Happy Valentine’s Day! Didi Wray dives deep into the murky waters of the Black Lagoon to find her bad boy lover lurking in a haze of swampy surf rock and reverb in “You Are My Gillman.”
This enchanted tale of supernatural allure is also one of those rare numbers in which Wray uses her guitar and her voice to melt the centuries of passion pent up in the Gillman‘s monster heart!
Press play and sing along to this tale of savagery and seduction.
I live in “Il Pantano” I’m the leather girl my skin your skin like better twins I’m sure that you’ll be mine
I’m not scared I’m your Gillgirl I’m not scared ’cause I’m your Gillgirl
I live in the shadows of the corner of the street I live in Black Lagoon waiting for you
’cause you’re my Gillman uhhh ’cause you´re my Gillman.
I live in the shadows of the corner of the street I live in Black Lagoon waiting for you ’cause you´re my Gillman uhhh ´cause you´re my Gillman.
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Cracker, Gurufish, Zangaro, Kurt Wheeler, Ralph Roddenberry & Donna Hopkins, Buckshot George, Morgan Rowe, and Dynagroove also perform. $60-$150. 6 p.m.
Agent Orange returns! Back in the ’80s, the Southern California trio led by singer and guitar player Mike Palm cranked out some of the most whiplash, compelling, and emotionally distraught surf and skate punk tunes ever committed to tape. Seeing the group live is kind of a rite of passage. Skin Jobs and Loony also perform. $18 (adv). $21 (doors). Sat., Feb. 26. The Earl.
Skin Jobs.
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For this run of North American shows, they’re performing songs from Gang of Four’s first three albums, 1979’s Entertainment!, Solid Gold (’81), and Songs of the Free (’82).
Guitarist and co-founding member Andy Gill died in February of 2020, and bass player Dave Allen is sitting out this round of touring.
In the meantime, the group’s lineup features fellow co-founders vocalist Jon King and drummer Hugo Burnham, joined by bass player Sara Lee, who joined Gang of Four’s line up from 1980 to 1984 (circa Songs of the Free), and David Pajo of Slint, Papa M, The For Carnation, Tortoise, et. al., which is awesome.
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REST IN PEACE: Tom Smith (on the far left, with Frank “Rat Bastard” Falestra). Photo by Chad Radford. Jon Kincaid (center) photo courtesy Amy Potter. Robert Cheatham (right) photo by Tara-Lynne Pixley.
There’s an old African proverb that says: “When a person dies, a library burns to the ground.”
Point being, when someone dies a lifetime of knowledge, experience, and context is lost forever, and the world is left a poorer place in their absence.
In January, Atlanta music quietly suffered through three profound deaths: First, news spread that Jon Kincaid, longtime 91.1 FM / WREK DJ and host of Sunday nights’ “Personality Crisis” radio show had died on January 4. He was 57 years old.
A week later, On Jan. 11, word spread across social media that former Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery Executive Director and avant-garde music and art scenes fixture Robert Cheatham had died at the age of 73.
Another week later, post-punk journeyman and noise music provocateur Tom Smith died as well. He was 66 years old. All three men represented somewhat different but primary eras and enclaves of Atlanta music. And while it may not be immediately obvious, each of their respective influences played an indelible role in shaping the city’s musical identity.
For more than 30 years, Kincaid hosted “Personality Crisis,” giving a platform to countless fledgling alternative rock, post-punk, underground, and Southern rock luminaries. In the early days of their careers, Atlanta-based acts the Indigo Girls, Drivin’ N Cryin’, and countless others benefitted from his steadfast dedication to music, and his encyclopedic knowledge.
Check out the backside of Mission of Burma’s 1988 LP Forget, and you’ll see bass player Roger Miller sporting a WREK T-shirt. It’s a good bet that Jon had a hand in Roger owning that shirt.
Jon explored every type of music known to humankind through his work as a WREK music director, and by creating his own experimental music under the name Sequence 3.
Cheatham led Eyedrum through its defining eras; he was Executive Director when the venerable arts institution was awarded a $30,000 grant from the Warhol Foundation in 2006. Cheatham also hosted Eyedrum’s long-running open improv nights, which became an institution for outsider and experimental arts. His band Tinnitus was well known for cranking out squelching, heavily-amplified noise and feedback created with the expressed intention of driving everyone out of the room.
His Brahvar Large Ensemble would often corral as many musicians together as possible — once even crowding more than 20 performers onto the tiny stage in the basement of Eyedrum’s original Trinity Ave. location for a massive improv blowout. Connections were made, new ensembles were formed, and wholly new configurations of musicians perpetuated the community. Cheatham’s brilliance lied in his merger of skronking, careening free jazz, and untethered exploration of sound as art without restraint.
Tom Smith reveled in a more confrontational aesthetic. With his groups To Live and Shave in LA, Peach of Immortality, and Boat Of, he placed elements of noise, the avant-garde, and sleazy rock ‘n’ roll on a level playing field. He wove them together seamlessly, while hopping around the globe — from Atlanta to Washington D.C. and finally Hanover, Germany. Along the way, he amassed collaborations with everyone from Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Andrew WK, Harry Pussy, Bill Orcutt, and more.
Kincaid, Cheatham, and Smith were all driven to create by exploring, not just rest on the past. Their sense of creativity, their dynamism, and their willingness to open up to the new — and the old — left a lasting mark on the city. Atlanta was made richer by their presence and their contributions, and the world suffers a tremendous loss with each of their passing.
On Fri., Feb. 18 (3-9 p.m.) and Sat., Feb. 19 (1-9 p.m.) Gallery 378 (378 Clifton Rd. in Candler Park) will host a two-day celebration of Jon Kincaid’s life and history at WREK. Video installations featuring broadcasts from “Personality Crisis” and more from the WREK archives will be playing throughout the gallery. On Saturday night, several acts including the Nightporters, the Chant, Kevn Kinney and friends, Current Rage, Will Rogers, and more will take turns playing songs on the stage downstairs.
Daniel DeSimone (left) and Willow Goldstein of the Bakery. Photo by Chad Radford.
Inside the dilapidated remains of a Chosewood Park warehouse that, in the distant past, was home to the offices of the Yellow Cab Company of Atlanta, Willow Goldstein and Daniel DeSimone point toward a concrete riser emerging from the shadows. “This is where the stage will be for The Bakery’s new venue,” DeSimone says.
As he looks up, rays of sunlight catch clouds of dust, shining through a long gap where the wall and the ceiling don’t quite meet.
“Of course, there will be a build out,” he adds. “We’ll seal up the wall, and do quite a lot of work in this room.”
DeSimone is the venue manager for the Bakery, a multi-purpose DIY gallery and venue space that Goldstein launched with her mother Olive Hagemeier in the Fall of 2017. Over the years DeSimone has run sound for live shows, worked the door, and booked shows under his Face Of Knives Productions company, all while performing various other roles there.
When asked about her title, Goldstein ponders several possible descriptions before settling on “owner, operator, and creative director.”
She has final say in pretty much all aspects of the Bakery’s business, although she gives a lot of freedom to DeSimone and Amanda Norris, who handles much of their press and public relations. The Bakery also works with teams of volunteers.
Gyan Riley at The Bakery in 2018. Photo by Chad Radford
Everyone involved wears many hats when it comes to the full-time endeavor of running the DIY institution that has hosted countless art openings, workshops, film screenings, dance parties, Southern Fried Queer Pride events, and live concerts. Guitarist Gyan Riley (son of minimalist composer Terry Riley) played there while supporting his 2018 album, Sprig. Guitarist Nels Cline of Wilco (performing in a free jazz trio with percussionist Gerald Cleaver and sax player Larry Ochs) played there.
Scores of younger indie rock, hip-hop, electronic, hardcore and post-punk acts including Upchuck, Misanthropic Aggression, and DeSimone’s blackened metal outfit Malevich also graced the stage there.
On June 30, 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was coming to a head, The Bakery’s three-year lease on the warehouse space at 825 Warner St. ended and was not renewed.
Soon after, the building was demolished, making way for a new Trees Atlanta facility.
Since then, the Bakery has carried on, settling into a gallery space at 92 Peachtree St., a block away from the Five Points MARTA station in South Downtown. There’s also the Bakery’s private artist studio spaces inside the BuggyWorks complex near downtown East Point.
The latest endeavor, though, is the multi-purpose venue at 249 Milton Ave., in a development that is tentatively being called Yellow Studios.
For now, the Bakery’s performance room is a 5,000 square-foot space filled with dozens of dust-covered office chairs, toppled empty filing cabinets, broken glass, and other bits of debris — remnants of what was once a thriving taxi cab headquarters, now in ruins. Still, the potential the space holds is undeniable.
Outside, the sounds of a chainsaw cutting through an old fence, the beeps of heavy machinery, and a chorus of hammers and nail guns hitting the roof fill the air.
Just down the road, more construction can be heard as towering condominiums are being constructed along the BeltLine.
Both Goldstein and DeSimone talk at length about partnering with fellow DIY arts venue Mammal Gallery co-founder Chris Yonker who found the location and is spearheading the project. Yonker plans to open a Morning Mouth Tattoo studio as well as a recording studio in the building. Mammal will also be promoting live performances and other events there. Kyle Swick of Irrelevant Music will book shows in the Bakery’s new venue. There’s talk of various other collaborations as well, including the possibility of working with their kindred spirit at Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, with whom Goldstein is a former board member.
There are also plans for a coffee shop, and a second, more intimate performance space, and other businesses will utilize office spaces elsewhere in the building.
The plan is to have the new space open and hosting live performances by Spring 2022.
Willow Goldstein (left) and Daniel DeSimone of the Bakery. Photo by Chad Radford.
“Ultimately, the goal is to bring the most professional level of production as possible to nontraditional events, non-traditional curators, and provide a space where people who want to challenge the status quo, or show what an event or a concert could be, have a space where feel like they can stretch out,” DeSimone says. “It’s a space for musicians who might not feel like they jive with the status quo of Atlanta’s music scene.”
DeSimone goes on to describe their vision for the room as being more than a bar, while keeping its activities art-focused, across disciplines.
“Intersectional artistry! We encourage people to incorporate non-musical components to their musical performances, or musical components to their non-musical events,” DeSimone adds. “Bring a DJ to your art show, bring an aerialist to your concert. If something’s happening at the Bakery, there is an understanding that it will be something more than what you could get somewhere else. We want to build our own niche while not chasing the tail of de rigueur — doors open at 8 p.m. and you’re out at 11 p.m. We can’t do that. We don’t want to do that. And the city doesn’t need another of that.”
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