ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Contributing Writer

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 retro cinema 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 3

The EyeDrum Art & Music Gallary gets really retro as they present Ex Somnium’s magical Warhol-esque puppet performance installations, playing with shadow and light with five charming and whimsical performance installations inspired by Eric Satie’s 19^th century Gnossienne series at their ‘A Walk Through Experience with Satie’ event!  Or swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month.  Blind Willie’s gets bluesy and acoustic with Bill Sheffield! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam!  Blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast with some finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, February 4

Get 80s and 90s alternative and rock on down to the Tabernacle for a night of indie rock and surf-inspired tunes with the Pixies! Or scoot on down to Eddie’s Attic for a night of old-timey country and Americana with Robbie Fulks with special guest, Dean Fields!  Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs has the Georgia Crackers and their old-time string band vintage 20s-inspired tunes! Honky-tonk on down to Atlanta Symphony Hall and get your fill of some old school country and bluegrass and a boot stompin’ good time with the legendary Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby! Or boogie on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta for a taste of Bill Sheffield’s acoustic roots and blues! Spend the night with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck at Blind Willie’s! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Twain’s in Decatur every Tuesday at 9 pm. The Entertainment Crackers gets bluesy with their folksy Americana sounds at the Northside Tavern. And the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern has made an offer we can’t refuse with their screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic 40s mobster tale, THE GODFATHER (1972) during their Salute to the Oscars series’ screening at 7:30 pm!

Wednesday, February 5

Get down and dirty sci-fi space punk style at The Earl with Onchi, the Salts, The Dirty Magazines and Cathedral Ring! Stomp on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night of Americana and old-timey bluegrass and Delta blues with W.B. Givins and the Garrison Blagg Band! Andrew Black slings his blues at Blind Willie’s while Frankie’s Blues Mission takes you for a rockin’ blues voyage at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Put on your dancin’ shoes and skip on over 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! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! It’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.  Keep it in the family and be a witness as the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern screens Francis Ford Coppola’s epic 40s mobster tale, THE GODFATHER (1972) during their Salute to the Oscars series’ matinee screening at 11:30 am! And run off to the Mediterranean by way of Emory Cinematheque’s screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s PIERROT LE FOU (1965) for an evening of suspense and action during their Global French Cinema series at Emory’s White Hall!

Thursday, February 6

Get to gettin’ down at The Earl as they get revved up celebrating 25 years of Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys while slingin’ their high-energy rockabilly, Jamaican rock-steady, doo-wop and honky-tonk with Eleni Mandell and Vikesh Kapoor! Stomp on down to the Red Light Café for a night with Banjolicious at their weekly Bluegrass Thursday event!  Shimmy on down to the Elliot Street Pub for a night with Kool Kat Talloolah Love and all things Burlesque at Atlanta Burlesque & Cabaret Society’s February meeting! 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! For an evening of New-Wave and soul pop, make your way to Wonderroot for Twin Studies’ LP release party with Scale Model and the Shepherds! Rock on over to the Crimson Moon Café for The Tom & Julie Show featuring tributes to tunes from the 60s to the 90s every Thursday! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with The Breeze Kings while Sandra Hall & The Shadows get down 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! Get your boogie on at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village. Surf on down to Trader Vic’s for a rockin’ beach party and a couple cocktails with Kool Kat Joshua Longino with Andrew & the Disapyramids!  Get down and dirty at the Clermont Lounge with Kool Kat Spike Fullerton and the Ghost Riders Car Club! Get bloody and splatter on down to The Plaza Theater as their Cineprov group riff’s George Mihalka’s slasher flick, MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) at 7:30! Swing on over to Emory’s Schwartz Center for Emory’s 3 day Jazz Fest 2014 event’s Big Band Night, featuring the Gary Motley Trio and Barbara Morrison! And it’s your last chance to spend a blood-filled evening with the Corleones as they struggle to protect their empire at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern as they screen Francis Ford Coppola’s epic 40s mobster tale, THE GODFATHER (1972) during their Salute to the Oscars series’ screening at 7:30 pm!

Friday, February 7

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! The Jabb 48-Hour Reel Horror Film Festival  includes some retro and retro-inspired flicks, including Lee Vervoort’s 80s throwback film, THE TRUCK (2013) paying homage to the 70s and 80s road horror films at 8:00 pm!  Tonight’s events also include zombified panels, a Roddy Piper stand up show and the Chambers of Horror Murder Ball Afterparty at midnight! So, get disturbed and get your fill of the blood-bath that is, Days of the Dead!

Rawk on down to Wonderroot for their Riot Grrrl Rawk! event for a badass rockin’ night of breast cancer awareness and fundraising with Verge of Bliss slingin’ some indie rock n roll, Blaine the Mono getting’ alternative with a bit of metal and blues, Kool Kat Aileen Loy with Till Someone Loses an Eye delivering their old time circus rock and roll and the rockin’ kiddos of Murder Lisa! Groove on down to The Star Bar for DJ Romeo Cologne’s Stayin’ Alive! Animal Rescue Fundraiser & Disco Party! Indie rock pioneers, Sebadoh, take over The Earl tonight with Octagrape! Get jazzy and old-timey honky-tonkin’ at Smith’s Olde Bar with the Alan Evans Trio, the Georgia Soul Council and the Captain Midnight Band! Get funky at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX event with Secondhand Swagger while sippin’ cocktails and boogying under the dinosaurs! The Masquerade gets 90s punk/pop alternative in Heaven with Yellowcard and What’s Eating Gilbert!  Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt gets acoustic and wild solo at the Buck Creek Tavern in High Falls! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack rocks out to the blues with The Stooge Brothers! Get old-school and head on down to the Red Light Café for a night of Cat Stevens and Otis Redding-inspired tunes with Davin McCoy and get your fill of the swingin’ ragtime Piedmont blues of Jon Shain! For some horn blowin’ blues, shake on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues for a night with the Andy Makely Band! Or make your way to The Strand Theater and join Charles Kane in his ruthless pursuit of power as a newspaper tycoon at their screening of Orson Welles’ epic film, CITIZEN KANE (1941), preceded by a live organ pre-show! The Family Dog gets psychedelic with Swami Gone Bananas!  Swing on down to the Marietta-Cobb Museum of Art for their Martinis & Music event, featuring for a night of cocktails, live big band tunes with Douglas Cameron and 19^th and 20^th century art!  Or get a taste of old-school soul at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center for their Masters of Soul event, celebrating Motown and tunes of  The Temptations, The Supremes and so much more! Blind Willie’s gets bluesy with Bob Margolin! And do the Time-Warp while spicing things up with some naughty and 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 8

It’s Day 2 to get spooked at the Days of the Dead Convention at the Sheraton Atlanta!  The Jabb 48-Hour Reel Horror Film Festival will be screening Susan Marks’ documentary,  OF DOLLS AND MURDERS (2012) , narrated by John Waters sharing the grisly and creepy details of dollhouse crime scenes and society’s fascination with death while 80s Saturday morning cartoons will be screened for the kiddies in all of you! Be sure to catch Kool Kat Shane Morton, The Silver Scream Spookshow’s ‘ghost host with the most’, Professor Morte raising the dead live onstage at his Haunted History of the Spookshow Event!  Get reunited while feeling monstrously alien-ated and good as John Carpenter’s THE THING (1982) cast, including Keith David, Richard Masur, Joel Polis, Peter Maloney and Thomas Waites join together in a panel for your dreadful pleasure or catch Dee Snider spouting his bloody wisdom at his Killer Panel 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!

Skank on down to the Masquerade for 22 years of Jamaican rock steady and high-energy ska of The Slackers, The Duppies and Hermits of Suburbia! The Star Bar gets rocked 70s scumbag revival-style with Bigfoot, Dusty Booze & The Baby Haters and Bad Friend! Get a taste of some New Orleans’ style blues at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues with Big Al & The Heavyweights! Or for some New Orleans’ funk, groove on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with the New Orleans Suspects and The Orange Constant or even make your way to The Family Dog for a little more funk from the Big Easy with the Mar-Tans! Big Tex gets rebellious with the old timey outlaw country of The Chris Massey Band (formerly of the power punk band, The Mistakes)! Shimmy on down to the Elliott Street Pub for Kool Kat Kitty Love of Cheeky Belles Burlesque’s ‘Lover’s Follies’ event, featuring lustful performances by Angelica Vice, Judy Ann Foxe, Sunshine Divine and so much more!  Panic! At the Disco delivers their 60s-inspired rock pop and punk at the Tabernacle!  Rev on down to the Dixie Tavern in Marietta for some rockin’ psychobilly with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt with the Psycho-DeVilles! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack gets bluesy with the Mike Lowery Band while Houserocker Johnson & The Shadows deliver their lowdown dirty blues at Blind Willie’s! Get retro, mobster-style with Francis Ford Coppola’s epic 40s mobster tale, THE GODFATHER (1972) being screened at The Strand Theater at 8 pm!  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 9

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 John Carpenter’s sci-fi flick, THEY LIVE (1988) panel and a Monsters Among You panel, while The Jabb 48-Hour Reel Horror Film Festival will be screening the finest horror flicks on tape at VHSPS’s event, ‘Neon Maniacs’ followed by the 10:00 am Samurai Sunday screening of KUNG FU ZOMBIE! (1982)!  So, come on and check out all the swell and retro horror goodness while you can!

Get seduced by some tasty morsels at The Baphomettes’ ‘My Bloody Valentine Bake Sale,’ featuring saucy gals in horns and sinister treats at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club from 2 to 6 pm! Get rocked at Smith’s Olde Bar with The Ramones’ drummer and punk rocker alum, Richie Ramone along with The El Caminos and the Illiterates! Steve’s Live Music in Sandy Springs delivers their Gypsy Jazz Brunch offering up a plate of Hot Club jamming and Parisian Swing with Kool Kool Kat Amy Pike and the Bonaventure Quartet from 12:30 to 3:30 pm every 2^nd & 4^th Sunday! The Decatur Bluegrass Association gets to stompin’ at Big Tex’s Bluegrass Brunch from 11:30 to 2:30 pm!  Georgia Slim & The Stovetop Ramblers gets old-timey at The Earl during their weekly hangover-friendly ‘dunch’ event!  Boohoo all the way to The Family Dog for the rowdy foot stompin’ Americana of the Boohoo Ramblers! Or make your way to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a taste of the blues with Tony Bryant!  It’s your second chance to rock steady with The Slackers at the Masquerade along with the traditional ska and reggae tunes of the Soul Radics! And get really retro at Atlanta Symphony Hall as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents ‘Tchaikovsky Discovers America,’ a drama featuring the historic events surrounding the composer’s arrival to New York for the grand opening of Carnegie Hall in 1891, accompanied by 25 of his musical excerpts!

Ongoing

New American Shakespeare Tavern presents ‘Romeo & Juliet’ until March 30^th!

The Star Bar gets groovy with The Funk Godfather, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Quasi Mandisco every other Tuesday!

Steve’s Live Music’s Gypsy Jazz Brunch offers up a plate of Hot Club jamming and Parisian Swing with Kool Kool Kat Amy Pike and the Bonaventure Quartet from 12:30 to 3:30 pm every 2^nd & 4^th Sunday!

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.