Crib Notes

Check out more photos from the concert in our galleries section.

(Photo by Perry Julien)

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Tonight, Broke & Boujee presents Make Love Not War, with proceeds to benefit Gaza relief efforts via UNRWA.org. $4.99 before 10:30 p.m. $9.99 after 10:30 p.m. 10 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 29. The Five Spot, 1123 Euclid Ave. 404-223-1100.

Read this week’s CL cover story: Fadia Kader brings Palestine to the party. And check out the interview with resident photographer Hannibal below.

If there’s one element that makes Broke & Boujee click, it’s Hannibal Matthews’ camera shutter. The pop life portraits the Atlanta native creates have come to define B$B as much as the name itself. Like the aspirational ethos behind Fadia Kader’s Come Up Kids, Matthews has carved his own path to DIY glory. The former college dropout and ex-Marine is a self-taught photographer who has parlayed his rep for hot shots into becoming the go-to-cameraman among Atlanta’s emerging hip-hop set.

Once a month, he still makes time to shoot Broke & Boujee — where spontaneous lap dances and random crotch shots are an occupational hazard Matthews is willing to manage.

What would you say it is that you’re attempting to capture when you shoot portraits at the parties?
I feel like I expose people for who they are in the moment — the moment being a really wacky, crazy party atmosphere. For some reason, I’m able to capture the energy of the party. Once people see the pictures – and I look at them myself sometimes – it’s like, ‘Wow, it looks like it was a lot of fun.’ Whereas a lot of event photography you see, it’s like, ‘Oh ok, I’m standing here in the center of the floor’ and if it’s a girl she has her heels on and she looks cute or whatever; but at Broke & Boujee you’ve got people jumping in the air on a trampoline throwing up peace signs. One guy might pick up his girlfriend and throw her on his shoulder or something. It’s just a fun party.

That energy transfers through film onto everybody’s MySpace pages. Broke & Boujee is basically the site where everybody gets their MySpace profile picture.

Sometimes it looks like more fun is being had in front of your lens than within the actual party. What is it about the shoots that make people open up so much and give you all that energy?
Everybody wants to be a star, no matter what. As simple or as small as a Broke & Boujee party may seem in the bigger scheme of the world, everybody wants to be a star and look like a star.

As a visual artist, our job is to interpret reality differently. And everybody’s perception is basically relative to what they’re going through. Everybody wants to be a star, everybody wants to be famous, everybody wants their 15 seconds of fame. If it can be done in front of a camera at Broke & Boujee, then there it is.

Any wild stories?
I’ve basically taken pictures of everything. People have asked me to delete pictures before. Those shots were basically [when] the girls’ crotch [was] shot by mistake and they say, ‘Oh my God, my crotch is showing. Delete that.’ Or some girls come in there with another guy, and she’s like, ‘I don’t want my boyfriend to see these pictures.’ (more…)

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Kevin Gordon is a renowned songwriter whose songs have been recorded by the likes of Keith Richards, Levon Helm, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Irma Thomas, and Webb Wilder. If you’re out on the town tonight (Jan. 20), pop into Blind Willies where Gordon will be flaunting a smooth combination of swamp rock and blues. $8. 8 p.m. 822 N. Highland Ave. 404-873-2583. www.blindwilliesblues.com.

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“I can feel you feelin’ it,” Charles Walker declared from the stage toward the end of his show Saturday night at The Earl. Walker and The Dynamites had just whipped the audience into a mad frenzy of spiritual funk bliss with Walker as the preacher, arching and bending his body to emit sounds not heard live since James Brown left the planet. The Dynamites backed Walker with organ and horns, drums and guitar and bass coming right at you with full force. In the middle of it all The Earl’s soundman Curt Wells shouted in my ear “You are about to get your ass kicked by a flute solo” and sure enough seconds later in the middle of another fury of electric funk and human emotion Dynamites saxophonist Chris West plays a beautiful flute solo. It was that kind of night — one of pleasurable surprises, like local soul singer Ruby Velle and the Soulphonics opening the show with a great set of passionate bluesy retro soul music. You knew it was going to be a good show when audience members were practicing dance moves during the break between the opening band and the headliner. “He tells us he’s 65 but he could be 67,” said guitarist and band leader Leo Black. But after seeing him Saturday night, I’d swear he’s 25.

For a gallery of images from this concert, click here.

(Photo and text by Joeff Davis)

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David Byrne played Chastain Park Saturday night, hitting on old favorites as well as new singles from his upcoming solo album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Check out the photo gallery from the concert here.

(Photo by Perry Julien)

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FREE FALLIN’: Is it just me or is Tom Petty looking more and more like Jesus these days?

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(Photos by Perry Julien)

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Atlanta’s own D. Woods brought both sets of her girls out — Danity Kane and Atlanta-based Girls Club — to celebrate her birthday at the Luckie Lounge for R&B Live last Thursday. DJ Jazzy Jeff spun on the 1s and 2s. The event was sponsored by Hennessy Cognac and Sol-Fusion, and hosted by Mute Media, the J Erving Group, and Ne-Yo’s Compound Entertainment.

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I rolled up to Lenny’s Bar at 7:30 p.m. yesterday, excited for what promised to be a great show. The bar was closed.

“Shit,” I murmured and turned to my boyfriend/chauffeur. “Are you sure it was Lenny’s?”

“I thought so,” he replied. So had I.

As luck or fate (or their combined power, fuck) would have it, neither of us had our cell phones. We decided, since we had no idea what to do or where to go, to head to Java Monkey for some beer and poetry.

At Java Monkey, standing behind some friends while the bard on stage shouted rhythmically about No Child Left Behind, it dawned on me. Eddie’s Attic. I knew it was one of those two-syllable-apostrophe-S-name thingies.

BF and I walked the minute-and-a-half to Eddie’s Attic, climbed inside and grabbed some barstools. It was 8:30, one hour after the show had started, and Claire & Bain’s Maple Yum-Yum — the entire reason for the journey — had not started their set yet.

Claire & Bain’s Maple Yum-Yum disbanded six years ago (”back when gas was 96 cents a gallon,” Bain says) and returned to Eddie’s Attic last night for an onstage reunion. They hinted that it would not be the last.

(Read more below the break…)

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Fleet Foxes performed at the Drunken Unicorn on Sat., July 5.

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(Photos by Perry Julien)

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(Photos by Dustin Chambers)

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The sound of ecstatically beaten drums was what greeted me on my first trip to Eyedrum and the energy of a happy throng of art and music lovers is the feeling that stays with me. Rising Appalachia played Concrete Pandemonium III, a collection of music, art, poetry and activism meant to unite a community and inspire a little joyful communing. The duo will soon be taking separate trips to far-flung countries and will return with a new name (R.I.S.E) and a new feeling (revived).

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(Photos by Tara-Lynne Pixley)

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KRISHNA DAS’ FIRST PERFORMANCE IN ATLANTA: “If I knew this many people would be here I would have been here sooner,” he said at last night’s Variety Playhouse performance. (Photos by Perry Julien)

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(Photos by Perry Julien)

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True Colors

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(Photos by Perry Julien)

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THIS AIN’T NO COUNTRY MUSIC: Crazy Anglos perform at Wild Bill’s Friday night. 

(Photos by Perry Julien.)

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ZAPPA PLAY ZAPPA: Dweezil pays homage to pop, Frank Zappa, at the Variety Playhouse last night.

(Photos by Perry Julien.)

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Monster Bash is like Drive-Invasion without the humidity and with more makeup. OK, it was already pretty warm on Sunday when hot-rodders, devil dolls, rock ’n’ rollers and ghouls of all ages got all tatted up at the Starlight Drive-In. The event sold out, with barely a parking spot available by mid-afternoon in which rockers and sci-fi/horror-movie fans could camp out, cook out and rock out. (”It’s like an inner-city version of a hippie fest,” said one Basher during the post-sundown viewing of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (which was followed by The Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman).

To read more and view the image gallery visit PopSmart.

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THE EYES STILL HAVE IT: Erykah Badu opened for the Roots at Fox Theatre, Fri., May 23. Don’t worry Raphael Saadiq. She only has the power to hypnotize you in person. (All photos by Perry Julien.)

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WHO’S THE MACK? Kenny Crucial as Mack Messiah, performing at Drunken Unicorn Wed., May 21.

This was one of the best local shows I have seen in a very long time and rivaled many of the bands I saw at South by Southwest this year — although I may be accused of bias given that my daughter Monika sat in on bass and omnichord. I think you would get the same reaction from anybody that was present to see Kenny Crucial on stage instead of in the front row.

(See more photos by Perry Julien below. Read last year’s Kenny Crucial cover story by Mara Shalhoup.)

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AGING GRACEFULLY: The queen of hip-hop soul, Mary J. Blige, and the King of New York — or hip-hop as it were — show the youngsters how to get ‘er done at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Tues., April 8. (Photos by Perry Julien)

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