevant because of their uniqueness. There’s no need to have another Stones, Dylan, Faces, MC5, etc… They did it right the first time. You can’t top the original. So, while they’re our influences, we aim to keep our music unique to us. There’s only one Blackfoot Gypsies, the world only needs one because nobody does us better than we do.

Dylan really evolved throughout his long career from folk to rock. His 70s work, especially “Blood on the Tracks,” is seminal to us. What’s his

L-R: Ollie Dogg, Dylan Whitlow, Matthew Paige, Zack Murphy

key period (or album/song) for you and why?

Paige: The period where he transformed from trying to be someone else into just being as radically himself as he could be. He lived how we should all live our lives: copy the masters that teach you your art and then harness the power that is you, and let yourself explode.

Murphy: I don’t have a favorite. All of it is amazing, but most of all I love that he is still doin’ it and keepin’ it fresh. There’s no reason to stop, and because he hasn’t stop he’s stayed relevant; and is not a throwback act. Bob Dylan is still exciting.

We’ve talked about influences, but you also have a very fresh sound which merges roots, blues and we’ve even heard “Zeppelin.” Who else is on your key “retro” listening list? Do you think rock music still has some places to go and how do you keep your sound fresh and vibrant?

Paige: Cab Calloway, John Lee Hooker, Little Richard, Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter. People with soul. Real rock n’ roll is just a code for truly visceral music. Soul doesn’t go out of style, and when you put a fat slab of soul on something real, and then you have it IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! That’s as fresh as it gets. Yesterday, today AND tomorrow. I’m not sure music goes anywhere; it’s just a part of us. And, it’s fun to get excited about it.

Murphy: Anything visceral is on my listening list. It doesn’t have to be retro. It could be new hip hop. Rock music can always go new places. The best way to sound fresh and vibrant is to be you and not worry about the rules.

Zack Murphy, Dylan Whitlow, Ollie Dogg, Matthew Paige

You’re touring in support of your latest album, “On the Loose.” What would you like people to know about it?

Paige: It’s a fun record, capturing a great place and time. We did all of it on 2-inch tape, so the vinyl sounds especially tasty. It’s got a good vibe and the songs lay a good base for where we plan on visiting with our next records. I’m proud of it still, and I wouldn’t change a thing on it.

Murphy: “On the Loose” is an album that I’m very proud of. Matthew and I were just gettin’ our sound and new line-up together. I think it was a great first step out into the world of album-making for us. We love playin’ these songs, but “On the Loose” has become part of the template for the live show. Come see a show. Buy an album. Get in our van…

And you’ve just scored a deal with Plowboy Records for your next LP, HANDLE IT. Tell us about that.

Paige: Plowboy Records honors the past, but in a relevant way. It was a no-brainer to go with them. Everything they stand for. I find myself saying, “Yeah, that’s right! Me too!” They’ll be putting out our next album HANDLE IT (out Apr. 14) on vinyl record and CD. We’re really excited for the world to hear it. I know a guy who makes fake platinum records, and I’m going to send one to my mom. I’m pretty sure she’ll fall for it.

Murphy: Plowboy Records are a natural fit for us. They are based in Nashville and are very much into the same stuff we are. HANDLE IT is the next step. I’m also very proud of this album. It is a total natural evolution from our previous releases and I can’t wait to get this album out into the world. We’re playin’ the songs out live too. So, once again, come out and see the show.

Nashville is Music City and many folks think about country, but plenty of great rock bands have emerged from it. What’s it like to be a rock band in a country town right now? Any other Nashville bands we should be looking out for?

Paige: Nashville’s been the host to great musicians of all genres for a long time, although country is the popular one here. But, the cool thing about the “rock” bands here is that if you slowed them down, and mellowed them out, more often than not it’s basically country music, and I love it! I like to think of ourselves as more of an energetic, eclectic band of stray dog people. Bands I like to see in town are Margo Price, Justin Collins, Ranch Ghost; any band with soul. There’s a lot going on around here.

Murphy: Nashville has always had good rock ‘n’ roll; people are just now talking about it. Outside of the Music Row modern bro-country stuff, REAL country music is actually pretty damn similar to REAL rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t know how or why people always forget that, but we’re happy to remind them that good music is just good music, no need to read between the lines.

Do you have anything special planned for the Atlanta stop on your tour?

Paige: We’ll be shooting a music video, for the first single off HANDLE IT. We have some of our Atlanta friends coming out to be in it with us. I’m predicting lots of fun and nudity, but who knows. I’d really like to go to Manuel’s and get glared at over a beer. We’re also looking for the best donut in town. You know the place? Let’s do it!

Murphy: We’re gonna shoot that video and tear up the town. We haven’t played with Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, but we’re pretty damn stoked to be doin’ that. I’m sure something special will happen. The most special things are rarely planned.

What question do you wish somebody would ask you in an interview but they never do and what’s the answer?

Paige: Interviewer: “Can I please buy you dinner and our new, soon-to-be, matching big bird tattoos?” Me: “Yes.”

Murphy: Interviewer: “Would you like a drink?”  Me – “Yes.”

All photos courtesy of Blackfoot Gypsies and used with permission.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Retro Atlanta is the bee’s knees this week with rockin’ shenanigans, flicks of yore to a whole ‘lotta of honky-tonk, blues and rock n roll! If you’re lookin’ for a thrill and the weather’s got you down, get off that couch, put on your dancin’ shoes and live la vida Retro!

Monday, February 16

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival brings you Barry Levinson’s AVALON (1990), screened in 35mm, celebrating its 25th Anniversary at the Lefont Theatre at 7:50pm! Jazz it up NOLA-style with Harry Connick, Jr. at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center! 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! Blues it up with Barrelhouse Bob Page at Blind Willie’s! Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! 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! Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! 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 side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, February 17

Spend the night with Orson Welles at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of his classic masterpiece, CITIZEN KANE (1941), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Or make your way to the Decatur Library for their screening of Lou Breslow’s YOU NEVER CAN TELL (1951) at 2pm! Shimmy down southern-style to the Red Light Café for the Mason Dixie Burlesque Tour featuring Atlanta’s own, Sadie Hawkins and performances by Hazel Honeysuckle, Ula Uberbusen, Deanna Danger and more! Or pop on over to the Variety Playhouse for a night of vintage ‘60s jazzy film tunes with Kat Edmonson and Robert Ellis! Get the blues folk-style with The Sweeplings and Marshall Ruffin at Smith’s Olde Bar! Swear and Shake get to stompin’ at the Red Clay Theatre with special guest The Sea, The Sea! Petite Auberge delivers a night of opera with Capitol City Opera Company’s “Dinner & A Diva” series with their “Valentine’s Day Love Songs” edition! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and the Atlanta Horns get down and dirty with their Mardi Gras Party at Blind Willie’s! 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! The Crosstown All Stars dish out a night of stompin’ rock ‘n’ blues at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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! Get your Cajun honky-tonk fix at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs with Hair of the Dog’s Mardi Gras Party! And as always, The Entertainment Crackers get bluesy with their folksy Americana at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, February 18

Emory Cinematheque screens Giulio Paradisi’s sci-fi classic, THE VISITOR (1979) during their “Movies Made in Georgia” series at 7:30pm! It’s your last chance to catch Orson Welles at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of his classic masterpiece, CITIZEN KANE (1941), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Or take the family to the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) for their screening of Chris Noonan’s BABE (1995) at 7pm! Groove on down to the Variety Playhouse for the Dark Star Orchestra! Blues it up with Lola at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! Get jazzy with Sal Gentile at the Elliott Street Pub! Stomp on down to the Mammal Gallery for a night with Cute Boots, Susto, Ruby the Rabbitfoot and Tedo Stone! Blind Willie’s delivers a night of rockin’ blues with Little G. Weevil! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as they get smokin’ during Slim Chickens’ Honkytonk Extravaganza, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes! Blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission 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, February 19

Callanwolde Fine Arts Center delivers a night of classic Hollywood glitz during their 2015 Atlanta Film Festival Preview Party & Fundraiser! So, get dolled up, get glamorous and start off the 39th Annual ATLFF with a bang! And don’t miss the official feature film selection preview being held at The Plaza Theater prior to Callanwolde’s glitzy gala! 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! Rock over to The Earl for a night with the Starbenders and Chevy Galore featuring Michelle Malone and Linda Bolley! Get your fill of some traditional Scottish tunes at Eddie’s Attic with Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas! Union EAV delivers a night of grungy ‘90s punk and garage rock with Bleach Garden, Uncle Van & the Buzzards of Fuzz and Bottle Kids! It’s a night of rockin’ roots with Donna Hopkins at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Bluegrass it up at the Red Light Café with Kelen Rylee and Sylvia Rose Novak! 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! Blues it up with Sweet Betty & the Shadows at Blind Willie’s! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! 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, February 20

Get your retro film fix at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center with Kool Kat Andy Ditzler and his Film Love Presents: Fall-Apart Films event at 7pm, featuring rare archival material, including Albert Maysles/David Maysles’ MEET MARLON BRANDO (1965)! DJ Doctor Q and Atlanta Speakeasy Electroswing get dark and risqué during their Blackhearts Ball at the Red Light Café, featuring dangerous dames, gritty gents and femme fatales; with performances by Sin Tillating, Lucy Purr, Sunshine Divine and more! Jazz it up with The Stanley Clarke Band at the Variety Playhouse! Rock out ‘90s-style at The Earl with The Grifters and The Preakness! Honkytonk it up at The Star Bar with Strung Like a Horse, Darling Norman and Hothouse Peaches! It’s a night of garage rock ‘n’ blues at Union EAV with Bloodplums, Hooka Hey and Poison Coats! Blues it up with Rumblefish at Hottie Hawgs BBQ! It’s a night of ‘80s guilty pleasures at Famous Pub with their Dark 80s: Guilty Pleasure dance party with Kool Kat VJ Anthony! Jazz it up with Hotlanta Dixieland Jazz at the High Museum during their Friday Night Music Remix event! Get eaten alive at OnStage Atlanta during their presentation of the infamous horror rock musical, “Little Shop of Horrors” at 8pm, horrifying through March 28! Skank on down to The Highlander for their “Reggae/Punk/Ska/Glam” dance night! It’s a night of funky jazz at the Elliott Street Pub with Jessie Davis! Hop across the pond to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with Please PleaseRock Me! Get bound at The Jungle Club with their Fixation: Bound for Love event, featuring theatrical entertainment, fashion fantasy, synth pop and new-wave! Get mellow ‘70s-style at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs with Red Head Diamond! Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles rev it up at the Foundry Grillworks in Newnan! Blues it up with Willie Jackson at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Francine Reed & the Shadows jazz it up at Blind Willie’s! 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! Get bluesy with Stoney Brooks at the Northside Tavern! Bluegrass it up with Jim Lauderdale at Eddie’s Attic! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues delivers a night of rockin’ blues with Sean Chambers! 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, February 21

Splatter Cinema and Enjoy the Film (Kool Kat Ben Ruder) deliver a night of murderous mayhem at Cinevision Screening Room with their 35mm screening of Jonathan Demme’s ‘90s deliciously deviant thriller SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) at 8:30pm! And don’t forget to come early for some chilling lobby shenanigans! Get geeky with Kool Kat Sketch MacQuiner and more at the Atlanta Science Fiction & Fantasy Expo being held at the North Dekalb Mall in Decatur! Surf on down to Kavarna for Southern Surf Stomp! dishing out a rockin’ lineup with Crazy Aces, El Capitan & the Band With No Name and Flat Cat! Rock out at 120 Tavern & Music Hall with drivin’ n’ cryin’, Warner E. Hodges (Jason & the Scorchers) and Blackfoot Gypsies (keep your eyes peeled for our Kool Kat interview)! It’s day 1 of the 28th Annual Oyster Fest at The Steamhouse Lounge with a rockin’ line-up featuring Steady Common, Jerry on the Moon, Secondhand Swagger, Radiolucent and The Black Cadillacs! Stomp on down to the Red Light Café for a night with Katharine Cole and Roxie Watson! Blues it up with Tinsley Ellis at the Variety Playhouse! Rock out with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles at the Dixie Tavern in Marietta! Oi! Oi! Oi! on down to the Drunken Unicorn for Patriot, Hub City Stompers, Antagonizers ATL and DDC! Rock out folk-style at the Red Clay Theatre with Zangaro’s album release show, with Avenue of Giants, The Bitteroots and The Lost Boys! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack gets the blues with Ron Cooley! Or blues it up with Barry Richman at Steve’s Live Music! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Folk it up with Tom Rush at Eddie’s Attic! Smith’s Olde Bar dishes out a whole lotta blues in the Music Room with Chris Duarte and the JP Blues Band followed by the Phish cover band, Strange Design! Or for some old-school rock ‘n’ roll, make your way to the Atlanta Room for a night with Back on the Freakout and Slambango! Funk it up with the Rebirth Brass Band and Flow Tribe at Terminal West! Get bluesy with Big Joe & the Dynaflows at Blind Willie’s! The Stella Vees deliver a night of rockin’ blues at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! 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, February 22

Get really retro at The Strand Theatre during their screening of King Vidor’s silent classic, THE BIG PARADE (1925) at 3pm, accompanied by organist Kool Kat Ron Carter! Rock out at The Earl with Georges Bataille Battle Cry and A Place to Bury Strangers! It’s day 2 of 28th Annual Oyster Fest at The Steamhouse Lounge with City Mouse, Marshall Ruffin, The Western Sizzlers and The Sundogs performing “The Tom Petty & the Hearbreakers” show! The Possum Kingdom Ramblers dish out a night of rockin’ bluegrass covers with Which Dave at the Red Light Café! It’s Sultry Sunday, so jazz it up with Evan Christopher during his Mr. Clarinet Dinner Show at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Blues it up with John Hammond at Eddie’s Attic! Smith’s Olde Bar delivers their Bluegrass Brunch with the Stovetop Ramblers in the Bar Room. Stick around and get funky with Naughty Professor, The Heard and Those Cats! Geek it up on day 2 of the Atlanta Science Fiction & Fantasy Expo at the North Dekalb Mall in Decatur! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar! Stephen “The Blues Dude” gets bluesy at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And take the family to the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) for their screening of Chris Noonan’s BABE (1995) at 2pm!

Ongoing

The Alliance Theatre presents the musical adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting”, running through Feb. 22! (LAST CHANCE)

OnStage Atlanta dishes out the infamous horror rock musical, “Little Shop of Horrors”, horrifying through March 28!

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

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 Fueling 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 all you dapper fellas and glitzy gals! Cupid got your tongue? “Be Mine”, vintage-style this year and celebrate all that is vintage and Valentine’s in Retro Atlanta! Get romantic, retro-style and see what we have in store for you on this day of love and seduction!

1. Red Hot Jazz and Soulful Sensations. Get jazzy with your love tonight at Meehan’s Public House in Sandy Springs, during their 1920s Anti-Prohibition Dinner & Dance, featuring ’20 inspired tapas, cocktails and jazzy tunes by Courtney Renee Jazz!  Or jazz it up during the Emory Jazz Fest’s Big Band Night at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, featuring the Gary Motley Trio and special guest vocalist, Alex Lattimore. Free Admission; performance at 8pm. Get delivered at The Artmore Hotel (Studio Lounge) with a jump on the heartfelt holiday weekend (Feb. 13) with the soulful tunes of The TriggerMan Band, while sippin’ a few sultry cocktails from 6 to 9pm.

2. Blackhearts Unite. It’s a night of murder ballads made popular by Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nirvana and a whole lotta’ bloody maniacal mayhem at The Earl with their Bloody Valentine’s event, featuring Kool Kat Aileen Loy with Till Someone Loses an Eye; circus shenanigans with The Thimberling Circus and more bloody romantic fun! Doors at 9pm!

3. Oh là là! Hearts A’Blaze Entertainment is smokin’ hot with their Vices & Valentine’s event va-va-vooming it up at the Shakespeare Tavern at 11:30pm, featuring performances by Kool Kat Talloolah Love, Kool Kat Persephone Phoenix, Kool Kat Roula Roulette, Kool Kat Ursula Undress, Candi LeCouer, Ada Manzart, Jack Callico and more! Tickets start at $20. Get a little naughty this Valentine’s Day at Paris On Ponce for their Luscious Love Valentine’s Day event, hosted by The Imperial OPA Circus, featuring 13 tantalizing acts, including tastes of vaudeville, cabaret, burly-Q and circus shenanigans with 2 shows, 8:30pm/10:30pm. $50 general/VIP $175! Or get royally romantic at Jerry Farber’s Side Door with Kitty Love’s Cheeky Belles Burlesque: Dizzy Princess Revue at 9pm! Tease it up with Kool Kat Kitty Love, Angelica Vice, JudyAnne Foxe, Valkyrie Jones, Sainte Lee, Zina Czarina and more! $15 in advance/$20 at the door. The Famous Pub welcomes you to the Spectacular! Come see what’s behind the red curtain at RITUAL’s Moulin Rouge Valentine’s Day Ball featuring the Diamond Dog Dancers and more! $10 gains entrance to this exciting extravaganza starting at 10pm!

4. It’s Boogie Time. Shake your money maker at Kavarna in Decatur at Susi French Connection’s Valentine’s Disco Party at 9pm! Or get your ‘90s club fix at The Basement with their D.A.N.C.E. ’90 Dance Party, Valentine’s Edition that’ll have you dancin’ to your favorite ‘90s club tunes all night!

5. Be My Folksy Valentine. You won’t want to miss some old-time Irish, Scottish and Celtic mythical ballads this day of romance with Emerald Rose’s Valentine’s Day Show, putting a musical spell on you and your lucky lover at the Crimson Moon Café at 8pm.

6. Shakespeare In Love & Really Retro. Get romantically retro and take in William Shakespeare’s classic tale of star-crossed lovers and feuding families at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center! The Atlanta Ballet premieres Jean-Christophe Maillot’s alluring yet stripped down production of Romeo et Juliette, hailing all the way from Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo! The Atlanta Ballet Orchestra accompanies the beautifully choreographed masterpiece with Sergei Prokofiev’s provocative and breathtaking score! Tickets start at $20 and performance begins at 8 pm! And for all you knights in shining armor, get really retro and romantic with the royal one in your life and joust on down to Medieval Times for their Valentine’s Day Couples Package! $99 gets you 2 admissions, a photo, Valentine’s scroll, champagne in keepsake glasses, a light up rose and 2 admissions to the dungeon! Get classically romantic at Atlanta Symphony Hall with their “From the Heart” performance, delivering the “most romantic songs that celebrate Valentine’s Day” at 8pm!

7. Groovin’ Up Slowly. Be a smooth operator and sail on down to Park Tavern in Piedmont Park for Valentine’s Day Eve (Feb. 13) with Yacht Rock Schooner! It’ll be an evening of smooth 70s and 80s love songs and a champagne toast, so put on your dancin’ shoes and come aboard! $15 online/$20 at the door. Doors at 7 pm!

8. Lovin’ on the Silver Screen! ‘Here’s looking at you kid!’ Take a peek at love and romance Old Hollywood-style at The Strand Theater as they screen Michael Curtiz’s classic romantic drama, CASABLANCA (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Enjoy a few cocktails during cocktail hour with your dapper fella or glamorous gal at the Lumiere Lounge, , open from 7-11pm!

9. Cupid’s Culinary Delights! Grab your beloved bestie and even the kiddies for a dinner fit for a king at Pallookaville Fine Foods in Avondale Estates! A king of pop culture and classic monsters, that is! They’ve got monsters and circus freaks and retro-themed food, oh my! So, you won’t want to miss their Valentine’s Day Feast running from Feb. 11 through Feb. 14, which includes the essential dinner of love, a ‘la Lady & The Tramp-style, Linguine & Meatballs and the fixins followed by chocolate-covered strawberries! Adults $18, Kiddies $10! Or hula on over to Trader Vic’s and escape into the island atmosphere with their Tropical Valentine’s Day prix-fixe menu, featuring BBQ Duck Breast Spring Rolls, Asian Chicken Breast Salad, Pan-Seared Yellow Fin Snapper, Which Chocolate Soufflé and more! $60/person.

10. We Goth You Covered. For the darkly romantic, The Oakland Cemetery offers their Love Stories Tour, complete with tales of loves past led by a Victorian-era clad docent. Tours last an hour, just long enough to meet a kindred spirit or even a new love! Get loved to death while traversing the land of passionate souls longing for love. Tours haunt at 3pm, 4pm and 5pm! $10 adults/$5 students! Haunt over to the Red Light Café for their Valloween Costume Cabaret with bloody romantic tunes by Mayhayley’s Grave, belly and sword dances performed by Claire Voyant of The Cabaret Noir Collective and more! Doors at 7pm; $12 advance/$15 door. Or for a Valentine’s Eve-Eve (Feb. 12) event, get your bloody heart ripped out at Mary’s for their ‘Goth Nite St. Valentine’s Massacre’ event! It’ll be a Goth throw down featuring classic Goth rock, synth pop, post-punk and even tunes from the New Romantic era!

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Hey all you lovers and hep vintage rockin’ romantics! It’s a week of love and lust and romance, oh my! So, if you’re searching for that Funny Valentine or would prefer to forget the day, we have everything your wretched little heart could desire! So, come on out and take a peek at what Retro Atlanta has in store for you!

Monday, February 9

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival brings you Jan Kadar and Elmer Klos’ THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET (1965), screened in 35mm, celebrating its 50th Anniversary at the Lefont Theatre at 7:50pm! 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! Bill Sheffield dishes out his acoustic roots and blues at Blind Willie’s! Make your way to the Gresham Library for their screening of Richard Attenborough’s CRY FREEDOM (1987) at 2pm. Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! 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!’ Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! 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 side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, February 10

Let Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and the burly-Q gals of Syrens of the South spice up your evening with their Tease Tuesday: Hearts & Heartbreakers edition getting’ naughty at the Red Light Café! Get your ‘70s/’80s punk power pop fix at 529 with Paul Collins’ Beat, Dinos Boys and Faithless Town! Rock out retro-style at The Earl with The Explorers Club, Jay Gonzalez (Drive By Truckers) and Vito Romeo! Hilarity ensues at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center with their “Gilda Radner Research and Translation Center”, an unofficial academic-ish platform for the analysis of Radner’s life and comedy, running through April 11! Phox delivers a night of psychedelic rockin’ soul at Terminal West with Field Report! Get swept away at the Wesley Chapel-William C. Brown Library with their screening of Michael Curtiz’s classic Bogart-filled Hollywood tale, CASABLANCA (1942) at 11am! Or make your way to the Brookhaven Library for their screening of Daniel Petrie’s classic, A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961) at 5pm! Get rebellious with Paul Newman at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of Stuart Rosenberg’s classic, COOL HAND LUKE (1967), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! It’s a night of foot stompin’ Americana at Blind Willie’s with the Boohoo Ramblers! 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! The Crosstown All Stars dish out a night of stompin’ rock ‘n’ blues at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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! Bluegrass it up with Curtis Jones & Primal Root at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! And as always, The Entertainment Crackers get bluesy with their folksy Americana at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, February 11

Get funky with George Clinton & the Parliament Funkadelic at the Variety Playhouse! Blues it up with Lola at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! Emory Cinematheque screens Edward Zwick’s GLORY (1989) during their “Movies Made in Georgia” series at 7:30pm! It’s your last chance to spend the night with Paul Newman at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of Stuart Rosenberg’s classic, COOL HAND LUKE (1967), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! It’s ladies night at the Studio Movie Grill in Alpharetta with their screening of Amy Heckerling’s ‘90s classic, CLUELESS (1995) at 7:30pm! Rock out at Terminal West with Against Me!, Creepoid and Worriers! It’s rockin’ blues mayhem at Smith’s Olde Bar with Movers & Shakers, Hellhounds and Jimmy Real! Kool Kat Scott Glazer’s Mojo Dojo dishes out a night of blues, jazz and southern soul at Blind Willie’s! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as they get smokin’ during Slim Chickens’ Honkytonk Extravaganza, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes! Blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission 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, February 12

Sleaze it up at the Little Vinyl Lounge with the murderous ballads of Al Shelton and Kool Kat Sen Artie Mondello! Stomp on down for a raunchy ruckus of psychobilly proportions at the Clermont Lounge with Fiend Without A Face and the El Capitan Trio! Get jazzy at 550 Trackside in Lawrenceville with the smokin’ hot 17-piece band, Metro Jazz Club’s “My Jazzy Valentine” event at 8pm! Or, for the black-hearted, make your way to Mary’s for their Goth Nite St. Valentine’s Massacre dance party featuring classic goth anthems! Get your ‘80s indie rock fix with Lloyd Cole (Lloyd Cole & the Commotions) at Eddie’s Attic! Get jazzy rock-style with Wayne Krantz at Smith’s Olde Bar! The New Agrarians get folksy at the Red Clay Theatre with their album release and special guests, Granville Automatic! Or stomp down to The Music Room for a night with 100 Watt Horse, Charlie & the Foxtrots, Slow Parade, Dear Mr. Peasant and Mike Lasage! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s, so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes! Bluegrass it up at the Red Light Café with Kenosha Kid and Etienne de Rocher! 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! Heather Luttrell delivers a night of rockin’ Americana and blues at Blind Willie’s! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas!

Friday, February 13

Friday the 13^th and Valentine’s Day Eve; get horror-filled and romantic in one fatal swoop! Rock out to some old-school punk tunes at The Star Bar with Horror Business (Misfits tribute), Road to Ruin (The Ramones tribute) and Pretty Vacant (Sex Pistols tribute)! Or get smooth this Valentine’s Day Eve with Yacht Rock Schooner at Park Tavern in Piedmont Park! Paris on Ponce begins their 2-day Luscious Love Valentine’s Event presented by The Imperial OPA Circus, featuring 2 shows (8:30p/10:30p) with thirteen mischievous acts including vaudeville, burly-Q, circus fun and more! Get classically retro at Atlanta Symphony Hall with their “From the Heart” performance, delivering the “most romantic songs that celebrate Valentine’s Day” at 8pm! Or Holly Golightly on over to The Strand Theater for Blake Edwards’ adaptation of Truman Capote’s glamorous classic, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) with a pops pre-show at 7:30 pm!

Get absurd and rock out with Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton & the Madrid Express at the Red Light Café with Johnny Knapp! Blues it up with Big Head Todd & the Monsters at the Variety Playhouse! Make your way to the Toco-Hill-Avis G. Williams Library for their screening of Tony Scott’s CRIMSON TIDE (1995) at 1:30 pm! Honkytonk it up blues-style at The Earl with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck, Interstate and The Wayward Souls! Garage rock over to Union EAV for a night with Snoot, The Marrows, Sleep the Owls and 72nd and Central! Jazz it up at Mammal Gallery for their screening of THE LIFE, LOVE & HATE OF A FREE JAZZ MAN AND HIS WOMAN (2012), Jorge Torres-Torres’ documentary on jazz musician, Arthur Doyle at 7:30! The Drunken Unicorn delivers a night beckoning back to the psyched up days of krautrock with Paperhaus, Shampoo and Shepherds! Get jazzy with Regina Carter and the Gary Motley Trio at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts! Led Zeppelin 2 rocks out at the Masquerade! Rock out with the Dirty Doors at Hottie Hawgs BBQ! It’s your second chance to catch Lloyd Cole (Lloyd Cole & the Commotions) at Eddie’s Attic! Blues it up with Mojo Davis at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs delivers their “Winter Classic Rock ‘n’ Roll” series with The Stoneberrys, paying tribute to The Rolling Stones! The Electromatics deliver a night of Chicago blues and a taste of ‘Ole Blue Eyes at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event! Get funky NOLA-style at the Northside Tavern during Zydefunk’s “King Cake” Party! House Rocker Johnson & the Shadows get down and dirty at Blind Willie’s! Get rootsy with the Josh Garrett Band at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! 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, February 14

It’s V-day folks and you know what that means! We’ve dug up a variety of rockin’ vintage shindigs taking place tonight, that we know will get your blood pumping and all set for that shot to the heart, so, keep your eyes peeled for our top picks and comprehensive guide for all things Retro and Valentine-y!

And for those looking to forget the whole day, take a peek at these rockin’ events! Get your garage rock fix at The Star Bar during the Rat Aid: Benefit for Haydon O’Neil & Kat Peters with The Nightporters and Scarred But Smarter! It’s a gritty rock ‘n’ roll revival at Smith’s Olde Bar with Swank Sinatra, Kool Kats The Joy Kills and Dams! Rusted Root delivers a night of rock ‘n’ jams at the Variety Playhouse! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack dishes out a night of Dixie blues and jazz rock with Seminole Jackson! Get funky NOLA-style at the Northside Tavern with a second helping of Zydefunk! The Emory Jazz Fest presents their Big Band Night at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts! Make your way to the Charles D. Switzer Public Libary for their screening of Clyde Geronimi/Wilfred Jackson/Hamilton Luske’s animated classic, CINDERELLA (1950) at 3pm! Get bluesy with Sandra Hall & the Shadows at Blind Willie’s! Harper & the Midwest Kind delivers a night of world blues and roots at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! 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, February 15

It’s a night of ‘60s era Dylan-esque folk with Food For Cougars, Gas Hound and The Brookses at the Red Light Café! The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival brings you Joan Miklin Silver’s HESTER STREET (1975), celebrating its 40th Anniversary at the Lefont Theatre at 1:55pm! It’s Sultry Sunday at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs with a night of Frank Sinatra! Delta Moon delivers a night of blues rock and Americana at Blind Willie’s! Bluegrass it up with David Bromberg at Eddie’s Attic! Or stomp over to the Red Clay Theatre for a night with the Bryan Sutton Band! The Crimson Moon Café delivers their “Jazz it up Jam” with Rick Harris! Get your Precious fix at The Marlay House in Decatur during the Atlanta Tolkien Fans February Meetup at 1pm! Smith’s Olde Bar delivers their Bluegrass Brunch with the Kris Youman’s Band in the Bar Room! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar! And Stephen “The Blues Dude” gets bluesy at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Alliance Theatre presents the musical adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting”, running through Feb. 22!

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

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 Fueling 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 all you Kool Kats and Kittens! Come see what’s on the menu this week in Retro Atlanta! We promise it’s the bees knees and that’ll we’ll have you boogyin’ the night away! We’ve got Big Band and Rockabilly and Horrific Monsters, Oh My! We’ve got all the cinema of yore you’ve been craving and don’t forget about our tried and true Blues and Jazz that’ll keep you on your toes! So, get off that couch and rock out Retro-style!

Monday, February 2

Let the geeky guys and debaucherous dolls of Blast-Off Burlesque start your week off right with a night of adults-only trivia at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, every Monday night at 8:30pm! Hey all you rude boys and girls! Skank on down to the Masquerade for a night with Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake and Authority Zero! Get some soul with Brandon Reeves at Blind Willie’s! Make your way to the Gresham Library for their screening of Edward Zwick’s GLORY (1989) at 2pm. Truett Lollis delivers a night of blues and soul at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! 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! Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! 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 side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, February 3

Get geeky and delve into the comic book panic of the ‘50s at the Onyx Theatre in Kennesaw with their world premiere performance of “Bloody Pulp: Crisis in the American Comic Book!”, running through Feb. 8! Or get your fill of dark humor and satirical shenanigans at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern with their screening of Mel Brooks’, BLAZING SADDLES (1974), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up at Blind Willie’s! 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! The Crosstown All Stars dish out a night of stompin’ rock ‘n’ blues at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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, February 4

Beverly “Guitar” Watkins gets bluesy at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! It’s your last chance to laugh it up at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern with their screening of Mel Brooks’, BLAZING SADDLES (1974), during their “Classic Films on the Big Screen” series at 7:30! Stomp down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with Mendingwall, Crash Dragon and Lebo & the Rattler! Get funky with Josh Hoyer & the Shadowboxers at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! 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 down and dirty with The Cazanovas at Blind Willie’s! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Star Bar as they get smokin’ during their Slim Chicken Honky-tonk Extravaganza, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes! Blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission 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, February 5

Kool Kat Spike Fullerton with Ghost Riders Car Club delivers a night of rockin’ shenanigans at the Clermont Lounge! Get your ‘70s power pop ‘n’ rock fix at The Earl with The Head, A. Sinclair and Tedo Stone! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s, so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes! Folk it up at the Red Light Café with Rye Baby and Tara Mills! Bluegrass it up with Jim White and The Packway Handle Band at Eddie’s Attic! It’s a rockin’ night of Americana at Smith’s Olde Bar with Jordan Igoe, Alex Commins & Todd Prusin and Humdinger! Get down and dirty with Lola at Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint! Spend the evening with As of Yet 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! Beverly “Guitar” Watkins gets the blues at Blind Willie’s! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! 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, February 6

Get traumatized and HORROR-fied this weekend as the Days of the Dead Convention takes over the Sheraton Atlanta hotel for three days of ghastly gore-filled events, running through Feb. 8! You won’t want to miss terrifying vendors, including Kool Kat Chris Hamer of UrbnPop, Chambers of Horror, Noel Saabye’s Monster Pin-Ups and more; monstrous celebrity guests Butch Patrick, masked menace Kane Hodder of FRIDAY THE 13TH fame, Tony Todd, a HELLRAISER Reunion with Valentina Vargas, Doug Bradley and more; and a hell raisin’ Friday night party featuring Circus Envy & the Deadly Sins and Captain & Maybelle at midnight! So, get your fill of the blood-bath that is, Days of the Dead!

Rev it up with Kool Kat Reverend Andy Hawley of Garage71 Radio and EAV Radio at the Diesel Filling Station as he spins a night of hellacious ‘billy and old-school punk and metal, during his “Reverend Andy Meets the Belligerent Monkey” event! Or let Dale Watson fill yer ears with some old-time country at Smith’s Olde Bar, with special guests JD Wilkes & the Dirt Daubers! Get your second helping of Jim White and The Packway Handle Band at Eddie’s Attic! Shimmy on down to Center Stage for this month’s Clubesque: A Modern Cabaret event! Get eclectic with a rockin’ cello at the Red Clay Theatre with Montana Skies! Folk it up with MIPSO at the Crimson Moon Café! It’s a Valentine’s Cabaret at the Atlanta Lyric Theatre in Marietta with their presentation of “That Thing Called Love” at 7pm! Bluegrass it up with the Yonder Mountain String Band at the Variety Playhouse! Let Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles fire you up at Mule Camp Tavern in Gainesville! Get your retro rock fix at The Earl with Radio Birds, Stonerider and Melodime! Blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Hottie Hawgs BBQ! Blues it up with Ted Bauman at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! It’s a night of vintage folk and Americana at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs with Little Country Giants and Steve Baskin! Get funky under the dinosaurs at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX with Secondhand Swagger! Grant Green, Jr dishes up some rockin’ blues at the Northside Tavern! Sandra Hall & the Shadows get down and dirty at Blind Willie’s! Jeff Jensen gets bluesy at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! 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, February 7

It’s Day 2 to get spooked at the Days of the Dead Convention at the Sheraton Atlanta! Get your blood curdling fill of monstrous events including a HELLRAISER panel, Frog Brothers panel with Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander of THE LOST BOYS, Angus Scrimm, “Tall Man” in Don Coscarelli’s PHANTASM (1979) and don’t forget to haunt on over to the Monster Ball & Costume Contest that will have you rattlin’ your bones deep into the night!

Shenanigans ensue at The Star Bar because it’s HollyFest VII! Get your rockin’ fill with the music of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper devilishly delivered by The Mystery Men?, Johnny McGowan, Kool Kat Caroline & the Ramblers, Cadillac Junkies, McPherson Struts, Rodeo Twister, Red Rocket Deluxe, The Tyler Nelson Experiment, Big Boss Man, The Cherry Bomb, The Side Burners, El Capitan and more! Or get rowdy with a bluegrass romp at the Red Light Café with Heyday Revival, Fuzz Face, wWAYLon and Brandon Gunter! Rock out ‘80s punk style with Evan Dando (Lemonheads) and Sara Johnston at The Earl! Delbert McClinton dishes out a night of stompin’ Americana at the Variety Playhouse! Geek it up at Atlantic Station during the Momo Con Presents: Cosplay & Ice Skating event! Boogie down to Smith’s Olde Bar for the Fare Thee Well Foundation’s 7th Annual Mardi Gras Ball featuring The Jugtime Ragband, Electric Codpiece, Hoodoo Moon and more! Get rootsy with Lindsay Loe & the Flat Bellys and Wild Ponies at the Red Clay Theatre! Blues it up with Larry Griffith at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! It’s a night of rockin’ blues at the Northside Tavern with the Rockaholics! Get your ‘80s fix at Kuzan’s in Suwannee with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch and Denim Arcade! Blues it up with House Rocker Johnson & the Shadows at Blind Willie’s! The 24th Street Wailers deliver a night of Memphis soul and rockin’ swing at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! 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, February 8

It’s Day 3 and your last chance to experience the rockin’ blood and horror fest, the Days of the Dead Convention! Today’s events include a panel covering Robert Hiltzick’s horror classic, SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983) featuring Felissa Rose and Jonathan Tiersten and you won’t want to miss Samurai Sunday with a screening of Jimmy Wang’s MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE (1976)! So, come on and check out all the swell and retro horror goodness while you can!

Get sweet and sinful at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club during The Baphomettes’ My Bloody Valentine Bake Sale, getting bloody with girls in horns, booze and baked goods galore, from 2 to 6pm! Or tease on down to 7 Stages for Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and the Syrens of the South’s 8th Annual Vixens Valentease Vaudeville Variety Show, doors at 7:45pm! Get soulfully sentimental at the Fox Theatre’s 9th Annual Pre-Valentine “Lovers & Friends” Weekend, featuring Eric Benet, Johnny Gill and El Debarge! Get jazzy with Nat George (star of the “Sam Cooke Story”) at Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs! Or jazz it up with Francine Reed at Eddie’s Attic! Jazz on down to Atlanta Symphony Hall for a night with Jamie Cullum! Bluegrass it up at Smith’s Olde Bar’s Bluegrass Brunch with Cedar Hill in the Bar Room! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar! And Stephen “The Blues Dude” gets bluesy at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Alliance Theatre presents the musical adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting”, running through Feb. 22!

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

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 Fueling 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

Artie Mondello, dodgy, low-down guitar slingin’ transmitter of mischief and raunch, along with his partners in crime, The Delusionaires [Nadeem Khan on upright bass, Winthrop Fist (a.k.a. Dennie Carter) on drums and Lil’ Jimmy Ivy on tenor saxophone] will be causin’ a ruckus of a one night stand at The Star Bar this Saturday, Jan. 31, at 9 pm with garage rockers Tiger! Tiger and smut slingers Bad Friend!

Artie, northern by birth and reborn into the land of debauchery (the Dirty, Dirty!), the king of raunch has been delving into the nitty gritty since ’93, with turns in bands such as The Exotic Aarontones, The Vodkats, The Del Spektros and the still-active Mondellos. The Delusionaires formed (initially) in 2000 and have shared the stage with Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, the Dex Romweber Duo, Shannon & the Clams and the King Kahn & BBQ Show. They also have graced the stage at the 2003 Hukilau and were a featured act in the 2014 Coney Island Mermaid Parade Ball. Their ample releases to date include their 45 “Pistol Whipped”/”Fifth Kiss” (Dec. 2000) and LP “Destination Poon” (June 2003) on their own previously-named Zanzibar! Records; LP “Flooze Party” (Jan. 2013) by Beaverama! Records and their most recent 45 “Scrump”/”The Worm Whispers” (Spring 2014) on Baltimore’s Hidden Volume Records. In sum, The Delusionaires have earned that below-the-belt reputation they’ve fought tooth and nail for (Actually, it seems they’re pretty much a natural in that department!) and which works perfectly for our ears here at ATLRetro!

Photo Credit: Jim Leatherman L-R: Dennie Carter, Jim Ivy, Nadeem Khan, Artie Mondello

ATLRetro caught up with Artie for a quick interview about his take on Las Vegas Grind; The Delusionaires’ maniacal craving to deliver a night of debauchery, drankin’ and booty shakin’; his retro rock ‘n’ old-school influences; and everything else we could think to ask about the naughty little band that could!

And while you’re takin’ a gander at our little Q&A with Artie, get an earful of The Delusionaires’ “The Scrump” and “She Crawls on Her Belly Like a Reptile.”

ATLRetro: The Delusionaires’ sound, in essence, has been described as having a “Las Vegas Grind”-style with a twist of the low-down and dirty that’ll make your mama cry and your daddy beg for more. What exactly is “Las Vegas Grind” and how would you describe the band’s sound?

Artie Mondello: LAS VEGAS GRIND was a series of comps that Tim Warren [Crypt Records] put out starting in the late ’80s, collecting sort of the slime beneath the underbelly of American popular music. You could simply call it “stripper music” but not, like, David Rose’s “The Stripper”; that’s way more uptown than what we’re talking about here. This stuff is completely devoid of any socially redeeming value, and I mean that as a virtue. All the hyperbole that the early critics heaped on rock ‘n’ roll and R&B – like, you know, leering degenerates shambling through moronic chord changes against drunken jungle drums – is actually true here. They’re records played by drunks looking to get drunker and hopefully laid, usually written in about the same time it takes to listen to it, and forgotten by everybody involved by the time last call rolls around. Very much like a cheap pulp novel – lurid, crude, prurient and totally artless. Of course, that’s everything in the world we hold dear, and that’s The Delusionaires‘ sound. The time-honored strip joint lineup of a sleazy tenor sax, thudding bass fiddle, flailing drums and greasy guitar. No attention whatsoever to song craft or polish. This isn’t music meant to be listened to; it’s for dancing, if not dirtily, then at the very least drunkenly.

Photo Credit: Aloe Vera, L-R: Jim Ivy, Dennie Carter, Artie Mondello

As the guitar player and someone who admittedly subsists off a “cultural diet of monster movies, stag films, horror comics and Hollywood tell-alls,” can you let our readers know what exactly drew you to play music and when you picked up your first guitar?

I got my first guitar when I was 18, for Christmas from my parents. I’d never displayed any sort of musical talent whatsoever and had no designs on ever being able to play an instrument. But, when someone gives you a guitar, you kinda have to learn it! Family, friend and foe alike would rue that day for years to come, ’cause if there was anything everyone could agree on when I was growing up, it was that I should never be allowed anywhere near a musical instrument. That was actually the main reason I did learn: just to be an asshole. That’s pretty much the entire reason I started actually performing, too. If there was anything less popular than my guitar playing, it was my singing, and I’m just enough of a dick to do both onstage just because everybody says I shouldn’t. I always maintained that I don’t have any talent, just a helluva lotta balls.

Photo Credit: Jim Leatherman, L-R: Nadeem Khan, Dennie Carter, Jim Ivy, Artie Mondello

Even though the bulk of the retro rock revival pretty much died off in the late ‘90s, The Delusionaires seem to have made a niche for themselves in Atlanta’s thriving surf-sleaze-nitty-gritty underground music scene. What draws you to the mischievous underbelly of Atlanta’s music scene?

People here tend to drink a lot and they tend to shake their ass when they’re drunk. That’s the magic equation right there. Plus, with 3/4 of the band living out of state, we don’t get to play here all that often, which gives audiences plenty of time to forgive whatever we did at the last show.

You’ve been a member of several musical outfits [The Exotic Aarontones, The Vodkats, The Del Spektros and the still-active Mondellos] since 1993. What sort of maniacal mojo does The Delusionaires have that even after 15 years of breakups and reunions, makes you want to keep dishin’ out that “swampland sleaze”?

My guess is that one of us ran over a gypsy and we got cursed to spend eternity together. Outside of that, it’s the work of two factors. First, we’re lifelong friends, co-dependents, drinking buddies and essentially brothers, so there’s only so long we’re gonna stay apart. Second, and most significant, we just plain love playing this stuff. It’s not like a genre we choose to play; it’s not calculated, there’s no effort to create a certain sound, it’s just literally what comes out when ya put the four of us together. It’s my favorite sound in the world, literally the sound that’s running in my head all the time. That’s probably why we can exist living in two different states, never practicing and never planning anything out. This slop’s so natural to us, we don’t have to learn it.  It’s just what we are.

Photo Credit: Gretchen Wood, L-R Nadeem Khan, Jim Ivy

Who would you say are your top three musical influences?

God, there’s sooooo many, and what makes it harder is that a lot of ’em I don’t even know the names. Probably more than anything, I’d have to say the soundtracks to TV shows and exploitation movies circa 1950-1965, just that kinda generic rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm & blues that usually didn’t even get credited. The movie, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE (dir. Joseph Green, 1962) is a classic example; just the awesomest, sleaziest incidental music you could ever ask for. Also, the main title to THE DEVIL’S HAND (dir. William J. Hole, Jr., 1961) – I could listen to that for six hours straight. Throw in the AIP teensploitation flicks and just about any bottom-rung television show that got rerun in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and you’ve summed up at least half of every musical influence I’ve ever had.

Another major influence is the stuff Sam Phillips recorded in Memphis in the ’50s, not so much the Sun Rockabilly stuff (which is still a huge favorite and influence on me, don’t get me wrong) as the blues and boogie sides he cut, mostly to lease to other labels. It’s just phenomenal, almost frightening to hear. Crude as can be, with the minimum number of personnel he could scrape together, cheap amplifiers literally self-destructing over the course of the song, the musicians not only obviously, but audibly drunk. Anything with Pat Hare on guitar is just better than sex, pure psycho genius, and if there’s any dirtier, drunker, more louche sound than Willie Nix‘s records, I’m man enough to tell you I couldn’t handle it. Greatest stuff on earth.

Narrowing it down to a single person, I’d hafta say Link Wray, no question. I was never a lead player, never practiced any licks or anything, and discovering Link taught me that I didn’t need to feel bad about that for a second. I’m still no great shakes on guitar, but I’ll tell ya, I’d be totally unlistenable without the lessons I picked up from his records. No question.

The Delusionaires’ earlier releases, Dec. 2000’s 45 “Pistol Whipped/”Fifth Kiss” and June 2003’s DESTINATION POON LP were both released by your own record label, Zanzibar! Records. Tell our readers a little bit about your record label and what they’re up to now.

We created Zanzibar Records solely to put out that first 45, which we always knew was something we’d have to do ourselves because there was basically zero demand for it. 7″ singles were an all-but-dead medium back in 2000; I mean, nobody wanted ’em, least of all from a marginal outfit like us. Only an idiot would’ve wanted to put out a Delusionaires 45 at the time. And, of course, we had four idiots. Anyway, it wasn’t all that ruinous; back then, you could press up a couple hundred singles on red wax for like $500, and as there was no other expense involved in the record – I recorded it in my kitchen on used tape and “mastered” it through my VCR – it didn’t, like, ruin our lives. A couple years later, we had the bright idea to record an album, which probably was an even stupider idea, ’cause by that time, we were really pariahs on the scene. But again, it was something we wanted to do, for our own kicks, at least, and we dusted off the old Zanzibar label again. But that was the extent of the Zanzibar Records line, one 45 and one CD, and a whole lotta cornball “promotion” to make it sound more impressive than it was. I woulda loved to have made it an actual, active label, but honestly, I could barely afford to buy records, let alone release them.

Fast-forward to 2012, when we recorded the second album, which was the stupidest idea yet — the band wasn’t even officially together, and with me in Atlanta and the others down in Orlando & Tampa, there weren’t any plans on changing that. There really weren’t any plans on even releasing it, but Nadeem [bass] insisted it needed to come out, on vinyl to boot. Obviously, nobody was gonna volunteer for that kinda sacrifice, so we again put it out ourselves. Unfortunately, an actual, legitimate label named Zanzibar Records had popped up in the years since we’d split, so Beaverama! Records was born. I’d love to do more releases on this one, like, what they used to call “Adult Party Albums,” but as usual, I can’t even consider something like that when I can’t even afford to fix my windshield wipers.

Photo Credit: Jim Leatherman, L-R: Nadeem Khan, Jim Ivy, Dennie Carter

We at ATLRetro dig your gig posters! And love the twisted throwback to ‘50s and ‘60s pop art echoing the darker side of Hollywood. Can you tell our readers who the artistic genius behind your show posters is?

Heh, thanks! No genius behind ’em, just me, screwin’ around with stuff till I like how it looks. I’m not an artist or designer or anything. It’s just fun, especially since we’re the only ones I’m looking to please. I’ve done a couple posters for other people’s bands or events, and man, did they suck. Total disasters.

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

That basically already happened a couple years back, when Bryan [Malone] at The Star Bar put together a bill of the Dels, Dex Romweber and Tav Falco’s Panther Burns. Seriously, that was like the bill I would have doodled fantasy posters of in my notebook in high school. Outside of that, I think my dream line-up’d be The A-Bones, The Royal Pendletons, The Trashwomen, The Brentwoods and Les Sexareenos, with the Dels backing Barrence Whitfield. Now, THAT’D be a festival even I’d go to…

Anything tantalizing planned for your rowdy throw down this coming Saturday at The Star Bar?

Photo Credit: Terran McCanna – Anonymous fan drawing left onstage in Jacksonville, FL

The Delusionaires never plan anything out. I don’t remember the last time we even had a set list that wasn’t just a cheat sheet with a bunch of random titles. We never go into a show having any idea how it’s gonna play out. It’s not by design, it’s just that we’re that disorganized. The one time I remember us actually plotting something out was the night we strung up a trapeze in the old Bodhisattva Social Club, and that was a catastrophe.

Actually, I lied, we do have at least one thing planned for Saturday – Buffi and Susanne from Tiger! Tiger! are going to sing a couple of numbers with us, I think, and we’ll hopefully get Shane to play second sax on a couple as well. We did this at a show in St. Pete a few months back, and it was insane, just sick in all the right ways.

What’s next for you and The Delusionaires?

As usual, the Dels have almost nothing planned, just waiting to see what screwy new misadventure pops up. The one solid item in our future is a micro-tour of the Eastern seaboard at the end of June, centered around the Midnite Monster Hop in NYC on June 27, and even that hinges on none of us dying before then. I myself am playing a solo set as a one-man band in St. Augustine on Valentine’s Day, as part of a record release party for the amazing Kensley Stewart. Like pretty much every gig I do, in any of my bands, the set itself is just a MacGuffin, basically an excuse for me to go places and do things that I’m too lazy to do otherwise.

Photo Credit: Terran McCanna, L-R Artie Mondello, Jim Ivy, Cecilia Bravo (Fluffgirl Burlesque Society)

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

God, if anything, they probably already know too much. Maybe that, no matter what we might tell you after the set, we actually are all married.

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

Q: “Here, ya wanna take the rest of this keg home and finish it off?”
A: “Why, yes. Yes, we do.”

Actually, that did happen once after a gig, and it was a disaster…

Photos provided courtesy of Artie Mondello and used with permission.