ATLRetro

Friday, July 8

Purchase a cool drink from a glamorous gal and support local animal shelters and rescue nonprofits when Pin-Up Girl Cosmetics in Grant Park sets up Ernie’s Lemonade Stand between 2-9 p.m. Delectable owner Kellyn Willey is this week’s Kool Kat. Blair Crimmins & The Hookers take their ’20s ragtime sound OTP to the 1935 art-deco Earl Smith Strand Theatre in Marietta. Catch an IMAX movie and swing the night away under dinosaur bones with sultry gypsy jazzy The Bonaventure Quartet (featuring Amy Pike of The Lost Continentals) at Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX.

Come on and get swanky tonight with Las Vegas surf trio Thee Swank Bastards at Mon Cherie’s Rockabilly Lounge in Purgatory at Masquerade. Also live on stage are burlesque beauties The Chameleon Queen, Stormy Knight, New Orleans Jon, Scarlett Page, Hollie De Veaux and Kittie Katrina, plus as usual Rev. Andy spinning Psychobilly Freakout, free jello shots, vendors and a Ragin’ Rockabilly Raffle. Indigo Girls plays under the stars at Atlanta Botanical Garden (We guess they’re kind of getting Retro by now). Take your tambourine to the park as the Classic Chastain series teams the  Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with ABBA tribute band The Arrival to perform the hits of Swedish ’70s super-group.

Saturday July 9

The Mystery Men? seek to hypnotize audiences with their energetic surf sounds at 529. Surf compadrees eL fOSSIL and drive-in horror movie-inspired Kill Baby Kill from Alabama open. The Hot Rod Walt Trio is at the Jailhouse Brewing Company in Hampton. Blues pianist extraordinaire Ike Stubblefield tickles the ivories at Northside Tavern. Indigo Girls do a second night at Atlanta Botanical Garden. And of course, DJ Romeo Cologne transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours.

Sunday July 3

Nineties Hip hop/rap duo Tag Team return to headline blues “dunch” between 1 and 4 PM at The Earl. Return to the glory days of ’80s hair metal at Lakewood Amphitheatre with Motley Crue and Poison, with oddly and appropriately what’s left of the New York Dolls opening to screw with audience’s heads.

Ongoing

At the High, RADCLIFFE BAILEY: MEMORY AS MEDICINE, the most comprehensive exhibition of the Atlanta artist’s works to date, opened last Sunday June 26 and runs through Sept. 11. Read more about the artist and this powerful exhibition that in this Kool Kat.

JOHN MARIN’S WATERCOLORS: A MEDIUM FOR MODERNISM, a companion exhibit also at the High this summer through Sept. 11, surveys the work of the man named America’s number one artist in a 1948 LOOK magazine survey. While his name is not a household one today, this exhibition reminds us of his important place in the modernist movement and why watercolors became such a powerful instrument for avante-garde art in the hands of him and other artists in the Stieglitz Circle, including Georgia O’Keefe.

MODERN BY DESIGN, the High‘s other Retro exhibition, celebrates three key moments in modern design and also the Museum of Modern Art, New York‘s (MOMA) collection history. The works on loan from MOMA cover “Machine Art” (1934), “Good Design” (1950-55) and “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” (1972), with the latter addressing modernism in the context of 1960s and ’70s counterculture.

The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA)‘s newest exhibit WaterDream: The Evolution of Bathroom Design, runs through Sept. 24 in the dynamic new Midtown space. Displays take visitors through a four-part journey into the bathroom from the birth of minimalist aesthetics in 20th century design to current concepts.

Get a rare chance to view original manuscript pages from the last four chapters of ATLANTA’S BOOK: THE LOST GONE WITH THE WINDMANUSCRIPTat the Atlanta History Center. The new exhibit, which opens today and runs through Sept. 5, is part of a series of activities celebrating the 75th anniversary of the publication of the international bestseller and also includes foreign and first edition copies, the desk Margaret Mitchell used while writing it and select images.

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