ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Baby, it’s cold outside! But no worries!  ATLRetro promises to get you warm and toasty with a week of rockin’ good times, filled to the brim with nostalgic holiday goodness! So get hip to the jive and come on out to see what Retro Atlanta has in store for you!

Monday, December 5

Catch a screening of John Huston’s THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE (1948) at the Alpharetta Branch Library at 10:30am! Celebrate 15 years of Hayao Miyazaki’s SPIRITED AWAY (2001) at theatres across Atlanta at 12pm [Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Perimeter Pointe 10; AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Studio Movie Grill (Duluth) and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)! Blues it up with Bill Sheffield at Blind Willie’s! 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!” Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a night with The Pork Bellies!

Tuesday, December 6

Light up the season at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of Jeremiah Chechik’s NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989) at 7:30pm! Make your way to City Winery for an evening with John Oates! Get gritty with Muddy Magnolias, Sarah Potenza and Crystal Hopkins at Eddie’s Attic! Make your way to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with the Sunny South Blues Ban, the Kris Lager Band and Blood on the Harp! Blind Willie’s gets down with Andrew Black! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Head on downstairs to the Little Vinyl Lounge for a night with Kenny Howes and Mike Goldman! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, December 7

Make your way to the Variety Playhouse as Seu Jorge performs a special tribute to David Bowie while recreating the set to Wes Anderson’s A LIFE AQUATIC! Charlie Brown it up as David Ellington performs “A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS” at Venkman’s! Get jazzy with Lizz Wright at City Winery! Get some soul with The Hollidays at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get down at The Vista Room with Hannah Zale, Greg Lee and Kaz Hawkins! Light up the season at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s encore screening of Jeremiah Chechik’s NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989) at 7:30pm!  Boogie on down to East Atlanta’s Graveyard Tavern for their Graveyard Swing Night, held the first Wednesday of every month, promising an evening of swingin’ jazz and jive with the Savoy Kings! Get the blues with The Nick Johnson Trio at Blind Willie’s! Jazz it up at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down and dirty at their Blues Jam hosted by The Cazanovas! The Star Bar gets down with their Okie Dokie Karaoke, every Wednesday at 9pm! Or rock on downstairs to the Little Vinyl Lounge for a night of retro shenanigans with Kool Kat Jeff Clark and Stomp & Stammer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trivia at 8pm! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, December 8

Get mischievous and naughty it up as 7 Stages presents their final season of Krampus Xmas, featuring the Little Five Points Rock Star Orchestra and our Kool Kat of the Week Adam Lowe (Kool Kat Interview coming soon!), Krampas himself, running through Dec. 17! Rock out with Blake Rainey & His Demons, Jeremy Ray and Ex-Wives at The Earl! Funk it up with Stanley Clarke at the Variety Playhouse! Celebrate 15 years with an encore screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s SPIRITED AWAY (2001) at theatres across Atlanta at 12pm [Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Perimeter Pointe 10; AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Studio Movie Grill (Duluth) and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)! Get folksy with Cereus Bright and the Highbeams at Eddie’s Attic! Flamenco it up at the Red Light Café! Get down and dirty with Sweet Betty & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! It’s Mai Tai Thursday, so hula on down to Trader Vic’s for a night of Jamaaican soul with Lloyd’s Rocksteady Revue and tasty cocktails! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! The Cody Matlock Band delivers a night of blues at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues in Marietta! 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! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, December 9

Get some rockin’ blues ‘n’ soul with Nick Waterhouse and Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah at the Masquerade! The Star Bar gets to twangin’ with their Cowboy Karaoke event, featuring live-band old-time country and western tunes with Dry Gulch! Yacht Rock Revue delivers their Holiday Special at the Variety Playhouse! Start a family holiday tradition and catch the Atlanta Ballet’s NUTCRACKER at the Fox Theatre, live with the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra through Dec. 24!  Catch The Earl Smith Strand’s holiday song and dance revue, “A Christmas Tradition” running through Dec. 21! Swing on by Nemoe’s Tavern for 17-piece band Metro Jazz Club’s Speakeasy Swing Dance Party! Make your way to the Rialto Center for the Arts for the Moscow Ballet’s “Great Russian Nutcracker” running through Dec. 10! Get some soul with Kyshona Armstrong at Venkman’s and then funk it up with The JAZZ of Prince: A Night of Prince’s Jazz Funk Compositions! Make your way to Avondale Towne Cinema for the BadAsh All Star Team’s Christmas Jam! Rock out with the Atlanta Rhythm Section at Eddie’s Attic! Make your way to Centennial Olympic Park for the Chinese Lantern Festival at 6pm! Geek it up at Atlanta’s 5th Annual BAR WARS PUB CRAWL, from 7-10pm, at Diesel Filling Station! Spook on down to Club Famous as RITUAL Presents: The Nightmare Before Christmas Party! Blues it up during Albert White’s Birthday Bash at the Northside Tavern! Rock out with The Chalfonts and Lexi Street at the Red Light Café! Mr. Sipp gets the blues at  Blind Willie’s! Blues it up with Little G. Weevil at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, December 10

Join the hordes of horned and cloven miscreants and creatures during the 2016 Wreck the Halls L5P Krampus Krawl at 8pm, with the ever mischievous Black Sheep Ensemble! Or surf on down to Kavarna as Southern Surf Stomp! presents Kool Kat Chad Shivers & The Silent Knights as they perform The Ventures’ and The Beach Boys’ Christmas albums at 8pm! Jingle all the way to Taverna Plaka Atlanta for Kool Kat Kitty Love’s Cheeky Belles Stockings With Care Cabaret and Charity Sock Drive! Get intergalactic and geek on down to the Masquerade for Markster Con’s Bash of the Empire IV: Atlanta Star Wars Party at 9pm! Get mischievous at Stomp & Stammer’s (Kool Kat Jeff Clark) 20th Birthday Party and get your garage rock fix with The Coathangers, Dasher and Bad Spell at The Star Bar! It’s a night of rockin’ blues with Kool Kat Brooks Mason and The Georgia Flood (album release) with All the Locals at Vinyl! Rock out with Earthless, Ruby the Hatchet and Future Hunter at The Earl! Get old-timey with Whiskey Gentry, Kool Kat Blair Crimmins & The Hookers and City Mouse at the Variety Playhouse! Bluegrass it up with John McCutcheon at Eddie’s Attic! Get your ‘60s/’70s holiday rock fix with The Rainmen’s Holiday Spectacular at Avondale Towne Cinema with Kitten Fontaine! Battle & Brew goes to the Dark Side during their STAR WARS Cosplay Night at 8pm! Get artsy this holiday season and make your way to the Goat Farm Open Studio and Holiday Sale from 12pm-6pm! Get the blues with Brown Dog at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Have a Chicken Pickin’ Brunch with Dusty Roads at Venkman’s, later followed by Nirvana Unplugged featuring Nameless Nameless!  Blues it up with House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! 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, December 11

Go old-school at Eddie’s Attic with their Gospel Brunch featuring Beverly “Guitar” Watkins and Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck! TCM Big Screen Classics presents Fred Zinnemann’s FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) at theatres across Atlanta (7pm) [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville)]; and Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville)]! Get the blues with 10,000 Pontiacs at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Shimmy on down to the Red Light Café for a night of tease ‘n’’ circus shenanigans with Luxotica Lounge Cabaret! Make your way to City Winery for The Hartswick/Coffin Project! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

Scrooge it up at the Alliance Theatre’s 27th season of “A CHRISTMAS CAROL” running through Dec. 24!

Make a trek to the Island of Misfit Toys a.k.a. the Center for Puppetry Arts as they present Jon Ludwig’s adaptation of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, directed by Tim Sweeney, running through Dec. 31!

Dad’s Garage’s Big Boozy Nerdy Game Night brings out the kid in you, every first Monday of the month at 7pm!

Union EAV rocks out with their Punk Rock Karaoke ATL, and every last Tuesday of the month!

Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement with their weekly Tuesday night Nerd Trivia at 8pm!

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