Fresh off a year of renewed energy sparked by Marc Pilvinsky’s documentary Weirdo: The Story of Five Eight, the group released their first new single in over six years, a ramped up number titled “Take Me To the Skate Park.” A successful run at SXSW served as a sharp reminder that Five Eight’s fire still burns with undeniable force.
Now, Five Eight is one of the first 100 bands announced to play SXSW 2026. In the meantime, the group hits the Music Room stage with the force of a band that’s lived through triumph, tragedy, and chaos, only to come out swinging.
Their latest single, “I’m Alone,” arrived on Nov. 7, offering a sharp, emotional snapshot of the songwriting depth that has elevated Five Eight from an underdog to a bonafide Georgia music fixture. With a new album slated to arrive next Spring via hardcore label Static Era, the show offers a chance to catch the band as they embark on a bold new chapter.
Singer and guitar player Mike Mantione, bass player Dan Horowitz, guitarist Sean Dunn, and drummer Patrick “Trigger” Ferguson share the stage with the Ladies Of… featuring James Hall, whose hybrid of glam, punk, hillbilly boogie, and dark-edged poetry turns every set into a spectacle. Hall’s presence alone brings an electric gravity to the room—equal parts swagger, invocation, and celebration. Together, Five Eight and The Ladies Of… promise a holiday show that trades sentimentality for sweat, noise, and raw, communal release.
In the true spirit of the season, the Music Room will also feature a photo booth. There will also be blind contour drawings by artist Kayti Didriksen, adding a visual counterpoint to the evening’s sonic fireworks.
Before the show at Smith’s, Five Eight’s Mike Mantione and James Hall make a stop at Criminal Records on Thursday, December 4, hosting a listening party for their new holiday tune “Christmas Without You.”
The Criminal Records in store show is free. Music starts at 4 p.m.
For the Smith’s Olde Bar show, doors open at 7 p.m., showtime is 8 p.m. $20 (advance). $30 (day-of show). $48 (VIP pre show meet-and-greet, includes a signed poster).
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Das Damen plays the Masquerade’s Altar stage this Friday, November 7, bringing a night of post-punk, grunge, and rock ’n’ roll spectacle. The group’s name carries weight among late-’80s and early ‘90s noise-rock aficionados. Das Damen was the rare band that channelled the fuzzed-out psychedelic sprawl of Sonic Youth with the melodic instincts of the Meat Puppets.
Longtime Atlanta showgoers might recall one of their previous local appearances opening for Nirvana at the old Masquerade in October 1990—35 years ago. The following year, Das Damen disbanded, leaving behind a cult legacy of warped riffs and stoned-out, high-volume catharsis. Now, the later lineup is on the road playing a short Southeastern run that doubles as both a reunion and a rebirth.
For this tour, singer and guitar player Jim Walters, drummer Lyle Hysen, bass player David Motamed, and new guitarist Diego Ramirez are pulling from across the group’s entire catalog, revisiting standout moments from albums such as 1987’s Jupiter Eye, ’88s Triskaidekaphobe, and ’89s Mousetrap. They’ll also roll out a previously unreleased song that’s slated for a possible (or not possible) new LP with the working title Nobody Wants This.
After Das Damen’s proper set, the group will back up singer and songwriter Bebe Buell—Playboy Magazine’s November 1974 Playmate of the month, a fixture of NYC’s rock ‘n’ roll scene, and mother of actress Liv Tyler (daughter of Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler). Buell’s set leans into classic rock ‘n’ roll energy, offering a counterpoint to Das Damen’s heavy grooves.
After Words at Excelsior Mill (pre-Masquerade). Photo by Sara Epstein.
Between July of 1987 and December of 1989, After Words played a crucial role in pushing Atlanta’s post hardcore scene into new musical terrain. Seminal hardcore band Neon Christ had called it quits a year earlier. In their wake, a new generation of musicians stepped up to carry their influence forward.
In the late ‘80s, After Words co-founding guitar player Brian Nejedly began booking shows while he was still in high school. “When the Metroplex shut down, that was the only all ages venue in town, so I just started looking for places that I could rent out to put on shows,” Nejedly says.
He booked Fugazi’s first Atlanta show at the First Existentialist Congregation in Candler Park. He booked Ignition, Soul Side, 7 Seconds and dozens of other acts. “Once I started booking shows, I realized that a lot of these bands had a list of people and places to call for shows in each town, and I was on that list,” Nejedly says. “For a while, I was the only guy in Atlanta on that list.”
Along the way, Nejedly sent After Words demo tapes out to pretty much every label that was on his radar. “I sent a demo to Cruz Records because we loved the band All,” he says. “We sent tapes to everyone, and Amanda MacKaye at Sammich Records wrote back.”
Amanda, sister of Ian (Dischord Records, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Coriky) and Alec (Ignition, Faith, and Hammered Hulls) MacKaye ran Sammich with Soul Side’s Eli Janney (Girls Against Boys). She offered to release the demo tape, making After Words the only band from outside of D.C. at the time to receive distribution through Dischord.
The label’s approval validated Atlanta as a place where post-hardcore ideas could thrive, and it placed After Words on the same label as Soul Side, Shudder to Think, and Swiz.
Drop a needle on After Words’ record and Nejedly’s jagged guitar carries weight over vocalist Noel Ivey’s cathartic voice, and propulsive rhythms laid down by bass player Craig McQuiston and drummer Kevin Coley. Emotional urgency guides songs such as “Looking Back,” “Ghost Dance,” and “As I See It,” all bearing the intensity of an early emo sound. The songs were never about nihilism or aggression. They were about wrestling with meaning, memory, and self-understanding.
In February 2024, Nejedly revived After Words for a one-off show 35 years after the album’s release. Ivey, McQuiston, and Coley are no longer living in the area. So Nejedly formed a new lineup featuring Geoey Cook (Fiddlehead) on vocals and guitar, James Joyce (Cheifs, Car Vs. Driver, Blood Circuits) on drums, and Justin Gray (3D5SPD) on bass to bring renewed energy to the songs.
In 2024, they locked in on an eight-song setlist—five from the original After Words LP, along with two other older numbers.
The two non-LP songs: “Things They Never Taught You” first appeared on The View: An Atlanta Compilation: 1984-1990, a cassette-only release that captured snapshots of the city’s underground post-hardcore and emo scene. Another song, titled “Without Answers” was documented during a 1989 Live at WREK session.
Earlier this year, the group recorded six songs with Tom Tapley at West End Sound—“Looking Back,” “As I See It,” “Without Answers,” “Third Party,” “Tell Me,” and “Ghost Dance.”
“We’re not doing anything different with the songs,” Nejedly says. “Pretty much keeping it true to the original with only minor changes. ‘Ghost Dance’ will always be my favorite,” he adds. “I think it’s the best song I’ve written and Noel’s lyrics were really good.”
Cook’s voice adds new dimensions to each song, adding depth and interplay. Joyce’s drumming locks into Gray’s bass lines with precision, adding heft, pushing each arrangement even further.
“We recorded it as a live studio session just for ourselves to document us getting together and playing these songs, but it came out so well Echodelick decided to release it,” Joyce says.
A release date for the record remains TBD.
What defined After Words in the beginning, and what continues to define the group now, is its place on the sonic landscape as early hardcore’s influence became diffuse and less severe. After Words proved that Atlanta was producing its own singular voices, capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with their peers in D.C., New York, Chicago, and elsewhere.
For Nejedly, the new recordings are about carving out relevance in the present tense, and honoring what the group built decades ago while refusing to let it calcify. For Cook, Joyce, and Gray, it’s about expanding on a framework that still has room to grow.
“After Words pivoted bands from Atlanta into a different direction in the early ‘90s,” says Joyce. “If you think about Fiddlehead or Freemasonry, Scout, or Car Vs. Driver, or the next wave of bands that followed them, they all changed course because of After Words.”
Moving forward, the group will play sporadic shows, but for now they aren’t writing any new material.
After Words. Photo by Brad Sigal.
If the late ’80s Atlanta scene was about carving out new space, After Words now stands as a reminder that the past can still fuel the present. The songs remain restless, powerful, and full of questions. That sense of questioning remains as vital now as it did when After Words record arrived in 1989.
After Words and Gardens Of… play Independent Distilling Company on Sat., Sept. 6.Free. All Ages. 7-10 p.m. 547 E College Ave, Decatur.
Atlanta’s mid-’80s hardcore staple Neon Christ played its final show in February of 1986. One day later, drummer Jimmy Demer, bass player Danny Lankford, and vocalist Randy DuTeau reconvened as Gardens Of… It was a new and ineffable post-punk outfit that thrived in the outer limits of punk and metal’s diffuse influence on underground and popular culture—well before the term “alternative” entered the canon.
“We never called it that,” Demer says. “We listened to a lot of Stooges and Black Sabbath at the time.”
Demer moved to guitar while Lankford remained on bass. Drummers and vocalists came and went. “We had lots of lineup changes and were never that great, but we played with the intensity of people who were sure they were great,” Demer adds.
Gardens Of… recorded one demo tape, but nothing was properly released. The group called it quits in ’89. Still, their presence on the local scene resonated—channeling punk and hardcore’s scorched earth ethos inward, transforming a confrontational sound into equal parts menace, groove, and rock ‘n’ roll. Their jagged, hypnotic sound peeled away the last layers of hardcore orthodoxy.
Now, 36 years later, Gardens Of… is back with a new lineup, new songs, and a more refined disposition.
During their original run, they shared stages with the Rollins Band, Social Distortion, Die Kreuzen, Bl’ast, Suicidal Tendencies, and like minded locals including Sabotortoise (who later became Melts), funk punk band Follow For Now, Mr. Crowes Garden (early Black Crowes), and No Walls featuring their former Neon Christ bandmate William Duvall, later of Alice In Chains. They also played with another DuVall band called the Final Offering, which featured Mike Dean of Corrosion of Conformity.
Gardens Of… also opened for Washington D.C. stalwarts Fugazi’s first Atlanta show at the First Existentialist Congregation in Candler Park, on June 4, 1988, along with After Words. After Words’ self-titled LP was released by Amanda MacKaye and Eli Janney’s Sammich Records in 1989. At the time, After Words were the only band from outside of Washington D.C. to receive distribution through Dischord Records.
“There were a couple dozen people there,” Demer says. “We had no idea what to expect from Fugazi. It was before they had released any music, and of course our minds were blown.”
Fast forward to the COVID era, and Demer was at home writing songs inspired by his early heroes. “It was time to get Gardens Of… together again to play this punk-metal stuff,” Demer says.
Lankford was in, and Brent Addison returned to drums. “He was the best of the four-five drummers we had back in the day,” Demer says. “We brazenly poached him from After Words.”
Vocalist Emily Lawson joined under unusual circumstances. At a karaoke party, Lankford and his wife Shelley heard her singing songs by Nine Inch Nails, Blondie, Prince, Beastie Boys, M.I.A., and the likes. “She sounded good and projected confidence,” Lankford says. “I invited her to sing in my basement—more informal, maybe less intimidating.”
Lawson had never played in a band, but revealed a powerhouse voice in new Gardens Of… numbers such as “Do It For the Kids,” featuring the lyrics: “Do it for believers squatting in abandoned factories / Do it for the cold case / Do it for its own majesty / For DRI and MDC / Do it for the ceremony / Do it for the summer sun / Do it, do it, do it for free.”
It’s a hard reset for a veteran act from a bygone era with nothing to prove. “We’re all better players now,” Demer says. “I had time during the pandemic to broaden my abilities as a guitar player and writer. The songs don’t sound like Dio or Black Flag, but they stand on their own nevertheless.”
David J—co-founder of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets—returns to Avondale Estates for a solo appearance supporting his new poetry collection, titled Rhapsody, Threnody, and Prayer, while playing music from his elegiac new LP, The Mother Tree.
It’s a seated, BYOB affair taking place in a small studio setting, that finds the legendary bass player marking a new and vulnerable chapter in his career. Both David J’s new book and album are tributes to his late mother, Joan Nancy Haskins, each one reflecting on decades of introspection, artistry, and grief processed through the lenses of music and verse. Over five atmospheric tracks, The Mother Tree conjures soundscapes for his poetry to drift through—at once dramatic and meditative, full of memory and emotional ballast.
Mike Lynn (left), Lisa King, and Jeff Calder. Photo courtesy The Hot Place
The Hot Place opens the show. The long-running psychedelic darkwave group led by vocalist and bass player Lisa King and Swimming Pool Q’s guitarist Jeff Calder. Rounded out by Mike Lynn (Betty’s Not a Vitamin), the trio will offer stripped-down interpretations of songs from their 2023 self-titled album. Expect acoustic arrangements that lean into the band’s more ethereal inflections, with King also sharing selections from her own poetry collection Dark Queens and Their Quarry.
David J
The connection between David J and the Hot Place runs deep. The two have toured together playing living room gigs throughout the Southeast, and their creative paths have intersected on multiple projects over the years. This performance promises to continue that synergy in a setting designed for careful listening and thoughtful reflection.
Advance tickets are $50, and are required. There will be no tickets sold at the door, and seating is limited. Doors open at 7 p.m. All-ages are welcomed with accompaniment. Respect the neighbors and don’t park in the adjacent driveway.
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On Saturday, May 17, Italian composer Fabio Frizzi brings his Zombie: Composer’s Cut live score to The Garden Club at Wild Heaven West End—a rare and visceral encounter with the music of one of horror cinema’s most revered partnerships.
Known for his haunting melodies and baroque-tinged arrangements, Frizzi’s work with director Lucio Fulci defined the aesthetic of Italian giallo films throughout the late ’70s and ’80s, most famously in The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, and Zombie.
This performance pairs Fulci’s 1979 film—a grim, gore-soaked masterpiece of undead terror—with a live rendition of Frizzi’s reimagined score. Originally composed with collaborators Franco Bixio and Vince Tempera, Zombie’s music blends prog, synth, and eerie atmospherics into something that feels both grandiose and uncomfortably intimate. With the Composer’s Cut, Frizzi revisits and reworks the material, building a dynamic new soundtrack performed live by his band.
Frizzi’s legacy spans decades of cinema and television, but it’s his work with Fulci that cemented his cult status. The Frizzi 2 Fulci project has taken his soundtracks to stages around the world. Now in its third iteration, the show brings Zombie to life in ways that are both faithful and revelatory.
Presented with a 4K restoration of the film, this immersive experience folds sight and sound into a ritual of dread and beauty. Whether you’re a horror fan or simply looking to be unnerved in the best way possible, Zombie: Composer’s Cut delivers pure, pulpy magic—and the most epic showdown between a shark and a zombie ever committed to film.
Zombie vs. Shark: A Scene from Lucio Fulci’s ‘Zombie’
Atlanta expat Adron is returning to play her first hometown show since losing her home and nearly everything she owned to the the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles in January.
The singer-songwriter is, perhaps, best known for blending Brazilian Tropicália with otherworldly melodies and a voice that is playfully dreamlike and sophisticated on albums such as 2011’s Organismo and 2018’s Water Music.
Since the fire, picking up the pieces of her life has been “insane and somewhat horrifying,” Adron says. Along with her home in Altadena, she lost a lifetime’s worth of art, letters, her beloved aquariums, and relics from her years growing up in Atlanta. It’s the kind of loss that would scramble anyone’s sense of identity. “It’s like losing my whole story,” she offers.
Adron in the home studio that was lost in the fire. Photo by Robin MacMillan
Adron also lost a home studio (pictured above) that she’d spent long hours building out and fine tuning to perfection with her partner Robin MacMillan.
In the wake of so much wreckage, Atlanta was there for her. Countless friends and fans helped her get back on her feet. Now, she’s stepping back on stage—not just to perform, but to say thank you and to reconnect with the city where she will forever be linked.
Experiencing such great loss has sharpened her connection to Atlanta and to the songs she’s written. “This show will be kind of a big deal for me,” she says. “It’s a test of faith, performing for this audience that’s done so much for me when I feel so diminished. But my music is good as hell—better than ever, even—and it’s crucial that I prove it to all of us, especially myself.”
Raw and slowly burning tension runs through TVAD’s latest single, “The Island Song,” which takes shape as a stark meditation on the damage that mankind’s obsession with religion has inflicted upon the world.
With TVAD (Television After Death) recently paring down to a two-piece lineup, principal songwriter Dizzy Damoe—who prefers to not use his Christian-born name—handles guitar, synth, and vocal duties while working alongside bass player John Holloway.
Damoe is currently a member of Alanta’s purveyors of blackened doom and death metal Withered, and is a former member of sludge metal and post-hardcore acts Leechmilk, Sons of Tonatiuh, the Love Drunks, and Canopy. Holloway first made an impression in the bands Tabula Rasa and Of Legend.
“The Island Song” conjures an eerie atmosphere, built upon minor-key melodies and mechanical rhythms that recall the bleak romanticism of early Wax Trax Records releases, threaded through with brittle textures of post-punk and dark wave. Damoe’s guitar oscillates between shimmering ambience and sharp, metallic jabs, while Holloway’s bass carves out a grim undercurrent, grounding the song’s sprawling pace.
Cut from lyrics such as “They hunt, looking for a reason. The wolf, still eats all season. A child, may go hungry. But pray, and seek out your vision,” the song stares down organized religion with an unflinching eye. It’s tone is neither preachy nor dogmatic, but there are no minced words. Damoe delivers each line with a weary conviction, as though bearing witness to the long arc of history’s spiritual missteps. “The Island Song” doesn’t offer solutions, just stark reflection.
It’s a bold move — a track that walks a fine line between sonic exploration and thematic clarity. And for TVAD, it sets the stage for something bigger. If this is the first glimpse into the group’s forthcoming body of work, it’s clear they’re not pulling any punches.
TVAD’s next show is booked at 529 on June 12, which is Damoe’s birthday. A few more shows throughout the summer will be announced soon. Until then, press play on “The Island Song.”
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The great Brent Hinds—former Mastodon guitar player and mastermind behind such prolific acts as West End Motel (featuring the songwriting talents of Tom Cheshire of the Rent Boy, All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, and TCB), Fiend Without A Face, and Dirty B & the Boys—takes over the Garden Club at Wild Heaven for an evening of Southern fried surf punk, country, and monster movie rock ‘n’ roll. This show brings a veritable sampler of Hinds’ various projects from throughout the years together on one stage for a night of beauty and depravity that’s not for the faint of heart.
Rad/ATL 