If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
After Words and Gardens Of… play Independent Distilling Company on Saturday, September 6
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.”
A version of this story appeared in the July issue of Record Plug Magazine.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
David J & the Hot Place bring music and spoken word performances to Electron Gardens June 12
David J Haskins and the Hot Place bring an evening of music and poetry to the intimate environs of Electron Gardens Studio on Wednesday, June 12.
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.
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.
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.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
Fabio Frizzi brings ‘Zombie: Composer’s Cut’ to The Garden Club on Sat., May 17
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.
$30 (adv). $35 (door). $60 (VIP). 7 p.m. (door). 8 p.m. (showtime). The
Garden Club at Wild Heaven West End.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
An evening with Adron comes to Eddie’s Attic on Tuesday, May 6
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 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.”
The show at Eddie’s on May 6 is a homecoming, a reckoning, and a celebration of survival, community, and a spirit that refuses to burn away.
Adron plays Eddie’s Atticon Tuesday, May 6, at 9 p.m. $26.70. No openers. This is an all-ages show.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
TVAD takes on religion with their latest single, ‘The Island Song’
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.”
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
An evening with Brent Hinds at the Garden Club April 18
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.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
86’s first two 7-inches restored and reissued
Chunklet Industries is dusting off a crucial piece of Atlanta’s post-punk and new wave past with an online reissue of 86’s first two singles. The trio—featuring Mac McNeilly (before his seismic drumming found a home in the Jesus Lizard), Ken Schenck’s jagged guitar lines, and Max Koshewa’s brooding bass—captured a restless energy that redefined the city’s underground music scene in the early ’80s.
“Useless” and “Behind My Back” were recorded at Southern Sound in Knoxville, Tenn. in July of 1983. “Youth Culture” and “Inside” were laid down a year later 1984. Both singles were originally released via Knoxville’s short-lived indie label OHP Records. Placed together here, both singles channel the urgency of the era while hinting at the band’s singular presence in Atlanta.
Audio restoration duties for this new issue fell to Jason NeSmith at Chase Park Transduction, where the songs were delicately digitized from the original vinyl 7-inches. NeSmith applied subtle de-clicking and EQ adjustments, preserving the grit and urgency of the recordings while amplifying their visceral punch.
While 86 is often remembered as the band that gave McNeilly his start, these singles cement the group’s place as a vital force in Atlanta’s music history. And this is only the beginning: Chunklet reportedly has a trove of unreleased recordings from the 86 archives queued up for release later this year.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates, Reconciler, Williamson Brothers, and Former Sinners of the Future play Culture Shock on January 24
The current lineup of Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates calls a sprawling stretch of Appalachian terrain home. Drummer M. Tivis Clark hails from Lexington, KY. Bass player Mason Fanning lives in Morgantown, WV, and singer and guitar player Tucker Riggleman resides in nearby Fairmont, WV. With their latest album, Restless Spirit (WarHen Records), the group weaves a haunting blend of country grit and punk energy with a Southern-gothic ambiance. The raw honesty that binds songs such as “Shotgun,” “Bucket and the Boot,” and the album’s title track strikes a balance between traditional and contemporary regional sounds, turning the solitude of mountain living into a call for connection and resilience.
Restless Spirit was produced by Grammy-nominated Duane Lundy, who has worked with everyone from Kevn Kinney of Drivin N Cryin and Sturgill Simpson to Michael McDonald, Bela Fleck, and dozens of other artists. Together, Lundy and the Cheap Dates capture an electrifying blend of alt-country and indie rock.
Atlanta-based Americana punks Reconciler, Birmingham’s the Williamson Brothers (feat. Blake and Adam Williamson of Lee Baines & the Glory Fires), and Former Sinners of the Future (a new band featuring mixed media artist Jeremy Ray) also perform.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
X brings ‘Smoke & Fiction’ to Variety Playhouse Sunday, October 27
X takes the stage at Variety Playhouse this Sunday, October 27, as part of the group’s farewell tour, supporting their latest—and final—album, Smoke & Fiction. It’s the culmination of a long legacy in red-blooded American punk and rock ‘n’ roll, featuring the original lineup of singer Exene Cervenka, singer and bass player John Doe, guitar player Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake. Since forming in the summer of ‘77, X has stood as the cornerstone of Los Angeles’ first-wave punk scene. Now, 47 years later, the group is taking one last bow.
Smoke & Fiction’s June 2024 release arrived with news that the band was hanging it up for good. The album is stacked with themes of finality and reflection woven throughout singles such as “Big Black X,” which nods to their early days as punk upstarts, to other songs such as “Sweet ’til the Bitter End” and “Ruby Church,” which revisit the romantic tensions that have always simmered in X’s greatest hits.
Smoke & Fiction finds X pushing their sound into the beyond and back, with deeper, darker textures, tones, and arrangements.
Zoom’s rock ‘n’ roll twang and raw punk edges, coupled with Bonebrake’s tight rhythms, ground the album, but it’s Doe and Cervenka’s balance of dissonance and harmony—urgent, commanding, and yearning—that brings it all back home. If this really is the end, X is bowing out with the same fire and fierce integrity that made the group a legend in the first place.
X’s Smoke & Fiction Tour comes to the Variety Playhouse on Sun., Oct. 27. Jimbo Mathus opens the show. $35. 8 p.m. www.variety-playhouse.com.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please consider donating to RadATL. Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click on the PayPal link below.
Rad/ATL 