Crib Notes

Tomorrow night, Tues., Nov. 25th, the new club at 529 Flat Shoals Rd., simply called 529, will celebrate a soft opening and offer a first glimpse at the new digs of the spot that formerly housed the Village Sports Bar.

The pieces are all still falling into place, and as of today (Mon., Nov. 24th) the website isn’t active. But the schedule of bands booked to perform on the new stage throughout December and January is already starting to fill up.

Shows already confirmed include:

December
12/6 - the Gaye Blades
12/13 - Recompas, Chris Devoe
12/20 - Lyonnais
12/27 - Airoes

January
1/10 - All the Saints, Balkans
1/17 - Anna Kramer & the Lost Cause
1/24 - Judi Chicago (4th Saturday residency)
1/31 - Noot D’ Noot

Judi Chicago will be holding down a monthly happening called ‘Dancing’. A pop-art celebration of the rituals of movement to music, on the fourth Saturday of every month. According to Ben: “Judi Chicago will present a curated blend of live music and DJs playing kinetic sounds to move to. The format will be rhythmic: the full gamut from slamming house music, disco, funk, techno, ragga, hip-hop (the fun kind), electro, drum and bass… A dancehall buffet.

In true Judi Chicago-style, the hedonism will be augmented/sliced and diced with a deconstructionist’s scalpel. We’ll be exploring the art, science and psychology of body-moving. It will be a lot of fun.

We’ll be working on different experiments, events and themes to take place within the venue each month: penciled in our margins right now are such concepts as a genre-fisting ‘wheel o’ four-tunes’ that decides / re-decides the musical format every 30 minutes, an entire night of records being played backwards in an effort to invoke some form of demon or inspire a mass suicide, and a marathon set of Cannibal Corpse / Soulja Boy mash-ups (2 of these may actually happen).”

Karl Injex has Friday nights locked down with a wide array of DJ sets.
Saturdays are currently being booked by Tight Bros. Network.
Wednesdays are booked by Party Panda Productions.

Full disclosure: For the soft opening tomorrow night the club has invited me down to spin records starting around 8 or 9 p.m.

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This coming Tuesday, the amplifiers will crank up at 551 Flat Shoals for the first time since the Echo Lounge shut its doors in January 2005.

If the permits come through in time, the space last occupied by the popular indie rock club will reopen then as East Atlanta Icehouse, so named to commemorate the building’s original use in the 1920s, which was as – wait for it… – an icehouse.

Shows have already been scheduled through the rest of the month, featuring such acts as the Subliminator, VieTNam, 50 Million Fables, the jonesplan, AMUL9, Luchagors and Lust.

But ex-Echo Lounge patrons shouldn’t expect to re-enter that club’s comfortably lived-in shabbiness. The space has experienced a total makeover, thanks to co-owners and co-brothers, Ed and Mike Murphy, who have installed new hardwood floors, repainted the lounge area light green and even gussied the place up with a granite-y bar and wood trim accents, for fuck’s sake. Suck on that, EARL!

From the online photos, we’re guessing the place doesn’t have the typical PBR vibe that folks associate with such East Atlanta joints like the Flatiron and Gravity Pub. Whether that’s good or bad will be up to customers to decide, but Icehouse GM Chip English assures us the place is real nice.

Another addition is a full-service restaurant – complete with patio – serving until 3 a.m. For now, the bar will only have beer and wine, but English says liquor will be added later on.

For bands looking for a gig, the club has kindly posted this online advice from booking manager Chet Knight:

“All music styles are welcome. However, you must be able to sell tickets. Garage bands with no following what so ever; might consider getting on with a band that does have a following. Do not become discouraged, you gotta start somewhere.”

Let the music begin.

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Empty and silent for more than three years, the former Echo Lounge has lately served as a sad reminder of the apparent downturn of an Atlanta live-music scene suffering the loss of several notable venues.

But that may soon change when it reopens as East Atlanta Icehouse, a nightclub and restaurant that promises a wide range of musical acts.

“We’re hoping desperately to be open by the end of May,” says Chip English, who, along with partner Mike Murphy, is working to secure the remaining permits needed to reopen the venue.

English, who will manage the facility, says the musical acts will be “anything from rock-and-roll to bluegrass to zydeco. We’d like to be known for variety.”

Unlike the Echo Lounge, which was forced to close when city officials realized it was operating on a restaurant license but didn’t even have a kitchen, the Icehouse will offer a full menu and even serve lunch on a patio.

According to English, the building had sat vacant so long because a daycare had opened nearby shortly after the Echo Lounge closed, which made it impossible to renew the liquor license. Once the daycare finally closed, the partners jumped on the property.

However, the Icehouse still needs a zoning exemption because, as a music venue, it’s too close to neighboring homes. But Ed Gilgor, chairman of the local neighborhood planning unit, says that’s a small hurdle.

“The community wants this facility,” he says. “But, given its proximity to homes, we have to be certain it happens in a way that works for everybody.”

Noise shouldn’t be a problem. Originally built as a storage house for ice in the 1920s, English notes, the building has eight-inch-thick walls that are virtually soundproof.

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