Fresh Loaf

Cast your vote on all the grit and glitz that make this town so filthy rich when Creative Loafing hosts the Best of Atlanta Voting Party tomorrow (Thurs., July 23). Dead Confederate’s Hardy Morris unveils his new side project, and Attractive Eighties Women get the party started with a set of rousing anthems that draw from equal parts Lenny Bruce impious humor-made-local, and the power-trash jams of the Replacements circa ‘83. It’ll be a night that’s sure to scuff the pages of history books in the dirty and decadent big apple of the South.

Don’t forget to vote — onsite at the party, or at clatl.com/bestofatlanta.

$5 (admission includes beverage and food samples from Ru San’s, the Real Chow Baby, Mediterranean Grill, Widmer Brother’s Beer, Ozeki Sake and more). 9 p.m. The Masquerade, 695 North Ave. 404-577-8178. masq.com.

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It’s time once again for the highly coveted annual Creative Loafing music issue. This year we’re offering up an honest-to-goodness old fashioned 12-inch vinyl LP compilation that features cuts from several of our favorite local artists.

Dubbed The Mixt A Vol. 1, the record includes 10 songs from the likes of Predator, Grip Playaz, the Balkans, the N.E.C., A. Leon Craft, Anna Kramer & the Lost Cause, Mums F.P., Stanza, Carnivores and Zoroaster featuring Brent Hinds from Mastodon.

The record is strictly limited to 500 copies that will be available at not one, but two record release shows. The first show happens at Eyedrum on Thurs., May 7. The $10 cover gets you into the show as well as a copy of the record. The N.E.C., Grip Playaz, the Balkans and A.Leon Craft are all scheduled to perform. Doors open at 7 p.m. Music starts at 8 p.m.

The second record release party goes down at Criminal Records on the afternoon of Sun., May 10. The Carnivores, Stanza, Mums F.P. and Predator are on the bill. There is no cover charge to attend the show. LPs will be on sale at the store for $10 and the music starts at 3:30 p.m.

In addition to the 10 songs on the LP, dozens of bonus tracks will be included in a free online download that includes songs by Abby Go Go, All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, Batata Doce, the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra, the Coathangers, Danny!, Pill and many more.

Go to clatl.com/music for more info.

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The rumors are true, the Highland Inn did indeed suffer a two alarm fire last night (Thurs., Feb.), but reports that it burned to the ground are greatly exaggerated.

According to Valerie Culkin — who books music for the downstairs Ballroom Lounge — there was an electrical fire that broke out due to a short in a wall on the main floor. The fire started in a wall socket. The room was vacant and an electrician has since examined the socket in question and reportedly said that sometimes it just happens.

A walk around the perimeter of the building reveals that there are no signs of fire damage to the exterior. “I think the media made it out to be much worse than it really was,” said property manager Steve Harvey.

(more…)

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Photographer Peter Feldstein will be at the Opal Gallery in Little 5 Points (next to Savage Pizza and A Cappella Books) for a signing and discussion of his latest book, The Oxford Project.

The Oxford Project is a dense and riveting journey into the wilds of rural Iowa. Where tranquility is not only a way of life, but a blanket that covers sadness, elation, regret and triumph as experienced by the residents of Oxford, Iowa (population 676).

In 1984 photographer Feldstein set out on an ambitious project: photograph every living soul in Oxford. Twenty years later, he did it again and came close … 670 out of 676. But for his second go-around he got more than just photographs. He brought author Stephen G. Bloom on-board to capture his subjects’ stories. Throughout the book they share their memories, fantasies, failures, secrets, and fears. The result of their collaboration is a collection of words and images that capture the true spirit of Oxford with sometimes sweet, sometimes very sad tones.

Feldstein is an artist working at the intersection of photography, drawing, printmaking, and digital imaging. His work has been shown in galleries across the country and has been included in group exhibitions at the Center for Creative Photography, Walker Art Center, and the Rhode Island School of Design. For more than three decades, Feldstein taught photography and digital imaging at the University of Iowa School of Art & Art History.

Feldstein’s reading at the Opal Gallery is free and starts at 7 p.m.

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Friday night, three female photographers, Jennifer Boxley, Marty Maxwell and Kate Crosby present photographic works at Fine Line Gallery in Grant Park with a show, titled “Tripchicks.”

The show comes together not as a conceptually unified body of work, but as three distinct points of view. Boxley’s portraits of women, Crosby’s photo essay and Maxwell’s landscapes are presented in a way that allows their individual perspectives to stand out in a singular exhibition without altering their individual vision.

“I had initially planned to do something a little more abstract with these portraits, but the more I shot the more it evolved into its own thing,” says Boxley. “I shot and I shot and I shot until I had a really nice selection to choose from, and the end product is very different from what I envisioned.”

The show is represented in conjunction with the 10th annual Atlanta Celebrates Photography festival and runs from Fri., Sept. 19^th (7 p.m -11 p.m.) through Sat., Oct. 11th.

(Photos by Marty Maxwell, Jennifer Boxley and Kate Crosby)

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Author David Foster Wallace, best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, was found dead in his home this weekend.

According to Jackie Morales, a records clerk with the Claremont Police Department, Wallace’s wife returned home around 9:30 p.m. on Friday night (Sept. 12) to find that he had hanged himself. He was 46 years old.

The LA Times has a more in-depth piece on Wallace’s death that can be read here.

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This SUV smashed into the Little 5 Points Pharmacy on Moreland Ave. shortly after 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. I stumbled upon the scene, apparently minutes after it happened. My understanding is that nobody was hurt in the crash. The cash register area was completely taken out by the automobile but the cashier had stepped out of the vehicle’s direct path just seconds before it came smashing through the front wall. If anyone knows anything more, please feel free to leave a comment.

(Photo by Chad Radford)

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No metal band worth its salt is scared of a little rain. So when talk spread through the Corndogorama crowd Sunday night that headliners Zoroaster might move to the inside stage, the natives became restless. But with black clouds rumbling overhead and icy fingers of lighting stretching across the nighttime sky, the band didn’t seek shelter. Instead, they raised their fists to the heavens, called down the thunder, and turned-in a gut-pummeling, career-defining performance.

In the battle between Zoroaster and nature’s fury, Zoroaster emerged victorious. And in their wake, a battlefield littered with half-eaten corndog sticks and bleeding eardrums were all that remained of Corndogorama 2008: The Year of the Mustard King.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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On Tuesday, June 3, the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office released its autopsy report on Atlanta bluesman Sean Costello, the subject of this week’s Creative Loafing cover story: Sean Costello, 1979-2008. Sadly, it was a drug overdose that killed him. The report states that the cause of death was “toxicity of heroin, chlordiazepoxide, ephedrine and amphetamine.”

The report also notes recent cocaine use by Costello. The medical examiner who completed the autopsy, Dr. Geoffrey Smith, says that it is impossible to determine exactly which drug or drug interaction caused Costello’s death, but it was most likely the result of the combination of the drugs in his system.

Continue reading Crib Notes post.

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RIDERS ON THE STORM: Lenny’s Bar sustained damage but reopened the next night. (photo provided by Bean Summer.)

It takes more than a tornado to silence this town.

Rumors of Lenny’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Although the seamy local punk and indie rock club at 486 Decatur St. in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward stood directly in the path of the tornado that struck downtown, Cabbagetown and East Atlanta on Friday, March 14 around 10 p.m., the club was open less than 24 hours later.

In the wake of the storm rumors spread that Lenny’s roof had been torn off and the club was closed. But according to Lenny’s booking agent Bean Summer the rumors were unfounded.

The Friday night line-up was to feature performances by local bands the Preakness and Sleep Therapy, as well as the St. Louis, Mo. psychedelic rock band, Wormwood Scrubs.

The first band had just started when the storm hit.

“I was in the office checking my e-mail and I thought a bomb had gone off downtown,” Summer recalls. “The air was sucked out of the room and I could hear a bunch of loud pops from things hitting the building.”

Some roof tiles were blown off of the building, air conditioning units were knocked over, windows were broken, and a gas line ruptured but was repaired within a few hours.

Read more about this story at the Crib Notes post.

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