ATLRetro

Be sure to check out this Weekend Update even if you read This Week in Retro Atlanta for even more great vintage-inspired things to do on a very busy Retro weekend.

Friday, June 3

The 4th Annual Psychobilly Freakout Revival swings into action at the Star Bar as Rev. Andy Hawley gathers up some of Atlanta’s best bands in the genre, including  Rocket 350, McPherson Struts, and Hard Luck and Trouble. Loysville Atlanta will also be there selling her delightful Dia De Los Muertos-inspired wares.

Hey, hey, it’s The Monkees‘ 45th Anniversary Tour starting up this summer’s Delta Classic Chastain Series. Reggae legends Toots and the Maytals plays Variety Playhouse. Joe Gransden and his 16-piece big band team up with blues chanteuse Francine Reed at Eddie’s Attic. Atlanta Botanical Garden launches its Concerts in the Garden summer series with blues guitarist extraordinaire Jonny Lang. Callanwolde’s Jazz on the Lawn 2011 summer outdoor series begins with high-powered jazz by Nick Longo. Electromatics merge Chicago/West Coast Blues, Blue Eyed Soul and an essence of Standard Jazz and Sinatra at Fernbank Museum of Natural History’s Martinis and IMAX.

Plus the 15th Annual Atlanta Tattoo Festival gets rolling at Crowne Plaza Hotel Atlanta-Perimeter Northeast. The three-day event presented by Sacred Heart Tattoo attracts thousands to see world-class artists, live tattooing, seminars, contest, unique vendors, and live music.

Saturday June 4

During the day, browse and buy art, eat and listen to live music at Virginia-Highland Summerfest, a street festival in one of Atlanta’s historic neighborhoods. The whole family will enjoy a vintage Locomotive Celebration at the Southeastern Railway Museum. The 15th Annual Atlanta Tattoo Festival continues with a bikini contest at 6 PM and live music by Six Shot Revival, Killer and the Savage with Cool Breeze from the Dungeon Family, and Kadense.

At night, The Official Monster Bash Pre-Party rocks the Star Bar. Get revved up for a horror-ific Sunday at the Starlight Six Drive-In with bands MC45’s (The Forty-Fives all MC5 set), Biters, Booze, The Clutters, The Brimstones from New Jersey and Dusty Booze & the Baby Haters.

Andrew & the Disapyramids, featuring recent Kool Kat Joshua Longino, will be surfing it up with Fishhawk and Modern Paranoia at the Drunken Unicorn. Bluegrass meets rockabilly with a punk attitude at Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge tonight in a triple-header show featuring Hymn for Her, I Want Whisky and Barebones Betties, Bareknuckle Betties playing as a duo with pal Johnny McGowan. DJ Romeo Cologne transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno.

Andrew & the Disapyramids

Sunday June 5

Gates open at 10 am at Starlight Six Drive-In for the 2011 Rock ‘n’ Roll Monster Bash. The all-day party is a Retro horror fan’s righteous nightmare with live music, vendors and movies. Bands this year are Super X-13, Brimstones, LUST, Radio Cult and Spooky Partridge. At dusk, the reels roll with GODZILLA 2000, RINGU and crazed J-horror classic HOUSE. Check out a scary sneak preview from Kool Kat of the Week and “Horror Host with the Most” Professor Morte himself Shane Morton here.

Legendary blues performers BB King and Buddy Guy begin the Georgia Natural Gas series at Chastain Park Amphitheatre. Nathan Nelson & His Entertainment Crackers headline blues “dunch” between 1 and 4 PM at The Earl. Also continuing today is Virginia-Highland Summerfest and the vintage Locomotive Celebration at the Southeastern Railway Museum.

Opening this weekend:

MODERN BY DESIGN, the High‘s newest special exhibition opening on Sat. June 4, celebrates three key moments in modern design and also the Museum of Modern Art, New York‘s (MOMA) collection history. The works on loan from MODA cover “Machine Art” (1934), “Good Design” (1950-55) and “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” (1972), with the latter addressing modernism in the context of 1960s and ’70s counterculture.

The ever irreverent Dad’s Garage Theatre takes a stab at the ’80s horror genre of camp slasher films in SLAUGHTER CAMP about a homicidal maniac terrorizing a theatre camp. June 2-25 on the main stage.

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

Ongoing:

See the original images which inspired Ray Harryhausen‘s amazing stop-motion cyclops, centaurs and other mythological beasts in the special exhibition, MONSTERS, DEMONS AND WINGED BEASTS: COMPOSITE CREATURES IN THE ANCIENT WORLD at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. The exhibition of monstrous art, drawn from the museum’s permanent collections, shows how the ancient Greeks were inspired by other Middle Eastern cultures in developing a vast repertoire of richly imagined creatures.

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