ATLRetro

Some great live music and beautiful babes who like to dance, skate and kill. That’s what this May weekend is all about.

Friday, May 20

Iconic ’80s alternative and psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips are back for a second night at The Tabernacle. ATLRetro faves and self-described ragtime/vaudeville wild cats Blair Crimmins & the Hookers promise a late-night anything goes show at529. Joe Gransden swings at Friday Jazz at theHigh Museum of Art. Spice up your dancing with sassy Latin rhythms during Salsa Night Featuring Salsambo Dance Studio at Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX. Or relive those heady John Hughes-movie high school days you never had at the Decatur Adult Promfrom 8 PM to midnight at the Solarium in Oakhurst. Featuring a DJ, disco ball, Victory beer, spiked punch, photography and hopefully no pig blood.

Saturday May 21

Choose between two big music festivals during another Saturday jam-packed with Retro fun. The dead won’t literally be singing Tunes From the Tombs at Oakland Cemetery, or at least the living are telling us it’ll be a wide variety of bands and solo artists serving up a mix of rock, folk, Americana, jazz, classical and everything in between at four stages throughout the graveyard. Saturday highlights that may be familiar to ATLRetro readers include redneck underground founding fathers Slim Chance & the Convictsat 4:30 PM, soulful and jazzy Abby Wren and What It Is at 2 PM, Jim Stacy’s new band AM Gold at 5:30 PM.

Burt and the Bandits.

Saturday afternoon at the 8th annual East Atlanta Beer Festival in Brownwood Park, sample over 150 craft beers, taste good food from grilled cheese to beer ice cream, and listen to rockin’ good music such as the world premiere of Burt and the Bandits, a SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT tribute band fronted by the multitalented Jon Waterhouse and featuring this week’s Kool Kat Barb “Barbilicious” Hays.

As night falls, so rise the femme fatales. The sexy nonprofit Pin Ups for Soldiers bare just enough and sell some calendars to raise money for care packages for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq at the Edgewood Corner Tavern‘s Armed Forces Day celebration. The bar’ll also be donating a buck for every PBR can and Yuengling draft sold. Burlesque sensation Talloolah Lovecelebrates the exotic movements that started her love of dance during Arabian Nights featuring bellydance workshops and performances, hookah lounge, drum circle, henna art, and delicious Mediterranean treats at Bart Webb Studios in Avondale Estates.

Beware the cutest kittens have the sharpest claws. Blast-Off Burlesque salutes Tura Satana and bad girls everywhere with a screening of the 1965 cult classicFASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! in their second bimonthly Taboo La-La at the historic Plaza Theatre. For a sneak preview, read ATLRetro’s exclusive interview with this week’s Kool Kat Barbilicious and the Retro Review by Mark Arson, but in the exploitation spirit, the pre-show wild antics include a Tura Satana costume contest, beefcake contest for guys, all-girl arm wrestling, live music by Grinder Nova, a chance to leave an offering at the Tura Satana shrine, a silent auction of Tura art and memorabilia to raise money for Varla Films to help complete a documentary on the recently deceased actress, and super special prizes and surprises.

For those ready to relive those heady hardcore skatepunk/thrash metal days DRI (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) are at The Masquerade. Still with the band from the original line-up are vocalist Kurt Brecht and guitarist Spike Cassidy. And it’s the monthly bout night for the Atlanta Rollergirls at the Yaarab Shrine Center, the all-star Dirty South Derby Girls thrash it out with Knoxville’s Hard Knox Roller Girlsat 5 PM, and the Apocalypstix face off against the Sake Tuyas at 7:30 PM.

Sunday May 22

Oakland Cemetery‘s Tunes from the Tombs continues with another full day of live music on four stages, including Atlanta rockabilly favorites Blacktop Rockets at 1 PM, beach pop band The Mermaids at 4 PM, and many more. Wormwood headlines blues “dunch” between 1 and 4 PM at The Earl.

Closing this weekend

It’s the final weekend of SCARLETT’S WEB, mad puppeteer Chris Brown‘s twisted puppet musical retelling of a familiar children’s story at Dad’s Garage. You’ll still root for a certain chatty spider and a pensive pig who is a farm girl’s best friend, but let’s just say, this time there will be blood. Never mind, it’s all in fun and definitely recommended only for anyone old enough to appreciate adult humor. Fri. and Sat. night at 8 p.m. through May 21.

The Age of Aquarius rises through Sun. May 22 as HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical finishes up a week long run at the 1929 Fabulous Fox Theatre. The legendary hippie rock opera follows a group of hopeful free-spirited young people as they explore sexual identity, challenge racism, experiment with drugs and burn their draft cards. This production won a 2009 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival. Read ATLRetro’s interview with actress Allison Guinn here.

Ongoing

At the High Museum of Art through May 29 is the MOMA-organized HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON: THE MODERN CENTURY, a blockbuster exhibit showcasing a photographer and photojournalist who captured on film many of the seminal moments  of the 20th century from World War II to the assassination of Ghandi, China’s cultural revolution to civil rights and consumer culture in America.

Tune back in on Monday for This Week in Retro Atlanta. If you know of a cool happening, send suggestions to ATLRetro@gmail.com.