ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

It’s been exactly half a decade since we shot the breeze with Atlanta’s own jack of all musical trades and film score junkie, Jeffrey Butzer (The Bicycle Eaters/The Compartmentalizationalists). So we caught up with him once again to get the scoop on his upcoming venture into the bizarre land of Lynch. His “Club Silencio: Music From the Feature Films of David Lynch” tours the southeast this summer with a killer kick-off at The Earl this Friday, June 2 at 9 pm, featuring the “Ladies in the Radiator” also known as Butzer (guitar); T.T. Mahony (synth/piano); Bicycle Eaters Matt Steadman and Sean Zearfoss (rhythm section); Ben Davis (sax), Jade Poppyfield and Renee Nelson (rotating vocalists). Club Silencio promises an unconventionally surreal evening sending you dangling head first into The Pink Room. And if you just can’t get enough Lynch-madness after the June 2 date, you can catch the tour at its stops at the High Dive in Gainesville, FL on June 23, at Saturn in Birmingham, AL on July 8, and at the Caledonia Lounge in Athens on July 15!

ATLRetro caught up with Jeffrey Butzer for a quick tête-à-tête about “Club Silencio,” his love affair with film scores and film in general, and what he and the Bicycle Eaters/The Compartmentalizationalists have been up to in the last five years. While you’re takin’ a gander at our little Q&A with Butzer, why not listen to a bit o’ Butzer and The Compartmentalizationalists’ “Mother’s Gray Dress.”

ATLRetro:  It’s been nearly half a decade since we spoke to you about the release of The Bicycle Eaters’ new 7-inch HIDING PLASTIC SPIDERS. So much has happened since, and now you’re diving head first into David Lynch’s land of the bizarre with your newest musical escapade, CLUB SILENCIO: MUSIC FROM THE FEATURE FILMS OF DAVID LYNCH. What draws you to Lynch’s film scores?

Jeffrey Butzer: What I love about Lynch’s work is his element of surprise. The new TWIN PEAKS series is a great example of that. I love that every week I have no idea what I am getting into. Will it scare me or be hilarious?  …Who knows?

Your CLUB SILENCIO tour was originally slated for 2008, as a follow up to your BEAUTIFUL LOSERS: THE SONGS OF CAVE, WAITS AND COHEN and A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS tours. Of course we have to know, what took so long and why now?

I am not sure? It wasn’t feeling right in 2008. I never could get in to the mindset to put it together. As Lynch would say, “The ideas weren’t coming.” I had a set list, which really hasn’t changed very much. But that was it. Earlier this year, I had a conversation with a musician who was sort of pushing me to finally do it. Then Julee Cruise and I sort of discussed a mini tour, which neither of us could make happen but, at that point I was really into the idea again, and with the timing of the new TWIN PEAKS it was easy to get everyone motivated.

Can you tell our readers a little about “The Ladies in the Radiator” who will be performing with you on the CLUB SILENCIO tour?

Yes, my longtime collaborator T.T. Mahony is playing synth/piano, Bicycle Eaters Matt Steadman and Sean Zearfoss are the rhythm section, Ben Davis (Purkenji Shift/Noot d’Noot) on Sax, Meghan Dowlen a.k.a. ”Jade Poppyfield” and Renee Nelson (Jarboe) are both singing on different dates. I am playing guitar. It is a really great band. I am really happy with all the arrangements.

Film scores are a big influence on your music, with the Bicycle Eaters and The Compartmentalizationalists, et al. It seems many musicians are influenced by particular musicians (past or present) or a particular type of popular music (the art being the whole), but film’s scores tell a different kind of story, as accompaniments or pieces or carriers of the whole. Can you tell our readers what it is about film scores that influence you and the part they play in carrying a film?

I am a film lover in general. I like when films have no music, like in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN or films by my hero Luis Bunuel. But, I also like when music is almost like a main character in a movie, like THE MASTER or films by Fellini, for example. I am not sure how film music influences me exactly. I guess I like the abstract nature of creating feelings out of noises. Mood is my primary goal in the music that I create.

We see that you’ve composed several scores as well for films such as Raymond Carr’s WILD IS THE WIND (2011); HITORI (2014); GOOD GRIEF SUICIDE HOTLINE (2015); ABACUS, MY LOVE (2014); BIRDCATCHER (2006), etc. Do you prefer composing behind the scenes, or playing in front of a crowd? Pros and cons?

I enjoy both for different reasons. Making a score is really strange to me. I really never know what I am doing. I still do not have a method of working and I don’t write out music. Matt Steadman (producer, musician) and I normally meet and see what happens and eventually we come up with music we are happy with. Live shows are very thrilling for me. Something like Club Silencio is fun, because we get to have our own Lynchian spin on expectations. We created this as massive admirers and fans of Lynch and have put together the show we would want to see. I’m getting really obsessed with details like stage plot, lighting, clothing. We put a lot of thought in to these types of shows. We really want them to feel special and fun for people.

Which film score(s) influenced you the most before you began composing your own, and how did it influence you?

Nino Rota’s 8 ½, Michael Nyman/Peter Greenaway scores and the spaghetti westerns by Morricone and Luis Bacolov were all influential to me.

Who are your top five favorite film composers and the film scores they composed that moved you most?

In no particular order my favorites would be Nino Rota (8 ½); Angelo Badalamenti (most Lynch films); Ennio Morricone (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST/ THE GREAT SILENCE); Michael Nyman (A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS/ THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER); and Carter Burwell (FARGO/ BARTON FINK). However, it is difficult to speak about influence. As a musician I strive to not show my influences. I can say that when I sit down to write, music is the last thing on my mind. I am typically thinking about a story, sometimes my own, sometimes a book or film. Then, I try to musically paint a picture. I am very bad with narrative, which is probably why I am drawn to filmmakers like Lynch, who seems more concerned with mood.

Can you give us five things you’re into at the moment that we should be listening to right now–past or present, well-known or obscure?

1) Rowland S. Howard, the guitarist from The Birthday Party has a great, dark, and beautiful album called TEENAGE SNUFF FILM; 2) the singer Lhasa, especially her song Rising, and a song called “That Leaving Feeling“ she recorded with Stuart Staples of Tindersticks. She passed away a few years ago. Her voice is one of my favorite things; 3) Leonard Cohen’s underrated album NEW SKIIN FOR THE OLD CEREMONY is an all time favorite of mine; 4) Emiliana Torrini’s version of “If You Go Away” has been in my steady rotation. I love Brel’s version of course, but hers in a wonderful modern take; and 5) Rennie Sparks (The Handsome Family): Many now know of them from the theme from True Detective, but do yourself a favor and delve in to their world. Rennie’s books and paintings are so strange and vivid and their last album is one of their best. Rennie, as a writer is one of my biggest influences.

Back to the surreal. If you had to choose just one (I know it’s hard!), which Lynch film would be your absolute favorite?

I honestly cannot pick one. MULHOLLAND DRIVE is always in my top three. BLUE VELVET is the first one I fell in love with. INLAND EMPIRE is a misunderstood masterpiece. If you’ve only seen it once and are on the fence or don’t really like it, see it three more times. It is so dense it demands multiple viewings.

You’re taking this epic and eccentric beast on a trip across the equally bizarre south this summer after your gig at The Earl on June 2, with shows at the High Dive in Gainesville, FL (June 23); Saturn in Birmingham (July 8); and the Caledonia Lounge in Athens (July 15). What exciting things can folks expect when they come to one of your shows? And will this be the last of the tour, or will you be giving Atlanta an encore presentation in the near future?

If this goes well, we plan to make it a summer tradition. We are doing our best to make you feel like you are visiting the Pink Room/Black Lodge and deliver the best renditions of these iconoclastic songs as possible.

And last but not least, any other exciting plans in the future for Jeffrey Bützer? The Bicycle Eaters? The Compartmentalizationalists?

Bicycle Eaters have our first vocal full-length in the editing room as we speak…er, type. I’m also writing a play/screenplay entitled “Partialisms” that I plan to bring to a stage or screen in the near future.

All photos are courtesy of Jeffrey Butzer and used with permission.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Kick off your summer with a helluva lot of killer shenanigans, retro-style! We’ve got it all kiddies, so come see what we’ve dug up for you This Week in ATLRetro!

Monday, May 29

Catch a screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s HOLY BLOOD (SANTA SANGRE) (1989) at The Plaza Theater, screening through June 1! Garage rock it up with Deaf Poets, The Buzzards of Fuzz and Bleach Garden at 529! 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! Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, May 30

The Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra gets down at Café 290! Hang with John Travolta and the Pink Ladies during the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Rock out with Cusses, Double Ferrari and Motherfucker at 529! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! Make your way to Blind Willie’s for a night Steve Cunningham & Lilac Wine! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 31

Psyche folk it up with Kikagaku Moyo, Al Lover and Suzanne Vines at The Earl! Get some classic soul ‘n’ funk with Nick & The Grooves at Avondale Towne Cinema! Hang with John Travolta and the Pink Ladies during the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s encore screening of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Get down at City Winery with Roomful of Blues’ 50th Anniversary Tour! Stomp on down to The Vista Room for Bluegrass & Beyond! Make your way to the Studio Movie Grill’s (Alpharetta/Duluth) screening of Vincente Minnelli’s THE BAND WAGON (1953) at 7:15pm! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack dishes out a night of the blues with Frankie’s Blues Mission! Get the blues with the Cody Matlock Band at Blind Willie’s! Jazz it up 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 with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, June 1

Hilarity ensues with Cineprov at The Plaza Theater as they get intergalactic and riff Don Dohler’s GALAXY INVADER (1985) at 7:00pm! Spend the night with Tom Russell at Eddie’s Attic! Atlantic Station’s Movies in Central Park continues with a free screening of Jon Avnet’s FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (1992) at dusk! The Madrid Express keeps the music alive in memory of Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton at The Vista Room! Arrested Development gets down at City Winery! Make your way to the Red Light Café for a night with Truett, Dreambrother and Karen Kole! It’s Mai Tai Thursday, so hula on down to Trader Vic’s for a night of island tunes and tasty cocktails! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Get the rockin’ blues with The Cazanovas 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, June 2

Get wickedly bizarre with Kool Kat Jeffrey Butzer (The Bicycle Eaters; The Compartmentalizationalists) and the “Ladies in the Radiator” at The Earl with his Club Silencio: Music From the Films of David Lynch (Keep your eyes peeled for our new interview with Buzter coming soon!) Make your way to Chastain Park for a night with Paul Simon! Jazz it up with two shows featuring Joe Gransden and special guest Annie Sellick at Eddie’s Attic! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch and Denim Arcade at Suburban Tap (Marietta)! Get filled with tasty food and tunes at the two-day Candler Park Music & Food Fest, featuring Friday night tunes by Railroad Earth, Matisyahu, Ripe and Chelsea Shag! Get your Bond fix at The Plaza Theater’s screening of Lewis Gilbert’s THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)! Get alt-rocked ‘90s style with Blue October at the Variety Playhouse! Arrested Development gets down for night two at City Winery! Venkman’s delivers a night with Rapture: The Ultimate Blondie Experience! Avant-garde it up at the High Museum’s First Friday: Warhol Factory Party event where you can experience “Andy Warhol: Prints from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family” before the exhibit opens to the public (June 3) and so much more! Get groovy with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern! House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows dish out the blues at Blind Willie’s! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, June 3

Get your twang on at Avondale Towne Cinema’s Hank Williams Night, featuring Skye Paige, Kira Annalise, Cool Hand Haves, Chris Estrada, Ron Harris, Andrew Vickery, The Tiger Kings, Donnie Piccou, Stephan Duncan, Joshua Gilliland, Bato Veljkov, Kool Kat Spike Fullerton and Chicken and Pigs! Make your way to The Moonshadow Tavern for a night with The Rainmen and Downtown Executives! Stomp on down to Venkman’s for a Chicken Pickin’ Brunch with La Terza Classe, followed by Kermit Ruffins & The Barbeque Swingers bringing you a taste of the Big Easy! Rock out with The Radio Men at the Red Light Café! Get horrorfied and gore-tastic with two helpings of Last Podcast on the Left at The Earl! Spend the night with Paula Cole at City Winery! Make your way to The Basement for Heyday! 80s Dance Party with Kimber and Saved By The Band! It’s a hootenanny and a half at Kavarna with Slim Chance & The Convicts! Rock out at The Drunken Unicorn with Art School Jocks, Shepherds, Shantih Shantih and Small Reactions! Electric Avenue pays tribute to George Michael at Terminal West! Come on out for Cabbagetown Reunion Day 2017, from 11am – 5pm, featuring live tunes by The Racketeers, Ross Pead, The Chumblers, the Griddle Lickers, Chicken & Wine, W8ing4UFOs and more! Rock on down to 97 Estoria for Estoriafest featuring Big Jesus, Midnight Larks, Dot.s, Bad Spell and more! Boogie on down for Day 2 of the Candler Park Music & Food Fest featuring Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, The Motet, Lake Street Dive, The Marcus King Band, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Webster Band Atlanta and more! Get your glam on and come on out to the last ever East Point Possum Show, benefiting Lost-n-Found Youth! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch and Denim Arcade at Wild Wing Café in Snellville! Make your way to the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema for their Studio Ghibli series, featuring a screening of Isao Takahata’s POM POKO (2005) at 10:30am and Hayao Miyazaki’s HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE  (2005) at 1pm! Get the blues with the Cody Matlock Band at the Northside Tavern! Sandra Hall & The Shadows get down at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, June 4

TCM Big Screen Classics celebrates the 45th Anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic THE GODFATHER (1972) at theatres across Atlanta (2pm/7pm) [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); Regal Atlantic Station 18; and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Folk it up with Jamestown Revival during Park Tavern’s Sunset Sessions Live! Or make your way to the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema for their Studio Ghibli series, featuring encore screenings of Isao Takahata’s POM POKO (2005) at 10:30am and Hayao Miyazaki’s HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE  (2005) at 1pm! Get revived with Otis Redding III and Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck with the Atlanta Horns during Eddie’s Attic’s Gospel Brunch! Get some soul with Howard Hewett at City Winery! Get old-timey at Venkman’s with the Trey Dahl Jazz Quintet! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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 all the retrotastic events we’ve found for you This Week in ATLRetro!

Monday, May 22

Get bizarre and make your way to The Plaza Theater for a screening of Jon Nguyen/Olivia Neergaard-Holm/Rick Barnes’ documentary, DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE (2016), screening through May 25! Get indie folked with The Mountain Goats and The Hot at Nights at Terminal West! Get rootsy with Brandon Reeves at Blind Willie’s! Get funky and groove on down to Café 290 every second and fourth Monday of the month for a taste of Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!” Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, May 23

Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Classics Series and disturbs with a screening of Martin Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER (1976) at 7pm! Or rock out Icelandic-style with Sigur Ros at the Fox Theatre! Make your way to The Earl for a night with Bash & Pop (Tommy Stinson of The Replacements)! Asleep At The Wheel dishes out a night of old-time Texas country at City Winery! Get folksy with Angie Aparo at Eddie’s Attic! Or folk it up with Julia Finch and Kittens Slay Dragons at the Red Light Café! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! Get bluesy with the Nick Johnson Band at Blind Willie’s! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 24

TCM Big Screen Classics celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Hal Needham’s SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977) at theatres across Atlanta (2pm/7pm) [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Get a second helping of Angie Aparo at Eddie’s Attic! Make your way to the Masquerade for a night with Saintseneca! Get the rockin’ blues with Aiden Connell, The Love Agenda and The Wild Now at Smith’s Olde Bar! Rock out at The Star Bar with 20 Watt Tombstone, Stephen El Ray, Catfish & The Bottom and Sasha Vallely! ! Spend the night with Frank Sinatra at the Studio Movie Grill’s (Alpharetta/Duluth) screening of George Sidney’s ANCHORS AWEIGH (1945) at 7:15pm! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack dishes out a night of the blues with Frankie’s Blues Mission! Get the Chicago/West Coast blues with The Electromatics at  Blind Willie’s! Jazz it up 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 with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, May 25

Get rocked with Brit Floyd at the Fox Theatre! Atlantic Station’s Movies in Central Park continues with a free screening of Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) at dusk! Get funky and rock out with Doesin, Flower, Cinema Novo and Gas Hound at The Earl! It’s a night of folksy blues with Randall Bramblett at Madlife Stage & Studios in Woodstock! Stomp on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with Kira Annalise & The Trainwrecks! Make your way to the Red Light Café for a night with Beau & Luci, Robot Jurassic, Horrible Idea and The Ain’t Sisters! It’s Mai Tai Thursday, so hula on down to Trader Vic’s for a night with Kool Kat Joshua Longino and The Disapyramids! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! 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, May 26

Raise a ruckus and get down with one helluva hootenanny and sleaze-fest with Kool Kats galore at Bubbapalooza 2017 at The Star Bar running through Sat. May 27, featuring a whole lotta nitty gritty with Kool Kat Dave Weil and The Blacktop Rockets, Rodeo Twister, Kool Kat Sen. Artie Mondello and The Delusionaires, The Mystery Men?, Slim Chance & The Stoned Mountain Folk, AM Gold, The Scragglers, Nikki & The Phantom Callers, Kool Kat Rev. Andy and Southern Ska Syndicate, Rockabilly Kitty Rose, ELZIG, The Wheelknockers, JJ & The Hustlers, Kool Kat Jeffrey Butzer and The Compartmentalizationalists, Al Shelton, DJ Dusty Booze and more! Get dosed with a night cultish shenanigans at Videodrome’s JavaDrome screening of Frank Henenlotter’s BRAIN DAMAGE (1988) at 8:30pm! Or catch a screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s HOLY BLOOD (SANTA SANGRE) (1989) at The Plaza Theater, screening through June 1! Get jazzy in Piedmont Park with the 40th Annual Atlanta Jazz Festival running through May 28, kickin’ things off with The Pedrito Martinez Group and the Robert Glasper Experiment! Get shakin’ and shimmy on down to Elliott Street Pub’s “The 51” for The Candybox Revue Underground with Kool Kat Talloolah Love, DJ Doctor Q and so much more! Get down with Freddie Jackson at City Winery! Rock out with The Music Tapes at The Drunken Unicorn! Or rock on down to The Earl for a night with The Rock*A*Teens, Bad Sports and the All Night Drug Prowling Wolves! Spend the night with Reuben Bidez at Eddie’s Attic! Get your AC/DC fix with Back N Black at Madlife Stage & Studios in Woodstock! Funk it up with the Atlanta Funk Society at Venkman’s! Get cozy with The Dude at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre’s screening of The Coen Brothers’ THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) at 8pm! It’s a night of rockin’ Americana at the Red Light Café with the Bill Hart Band and the Carl Culpepper Band! Sandra Hall & The Shadows get down at Blind Willie’s! Spend the night with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and Beverly “Guitar” Watkins at the Northside Tavern! Make your way to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for The Silvertones! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, May 27

Creep on down to Avondale Towne Cinema for the Silver Scream Spook Show’s matinee (1pm) screening of Julian Roffman’s THE MASK 3D (1961), and an encore screening at 10pm, with Kool Kat Shane Morton, a.k.a. ghost host with the most, Prof. Morte and more! Noir it up at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre’s screening of John Huston’s classic, THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) at 8pm! Or head to downtown Decatur for the Decatur Arts Festival featuring performing arts, literary events, tasty food and live music with Hollis Brown, Chelsea Shag, Paul Melancon, Underhill Rose, The Ain’t Sisters, the ConunDrums and more, through May 28! Skank on down to City Winery for a night with Kool Kat Rev. Andy and Southern Ska Syndicate! Make your way to the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema for their Studio Ghibli series, featuring a screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s PORCO ROSSO (1992) at 10:30am and MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (1988) at 1pm! Retro-glam it up with the Wasabassco Burlesque Company at City Winery! Make your way to Piedmont Part for Day 2 of the 40th Annual Atlanta Jazz Festival featuring The Allan Harris Band, Regina Carter, Randy Weston’s African Rhythm Quintet, Rene Marie, the Charles Lloyd Sky Trio and more! Rumours pay tribute to Fleetwood Mac at the Variety Playhouse! Make your way to Summerville and get folksy and low-brow during Finster Fest 2017 at Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens, running through May 28! Don’t forget to get rocked and rolled at Day 2 of Bubbapalooza 2017 at The Star Bar! Blues it up with the Legendary Ike Stubblefield at The Vista Room! Haunt on down to Amsterdam Atlanta for Kool Kat VJ Anthony’s COFFIN CLASSICS Goth Industrial Music Video Dance Party featuring Goth, dark 80s and more!! Get down and dirty with Beverly “Guitar” Watkins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Spend the night with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck at the Northside Tavern! Selwyn Birchwood dishes out the blues at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, May 28

Head on down to the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema for their Studio Ghibli series, encore screenings of Hayao Miyazaki’s PORCO ROSSO (1992) at 10:30am and MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (1988) at 1pm! Make your way to Piedmont Part for the final day of the 40th Annual Atlanta Jazz Festival featuring Dwight Andrews, Joe Gransden’s Big Band, The Ojeda Penn Experience, Freddy Cole and more! Make your way to City Winery for Who’s Bad, the Ultimate Michael Jackson Experience! It’s your last chance to make it out to the Decatur Arts Festival, so come on out and catch Grant Green, Jr., Cody Matlock, Tray Dahl & The Jugtime Ragband and more! Rock out with Tim Kasher at The Earl! Celebrate three decades of the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club with their 30th Anniversary Extravaganza promising beer, bands and BBQ! Blues it up with Dr. Dixon & The Operators at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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

ATLRetro gets down this week! Come see all the shakin’ shenanigans we’ve dug up just for you!

Monday, May 15

Take the stage at the Shakespeare Tavern for LadyShakes 2017: An Evening of Shakespeare! 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!  Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, May 16

Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Classics Series with a steamy suspenseful screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s MARNIE (1964) at 7pm! Get mischievous and rocked during X’s 40th Anniversary Tour at the Masquerade! Rock on down to 529 for a night with Doug Tuttle, Shantih Shantih and Grand Vapids! Get cozy with The Dude and have a White Russian special at City Winery during their free screening of The Coen Brothers’ THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) at 7pm! Get adventurous at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s screening of Rob Reiner’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! Get to the root of it all with Joe McGuinness at Blind Willie’s! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 17

It’s a night of nitty gritty rock ‘n’ roll at The Star Bar with Dr. Boogie, Sleazy Cheetah and Adam Anzio! Sci-fi it up and celebrate 20 years of Luc Besson’s THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997) at theatres across Atlanta (2pm/7pm) [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Regal Atlantic Station 18; AMC Parkway Point 15; Regal Mall of Georgia 20 plus IMAX; AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough)]! Get some classic soul ‘n’ funk with Nick & The Grooves at Avondale Towne Cinema! Funk it up with the Victor Wooten Trio at the Variety Playhouse! Make your way to Terminal West for a night with Kiefer Sutherland! Put on your dancin’ shoes and make your way to the Studio Movie Grill’s (Alpharetta/Duluth) screening of Vincente Minnelli’s AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) at 7:15pm! Get adventurous at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s encore screening of Rob Reiner’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack dishes out a night of the blues with Frankie’s Blues Mission! Kool Kat Scott Glazer’s Mojo Dojo gets down at  Blind Willie’s! Jazz it up 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 with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, May 18

Atlantic Station’s Movies in Central Park kicks off with a free screening of Ron Underwood’s TREMORS (1990) at dusk! Get revived at the Clermont Lounge’s Grand Re-Opening featuring Kool Kat Spike Fullerton and the Ghost Riders Car Club! Catch a night of acoustic Prince vs. Bowie with Nick from Yacht Rock Revue at Venkman’s! Get a taste of Argentina at Avondale Towne Cinema with the Tango Orchestra Club Atlanta! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at City Winery! Get down at Eddie’s Attic with Kip Winger, Jim Richey and Hass Kowert Tice! The Sonics and Flat Duo Jets rock out and psychobilly it up at the Masquerade! Stomp on down to the Red Light Café for a night with the Donna Hopkins Band, Robert Bidney and Heidi Pollyea! Spend the night with Chris Knight at Terminal West! Make your way to the Tabernacle for a night with Korn! Surf down to Trader Vic’s for Mai Tai night and island tunes! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Get down and dirty 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, May 19

Garage rock it up with The Woggles, Black Cat Rising, Sash the Bash and more at The Star Bar! Swing on down and shimmy it up with DJ Doctor Q’s Speak Easy Electro Swing Atlanta at the Red Light Café featuring Kool Kat Roula Roulette, Kool Kat Vivien Laye, Kool Kat Talloolah Love and more! Make your way to SCADShow for the hilarity that is Mel Brooks’ BLAZING SADDDLES (1974) at 7pm! ATL Collective relives The Eagles’ “Hotel California” at City Winery! Blues it up with Joe Louis Walker at Blind Willie’s! Rock out with Saint Pe, A Drug Called Tradition and MammaBear at The Earl! Get retro rocked with Yacht Rock Revue Unplugged at Venkman’s! Funk it up for three days with 2017’s Atlanta Funk Fest getting down at Wolf Creek Amphitheatre featuring Erykah Badu, Digable Planets, Bell Biv Devoe, En Vogue and more! Spend the night with Stoney Brooks at the Northside Tavern! Make your way to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for the Rockin’ Blues Revue! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, May 20

Come on down to Two LiRu Antiques (Acworth) for Lynn Lowry Signing (SHIVERS, THE CRAZIES, CAT PEOPLE) hosted by Monsterama at 3pm! Take a stroll down to the 15th Annual Kirkwood Spring Fling featuring local art, tasty food and a live musical lineup featuring Little Tybee, Kool Kat Ruby Velle, Control Burn, Slow Parade and more! Make your way to The Earl Smith Strand Theatre for their Tribute to Janis Joplin and Sly & The Family Stone: Soul Revolution at 8pm! It’s Tribute Night at The Star Bar, so rock on down for a night with The Dirty Doors (The Doors) and Ballbreakers (AC/DC)! Rock out with the North Mississippi All Stars at the Variety Playhouse! Get rocked with Face to Face and The Attack at The Earl! Mythology meets mausoleums at Arts At Oakland Presents: Persephone, Oakland Cemetery’s third annual art event featuring the work of Sanithna Phansavanh! Or get some tasty grub and more at Decatur Farmer’s Market’s BBQ Picnic Fest! Rock out at RATAID2017 at Smith’s Olde Bar, featuring Dan Baird, Kool Kat Ray Dafrico, 68-75 and Bryce Clifford! Make your way to the Center for Puppetry Arts’ screening of Spike Jonze’s BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) at 8pm! Kavarna dishes out a night of Kenny Howes and the Wow! and The Soogs! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch and Denim Arcade at Wild Wing Café in Suwannee! Get the blues with Lazer Lloyd at the Crimson Moon Café! Get folksy and stomp on down to Eddie’s Attic for a night with The Bitteroots and Cereus Bright! Catch the Sole Travelers at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get down at the Red Light Café with Collins Drive, Kool Kat Spike Fullerton’s Russian Roulette Band and The Brookses! Surf on down to Swayze’s for a night with Genki Genki Panic! The REMakes pay tribute to early R.E.M. at Venkman’s! The Madrid Express keeps the music alive in memory of Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton at the Northside Tavern! Get the blues with House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, May 21

TCM Big Screen Classics celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Hal Needham’s SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977) at theatres across Atlanta (2pm/7pm) [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement for the B-Geeky Collectibles Bazaar! Rock out with Ritchie Kotzen at City Winery! Blues it up with Garrett Collins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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 17-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

ATLRetro gets down this week! Come see all the shakin’ shenanigans we’ve dug up just for you!

Monday, May 8

Get suspenseful at the Alpharetta Branch Library for a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954) at 10:30am! Rock out with Derek St. Holmes 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!” Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Blues it up with Barrel House Bob Page 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 9

Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Classics Series with a screening of Akira Kurosawa’s RASHOMON (1950) at 7pm! Prog rock it up with Carl Palmer at City Winery! Funk it up with Mother’s Finest at Eddie’s Attic! Let Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and her burly-Q gals of Syrens of the South help you spring into spring with their Tease Tuesday Burlesque: May Flowers event, shakin’ it up at the Red Light Café! Stomp on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for Branches and the Ain’t Sisters! Get folksy and rock out with Citizen Cope at Center Stage! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! Get down with The Real Deal Blues Band at Blind Willie’s! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 10

Get weird and chase demons with Atlanta author Kristi DeMeester and help celebrate the launch of her newest novel, Beneath at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock (get a sneak peak with her ATLRetro piece here)! Rock out with Shonen Knife’s “2017 Ramen Adventure Tour”, Starbenders and Floral Print at The Earl! Get a funky second helping of Mother’s Finest at Eddie’s Attic! Follow the yellow brick road to the Studio Movie Grill’s (Alpharetta/Duluth) screening of Victor Fleming’s THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) at 7:15pm! Or boogie down and celebrate 40 years of John Badham’s SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Rock on down to The Star Bar for the Midnight Larks’ Record Listening Party! Joe Purdy folks it up at City Winery! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack dishes out a night of the blues with Frankie’s Blues Mission! Reggae it up with The Elovaters, Rhythm Earth and Kaya’s Embrace at the Masquerade! Rock out with Bush and The Kickback at the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre! It’s a night of boot stompin’ Americana at Blind Willie’s with The Boo Hoo Ramblers! Jazz it up 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 with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, May 11

Hilarity ensues with Cineprov at The Plaza Theater as they get intergalactic and riff Antonio Margheriti’s BATTLE OF THE WORLDS (1961) at 7:30pm! Get hellacious and rock out with The Damned and The BellRays at the Masquerade! Get the blues with the Teresa Lynn Band featuring George Price at Avondale Towne Cinema! Rock out with Carbon Leaf and Me and My Brother at City Winery! The Obsessed, purveyors of doom, along with Karma to Burn and Lo-Pan rock out at The Earl! Get to fiddlin’ with Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas with Tony Furtado at Eddie’s Attic! The Lennon Jones Band rocks out at the Red Light Café with Aaron Lebos Reality! Make your way to the Variety Playhouse for a night with Slowdive and The Casket Girls! Surf down to Trader Vic’s for a Mai Tai and a night with The Sundogs! The Madrid Express keeps the music alive in memory of Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton at The Vista Room! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Get down and dirty with Sweet Betty & The Ramblers 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, May 12

Jazz it up and catch a screening of John Scheinfeld’s CHASING TRANE: THE JOHN COLTRANE DOCUMENTARY (2017) at Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, screening through May 18! Day one of the 3-day 2017 Shaky Knees Festival has arrived at Centennial Olympic Park, chock full of retro-inspired tunes! Rock on down and catch the Pixies, Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, The London Souls, The GROWLERS and more! Get funky with The Main Squeeze and The London Souls at Vinyl’s Shaky Knees after party! Get Avant-Garde and make your way to Kool Kat Andy Ditzler’s Film Love Presents: Happy Mother’s Day Mrs. Warhol, featuring a screening of Andy Warhol’s MRS. WARHAL (1966) at 7pm! Get your Gene Wilder fix at SCADShow’s screening of Mel Brooks’ THE PRODUCERS (1968) at 7pm! Make your way to Avondale Towne Cinema for a night with The Deep, W8ING4UFOs and Duet For Theremin and Lap Steel! Cross the pond and catch Abbey Road Live! at the Buckhead Theatre! Bluegrass it up with Old Salt Union at the Crimson Moon Café! Get raucous with the Whores at The Drunken Unicorn! Get rootsy with Anderson East and Great Peacock at The Earl! Folk it up with Charlie Mars at Eddie’s Attic! Make your way to the Fox Theatre for a night with Carlos Vives! Make your way to Blind Willie’s for a night with Watermelon Slim! Or boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola! ATL Collective relives Maxwell’s “URBAN HANG SUITE” at Venkman’s! Blues it up with Dani Mac & Company at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, May 13

Rock out at 529 with the Subsonics, Material Girls, GG King and Borzoi! Boogie on down to Amsterdam Atlanta for Kool Kat VJ Anthony’s 80s New Wave Music Video Dance Party: John Hughes Edition! Get some soul with Kitten Fontaine at Avondale Towne Cinema! Day two of the Shaky Knees Festival brings you The Record Company, Shovels & Rope, The Revivalists, Mondo Cozmo, Catfish & The Bottlemen, Moon Taxi and more! Get Victorian and make your way to the Historic Oakland Cemetery’s “Love Stories of Oakland” Mother’s Day tours through May 14! Get the blues with Ron Cooley & The Hard Times at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Big Bill Morganfield gets down and dirty at Blind Willie’s! Blues on down to the Northside Tavern for Magic Fred’s Birthday Party featuring Eddie Tigner, Albert White, the Casanovas and more! Stomp on down to Venkman’s for a Chicken Pickin’ Brunch with Banjolicious followed by a night with Lloyd’s Rocksteady Revue! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, May 14

Sci-fi it up and celebrate 20 years of Luc Besson’s THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997) at theatres across Atlanta (2pm/7pm) [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Regal Atlantic Station 18; AMC Parkway Point 15; Regal Mall of Georgia 20 plus IMAX; AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough);]! Catch Day 3 of the Shaky Knees Festival featuring Con Brio, The Quaker City Night Hawks, Great Peacock, Saint Motel, J. Roddy Walston and The Business, Third Eye Blind, Ron Gallo, The Shins and more! Gypsy it up and swing on by Venkman’s for a day with Django Earnhardt! Make your way to City Winery for a night with Ed Roland & The Sweet Tea Project! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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 1

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month! Get criminal and make your way to The Plaza Theater for their 25th Anniversary screening of Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS (1992), screening through May 4! Get classically vintage and make your way to the Alpharetta Branch Library for a screening of George Cukor’s DINNER AT EIGHT (1933) at 10:30am! Rock on down to the Fox Theatre for Hampton 70, a celebration of Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton! And then make your way to Terminal West for the Official Hampton 70 After Party with The Zambi All Stars! The Avondale Towne Cinema presents a screening of local filmmaker Hal Jacobs’ documentary on Mary Crovatt Hambidge at 8pm, followed by a Q&A! 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! Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Make your way to Blind Willie’s as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! And boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam!

Tuesday, May 2

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema gets bizarre with their Classics Series’ screening of David Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992) at 7pm! It’s a night of ‘70s nitty gritty with Mothership, The Dirty Magazines, TORO and The Stir at The Drunken Unicorn! Spend the night with Indy at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern with their screening of Steven Spielberg’s INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Get indie at the Variety Playhouse with The New Pornographers! Rock out with the BoDeans at City Winery! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Entertainment Crackers get bluesy with their folksy Americana at Blind Willie’s! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 3

Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern for their encore screening of Steven Spielberg’s INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Or dance on down to Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth) for a screening of Gene Kelly’s SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) at 7:15pm! Get your ‘90s alt-rock fix with Soundgarden at the Fox Theatre! Boogie on down to East Atlanta’s Graveyard Tavern for their Graveyard Swing Night, held the first Wednesday of every month, promising an evening of swingin’ jazz and jive with the Savoy Kings! Make your way to The Earl for a night with Sweet Crude! Get some classic soul ‘n’ funk with Nick & The Grooves at Avondale Towne Cinema! Rock out hair metal style with Def Leppard, Poison and Tesla at Lakewood Amphitheatre! Stomp on down to The Vista Room for Bluegrass & Beyond! Jazz it up at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Blues it up with Barrel House Bob Page at Blind Willie’s! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, May 4

Star Wars it up at My Parents’ Basement during their May the 4th Be With Brew & Star Wars Costume Contest event! Dad’s Garage lives long and prospers with their Wrath Of Con Staged Reading at 8pm! Surf down to Trader Vic’s for a Mai Tai and a night with Grinder Nova! Get folksy with Andy Shauf at The Earl! Get intergalactic and have a laugh at Venkman’s with a free screening of Mel Brooks’ SPACEBALLS (1987) at 9pm! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Vista Room with Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton & the Madrid Express! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Get the low country blues with Steve James 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, May 5

Get your pre-May Ham Fest fix at Avondale Towne Cinema for a rockin’ pre-party with Kool Kat Carloline & The Ramblers, Kool Kat Joshua Longino and The Disapyramids and DJ Dusty Booze! Roll in the hay with Mel Brooks’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974) at SCADShow at 7pm! Get smooth as Tennessee whiskey with Chris Stapleton at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre! Make your way to the Red Light Café with Greg Presmanes and the FOG! Retro rock it up with Low Cut Connie, Scantron and Pony League at The Earl! Get sweet and low down with Sandra Hall & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, May 6

Hey all you miscreants! Get mischievous and rock out at May Ham Fest 2017, featuring vendors, a pig roast, live music and more at the Pine Street Market in Avondale! You won’t want to miss a hellacious musical lineup with ELZIG, the Zodiac Panthers, Wahya’s, Kool Kats The Casket Creatures, Dusty Booze & The Baby Haters, Crank County Daredevils, Red Rocket Deluxe, The Scragglers, Tiger! Tiger!, The El Caminos, The Good OL’ Blues Brothers Boy Band! Stick around for a late night double feature with screenings of John Landis’ THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980) and Jack Arnold’s creature-feature, THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON 3D (1954) (see our Kool Kat Interview with “The Gill Man” Ricou Browning here)! Get your nitty gritty rock ‘n’ roll fix with Kool Kat Adam McIntyre and The Pinx with El Capitan & The Reluctant Sadists and HeY!ALLigator at 529! Rock out with Midnight Oil at Center Stage! Shimmy and shake on down to the Red Light Café for Mary and Friends: May Day May-Day featuring Kool Kat Mary Strawberry and more! Blind Willie’s dishes out the blues with John Nemeth! New-Wave indie punk it up with NE-HI, Background and Drew Beskin (Kool Kats The District Attorneys) at The Earl! Stomp on down to Venkman’s for a Chicken Pickin’ Brunch with The Family Portrait! Folk it up with an early show featuring Sean Rowe at Eddie’s Attic, followed by a little soul with The AJ Ghent Band and Kyshona Armstrong! Or get some soul with Booker T. Jones at City Winery, followed by Zach Deputy! Spend another night with Chris Stapleton at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, May 7

Boogie down and celebrate 40 years of John Badham’s SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Venkman’s gets jazzy and dishes out a  Bottomless Mimosa Brunch with The Tray Dahl Jazz Quintet! Or jazz it up with The Bad Plus at City Winery! Rev on down to Kavarna for a night with Rockabilly Kitty Rose! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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 17-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

Round out the month of April in Retro style and come see what’s shakin’ in ATLRetro This Week!

Monday, April 24

Make your way to the Alpharetta Branch Library for a screening of Elia Kazan’s EAST OF EDEN (1955) at 10:30am! Get your metal fix with Steel Panther and Citizen Zero at Center Stage! Make your way to City Winery for a night with Dengue Fever! Spend the night with Ben Folds at Atlanta Symphony Hall! Get funky and groove on down to Café 290 every second and fourth Monday of the month for a taste of Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!” Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Blues it up with Barrel House Bob Page 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 get some soul with Larry Griffith at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Tuesday, April 25

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema dishes out Shakespeare with their Classics Series’ screening of Kenneth Branagh’s HAMLET (1996) at 7pm (includes intermission)! Funk it up with Sinkane and Eric Slick at The Earl! Get folksy at Eddie’s Attic with Tony Lucca, Jay Nash and Matt Dukes! Get heavy and rock out with Brant Bjork, Royal Thunder and Black Wizard at the Masquerade! The Imposeurs pay tribute to R.E.M. at the Red Light Café! Get the blues with J. T. Speed at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! Get old school with Andrew Black at Blind Willie’s! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 26

Rock out with Bob Mould at Terminal West! Celebrate 50 years of Mike Nichols’ THE GRADUATE (1967) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Get your Americana fix with Mandolin Orange and Brian Collins at City Winery! Stomp on down to The Earl for a night with Sara Rachelle and Kim Logan! Eddie’s Attic folks it up with Bombadil, Older Brother, Joshua James and Timmy the Teeth! Stomp on down to The Vista Room for Bluegrass & Beyond! Get the blues with a splash of funk at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack with Kool Kats Georgia Flood! Jazz it up at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! The Electromatics dish out a night of Chicago and West Coast blues at Blind Willie’s! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, April 27

Rock out with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Joe Walsh at Philips Arena! Or catch a laugh with Billy Crystal at the Fox Theatre! Folk rock it up with John Kadlecik at the Red Light Café! Mahogany Marie & The 11th Hour Band rock out with Khari Green at Smith’s Olde Bar! ATL Collective relives Bruce Springsteen’s “BORN IN THE U.S.A.” at Terminal West! Get down and dirty with The Cazanovas at Blind Willie’s! Make your way to The Earl for a night with The Future Babes, Gas Hound and Bird Laww! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, April 28

Videodrome (JavaDrome) completes their Frank Perry retrospective with a screening of LAST SUMMER (1969) at 8:30pm, with an introduction by Kool Kat Justin Bozung, Perry’s official biographer! Make your way into the Final Frontier during Treklanta, Atlanta’s annual sci-fi con dedicated to space opera and Star Trek, running through April 30, at the Doubletree Atlanta Northlake! Catch a screening of Tony Scott’s TOP GUN (1986) at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre at 8pm! Get mischievous and rock out during the two-day Atlanta Mess-Around 2017, featuring a day show at 529 with The Chiefs, Watcher, Death Stuff and Mutual Jerk! Then make your way to The Earl for a night show with The Gories, Timmy’s Organism, Heavy Lids, Poison Rites, Vincas and more! Yacht Rock Revue performs Prince’s “PURPLE RAIN” at Piedmont Park! Boogie on down to Nemoe’s Tavern for a Speakeasy Swing Dance Party! Rock out blues-style with Siavash Ghomayshi at Center Stage! Make your way to City Winery for a night with Kenny Lattimore! Get weird in Hell at the Masquerade with the Hellzapoppin Circus Sideshow Revue! Jam it up with Dead Affect and Honeywood at the Red Clay Theatre! Come on out to Suntrust Park for a night with Billy Joel and Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness!  Venkman’s dishes out a night of Yacht Rock Schooner and Fire & The Knife! Get to the rockin’ root of it all with Donna Hopkins and Electric Codpiece at The Vista Room! Shimmy down to the Red Light Café as Sadie Hawkins presents her Cheap Thrills! Burlesque on a Budget event! Rock out with The Black Angels and A Place to Bury Strangers at the Variety Playhouse! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! Blues it up with Cody Matlock at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Or get the blues with George Hughley & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, April 29

It’s that time of year again, folks! Rock on down to the 46th Annual Inman Park Spring Festival, running through April 30, featuring 3 stages of live music, home tours, a street parade, an artist’s market and more! Rockin’ retro performances include, the Rainmen, 10 Degrees Off, Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck, Cledus Jeremiah Jones & The Spirit Bones, Reign & Revelry, Geoff Achison, Balalaika Fantasie, The Bitteroots, Solid State, Webb Wilder and more! Rock out with Day 2 of Atlanta Mess-Around 2017, featuring a day show at 529 with Night Birds, GG King, Unknown Sender, Glare, Art School Jocks and Hyena! Then make your way to The Earl for a night show with Redd Kross, Terry & Louie, The Cowboys, RMBLR, the Craig Brown Band and Uniform! Rock on down to Avondale Towne Cinema for BJ Wilbanks’ debut album release party! Get down with Dave Davies at City Winery! Stomp on down to Eddie’s Attic for a night with The Steel Wheels, Jonathan Byrd and Erick Baker! Get old school and countrified with Hank Williams, Jr. and Lee Brice at the Georgia World Congress Center! Or catch Levi Lowry & The Antique Rodeo Show at the Red Clay Theatre! Get some soul with the Ben Wade Band, Void Luna and Shreeps at the Red Light Café! Boogie down to Vinyl for the Disco Juice Anniversary Party! Jazz it up and get some soul with Christian McBride & Tip City and Khari Cabral Simmons at the Variety Playhouse! Or blues it up with The Vipers at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up with his rockin’ blues! House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows get down at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, April 30

Swing on by day 2 of the 46th Annual Inman Park Spring Festival featuring rockin’ performances by Uncle Don’s Band, Grut, Rumours, Kool Kat Andy Hawley’s Southern Ska Syndicate, MerryLeigh Giarra & After Six, the Georgia Soul Council, Joe Gransden & His 17-Piece Big Band, Hoodoo Moon and more! Get jazzy with the Jazz Epistles during the International Day of Jazz at the Rialto Center for the Arts! Get your fill of Neil Diamond at Philips Arena! Shimmy on down to the Red Light Café for the Wham Bam Glitter Glam Show featuring guest star Sadie Hawkins! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema presents an encore Classics Series’ screening of Kenneth Branagh’s HAMLET (1996) at 4pm (includes intermission)! The Freddy Jones Band dishes out a night of rockin’ blues with Brian Collins at City Winery! Get vintage with the Atlas Road Crew, Disco Tendencies and The Gypsies at Park Tavern! Blues it up with Fat Back Deluxe at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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 we’ve dug up just for you in ATLRetro!

Monday, April 17

Make your way to the Alpharetta Branch Library for a screening of George Sidney’s KISS ME KATE (1953) at 10:30am! Polka on down to Pallookaville for their Dyngus Day 2017 event at 6pm! Make your way to The Plaza Theater for a 15th anniversary screening of Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO (2001), screening through April 20! Krautrock it up at 529 with Acid Mothers Temple, Babylon and Reverends! Get some soul with Emily King at City Winery! CJ Ramone rocks out with Big Eyes and Skin Jobs at The Earl! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And get some soul with Larry Griffith at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Tuesday, April 18

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema gets volcanic with their Classics Series’ screening of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960) at 7pm! Or make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern for a screening of Mel Brooks’ BLAZING SADDLES (1974) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Riff Trax Live invades theatres across Atlanta with a screening of Amir Shervan’s SAMURAI COP (1989) at 8pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Buckhead Backlot 6!] City Winery delivers a boot stompin’ night with Junior Brown! Get retrotastic with Bourgeois Mystic at the Red Light Café! The Fox Theatre presents Roald Dahl’s “Matilda: The Musical” through April 23! Get the blues with J. T. Speed at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! 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 their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 19

Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern for an encore screening of Mel Brooks’ BLAZING SADDLES (1974) during their Retro Cinema series at 7:30pm! Get some classic soul ‘n’ funk with Nick & The Grooves at Avondale Towne Cinema! Get the blues and reggae it up with Vieux Farka Toure and Last Good Tooth at Terminal West! Get the blues with a splash of funk at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack with Kool Kats Georgia Flood! Jazz it up 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 with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, April 20

Surf on down to The Earl and rock out with Guitar Legend Dick Dale (see ATLRetro’s article on Dale here) and The Gartrells! Or boogie on down to The Star Bar for a night with Southern Culture on the Skids and The Wooly Bushmen! It’s Mai Tai Thursday, so hula on down to Trader Vic’s for a night with Kool Kat Joshua Longino and The Disapyramids! Get classical with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Rocktopia Live: A Classical (R)evolution at Atlanta Symphony Hall! Get revived at the Clermont Lounge’s Grand Re-Opening featuring Kool Kat Spike Fullerton and the Ghost Riders Car Club! Get psychedelic with The Fritz, Bird Dog Jubilee and The Groove Orient at Aisle 5! City Winery dishes out The Everly Brother Experience with the Zmed brothers! Get traditional with Max Godfrey, Daryl Shawn and I Together S.O.U.L. at the Red Light Café! Funk it up with Kung Fu, Those Cats, and Dr. Strangelove at Smith’s Olde Bar! Rock out with Jump, Little Children at the Variety Playhouse! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Vista Room with Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton & the Madrid Express! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, April 21

Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles and Hillbilly Casino rev it up at The Star Bar! Or surf on downstairs as Kool Kats Jeffrey Butzer and Chad Shivers bring Southern Surf Stomp! to the Little Vinyl Lounge featuring The Compartmentalizationalists, Genki Genki Panic, In Snow and Nikki Speake! Make your way to Avondale Towne Cinema for a night with Dan Random and Daniel Cowen! Bluegrass it up with Bluebilly Grit at the Crimson Moon Café! Jazz it up with Jason Collier at the High Museum! Sadie Hawkins shimmies on down to the Red Light Café with her Last Pasties Standing event! Rock out and groove on down to Centennial Olympic Park for the Sweetwater 420 Fest, jamming it up through April 23! Sweet & Sassy gets the blues at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, April 22

The early bird gets the vinyl! Make your way to Criminal Records for 2017’s Record Store Day celebration at 10am! Rock out at The Star Bar’s Planned Parenthood Benefit featuring Illegal Drugs, Midnight Larks, Hymen Moment, Bitter, Paralyzer, Anna Kramer and more! Creep on down to Amsterdam Atlanta for Kool Kat VJ Anthony’s COFFIN CLASSICS Music Video Dance Party featuring Goth, dark 80s and more! Rock out with Kool Kat Noelle Shuck with SheHeHe and more at 529! Jam it up with Bird Dog Jubilee at Vinyl! Rock out at Centennial Olympic Park for day two of the Sweetwater 420 Fest! Make your way to the Variety Playhouse for a night of ‘90s rock with Sister Hazel! Or blues it up with Dr. Dixon & The Operators at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Bluegrass it up with Dusty Roads at Venkman’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, April 23

Celebrate 50 years of Mike Nichols’ THE GRADUATE (1967) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! It’s your last chance to groove on down to Centennial Olympic Park for the Sweetwater 420 Fest! Make your way to The Vista Room for the Six String Syndicate! Blues it up with Fat Back Deluxe at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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 Geoff Slade
Contributing Writer

Atlanta-based band PLS PLS have a brand new record out called JET BLACK and finish up their latest tour this Saturday April 15 at The Earl (Get tickets here). Frontman Dan Dixon has been on the Atlanta music scene for a long time, best known for a decade of Dropsonic.

So Dan has no reason to beg and we probably owe him an apology that we didn’t make him Kool Kat of the Week sooner.

ATLRetro: You’re playing The Earl on Saturday. Are you on the road right now?

Dan Dixon: We leave this Friday [April 7] – we’re doing a cozy little run of eight shows. I’m looking forward to finishing up in Atlanta on the 15th. We’ve been rehearsing a set where we just play the new album front to back – by the time we get through the first seven shows, we ought to have it sounding pretty good.

You’re from Atlanta originally, right?

I grew in the suburbs of Cobb County. It’s a notoriously conservative area, the flip side of which is that my high school was a breeding ground for quite a few musicians. The Black Crowes, Robin Finck (NIN, Guns N’ Roses) and the great Jerry Fuchs (Maserati), to name a few – all of them went there.

Do you think that had anything to do with the musician you became?

Definitely. I was a skulking, long-haired, greasy-faced, goony teen who smoked weed and played guitar in his bedroom. When that kid is surrounded by doughy, future fraternity brothers, one tends to find outlets to express one’s… let’s say, dissatisfaction with the world around him. That sort of thing got me into music that was more “indie” I guess. Back then it was just what they didn’t play on the radio – Fugazi, Jawbox, Jesus Lizard, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, all kinds of shit. Needless to say, my tastes have expanded a bit since I was 17, but I can still hear some of that stuff in what we’re doing now.

PLS PLS with Dan Dixon in center. Provided by PLS PLS and used with permission.

Were you always in bands growing up? Any particularly noteworthy or ridiculous in retrospect?

Dave Chase, the bassist in PLS PLS, and I started our first band around eighth or ninth grade. We loved GN’R and Metallica and Public Enemy and Primus and it all came together to make something particularly awful. We got into cooler music at some point, thanks to our older, more savvy friends, and eventually formed Dropsonic, which we did for 10 years and six albums.

Which artists do you consider your influences? Have they changed over the years?

There’s too many to try to list here. I go through phases, like everyone else. I’ve always had a hard time reconciling all the different things I’m into with the music I create. I don’t ever want it to sound like I’m in my “Dylan” phase or my “electronic” phase or some bullshit like that. I, at least, can always hear me, as well as my influences, loud and clear in the records I’ve made. That said, there are clear examples of me trying to incorporate stuff outside of the genre that PLS PLS is a part of into PLS PLS songs. “60’s Love Song” (from EP EP) was me listening to a bunch of Roy Orbison. “Fast as Light” from LP LP has a super obvious nod to Jesus Lizard in the bass line, but the guitars and synth are ’80s New Wave. “Exes” has an Iggy Pop vibe. I’m not saying I’m as good as any of these folks, just that I can hear it in what I’m doing. I was listening to a lot of Kate Bush and Genesis during the making of the new record, if that tells you anything.

Many of our readers are fans of your former band of more than a decade, Dropsonic, and likely consider PLS PLS your “new band,” though it’s been around for several years now. How and why did PLS PLS come about? How are the two bands different?

PLS PLS started as a home demo kind of project where I wasn’t sure it would even become a live band or that I would do shows under that name. Just me, in a room, making stuff. Dropsonic was a proper band. It was three individuals whose styles and ideas were all represented – sometimes for the betterment of a song, sometimes not. It was mostly democratic. A lot people don’t realize how much stuff Dave wrote. Most of the songs on our last record were based off of Dave’s ideas, and it’s probably our best record. PLS PLS is my songs and my production, so everyone’s parts are written to serve the song. I can still hear Mike, Dre, Dave and Derek’s personalities in their playing, but it’s all there to support a melody, a lyric, or create a specific atmosphere – no one plays any bullshit just for the sake of playing some bullshit, which is something I was pretty guilty of in Dropsonic. Though sometimes that can be cool too.

Is it pronounced “Please Please?” Why not spell it that way? Am I an asshole for asking? (Be honest)

Yeah, it’s pronounced “Please Please.”  I chose to spell it without vowels so that it reads like a mournful robot. Pleading, yet soulless.

PLS PLS with Dan Dixon in center. Provided by PLS PLS and used with permission.

I’m always interested in whether a musician finds more satisfaction in creating or in performing. Would you rather write your best song or have your best show?

I still love both of those things. Just because you write a decent song, it doesn’t matter until you lay it out in front of people and let them love it or hate it or feel indifferent. I can’t move on to the next record or batch of songs I’m going write until the one in front of me has been judged. And as for the second part of your question, I don’t know which I’d rather, but I hope neither of those things has happened yet.

You’ve been doing this successfully for quite awhile. What advice would you give any young musicians interested in longevity?

Don’t be precious about it. Make music. Release it. Play shows. Tour. Rinse. Repeat. I’ve worked with people who can’t finish an album or keep re-recording the same songs – it’s a band killer. You can’t get any better without moving forward and you can’t move forward without finishing your current thought. Put a fucking period on the sentence and move on. Also, if they offer you money, take it. It probably won’t happen twice.

Working on anything at the moment? Anything coming out soon?

Well, our new record, JET BLACK, is out this week. Otherwise, I’ve got half a dozen new songs that are in various states of disrepair. We’ll see what makes it to the finish line.

Who came up with the idea for the awesome COCAINE video?! Was it as fun to make as it looks?

I’m not sure if it was the director, Video Rahim, or myself who had the idea of doing a MIAMI VICE thing, but he definitely wrote the script and storyline. It was a lot fun to make. I got to drive a boat and shoot people and get interrogated. Pretty cool. He definitely makes some of the best videos out of Atlanta and has developed his own style and a whole scene around what he’s doing.

Where’s the best place to check out your music? What’s the best PLS PLS song for the uninitiated?

The best way to experience PLS PLS is either to come to a show or listen to the vinyl. But for someone who wants to stick a toe in the icy waters of plaintive robot rock, all three releases are available on all the digital streaming platforms and through iTunes etc. I can’t name one song to rule them all, but just put on JET BLACK and see if it doesn’t make you feel some kind of way.

Thanks again! Anything else you want to mention?

Nah, that’s all I got.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Shake a tail feather in Retro Atlanta this week! Come see what we’ve found for you!

Monday, April 10

Spend the night with Chris Shiflett at Eddie’s Attic! Make your way to the Alpharetta Branch Library for a screening of George Cukor’s BORN YESTERDAY (1950) at 10:30am! Rock out at the Masquerade with The Mumzees, Terry Malts, Business of Dreams and more! Blues it up with Bill Sheffield at Blind Willie’s! Get funky and groove on down to Café 290 every second and fourth Monday of the month for a taste of Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!” Skye Paige, “Queen of Slide Guitar” rocks out at the Little Vinyl Lounge! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And get some soul with Larry Griffith at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Tuesday, April 11

Landmark Midtown Art Cinema gets melodramatic with their Classics Series with a screening of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) at 7pm! Shimmy ‘n’ shake it up as Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and her burly-Q gals of Syrens of the South spring your fling with their Tease Tuesday Burlesque: April Showers event, shakin’ it up at the Red Light Café! The Fox Theatre dishes out a night of folk, Baroque pop with The Decemberists! Rock on down to 529 for a night with The Rubs, Paralyzer and Bad Spell! Spend the night with the “Father of the Italian blues” Zucchero at Center Stage! Funk it up New Orleans-style with Jojo’s Slim Wednesday and Sam Holt at City Winery! Get sinister with a little ‘90s Romanian black metal with Negura Bunget and more at the Drunken Unicorn! Folk it up with Richard Shindell at Eddie’s Attic! Get the blues with J. T. Speed at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! Blind Willie’s gets the blues with the Cody Matlock Band! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with their Downtown Tuesday Night 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 12

Raise a ruckus at The Earl with Rev. Hylton’s Tour Kick-Off Show featuring Kool Kat Caleb Warrant & The Gents, Cold Heart Canyon, Blood On The Harp and more! Sci-fi it up with a screening of Joel Silver’s THE MATRIX (1999) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth), 7:15pm! Make your way to 529 for a night with Weisshund, The 200s and Bird City! The Musical Box pays tribute to Genesis at Center Stage! Get the blues with a splash of funk at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack with Kool Kats Georgia Flood! Rock out with Anthrax at the Tabernacle! It’s a night of Bluegrass & Beyond at The Vista Room! Make your way to Blind Willie’s for a night with Danny Michel! Jazz it up 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 with his rockin’ blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, April 13

Riff Trax Live invades theatres across Atlanta with a screening of Amir Shervan’s SAMURAI COP (1989) at 8pm [Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Buckhead Backlot 6! Rock out with Uncle Van & the Buzzards of Fuzz, Hot Ram and Trent Rice at The Earl! Eddie’s Attic dishes out a garage rock revival with Parker Gispert! Jam it up at Venkman’s with gr8FLdude & frenz! Groove on down to Avondale Towne Cinema for Romeo Cologne’s Granny Panty Hootenanny with DJ Quasi Mandisco! Stomp on down to the Red Light Café for a night with Malcolm Holcombe and Jared Tyler! It’s Mai Tai Thursday, so rock out with a couple cocktails and The Sundogs at Trader Vic’s! It’s a hootenanny and a half at The Vista Room with Kool Kat Col. Bruce Hampton & the Madrid Express! Get down with House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Stagger on over to Noni’s Bar & Deli for their Bitter Heroes event featuring DJ Brian Parris as he gets charmingly morose with a little New-Wave, The Smiths and The Cure! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, April 14

It’s “Crackerjill Rockabilly Night” at The Star Bar with Rockabilly Kitty Rose, Kool Kat Caroline & The Ramblers and Crazy Man Crazy! New Wave it up with Yacht Rock Revue as they perform the Talking Heads’ STOP MAKING SENSE at Venkman’s! It’s a night of fuzzed out rock ‘n’ roll with The Weeks and The Lonely Biscuits at The Earl! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch and Denim Arcade at Suburban Tap (Marietta)! Make your way to The Plaza Theater for a 15th anniversary screening of Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO (2001), screening through April 15! Make your way to Avondale Towne Cinema for a night with 68-75, Kenny Howes & The Wow and Steve Baskin! Donna Hopkins and the Pussy Willows get the rockin’ roots at the Crimson Moon Café! Make your way to City Winery for a night with Leland Sundries and Todd Snider! Rock out with hits from the 50s-70s with The Way Back Band at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get folksy with Boo Reefa at Java Monkey! Bluegrass it up with Dusty Roads and C. J. Jones & The Spirit Bones at the Red Light Café! Interstellar Echoes pay tribute to Pink Floyd at The Vista Room! Blues it up with John Primer at Blind Willie’s! The Allman Brothers Tribute Band rocks out at Northside Tavern! Boogie on down to The Earl Smith Strand Theatre for a screening of Emile Ardolino’s DIRTY DANCING (1987) at 8pm! Spend the night with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Philips Arena! And as always, time-warp it up and get naughty with some uber musically-inclined transsexual aliens at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, April 15

Catch a wave and come on down to Trader Vic’s for The Surf Music Seminar featuring James Honeycutt! Rev on down to the Dixie Tavern for a night with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho-Devilles! The BadAsh Allstar Team brings you their Women Rock Jam at Avondale Towne Cinema! Rock out with Michelle Malone and Drag the River at The Vista Room! Get heavy and rock out at Center Stage with Testament, Sepultura and Prong! Make your way to The Earl for a night with PLS PLS featuring this week’s KOOL KAT Dan Dixon (interview here!), Hank & Cupcakes and Fox Grin! Eddie’s Attic dishes out a night of the blues with Geoff Atchison & The Soul Diggers! Or blues it up with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get your Americana fix with the Grassland String Band at the Red Clay Theatre! Sandra Hall & The Shadows dish out a night of bluesy goodness at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern puts on their Annual Sean Costello Celebration featuring Donna Hopkins, the Cody Matlock Band, Danny Michel, Michael Delaney and Odd Man Out! Get old-timey at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre with The Strand Ole Opry! Make your way to Venkman’s for their Chicken Pickin’ Brunch featuring Sailing to Denver! Eighties it up with Kool Kat Becky Cormier Finch and Denim Arcade at Wild Wings Café in Dunwoody! Make your way to City Winery for a night with Todd Snider and Steve Poltz! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night!

Sunday, April 16

Gypsy jazz it up with Kool Kat Amy Pike and the Bonaventure Quartet at Venkman’s! City Winery gets down with some old-time country vibes with Dale Watson & Ray Benson! Blues it up with Fat Back Deluxe at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar!

Ongoing

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.