ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Kick off the summer with ATLRetro and see what’s heatin’ up on the retro menu This Week!

Monday, May 28

Rev it up with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at City Winery! The Plaza Theater kills it with a screening of Dario Argento’s DEEP RED (1976), through May 31! Or catch a screening of Samuel D. Pollard’s documentary, MAYNARD (2017) about the life and times of the first black mayor of Atlanta, through May 31 at Plaza Atlanta! The Fox Theatre presents HAMILTON, through June 10! Get post-punk revived with A Place to Bury Strangers, Prettiest Eyes and Nest Egg at The Earl! 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!” Get the blues with Clark Ashton at Blind Willie’s! 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 side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, May 29

Folk it up with Horse Feathers and Loner at The Earl! The Redstone Ramblers fire it up at Blind Willie’s! Spend the night with Michael Magno at Eddie’s Attic! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, May 30

Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get revived with The Dustbowl Revival at Eddie’s Attic! Get some soul with Brian McKnight at City Winery! Catch a double feature of Kevin Reynolds’ WATERWORLD (1995) and George Miller’s MAD MAX FURY ROAD (2015) at Noni’s Bar & Deli during their Cinema Paradiso film event at 10pm! Get the Chicago/West Coast blues with the Electromatics at Blind Willie’s! Or blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, May 31

Rock on down to The Star Bar for Jed Drummond’s album release show featuring Yancey, T.T. Mahony, and Kool Kat Aileen Loy with Til Someone Loses and Eye! Get some soul with Brian McKnight at City Winery! Heavy Petty pays tribute to Tom Petty at Smith’s Olde Bar! Get jazzy with Gregg Karukas at Suite Food Lounge! Rock out at 529’s 10th Anniversary 3-Day Celebration! Tonight they kick it off with ROYAL THUNDER, Order of the Owl, Gunpowder Gray and 20 Watt Tombstone! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! Blues it up with George Hughely & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! 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, June 1

Rock out with Kool Kat Ray Dafrico and Tunnel Visions during their CD release show at The Earl with Kenny Howe & The Wow!, Catfight! and the Wussy Pillows! Or get rocked with Midge Ure at City Winery! Tony Zierra’s documentary, FILMWORKER (2018), about Stanley Kubrick’s right-hand man, Leon Vitali opens tonight at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema! Get filled with tasty food and tunes at the two-day Candler Park Music & Food Fest, featuring Friday night tunes by Lettuce, Petty Grass featuring The Hillbenders, Larkin Poe and more! Funk it up with Wasted Potential Brass Band at the Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch with Denim Arcade at Wild Wing Café in Dunwoody! 529 continues their 3-Day Tenth Anniversary Celebration with W8ing4UFOs, Don Chambers, Tom Cheshire & Friends, Kool Kat Adam McIntyre and The Pinx, Shepherds and Vincas! Folk it up with Leo Kottke at the Variety Playhouse! Rock on down to The Star Bar for Fuzzstock 2018 featuring Buzzards of Fuzz, Fantomen, Flashback Flash and Twin Criminal! Gregory Porter pays tribute to Nat King Cole with ASO at Atlanta Symphony Hall! Get loony toony and catch a screening of Robert Zemeckis’ WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988) at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre at 8pm! Hot Buttered Soul pays tribute to Isaac Hayes at Venkman’s! Or catch Interstellar Echoes as they pay tribute to Pink Floyd at The Vista Room! Blues it up with Ike Stubblefield at Northside Tavern! Time-Warp it up 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, June 2

Blast-Off Burlesque gets shnazzy and puts on their monkey suits as they bring you their Taboolala: Planet of the Apes 50^th Anniversary Celebration at The Plaza Theater, featuring pre-show lobby shenanigans and a screening of Franklin J. Schaffner’s PLANET OF THE APES (1968) at 9:30pm! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema presents a weekend of killer Kubrick with their Kubrick Matinee Series in honor of Tony Zierra’s documentary, FILMWORKER (2018). First up is Stanley Kubrick’s EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) at 11am! Get horrorfied and rock on down to Sweetwater Bar & Grill in Duluth for a night with Kool Kats The Casket Creatures, Freakshow Sinema and NeverFall! Spend the night with Francine Reed at Blind Willie’s! Or get down with Ruby the Rabbitfoot, Rose Hotel and DEGA at The Earl! Funk it up with Maze at Chastain Park! Get down with the Atlanta Funk Society at Elliott Street Pub! Boogie on down for Day 2 of the Candler Park Music & Food Fest featuring Gov’t Mule, Houndmouth, SUSTO, Twiddle, Busty and the Bass, Webster Band Atlanta and more! Rock out during Night 3 of 529’s Tenth Anniversary Celebration with All the Saints, Wizard Smoke, Uniform, Psych Army and more! Geek it up during Starbase Atlanta’s Warehouse Sale! Or get artsy vintage-style during the Summer Indie Craft Experience at the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot! Rock on down to Avondale Towne Cinema for their Georgia Jam! Bill Sheffield and Cody Matlock get down at Northside Tavern! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, June 3

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Kubrick Matinee Series with a screening of THE SHINING (1980) at 11am! Theatrical Outfit presents THE WAY WE WERE, a journey through the music of Alan and Marilyn Bergman at The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum! TCM Big Screen Classics presents a 50th Anniversary screening of Mel Brooks’ classic comedy, THE PRODUCERS (1968) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! It’s a night of classic western country and rockabilly with the Swingin’ Saddle Cats and Frank Hamilton School at Eddie’s Attic, followed by a swingin’ night with John Pizzarelli! Get down with Papamichael at City Winery! Have an adventure and make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Rob Reiner’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner!
Ongoing

Get really retro at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, jousting through June 4!

The Fox Theatre presents HAMILTON, through June 10!

Emory Arts presents their exhibition The Dream Machine: The Beat Generation & the Counterculture, 1940-1975 in the Schatten Gallery, through June 17!

Noni’s Bar & Deli hosts their Cinema Paradiso film event, screening two films beginning at 10pm, through June 21!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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

Come see what’s happenin’ in ATLRetro This Week! Shake it up with a whole lotta jazz, some revved up rockabilly, and some old time nitty gritty sleaze-filled shakin’ shenanigans and so much more! We’ve got it all so come see what we’ve dug up just for you!

Monday, May 21

Boogie down New Orleans-style with The Messy Cookers Jazz Band at Hot Jam! Catch Studio Ghibli Fest 2018’s screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s PORCO ROSSO (1992) at theatres across Atlanta at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Rock out with Nada Surf at Terminal West! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! Matt Pendrick fires it up at Blind Willie’s! 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 side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, May 22

Folk rock it up with Okkervil River and Benjamin Lazar Davis at Aisle 5! Or spend the night with Clay Harper (The Coolies) and The Sexual Healing Band at Avondale Towne Cinema! Reggae it up with Morgan Heritage at City Winery! It’s a garage rock revival with The Fratellis and Blood Red Shoes at Terminal West! The Fox Theatre presents HAMILTON, through June 10! Post-punk it up with Iceage, Empath and Material Girls at The Earl! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Frankie’s Blues Mission gets down at Blind Willie’s! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, May 23

Rev on down to The Star Bar for a night with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & The Psycho-DeVilles, Sean K. Preston, and Skye Paige! Bernadette Seacrest dishes out a night of swing noir with Kris Dale at Eddie’s Attic! Get some soul with The Nightowls at Smith’s Olde Bar! “As if” your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Amy Heckerling’s CLUELESS (1995) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! It’s a Southern rock ‘n’ blues revival with the Allman Goldflies Band and the Melody Trucks Band at City Winery! Get tormented with Bloodlet at The Earl! Get down with Matthew Sweet and Young Antiques at Terminal West! Get the psycho blues with Lincoln Durham and The Ghost Wolves at Vinyl! Catch a double feature of Kevin Reynolds’ WATERWORLD (1995) and George Miller’s MAD MAX FURY ROAD (2015) at Noni’s Bar & Deli during their Cinema Paradiso film event at 10pm! Dance your way to Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) for a screening of Alan Parker’s FAME (1980) at 7:15pm! Catch Studio Ghibli Fest 2018’s screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s PORCO ROSSO (1992) at theatres across Atlanta at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down with their Blues Jam! Get the blues with Bob Page & The Boys at Blind Willie’s! Or blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, May 24

Get rocked, revved and honky tonked with a weekend chock full of the hillbilly persuasion, murder ballads and more with Bubbapalooza 2018 killing it with four full days of rockin’ tunes, BBQ, raffles and fun at The Star Bar! Rock on down and kick off the weekend with Sash the Bash, Roadkill Debutante, Al Shelton and The Trouble Obscene! Rock on down to the Buckhead Theatre for a night with Everclear, Marcy Playground and Local H! Rock out at The Highlander with DJ Howiestein and Mister Wilson’s Over the Edge Record Party! Spend the night with Fairshake, Like Mike and Psycho Hill at the Red Light Café! Ruby Boots dishes out a night of Americana at Smith’s Olde Bar! Bluegrass it up with Carbon Leaf and Katie Rose at Terminal West! Yacht Rock Revue deliver their Led Zeppelin vs. The Who Rock Fight at Venkman’s! Nitty gritty it up with Kool Kat Spike Fullerton and Ghost Rider’s Car Club at the Clermont Lounge! Get some soul and spend the night with Jeff Bradshaw at ReVel! Cabbagetown brings you a taste of the Redneck Underground with their Cabbagetown Concert Series #3 featuring Rodeo Twister and Sweatin’ Bullets! Funk it up with Wasted Potential Brass Band at The Moonshadow Tavern in Tucker! Get rocked at The Earl with Steve Nebraska & The Bluestems, The Dround Hounds and The Stoplight Roses! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! Blues it up with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and The Atlanta Horns at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! 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, May 25

Day 2 of Bubbapalooza 2018 at The Star Bar raises a ruckus with Rodeo Twister, Kool Kat Spike Fullerton and the Ghost Riders Car Club, The Sideburners, The Rocketz and Genki Genki Panic! Kool Kat Rich Desantis and The Street Fighting Band pay tribute to The Rolling Stones at The Vista Room! The Plaza Theater kills it with a screening of Dario Argento’s DEEP RED (1976)! Shimmy on down to City Winery for a night with Wasabassco Burlesque! Spend the night with Radford Windham at the Crimson Moon Café! Blues rock it up with Brother Hawk, The Artisanals and Blis at The Earl! Get old-timey with Rooster Cogburn & Cougar Sweat, Raps Moran, Zephaniah Ohora and Andrea Colburn & Mud Moseley at Eddie’s Attic! Or rock out with The Mids, Magoo’s Heros and The Reserves at The Highlander! On the Border pays tribute to The Eagles at MadLife Stage & Studios! Folk it up with Josh Rouse at Terminal West! Rock out with Appetite For Destruction as they pay tribute to Guns ‘N’ Roses at the Variety Playhouse! ATL Collective relives Sade’s LOVER’S ROCK at Venkman’s! Catch a screening of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre at 8pm! Blues it up with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and The Atlanta Horns at Northside Tavern! Blues it up with George Hughely & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! Get down with Groove Rocket at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Time-Warp it up 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, May 26

Time travel with Kool Kat Shane Morton, a.k.a. ghost host with the most, Prof. Morte and his Silver Scream Spook Show at The Plaza Theater with a screening of George Pal’s sci-fi classic THE TIME MACHINE (1960) at 12:30pm and 10pm! The Star Bar and Bubbapalooza 2018 get jangled ‘n’ sleazy with Day 3’s rockin’ lineup with Dusty Booze & The Baby Haters, AM Gold, Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah, Gravy Boat, Anna Kramer & The Lost Cause, Andrea Colburn & Mud Moseley, Kool Kat Rev. Andy Hawley and Southern Ska Syndicate, Kitty Rose & The Rattlers, The Disasternauts, The Mystery Men? and Kool Kat Sen. Artie Mondello with The Mondellos! Make your way to the Old Fourth Ward Arts Festival through May 27! Get folksy and artsy during the annual Finster Fest celebrating Howard Finster in Summerville through May 27! The Plaza Theater kills it with a screening of Dario Argento’s DEEP RED (1976)! Haunt on down to Amsterdam Atlanta for Kool Kat VJ Anthony’s COFFIN CLASSICS: Goth Industrial Darkwave Music Video Night featuring Goth, dark 80s and more! Boogie down to The Basement for a night with The Atlanta Disco Society! Jazz it up at Piedmont Park during the Atlanta Jazz Festival featuring a killer line-up including Dianne Reeves; the Tia Fuller Quartet; The Ingrid Jensen Collective; Jane Bunnett & the Maqueque; the Yoko Miwa Trio; Jazzmeia Horn; the Anat Cohen Quartet; Terri Lynn Carrington & Social Science; Mary Halvorson, Michael Formanek & Tomas Fujiwara; the Linda May Han Oh Quintet; Shayna Steele; Camille Thurman; Sasha Berliner Escapades and more! ATL Collective relives Sade’s STRONGER THAN PRIDE at Venkman’s! Get some soul with Vivien Green at City Winery! Bluegrass it up with Pickled Holler at the Crimson Moon Café! Psyche-rock out with Michael Rault at The Earl! Get down with Alex Guthrie, Cody Matlock and Kristopher James at Eddie’s Attic! Purple Madness pays tribute to Prince at MadLife Stage & Studios! Rumours pays tribute to Fleetwood Mac at the Variety Playhouse! Funk it up with Zydefunk at The Vista Room! Get intergalactic and jam it up with The Jauntee at Smith’s Olde Bar! Blues it up with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and The Atlanta Horns at Northside Tavern! Venkman’s screens Disney’s THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) during their Princess Brunch! Get old-school with The Way Back Band at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Spend the night with House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, May 27

Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order) & The Light rock out at the Variety Playhouse! Get the rockin’ blues with Robert Finley at The Earl! Swing on by The Vista Room for Joe Gransden’s Big Band Sunday Dance Party! Who’s Bad delivers The Ultimate Michael Jackson Experience at City Winery! Stomp on down to Darwin’s Burgers & Blues for a night with Pistol Hill! Get folksy with Alex Guthrie at Eddie’s Attic! Jazz it up at Piedmont Park during the Atlanta Jazz Festival featuring a another killer line-up with Jon Batiste with the Dap-Kings; The Bad Plus; M.F. Productions’ Latin Jazz All Stars; The Russell Malone Quartet; The Lao Tizer Quartet ft. Eric Marienthal; Cory Henry & the Funk Apostles; Sidewalk Chalk; Richie Goods & the Goods Project; The Georgia Horns; Matthew Whitaker; Morgan Guerin; Antoine Roney Trio ft. Kojo Roney and more! Celebrate 31 years rockin’ out at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club! Bubbapalooza 2018 brings you Mark “Porkchop” Holder, The Barnstormers and more at The Star Bar! Make your way to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with Kool Kat Rev. Andy Hawley and Southern Ska Syndicate, Control This, The Duppies and Kitty Rose & The Rattlers! Get funky with Risky Biscuit at Tin Roof Cantina! Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Garrett Collins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

Noni’s Bar & Deli hosts their Cinema Paradiso film event, screening two films beginning at 10pm, through May 31!

Get really retro at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, jousting through June 4!

The Fox Theatre presents HAMILTON, through June 10!

Emory Arts presents their exhibition The Dream Machine: The Beat Generation & the Counterculture, 1940-1975 in the Schatten Gallery, through June 17!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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

Come see what’s shakin’ in ATLRetro This Week!

Monday, May 14

The Plaza Theater presents a screening of Samuel D. Pollard’s documentary, MAYNARD (2017) about the life and times of the first black mayor of Atlanta, through May 15! Get horrorfied and make your way to SCADShow for a screening of Jordan Peele’s Academy Award-winning film GET OUT (2017), preceded by a conversation with Gil Robertson, President of the African American Film Critics Association at 6pm! Rock out with Myles Kennedy at City Winery! Dragondeer gets the blues at the Masquerade with Foster and Ghost Moths! It’s a night of poppy classic R&B with Kimbra and Son Lux at Terminal West! Jazz it up with the Emerald Empire Band at The Vista Room! 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!” Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up at Blind Willie’s! 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 side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, May 15

Spend the night with Clay Harper (The Coolies) at Avondale Towne Cinema! Get a cappella with Naturally 7 at City Winery! Get rocked with Jonathan Davis at the Variety Playhouse! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Bill Sheffield and Brandon Reeves get down at Blind Willie’s! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, May 16

Spend the night with Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul at Center Stage! The Chi-Town Transit Authority pays tribute to Chicago at City Winery! Street punk it up at The Star Bar with Dogs in the Fight, Bottle of Smoke and The Breaks! Rock out with Primus and Mastadon at the Fox Theatre! Get jazzy withThe Filthy Six at the Elliott Street Pub! TCM Big Screen Classics presents a screening of Billy Wilder’s SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Or run for the hills with a screening of Robert Wise’s THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sleazy and blues on down to The Earl for a night with Gunpowder Gray, Kool Kat Liza Colby and The Tip! Spend the night with The Rogue Tones and Cody Hagler at Eddie’s Attic! Catch a double feature of Danny DeVito’s MATILDA (1996) and Dario Argento’s SUSPIRIA (1977) at Noni’s Bar & Deli during their Cinema Paradiso film event at 10pm! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Spend the night with Liza Minnelli with a screening of Bob Fosse’s CABARET (1972) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) at 7:15pm! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down with their Blues Jam! Get the blues with Andrew Black at Blind Willie’s! Or blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, May 17

Videodrome and The Plaza Theater sci-fi it up and get intergalactic with their Plazadrome Cult Film Series screening of Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE (1985) at 10pm! Cabbagetown brings you a taste of the Redneck Underground with their Cabbagetown Concert Series #3 featuring Rodeo Twister and Sweatin’ Bullets! Jazz it up with Gina Breedlove at City Winery! Bluegrass it up with David Bromburg at Eddie’s Attic! Get heavy metal-style with Anvil, Shadowside and Metalfier at The Earl! Or rock out with Resident One, Lost in Society and Teen Agers at The Star Bar! Get filled with the Americana Soul of Noah Guthrie and the rockin’ blues with Joe Robinson at Venkman’s! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! 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, May 18

Rev on down to Dixie Tavern in Marietta for a night with Hillbilly Casino and The Hi-Jivers! Neighbor Lady dishes out some classic country at 529! Get rootsy with Delta Moon at Eddie’s Attic! Jazz it up with Che Marshall at the High Museum! Broadway Duchess pays tribute to Steely Dan at MadLife Stage & Studios! Rock out with New Found Glory, Bayside, The Movielife, and William Ryan Key at the Masquerade! Dead Affect pay tribute to The Grateful Dead at Matilda’s Cottage in Alpharetta! Rock on down to The Star Bar for a night with Highriders, Illegal Drugs and Skin Jobs! Get psychedelic with Dr. Dog at the Tabernacle! Lo-fi it up with Guided By Voices at Terminal West! Get funky with Tank & The Bangas at the Variety Playhouse! It’s a night of ‘80s MTV-era synth pop with Electric Avenue at The Vista Room! Make your way to Venkman’s for their Heartbreak Hits of the ‘90s! BJ Wilbanks dishes out a night of Delta blues at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get bluesy with Grant Green, Jr. and the Cody Matlock Band at Northside Tavern! Beverly “Guitar” Watkins gets down and dirty at Blind Willie’s! Spend the night with Harvey Brindell at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Time-Warp it up 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, May 19

Get smooth yacht rock style and spend the night with Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre! Stomp on down to The Star Bar for a night with Blood on the Harp, Soviet Shiksa, JesusHoney, and Damned Rivers! Make you way to the 16th Annual Kirkwood Spring Fling located at Branham Park, from 10am – 8pm! Start the day with a 5k, an artist’s market, vendors, tasty food and live tunes with Kool Kat Blair Crimmins & The Hookers, Kool Kat Rev. Andy Hawley with The Southern Ska Syndicate, the Georgia Mountain String Band, Lola Cole, The Mar-Tans, Mausiki Scales & The Common Ground Collective, Troop Band, the Sea Lions and more! Or get your Tim Burton love on with Markster Con’s Atlanta Burton Bar Crawl beginning at 4pm at Diesel Filling Station! Sweet Lu Olutosin presents Nat King Cole: The Man, The Music, The Legacy at the Red Light Café! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Arts at Oakland presents Golden Hour! Oi Oi Oi on down to The Highlander for a night with Antagonizers ATL, DDC, Bastard Brigade, Kool Kat Rev. Andy Hawley with The Southern Ska Syndicate and Hang! Bluegrass it up with Chris Thile at the Fox Theatre! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch with Denim Arcade at Guston’s Grill in Kennesaw! Or grunge on down to Amsterdam Atlanta for Kool Kat VJ Anthony’s 90s Alternative Music Video Dance Party! Folk it up with Mason Jennings at City Winery! Garage rock it up with Tiger! Tiger! at Kavarna! Spend the night with Radford Windham at the Crimson Moon Café! Get retro-rocked with Tony Levitas & The Levitations at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Or get smooth with Yacht Rock Schooner at MadLife Stage & Studios! Sweden’s Hammerfall rocks out with Flotsam and Jetsam at the Masquerade! The Northside Tavern gets the blues with Stoney Brooks, The Cazanovas, Eddie Tigner, Albert White, Bill Sheffield, Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah, The Vipers, the Magic Fred Blues Band and more! Forever Abbey Road pays tribute to The Beatles at the Red Clay Theatre! Voodoo Visionary funks it up at Terminal West! Get countrified with Truckstop Confidential and Russ Still & The Moonshiners at Tin Roof Cantina! Tribute dishes out a night of the Allman Brothers at The Vista Room! Get your ‘80s fix with ‘80s R Us at Wild Wing Café in Alpharetta! Venkman’s screens Disney’s THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) during their Princess Brunch! The Jason Pastras Trio funks it up at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Spend the night with George Hughley & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, May 20

Catch a screening of William A. Wellman’s classic silent film WINGS (1927) at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre at 3pm! Get old-timey and get down with Willie Nelson & Family, with Alison Krauss at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre! Catch Studio Ghibli Fest 2018’s screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s PORCO ROSSO (1992) at theatres across Atlanta at 12:55pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Funk it up with New Orleans Suspects at City Winery! Diane Durrett & Soul Suga dish out some rockin’ soul at Eddie’s Attic! Rock out with Hank & Cupcakes at Park Tavern! Get funky with Risky Biscuit at Tin Roof Cantina! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Make your way to the Masquerade for a night with Pussy Riot! “As if” your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Amy Heckerling’s CLUELESS (1995) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Garrett Collins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE, through May 20! (LAST CHANCE!)

Noni’s Bar & Deli hosts their Cinema Paradiso film event, screening two films beginning at 10pm, through May 31!

Get really retro at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, jousting through June 4!

Emory Arts presents their exhibition The Dream Machine: The Beat Generation & the Counterculture, 1940-1975 in the Schatten Gallery, through June 17!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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

This Week in ATLRetro is the bee’s knees! Come see what’s buzzin’ in ATLRetro!

Monday, May 7

Rock out with Fu Manchu and Mos Generator at Vinyl! The Plaza Theater presents a screening of Samuel D. Pollard’s documentary, MAYNARD (2017) about the life and times of the first black mayor of Atlanta, through May 13! Spend the night with Kris Kristofferson at City Winery! Sophie Fiennes’ dynamic documentary GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI (2017) screens at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema (see our Retro Review here), through May 10! Indie rock on down to Terminal West for a night with Calexico and Ryley Walker! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! Blues it up with Bill Sheffield at Blind Willie’s! 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 side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, May 8

Swing on by Eddie’s Attic for a night with The Hot Club of Cowtown! Get a second helping of Kris Kristofferson at City Winery! Spend the night with Clay Harper (The Coolies) at Avondale Towne Cinema! Get sultry and let Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and her burly-Q gals of Syrens of the South spice up your evening with their Tease Tuesday Burlesque: May Flowers event, shakin’ it up at the Red Light Café! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get down with Barrelhouse Bob Page at Blind Willie’s! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, May 9

Get horrorfied and Scream Queen it up with a screening of Wes Craven’s SCREAM (1996) presented by WUSSY MAG at The Plaza Theater at 7pm! West Coast swing on by Dancing4Fun Studio Atlanta for Jake Haning’s 6-week beginner West Coast Swing Class! Get a laugh and catch a screening of Terry Gilliam’s comedy classic MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Bossa nova on down to Center Stage for a night with Natalia LaFourcade! Will Hoge dishes out a night of Americana at City Winery! Catch a double feature of Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING (1980) and Rodney Ascher’s ROOM 237 (2013) at Noni’s Bar & Deli during their Cinema Paradiso film event at 10pm! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Make your way to ‘30s Paris with a screening of Blake Edwards’ VICTOR/VICTORIA (1982) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) at 7:15pm! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down with their Blues Jam! Get rootsy with Joe McGuinness at Blind Willie’s! Or blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, May 10

Get heavy and rock out with LUICIDAL (original Suicidal Tendencies line-up) at The Drunken Unicorn! Make your way to the Center for Puppetry Arts for their Experimental Puppetry Theatre, through May 13! Spend the night with Anita Baker at the Fox Theatre! Rock on down to The Earl for a night with Easter Island, Twin Studies, Oryx and Crake and Palm Sunday! It’s a night of Appalachian honky tonk at Eddie’s Attic with Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters and Lindsay Lou! Rock out at The Highlander with DJ Howiestein and Mister Wilson’s Over the Edge Record Party! Patty Griffin dishes out a night of Americana at the Red Clay Theatre! Rock out ‘70s-style with Mark Michelson and Skyballs at the Red Light Café! Folk it up with Saintseneca at Terminal West! The Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra gets down at Venkman’s! Get some soul with Hustle Souls at The Vista Room! Get old-timey at Smith’s Olde Bar with The Waymores, Few Miles South and the Caroline Keller Band! Nitty gritty it up with Kool Kat Spike Fullerton and Ghost Rider’s Car Club at the Clermont Lounge! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! Get the rockin’ blues with The Cazanovas at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! 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, May 11

Get in the zone cause it’s National Twilight Zone Day! Rock on down to The Star Bar for their Twilight Zone Rock Night featuring The Last Chance Riders, Flashback Flash and Useless Against! Get old-timey with The Swingin’ Saddle Cats and Back in the Saddle at Kavarna! Rev it up with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles at Rosati’s in Cumming! Rock out at 529 with Beitthemeans, Kool Kat Adam McIntyre and The Pinx, JohnDenverDeathPlane and Pearl Bottom Radio! Smithsonian’s alter-ego Roxonian plays Roxy Music at Venkman’s! Get rocked with Kamelot, Delain and Battle Beast at Center Stage! A night of hilarity ensues as Kevin Nealon takes the stage at City Winery! Get folksy with Shawn Mullins at the Crimson Moon Café! Boogie down with JP Soars & The Red Hots at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Folk it up with Cicada Rhythm, The Amigos and The Titos at The Earl! Spend the night with Pat McGee, Sara Rachele, Steve Forbert and Jesse Bardwell at Eddie’s Attic! Get mischevious with Dirty Rotten Revenge, The Subservients, Kool Kats The Joy Kills and Forsaken Profits at The Highlander! Patty Griffin dishes out a night of Americana at the Red Clay Theatre! Juliana Finch and Total Babe dish out a night of Southern feminist folk rock at the Red Light Café! Buckethead rocks out at the Variety Playhouse! Rock out with Thunderp*ssy at Vinyl! It’s ‘90s tribute night at The Vista Room with El Scorcho (Weezer) and Siamese Dream (Smashing Pumpkins)! Spend the night with Anita Baker at the Fox Theatre! Smith’s Olde Bar rocks out with a tribute night featuring Stone Tribute Pilots, Suck on Primus, Devomatix and Junkhead! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Geek it up with MC Chris at Soundbar! Atlanta Ballet presents Bach to Broadway at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center! Get bluesy with Stoney Brooks at Northside Tavern! Blind Willie’s gets down with a night with House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows! JT Speed gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Time-Warp it up 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, May 12

Kitty Rose & The Ramblers rev it up at Big Tex! Kool Kat Rich Desantis and The Street Fighting Band pay tribute to The Rolling Stones at the Red Clay Theatre! Baroque pop it up with Jump Little Children at Terminal West! Garage rock out with King Tuff at The Earl! Boogie down at The Star Bar during their ‘80s Dance Party with DJ Kahle! Or head on over to The Basement for their ‘90s and ‘00s Dance Party! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Make your way to Avondale Towne Cinema for their One Hit Wonder Jam! A night of hilarity ensues as Kevin Nealon takes the stage at City Winery! Get rocked with Radio Cult at CasAgave in Sandy Springs! The Highlander rocks out with The Muckers, Cold Heart Canyon, Kyle Troop & The Heretics and Nick Ferrero (Hudson Falcons)! SCADShow takes you to the Shire with a LORD OF THE RINGS triple feature of Peter Jackson’s THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001); THE TWO TOWERS (2002); and THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003), starting at 12pm! Spend the night with The Prestage Brothers at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Matilda’s Art & Music gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Venkman’s screens Disney’s THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) during their Princess Brunch, followed by The REMakes later that night! Get folksy with Shawn Mullins at the Crimson Moon Café! Ron Cooley & The Hard Times get down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola!  Spend the night with Big Bill Morganfield at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, May 13

It’s a night of southern gothic rock ‘n’ honky tonk at The Earl with Jenny Don’t and The Spurs and Nikki & The Phantom Callers! Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt goes acoustic ‘n’ solo at the Porterdale Bar & Grill! Grab Mommie Eearest and make your way to the Historic Oakland Cemetery for their Mother’s Day edition of Love Stories of Oakland! TCM Big Screen Classics presents a screening of Billy Wilder’s SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Funk it up with Risky Biscuit at Tin Roof Cantina! Celebrate Mother’s Day with a little jazz at City Winery with Julie Dexter and Kebbi Williams, followed by a night of rock with Graham Parker! Get folksy with Shawn Mullins at the Crimson Moon Café! Spend the night with The Pussywillows at Eddie’s Attic! Get funky with The Get Right Band and Marquee Mayfield at Park Tavern! Spend the night with Anita Baker at the Fox Theatre! The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE! Make your way to the Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre for a night with Bill Bellamy and Chante Moore! Run for the hills with a screening of Robert Wise’s THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Jam it up Mother-style at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Garrett Collins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway show CANDIDE, through May 20!

Noni’s Bar & Deli hosts their Cinema Paradiso film event, screening two films beginning at 10pm, through May 31!

Get really retro at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, jousting through June 4!

Emory Arts presents their exhibition The Dream Machine: The Beat Generation & the Counterculture, 1940-1975 in the Schatten Gallery, through June 17!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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

Shake a tail feather and groove on into ATLRetro This Week!

Monday, April 30

Hot Jam it up with The Hot Club of Atlanta at Ambient + Studio! Or get jazzy with Virginia Schenck at City Winery! Get anti-folk with Beck and Twin Shadow at the Tabernacle! Rock out with The Afghan Whigs and Built to Spill at the Variety Playhouse! Rudiger Suchsland’s documentary HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD (2018) examining “German Cinema in the Age of Propaganda: 1933-1945” screens at The Plaza Theater, through May 3! Sophie Fiennes’ dynamic documentary GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI (2017) screens at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema (see our Retro Review here), through May 3! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! 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 Larry Griffith!

Tuesday, May 1

Rock out with Stone Temple Pilots and Camp Howard at the Masquerade! Spend the night with Clay Harper (The Coolies) and Muleskinner MacQueen at Avondale Towne Cinema! I Love This Band relives Soul Train at City Winery! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get psyched with Ruby the Hatchet, Heavy Temple and HOT RAM at The Earl! Spend another night with Beck and Twin Shadow at the Tabernacle!The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their new Classics Series with a screening of Ingmar Bergman’s FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982) at 7pm! Dance with yourself and everyone else at the Coca Cola Roxy Theater and rock out with Billy Idol! Make your way to Goblin City and catch a screening of Jim Henson’s LABYRINTH (1986) at theatres across Atlanta at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Regal Mall of Georgia 20 Plus Imax (Buford); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Get folksy with John Baumann and Zach Nytomt at Eddie’s Attic! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, May 2

Get folksy with Heart Hunters at Smith’s Olde Bar! Put on your dancin’ shoes and catch a screening of Gene Kelly’s SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) at 7:15pm! Rock out with Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness at the Buckhead Theatre! Folk it up with Suzanne Vega at City Winery! Darwin’s Burgers & Blues gets down with their Blues Jam! Spend the night with Matthew Logan Vasquez, Thorp Jenson and Ciggurl at The Earl! Get folksy with The Accidentals at Eddie’s Attic! Make your way to Goblin City and catch a screening of Jim Henson’s LABYRINTH (1986) at theatres across Atlanta at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Regal Mall of Georgia 20 Plus Imax (Buford); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Or blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, May 3

Get hellacious with ELZIG, Kool Kats The Casket Creatures and BSOL at the Clermont Lounge! It’s tribute night at The Star Bar, so rock on down for a night with RAPTURE (Blondie), Runnin Down a Dream (Tom Petty), FREEBIRD (Lynyrd Skynyrd), and Rolling Thunder (Bob Dylan)! Jazz it up with The Rebel Big Band at Gallery 992! A night of super hilarity ensues at The Plaza Theater as Cineprov screens/riffs Albert Pyun’s CAPTAIN AMERICA (1990) at 7:30pm! Swing on down, Western-style with Riders in the Sky at City Winery! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get folksy with Ben Trickey, Matthew Paul Butler and Moses Nash at The Earl! It’s a garage rock revival with The Whigs and Tedo Stone at Terminal West! Rock out with Helmet in Heaven at the Masquerade! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! 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, May 4

Day one of the 3-day 2018 Shaky Knees Festival has arrived at Centennial Olympic Park, chock full of retro-inspired tunes! Rock on down and catch David Byrne, Fleet Foxes, Franz Ferdinand, Jimmy Eat World, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Frights, The Ghost of Paul Revere, The War & Treaty, Liz Brasher and more! Jump in your T.A.R.D.I.S. and make your way to WHOLANTA 2018, Atlanta’s premiere Doctor Who & British Media Convention, time traveling through May 6! Rock out at The Star Bar with Chromp Plated Apostles, Hot Wives, The Trouble Obscene, with a special Spaghetti Western set with Kool Kat Jeffrey Butzer! Get some soulful Salsa at Avondale Towne Cinema with Orquesta MaCuba!  Rock out with The Brian Jonestown Massacre at The Earl! Gypsy jazz it up with Kool Kat Amy Pike and The Bonaventure Quartet at Eddie’s Attic! Get intergalactic and catch SCADShow’s screening of Barry Sonnenfeld’s MEN IN BLACK (1997) at 7pm! The Stranger pays tribute to Billy Joel at City Winery! The Rainmen dish out a night of ‘60s and ‘70s rock at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Go to Heaven and rock out with The Distillers and Broncho at the Masquerade! Or take a trip to Purgatory for a night of dirty doo-wop with The Frights! Albert White gets old school at the Northside Tavern! Get the folksy blues with Peter Case and more at the Red Clay Theatre! Or get your Americana fix with The War on Drugs at the Variety Playhouse! Zoom on down to the Atlanta Motor Speedway for Vintage Market Days West Atlanta, through May 6! The Gipsy Kings dish out a night of ‘80s Flamenco at the Wolf Creek Amphitheatre! The Wild Hares get down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Time-Warp it up 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, May 5

Hey all you miscreants! Get mischievous and rock out at May Ham Fest 2018, featuring vendors including Dirk Hays (see our Shop Around feature here), 2the 9’s Retro and Jezebel Blue [see our Shop Around feature here], Deathkiss Designs and more; a pig roast; live music and more in Avondale Estates! You won’t want to miss a hellacious musical lineup with The Border Dogs, BBs Blowdown, The Crush, Valkyrie, the Screamin’ Demons, BSOL, The Wheelknockers, Sash the Bash, Kool Kat Carloline & The Ramblers, the Fabulous Thrillbillys, Dusty Booze & The Baby Haters and Nine Pound Hammer! Stick around for a late night double feature with screenings of Ivan Reitman’s GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) and Merian C. Cooper’s creature-feature, KING KONG (1933)! It’s a night of nitty gritty rock ‘n’ roll with Kool Kat Sen. Artie Mondello and The Delusionaires, the Wooly Bushmen and Bad Spell at The Star Bar! Day two of the Shaky Knees Festival brings you Queens of the Stone Age, The War on Drugs, Cake, Manchester Orchestra, The Distillers, Andrew W.K. and more! Free Comic Book Day invades Atlanta! Come see what Challenges Games & Comics (North Dekalb Mall) has in store! Or check out Criminal Records and what they have in store with special guests from 11am – 3pm, including Kool Kat Michael Stark (WOLVERTON) and more! Rock out with the Melvins and All Souls at the Masquerade! Boogie on down to The Basement for their Heyday ‘80s Dance Party! SCADShow presents an intergalactic double feature with screenings of Barry Sonnenfeld’s MEN IN BLACK II (2002) and MEN IN BLACK 3 (2012) beginning at 12pm! Jazz it up with Herb Alpert & Lani Hall at City Winery! Folk it up with Cicada Rhythm at the Crimson Moon Café! Stomp on down to The Earl for a night with The Ghost of Paul Revere and Boy Named Banjo. Make your way to Eddie’s Attic for a night with Lonnie Holley & Lee Bains III and The Sweet Remains! Jazz it up with Denise Kirkland at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! New Sensation pays tribute to INXS at MadLife Stage & Studios! Get the blues with Grant Green, Jr. at the Northside Tavern! Alt rock on down to Terminal West for a night with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club! Folk it up with Fleet Foxes at the Variety Playhouse! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, May 6

Catch Day 3 of the Shaky Knees Festival featuring Tenacious D, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and more! Make your way to The William Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum for their At the Jazz Club with Oran Etkin! Get a laugh and catch a screening of Terry Gilliam’s comedy classic MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get down with some oldies but goodies during the Crimson Moon Café’s Boomer’s Gone Wild event! Get the rockin’ blues with Royal Johnson at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Tav Falco & The Panther Burns dish out a night of fuzzed out dirty rock ‘n’ roll with Shantih Shantih at The Earl! Spend the night with Gurufish at Park Tavern! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Garrett Collins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

Emory Arts presents their exhibition The Dream Machine: The Beat Generation & the Counterculture, 1940-1975 in the Schatten Gallery, through May 15!

Get really retro at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, jousting through June 4!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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

GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI (2017); Dir. Sophie Fiennes; Starring Grace Jones, Jean-Paul Goude, Sly & Robbie; Opens Friday, April 27 at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema; Trailer here.

Grace Jones has affectionately been dubbed an “iconic extraterrestrial” raising the bar of hardcore, rebellious femininity. Sophie Fiennes’ [THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY (2012)/dir.; THE PERVERTS GUIDE TO CINEMA (2006)/dir.] portrayal of the larger-than life pop icon transports Jones back to earth, exposing the soft underbelly Jones’ audiences rarely get a chance to experience. Nearly five years in the making, Fiennes followed Jones during the recording of her 2008 album, HURRICANE and through her 2009 World Tour, giving audiences a small glimpse into the life of the legendary Ms. Jones in the first feature-length documentary dedicated solely to the pop music icon, also known for her roles in CYBER BANDITS (1995); A VIEW TO A KILL (1985); CONAN THE DESTROYER (1984) and more.

Throughout the film, Fiennes dynamically paints Jones’ story using bright reds, blues and greens, explaining that “Bloodlight” in Jones’ regional Jamaican dialect refers to the red light that illuminates when an artist is recording. The film opens on Jones belting out “Slave to the Rhythm” during her 2009 World Tour and then we’re transported back in time to Jamaica where she’s preparing to record HURRICANE. It’s during this trip that she reunites with family and friends and we are slowly acquainted with Jones’ childhood demons   which helped create the androgynous, gender-defying powerful presence we all know and adore, Grace Jones.

On stage, Jones is a GOD. She is a GODDESS. In fact, she’s both—a chameleon channeling the extremes of societal roles. Throughout the film we are given the chance to experience Jones’ dynamic live stage show with performances of her new wave/post-punk tune, “Pull Up to the Bumper,” originally released on her 1981 NIGHTCLUBBING album, and “Williams’ Blood,” released in 2008 as part of HURRICANE. In the short span of 115 minutes, Fiennes gently exposes Jones’ traumatic history while giving Jones the ability to enlighten her fans on how she became the icon we’ve all grown to admire.  Jones delves deep into her past, exposing the trauma she faced as a child perpetuated by her stepfather, Master Patrick (Mas. P). Jones details her transformation from real-life woman to domineering stage presence, stating, “I’m playing out Mas P. That’s why I’m scary. That’s the male dominant scary person I become.”

Jones was born in Jamaica and was transplanted to Syracuse, New York as a young teen. She rose to stardom having the gift to mesmerize crowds and soon became a muse to many artists and photographers, including photographer Jean-Paul Gaude, father of Jones’ son, Paulo Gaude. She wears many masks (literally and figuratively) in the entertainment industry, from singer/songwriter to record producer to supermodel to movie star. Fiennes touches on many of these aspects of Jones’ life throughout the film. We get a chance to unmask the artist as we delve further into her more domesticated roles as mother, grandmother, sister, lover, and friend, or what in Jones’ regional dialect is dubbed, “bami,” bread, the substance of daily life.

Fiennes hand-delivers an intimate portrait of a behind-the-scenes “real life” Jones, blended with her gargantuan, overtly experimental avant-garde, cutting-edge stage presence. Fittingly, Fiennes utilizes sharp cuts and fades as she ever so slowly reveals the tale of Jones’ childhood through the memories provided by Jones’ family and friends. GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI is a film well worth experiencing, especially for those who have a deep love for pop culture. If you are hungry for brutally amazing strong female leads, Fiennes’ documentary is exactly what you need. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian brilliantly says of Fiennes’ film, “It’s a reminder that films about female singing stars need not be gallant tributes to tragically doomed fragility.”

Grace Jones is anything but fragile, and if there ever was a glass ceiling holding her back, you can rest assured that she smashed it to unrecognizable bits with poise and grace, as she so delicately puts it, “Sometimes you have to be a high flying bitch.”

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Come see all the retro-tastic events we’ve dug up for you This Week in ATLRetro!

Tuesday, April 24

Rock out with Hank Wood & The Hammerheads, Uniform and Hyena at The Earl! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their new Classics Series with a screening of Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Mozart’s THE MAGIC FLUTE (1975) at 7pm! Rock on down to the Masquerade for a night with Powerman 5000, Lullwater, Mammothor, Inviolate and HellBent! Get folksy with Dead Horses at Eddie’s Attic! Swing on by the Schwartz Center for a night with the Emory Big Band! Hadag Nahash dishes out a night of 90s Israeli hip hop at City Winery! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! JT Speed gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, April 25

Celebrate thirty hellacious years with My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult at the Masquerade! The Earl dishes out a night of Texas Swing with Charley Crockett and Nikki Hill! It’s a night of moon fantasies and silent film at The Plaza Theater with a special screening of Milford Thomas’ CLAIRE (2001), with a live film score at 7pm. Or get campy and catch an encore screening of Mike Nichols’ BIRDCAGE (1996) presented by WUSSY MAG at The Plaza at 9pm! The rivalry continues during the COBRA KAI Premiere event featuring the first two episodes of the new YouTube Red series, along with a screening of John G. Avildsen’s THE KARATE KID (1984) at theatres across Atlanta at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Rock on down to Center Stage for a night with Ministry, Chelsea Wolfe and The God Bombs! Spend the night with Dan Mangan and Stars at the Variety Playhouse! Get totally excellent and catch a screening of Penelope Spheeris’ comedy classic WAYNE’S WORLD (1992) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Art Hollidays gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Spend the night with Rock Hudson, James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor and catch a screening of George Stevens’ GIANT (1956) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) at 7:15pm! GKids Presents a Studio Ghibli Fest 2018 screening of Hiroyuki Morita’s THE CAT RETURNS (2002) at theatres across Atlanta at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Get the rockin’ blues with The Cazanovas at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, April 26

Rock out to some punk, soul, metal, New Wave and more at The Highlander during Howiestein and Mister Wilson’s Over the Edge Record Party! Or disco on down to Noni’s for Electric Boogieland’s Studio 54 Dance Party! It’s a night of rockin’ folk at the Masquerade with Skinny Lister, The Muckers and Blood on the Harp! Get down with Sash the Bash, Dusty Booze & The Baby Haters and more at The Star Bar! Alt rock on down to Terminal West for a night with Superchunk and The Rock*A*Teens! Get your Latin jazz fix with The Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra at Venkman’s! Get rootsy with Animal Years at Smith’s Olde Bar! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! 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, April 27

Garage rock it up during the Subsonic’s LP Release party with Paint Fumes and Bad Spell at The Earl! Sophie Fiennes’ dynamic documentary GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI (2017) opens at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema (keep your eyes peeled for our Retro Review coming soon)! Groove on down to Park Tavern in Piedmont Park as Yacht Rock Revue performs Prince’s PURPLE RAIN! Make your way to Goblin City and catch a screening of Jim Henson’s LABYRINTH (1986) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Regal Mall of Georgia 20 Plus Imax (Buford); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Or catch a screening of Richard Donner’s THE GOONIES (1985) at Earl Smith Strand Theatre at 8pm! Get down with Dirty Red & The Soul Shakers at the Crimson Moon Café! Shimmy on over to the Elliott Street Pub for The Candybox Revue’s Underground Burlesque Show featuring Kool Kat Talloolah Love, Kool Kat Roula Roulette and more! Rock out with Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown at the Masquerade! Dita Von Teese gets sultry with The Copper Coupe at the Tabernacle! Funk it up with The Main Squeeze and Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers at Terminal West! Stomp on down to the Variety Playhouse for a night with the Paul Thorn Band, The Blind Boys of Alabama and the McCrary Sisters! Rock out with Illegal Drugs, Model Zero, Death Panels and more at The Star Bar! Rudiger Suchsland’s documentary HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD (2018) examining “German Cinema in the Age of Propaganda: 1933-1945” opens at The Plaza Theater! The Georgia String Band Festival presents The Down Hill Strugglers at the Harris Arts Center in Calhoun! Get down with Swap Raw Deal at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Time-Warp it up 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, April 28

It’s that time of year again, folks! Rock on down to the Annual Inman Park Spring Festival, running through April 29, featuring 3 stages of live music, home tours, a street parade, an artist’s market and more! Rockin’ retro performances include Kitten Fontaine, Soldado, Rockit 88, The Swingin’ Saddle Cats, Sandra Hall & The Shadows, Bad Cat Daddy, Dusty Roads, Yon Rico Scott & Grant Green Jr., Velvet Caravan, the Moody Hollow Band, The Young & The Elder, The Band Be Easy and more! Or rock on down to the Atlanta Music Festival in Murphy Park, the only music festival to feature ATL musicians, featuring Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah, The Black Lips, Kool Kats Gringo Star, the Midnight Larks, Chelsea Shag and more! The Dixie Dregs rock out at Center Stage! Get gussied up in your best ‘40s to ‘60s vintage pin-up gear and make your way to Pin-Up Day at the Zoo! The Foo Fighters deliver their Concrete & Gold Tour at Georgia State Stadium! Or Salsa it up at the Rialto Center for the Arts for a night with Larry Harlow’s Latin Legends Band with special guest Oscar Hernandez! Get bookish and celebrate our pals Eagle Eye Books’ 15th Anniversary on Independent Book Store Day with special sales and more! Haunt on down to Amsterdam Atlanta for Kool Kat VJ Anthony’s COFFIN CLASSICS: Goth Industrial Darkwave Music Video Night featuring Goth, dark 80s and more! Rev on down to The Highlander for a night with The Sideburners, TC Costello, Bottle of Smoke and Burrito Banditos! Blues rock it up at the Crimson Moon Café with Delta Moon! The Whores dish out a night of hellacious rock ‘n’ roll at The Earl with Bummer, the Vincas and NAARC! Get rootsy and funk it up with Beauregard & The Downright, Bird City Revolutionaries and The Ellemeno Beat at The Star Bar! Or Prog Rock it up with Todd Rundgren’s Utopia at the Tabernacle! The Darkness glams it up with Diarrhea Planet at Terminal West! Gypsy jazz it up with Mayhayley’s Grave at the Tin Roof Cantina! Get down with the Dirty Guv’nahs at the Variety Playhouse! Departure pays tribute to Journey at Earl Smith Strand Theatre! The Vipers get down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, April 29

Swing on by day 2 of the Annual Inman Park Spring Festival featuring rockin’ performances by Rodeo Twister, the Squirrelheads, Delta Moon, Mingo Fishtrap, the Rockaholics, Eddie Tigner, Tray Dahl & The Jugtime Rag Band, Kool Kat Ruby Velle & The Soulphonics and more! Get bizarre with The Residents at the Variety Playhouse! Make your way to My Parents’ Basement for April’s Bizarre Bazaar from 12-6pm! Decatur Estates & Wayback Antiques brings you their 4th Annual Rides & Rescues for Lifeline Adoption event featuring music, food and more! The Earl delivers a night of dusty desert garage rock featuring Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah and Imarhan! The Used rock out at the Buckhead Theatre! Folk rock it up with Grayson Capps and Mutlu at Eddie’s Attic! Get down with The Devon Allman Project featuring Duane Betts at the Masquerade! Jazz it up with Deb Bowman & The Big Love Band at Venkman’s! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Fatback Deluxe at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

Emory Arts presents their exhibition The Dream Machine: The Beat Generation & the Counterculture, 1940-1975 in the Schatten Gallery, through May 15!

Get really retro at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, jousting through June 4!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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

April showers bring swell ATLRetro shenanigans! Get hep to the jive and come see what we’ve dug up for you!

Monday, April 16

Kink it up with Dave Davies at City Winery! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their annual Studio Ghibli Series with screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984) and THE WIND RISES (2013)! Get yacht rocky with Christopher Cross at the Variety Playhouse! Get to the root of it all with Dan Layus at Eddie’s Attic! Stephen Jay & Jim West, of Weird Al Yankovic’s band brings The Parallel Universe Tour to the Red Light Café! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up at Blind Willie’s! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! 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 Larry Griffith!

Tuesday, April 17

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their new Classics Series with a screening of Ingmar Bergman’s WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957) at 7pm! Catch some waves and spend the night with guitar legend Dick Dale and The Buzzards of Fuzz at The Earl (check out our interview with the legend here)! Head on down to Margaritaville for a night with Jimmy Buffet & The Coral Reefer Band at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their annual Studio Ghibli Series with screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s CASTLE IN THE SKY (1989) and SPIRITED AWAY (2005)! Groove on down to City Winery for a night of swamp folk with the Subdudes and Vance Gilbert! Get your jazzy blues fix with Davina & The Vagabonds at Eddie’s Attic! Get smashing and make your way to the Fox Theatre as they present Broadway’s SOMETHING ROTTEN!, running through April 22! Get electro with Covenant at The Drunken Unicorn! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! JT Speed gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Blind Willie’s dishes out a night of rockin’ blues with the Tyler Neal Band! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, April 18

Funk it up with Mother’s Finest at Eddie’s Attic! Make your way to The Star Bar for a night with Vito Romeo and Joyride! Get nitty gritty with the Old ‘97s and Jaime Wyatt at Terminal West! It’s a night of ‘70s euro punk with GG King and Ty Segall & the Freedom Band at the Variety Playhouse! Folk it up with Kevin Morby and Hand Habits at The Earl! Grab your favorite monster and make your way to Emory’s Frankenstein Speaker Series: Dr. Friedman at 7pm! Groove on down to City Winery for a night of swamp folk with the Subdudes and Vance Gilbert! Travel through time and catch a screening of Robert Zemeckis’ BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their annual Studio Ghibli Series with screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2005) and PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997)! Rock on down to Avondale Towne Cinema for a night with Jackwagon, Semicircle and Poly Action! Art Hollidays gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) presents a screening of Arthur Penn’s classic BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) at 7:15pm! The Electromatics dish out a night of Chicago/West Coast blues at Blind Willie’s! Get the rockin’ blues with The Cazanovas at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, April 19

Rock out at The Star Bar with Kool Kat Aileen Loy and Till Someone Loses an Eye, Timmy James & The Blue Flames and The Crush! Videodrome and The Plaza Theater get bizarre with their Plazadrome Cult Film Series screening of Craig Denney’s THE ASTROLOGER (1975) at 10pm! Or vampire it up with the 42nd Annual Atlanta Film Festival’s screening of Taika Waititi/Jemaine Clement’s horror comedy WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014) at The Plaza Theatre at 11:59pm! Get rootsy with Ryan Bingham at City Winery! Mother’s Finest dishes out a funky encore at Eddie’s Attic! Spend the night with Tim Easton and Tyler Jarvis at the Red Clay Theatre! Get saucy as Savannah Sweet Tease presents Take It All Off Broadway burly-Q event at the Red Light Café with special guest Kool Kat Ursula Undress! Jazz it up with U-Nam featuring Jeff Murrell at Suite Food Lounge! The Variety Playhouse kicks off the Sweetwater 420 Fest with the Official Pre-Party featuring The String Cheese Incident! Get rocked with The Queers, Squadron and Magoo’s Heros at the Clermont Lounge! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their annual Studio Ghibli Series with screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (1988) and KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989)! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stomp on down to Blind Willie’s for a night with Heather Luttrell! 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, April 20

New-Wave it up with Wreckless Eric and Gentleman Jesse at 529! It’s Prohibition pandemonium at Venkman’s with Kool Kat Blair Crimmins & The Hookers! Rev on down to The Star Bar for a night with Rex Romweber, Mark “Porkchop” Holder & MPH and Bad Friend! Honkytonk on down to Sweetwater Bar & Grill in Duluth for a night with The Sideburners, Kitty Rose & The Rattlers and Skye Paige! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch with Denim Arcade at the Wild Wing Café in Alpharetta! Funk on down to Aisle 5 for a night with Voodoo Visionary, The Groove Orient and PK Kid! Rock out during this year’s 3-day Sweetwater 420 Fest with a whole lotta rock harkening back to the 20th century, running through April 22! Get folksy with Bruce Cockburn at City Winery! Surf on down to The Earl for a night with Surfer Blood and Winter! Get countrified with Charlie Robison at Eddie’s Attic! Rock out with American Dischord, Radio Cult, Forsaken Profits and The Breaks at The Highlander! Get your ‘80s fix with Bon Jovi at Philips Arena! Folk rock it up with Glen Phillips and Hoot & Holler at the Red Clay Theatre! Get jazzy with Rene Marie at the Rialto Center for the Arts! Rock out with Mo Lowda & The Humble at Smith’s Olde Bar! Get folksy with The Arcadian Wild, Steel City Jug Slammers and Cool Hand Hayes at the Red Light Café! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! George Hughley & The Shadows get the rockin’ blues at Blind Willie’s! Get down with Dani Mac & Co at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Time-Warp it up 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, April 21

Hey kiddies! It’s Record Store Day, so dust off those old records and come see what’s shakin’ at vinyl shops across Atlanta! Make your way to Criminal Records as they celebrate Record Store Day with performances by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, Curtis Harding, the Midnight Larks and more! Or head over to Mojo Vinyl in Roswell as they celebrate with a live performance by Seven Sons and more! Fantasyland Records brings you a day full of limited editions, special editions and more! Shake it up with DIXIES & DIVAS at Avondale Towne Cinema, featuring Kool Kat Caroline & The Ramblers, Kool Kat Amy Pike with The Bonaventure Quartet, Kitty Rose & The Rattlers and Kayla Taylor Jazz! Get mischievous and rock on down to The Star Bar for a night with ELZIG, Bigfoot, B.S.O.L and DJ Howenstein! Shimmy on down to the Red Light Café for Sadie Hawkins’ Last Pasties Standing: Animal Style event! Garage rock it up with The Coathangers and Minus the Bear at Center Stage! Rockabilly it up with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & The Psycho-DeVilles at Dixie Tavern in Marietta! Get down with Mr. Rogers during the 42nd Annual Atlanta Film Festival’s screening of Morgan Neville’s nostalgic documentary WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR (2018) at the Woodruff Arts Center at 5:15pm! Rock on down to day 2 of the Sweetwater 420 Fest! Get some soul with The Nth Power and The 4 Korners at Aisle 5! Alt-rock it up with The Verve Pipe at City Winery! Crooked Mile dish out a night of bluegrass at the Crimson Moon Café! Get funky with Bird City Revolutionaries at the Elliott Street Pub! Spend the night with Herman’s Hermits at the Mill Town Music Hall in Bremen! Get rootsy with John Driskell Hopkins at Venkman’s! Liza Anne folks it up at The Earl! Kavarna dishes out a night of Eastern European ballads, folk and jazz with The Vesna Quartet and the Porchlighters! Grunge it up with Kool Kat VJ Anthony during his ‘90s Alternative Music Video Dance Party at Amsterdam Atlanta! Spend the night with Kool Kat Mary Fahl at the Red Clay Theatre! Get the old-school blues with the Juke Joint Dukes at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Experience the Vega String Quartet at the High Museum! House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows get bluesy at Blind Willie’s! Get the blues with Ross Pead followed by the Nathan Morgan Band at the Northside Tavern! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, April 22

It’s day 3 and your last chance to rock out at the Sweetwater 420 Fest! Jam it up at Aisle 5 with Bird Dog Jubilee and the Super Jam Allstars! Stomp on down to the Crimson Moon Café for a night with The Mulligan Brothers! Spend the night with Nicole Atkins, Indianola and Mishka Shubaly at The Earl! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Fatback Deluxe at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

Learn some history with the Gwinnett Parks Foundation’s Historic Walking Tours every Saturday through April 21! (LAST CHANCE!)

ABBA on down to the Aurora Theatre for their presentation of MAMMA MIA! Running through April 22! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Horizon Theatre Company presents FREAKY FRIDAY: A NEW MUSICAL, through April 22! (LAST CHANCE!)

Get really retro at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, jousting through June 4!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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 Claudia Dafrico
Contributing Writer

Do you remember the first anime film you ever saw? The chances are fairly high that whichever one popped in your head, it was a Studio Ghibli production. Prior to the mid-’80s, anime films did not receive wide releases that spanned continents and instead found moderate success at home in Japan. This all changed very quickly upon the release of Hayao Miyazaki’s NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND in 1984, a film that garnered massive financial success in Japan and international critical acclaim. Encouraged by the success of NAUSICAA, Miyazaki, along with fellow director Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki, have created 21 films for Studio Ghibli since its inception, with at least one more directed by Miyazaki in the works.

The Studio Ghibli films are often the first exposure many Americans have to feature-length Japanese animation and have garnered beloved cult cinema status for many fans in the U.S. If you consider yourself to be one of these fans, then you will be delighted to learn that Landmark’s Midtown Art Cinema will be screening eight Studio Ghibli classics, starting Friday April 13 and running through Thursday April 19. And if you have a friend that has yet to have met King Totoro, No-Face, and all manner of talking cats and warrior princesses, this is the perfect opportunity to show them the wonders of the world of Ghibli right here in Atlanta!

SPIRITED AWAY (2001) (4/13 & 4/17) The young protagonist Chihiro is based in part on the 10-year-old daughter of a friend of Miyazaki’s. Meeting her inspired Miyazaki to craft a new film despite the fact that he was considering retirement at the time. Chihiro and her parents come across what appears to be an abandoned theme park in the country. Unbeknownst to them, the pavilion is really an otherworldly bathhouse that plays host to demons, gods and spirits of all kinds. It falls upon to Chihiro to save her family and escape the clutches of the most powerful spirits.

NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984) (4/13 & 4/16). Technically speaking, this film precedes the formation of Studio Ghibli by a year, with Nausicaa being released in 1985 and the studio being created in 1986. Thousands of years after nuclear war has ravaged the Earth, a peaceful princess becomes embroiled in a battle to save her land from both the the poisonous jungle that borders her kingdom and the violent and power hungry political factions that lie just beyond.

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2004) (4/14 & 4/18). Actor Christian Bale was so impressed after seeing SPIRITED AWAY that he expressed interest in playing any role in the English dub of HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE, no matter how small. He ended up voicing the male lead. A curse laid by a petty witch onto young and insecure Sophie turns the 18-year-old into an elderly woman. Sophie soon discovers that the spell can be reversed, and her plan leads her to a powerful, mysterious wizard and his flying castle.

PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997) (4/14 & 4/18) holds the title of being the most expensive anime film ever produced at the time, having cost around $23.5 million to create. This investment paid off, as it went on to out-gross E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) and become the most profitable film in Japan until the release of TITANIC (1997). A young woman raised by wolves leads her fellow woodland creatures in rebellion against the industrial town that seeks to vanquish them. She is aided by a warrior from far out west who seeks a remedy for the curse that has befallen him.

MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (4/15 & 4/19). The character of King Totoro became so beloved that sales of plush toys in his likeness boosted profits for the film considerably, and he went on to become the official Studio Ghibli mascot. Two sisters find themselves in an unfamiliar environment after their family moves to the countryside for the health of their ill mother where they come across a playful bunch of nature spirits, led by the lovable King Totoro, who bring joy and adventure into the girl’s lives.

kinopoisk.ru

KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989) (4/15 & 4/19). This film can be considered a work of alternate historical fiction, as it is set in an unnamed European town where neither World War I or World War II took place. Upon turning 13 years old, apprentice witch Kiki leaves home for the city with her feline companion Jiji to learn the two most important skills a young witch can master: flying on one’s broomstick and personal independence.

THE WIND RISES (2013) (4/16). Miyazaki stated that he had never cried upon watching one of his own films, until seeing THE WIND RISES for the first time. A biopic that chronicles the life of Japanese aircraft designer Jiro Horikoshi from his childhood dreams of aviation to his rise to success as an engineer, as well as the romance and war that come to shape his world.

CASTLE IN THE SKY (1986) (4/17). The titular castle drew inspiration from both the airborne island found in Jonathan Swift’s novel GULLIVER”S TRAVELS and the real life Paronella Park located in Far North Queensland, Australia. After a young boy befriends a mysterious girl he finds hovering in the sky, he is drawn into an aeronautical adventure filled with pirates, airborne ships, and a floating island that may hold the key to discovering the girl’s true identity.

Purchase advance tickets here.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Come see what’s shakin’ in ATLRetro This Week!

Monday, April 9

Get jazzy with The Baylor Project at City Winery! 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!” Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! Blues it up with Bill Sheffield at Blind Willie’s! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a night with Larry Griffith!

Tuesday, April 10

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their new Classics Series with a screening of Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA (1966) at 7pm! Jimmy Vaughan & The Tilt-A-Whirl Band get the blues at City Winery! Spend the night with Kyle Cook (Matchbox Twenty) and The Goodbye Girls at Eddie’s Attic! Get saucy and let Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and her burly-Q gals of Syrens of the South spice up your evening with their Tease Tuesday Burlesque: April Showers event, shakin’ it up at the Red Light Café! Get some psychedelic soul with Kalu & The Electric Joint at Terminal West! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! JT Speed gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Blind Willie’s dishes out a night of rockin’ blues with the Redstone Ramblers! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, April 11

Get campy and catch a screening of Mike Nichols’ BIRDCAGE (1996) presented by WUSSY MAG at The Plaza Theater at 8pm (doors at 7pm)! Or boogie down with a screening of John Badham’s SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get experimental and rock out with Pinkish Black, Blacksage and Dead Register at The Earl! Stomp on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country! Or hang out with the Pink Ladies as TCM Classics presents a 4oth Anniversary screening of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Folk it up with Tyrone Wells and Gabe Dixon at City Winery! Make your way to Eddie’s Attic for a night with Mike Farris & the Roseland Rhythm Revue, The Novel Ideas and Forlorn Strangers! Get jazzy with the Isaac Eady Quartet at the Elliott Street Pub! Art Hollidays gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get hardcore with Madball at the Masquerade! Spend the night with Brian Revels, Von Strantz & Native Land and The Hot Hearts at The Star Bar! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) presents a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) at 7:15pm! Kool Kat Scott Glazer’s Mojo Dojo gets the blues at Blind Willie’s! Get the rockin’ blues with The Cazanovas at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up a night of acoustic 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, April 12

Yacht Rock Revue presents “Forever ‘78” dishing out classics from 1978 at Venkman’s! Rock out at The Highlander with Howiestein and Mister Wilson’s Over the Edge Record Party! The 42nd Annual Atlanta Film Festival kicks off and will be presenting films across Atlanta through April 22! Rock out with Burning Itch at The Star Bar! Or rock on down to Terminal West for Yo La Tengo! Get your Americana fix with The Oh Hellos and Faye Webster at the Variety Playhouse! The Earl Smith Strand Theatre gets criminal with their who-done-it Murder at The Strand event, killing it through April 15! Get saxxy with Euge Groove at Suite Food Lounge! Get traditional with Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas at Eddie’s Attic! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get the blues with 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! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, April 13

Get hellacious at the Mule Camp Tavern in Gainesville and celebrate Friday the 13th with Kool Kats The Casket Creatures, Vices of Vanity and DIE 985! Funk it up at Venkman’s with the Atlanta Funk Society! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema brings back their annual Studio Ghibli Series with screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984) and SPIRITED AWAY (2005)! Candlebox delivers an acoustic duo at City Winery! Get countrified with Alabama at the Fox Theatre! Get groovy with The Commodores and Bogey & The Viceroy at the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre in Peachtree City! Get your ‘60s and ‘70s rock ‘n ‘ roll fix with The Rainmen at the Red Light Café during their Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance Party! Bush invade the Tabernacle! Get down with The Dirty Guv’Nahs at the Variety Playhouse! Get sludgy with The Weeks and Blank Range at The Earl! The Shut-Ups get new wavy at 529! Conjure up a killer night with ATL CRAFT’s screening of Anna Biller’s throwback to ‘60s horror and Technicolor films, THE LOVE WITCH (2016) at 7:3opm! Make your way to the Rialto Center for the Arts for a little mayhem and sexual intrigue as they present Stephen Sondheim’s A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC through April 15! Get down with Michelle Malone at The Vista Room! Make your way to the Northside Tavern for a night with the Tyler Neal Band! John Nemeth gets the rockin’ blues at Blind Willie’s! Get the blues with Little G. Weevil at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Time-Warp it up 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, April 14

Surf on down to Kavarna as Kool Kat Chad Shivers and Southern Surf Stomp! presents a rockin’ night with Eddie Angel (Los Straightjackets), The Surge! and Kool Kat Caroline & The Ramblers! Brunch it up with Rodeo Twister at Venkman’s! The BadAsh AllStar Team brings you Women Rock Jam II at Avondale Towne Cinema! Venkman’s presents New Sensation: The Music of INXS! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch with Denim Arcade at The Wing Café & Tap House in Marietta! Or boogie down ‘80s-style with Kool Kat VJ Anthony during his ‘80s New Wave Music Video Dance Party at Amsterdam Atlanta! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their annual Studio Ghibli Series with screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2005) and PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997)! Make your way to the Crimson Moon Café for a night with The Texas KGB! Funk it up with Cadillac Jones at The Earl! Boogie woogie on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for Little Joey’s Jumpin’ Jive! Get countrified with Alabama at the Fox Theatre! Honkytonk on down to The Star Bar for Andrea Colburn & Mud Moseley and Wonky Tonk! Rock out in Decatur during the Amplify Decatur Music Festival featuring The Lone Bellow, The Jayhawks, Amanda Shires, Parker Millsap and Dwayne Shivers! The Fab Faux pay tribute to The Beatles at the Tabernacle! Peruse the ghostly sights while picking up a plant or two at the Historic Oakland Cemetery Spring Plant Sale! Get mischievous and rock out at The Highlander’s 26th Anniversary Party! Take a walk down Sesame Street and catch a screening of David LaMattina and Chad N. Walker’s documentary I AM BIG BIRD (2014) at the Center for Puppetry Arts at 7pm! Souper Farm dishes out a Bohemian feast and a screening of Stanley Tucci’s BIG NIGHT (1996) at 7pm! Or hang out with the Pink Ladies as TCM Classics presents a 4oth Anniversary screening of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm [Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Sandra Hall & The Shadows get bluesy at Blind Willie’s! Get the blues with Bill Sheffield followed by Lola at the Northside Tavern! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, April 15

The Atlanta Film Festival presents a 25th Anniversary screening of Steven Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK (1993) at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History at 6:30pm! Yacht Rock Revue goes UNPLUGGED at Venkman’s! Polka on down to the Tabernacle for a night with Weird Al Yankovic! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their annual Studio Ghibli Series with screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (1988) and KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989)! Folk it up with Loudon Wainwright III at City Winery! The Quinn Masonry Trio jazzes it up at the Elliott Street Pub! Get countrified with Alabama at the Fox Theatre! The Decemberists dish out a night of Baroque pop at The Roxy! It’s a night of jailbreak Americana with MIPSO at Terminal West! Travel through time and catch a screening of Robert Zemeckis’ BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) during Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Fatback Deluxe at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

Learn some history with the Gwinnett Parks Foundation’s Historic Walking Tours every Saturday through April 21!

ABBA on down to the Aurora Theatre for their presentation of MAMMA MIA! Running through April 22!

The Horizon Theatre Company presents FREAKY FRIDAY: A NEW MUSICAL, through April 22!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

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!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

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.