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1) Howlies, Gentlemen Jesse & His Men, and Vera Fang play the Earl.
2) Drive-Invasion is at Starlight Six Drive-In Theatres for the weekend.
3) The Human League, Belinda Carlisle and Flock of Seagulls play Chastain Park Amphitheater.
4) Grant Park Summer Shade Festival begins its Labor Day weekend festivities.
5) The AJC Decatur Book Festival kicks off.
(Photo courtesy Howlies)
Any of the 2,500 or so people who head out to the Starlight Six Drive-In this weekend will feel like they’re attending a family reunion.
Drive-Invasion, the annual harmonic convergence of Atlanta’s lowbrow-culture scene, brings together punk-inspired rockabilly, garage and surf rock, hot-rod and custom-car contests, and a slew of old horror and science-fiction movies, shown from dusk practically till dawn.
It’s the signature event in a scene that over the past decade has flourished by celebrating fading cultural landmarks and old pop trends. With the help of a creative cadre of musicians, performance artists, promoters and tinkerers, ancient theaters such as the Starlight and the Plaza, and converted industrial spaces such as the Alcove Gallery, are taking the past and bringing it alive with a new, uniquely Atlantan energy. Lowbrow culture has taken root in Atlanta.
The word “lowbrow” has come to describe the embrace of a whole range of 20th-century pop-culture trends with a decidedly DIY spirit – from the hot-rod scene of the Roaring ’20s and the post-World War II tiki-bar craze to pop-surrealist, cartoon and comic-book art. The West Coast hipsters seem to celebrate all things lowbrow with a sense of irony that hints at trendiness.
But in Atlanta – where highways and power centers sometimes overshadow a more homegrown personality – a tightly knit group of creative spirits seems to have left irony behind in favor of an authentic lowbrow aesthetic with its own Southern accent.
Read the rest of this article here.
(Photo by David Lee Simmons)
On Tuesday (Aug. 5), the Starlight Drive-In will offer what feels like a tune-up for Labor Day Weekend’s Drive Invasion with “Hell Ride Rebellion.” The event features a screening of writer/director Larry Bishop’s neo-exploitation biker flick Hell Ride, starring Bishop, Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones, David Carradine and Dennis Hopper. Plot? What plot?!? Quentin Taranton threw his name on the “Presents” title, so do with that what you will.
More fun comes from local rockers Thee Crucials and the Luchagors, along with a motorcycle/scooter showcase, a performance by Blast-Off Burlesque (whose Go West! show on Saturday at the Alcove was a hoot) and plenty of corndogs (natch).
The whole thing cranks up around 7:30 p.m., and the movie starts at 9:30 p.m. Here’s a look at the trailer. Vroom vroom!
(Photo courtesy Dimension Films)
The music, movies and hot rods have all fallen into place for this year’s Drive-Invasion, which as usual hits the Starlight Six Drive-In on Labor Day Weekend — which in my humble opinion is the best weekend to be in Atlanta period. (Also see AJC Decatur Book Festival and Dragon*Con, among other events.)
The music on Saturday, Aug. 30, features headliner the California surf-legend Agent Orange (which also headlined at the Starlight’s sister weekender, the Tiki Invasion in Montclair, Calif.) along with Gargantua and the Forty-Fives, to name a few. The comedy-themed movie lineup is Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Blazing Saddles, Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke, This Is Spinal Tap and the truly classic Kentucky Fried Movie.
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.
DRIVE-INVASION: “I can’t resist a man on a child-sized motorcycle.â€
(Photo by Perry Julien)
You see, it’s all about the Femme Troopers. And helping strangers with their cleavage.
-Shelbinator narrating his excellent short video documentary of Dragon*Con.
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Walking in the scorching Atlanta sun shouting “I’m Black, I’m Out and I’m Proud”! was life affirming and reminiscent of the civil rights movement, a different struggle, but a struggle I identify with nonetheless.
-Darian at Living Out Loud on marching during Black Gay Pride
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What I doubt she understands is that she is trapped in a classist dilemma. She’s a Little Five Points hipster, which means she has to be very carefully correct about tolerating diversity. However, she’s an educated child of the haute bourgeois culture of mid-town, , which means she has to hate everything about the DriveInvasion, which is working class, not-so-covertly racist and anti-intellectual to a fault.
-AnselPixel’s surprising take on Drive-Invasion
What a difference a day makes. In the jam-packed Summer Guide in this week’s CL, we led off the listings section with this big, lovely photo (taken by Frederick Noble) at dawn at last year’s Drive Invasion, with the INCORRECT photo caption saying it’s occurring Memorial Day weekend — as in THIS weekend!
Which sent some of the Drive Invaders into an understandable panic, flooding the Starlight with curious phone calls wondering what in the Sam Hill was going on.
Drive Invasion is Labor Day weekend, of course, but a certain brain-clouded newbie Atlantan/CL staffer sometimes doesn’t think when he writes photo captions. We won’t point fingers, but let’s just say that he who smelt it, dealt it, and move on. Our apologies. Coming soon: Drive Invasion’s star-studded lineup!
