Roddy Bottum has spent much of his life sculpting a soundtrack for cultural upheaval, whether playing keyboards with Faith No More or channeling emotionally resonant pop with Imperial Teen. On Sunday, February 15 at 4 p.m., Bottum brings that same sense of reflection and revelation to Atlanta for a conversation about his new memoir, The Royal We, hosted by Criminal Records and A Cappella Books.
‘The Royal We’ (Akashic Books)
The Royal We is Bottum’s coming-of-age and coming-out story, capturing a city—and a self—on the verge of transformation. Bottum traces his journey from growing up gay in Los Angeles to finding community, purpose, and creative ignition when he moved to the Bay Area. There he co-founded Faith No More, and cranked out era-defining numbers such as “We Care A Lot,” “Epic,” and “Midlife Crisis.”
Bottum’s memoir is far from a standard rock tell-all. While there are brushes with celebrity status—encounters with Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, the chaos of playing arena-sized shows, and stacks of gold records piling up—the gravity comes from his unflinching accounts of addiction, loss, and survival amid the AIDS crisis. Written with clarity and honesty, The Royal We is a personal reckoning and a cultural document, mapping how resilience is built from within.
Bottum is joined in conversation by yours truly, Atlanta music writer Chad Radford (Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History). Our talk will be followed by a book signing. It’s ok to bring CDs, LPs, or whatever personal items you’d like to have signed, but definitely pick up the book. Copies will be for sale at the event. It’s the reason he’s here, and it’s a must-read for fans of Faith No More, students of queer cultural history, or anyone drawn to stories of survival and self-invention. The conversation promises an intimate look at an artist—and an era—that reshaped all that alternative rock music could be.
Free to attend. Sunday, February 15 at 4 p.m. Criminal Records, 1154 Euclid Ave NE A, in Little 5 Points.
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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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If you ever caught an earful of “Destroy All Music” on WREK-FM in the 1980s, flipped through the dog-eared pages of LowLife Magazine, or caught Glen Thrasher behind the counter at A Cappella Books, you already know: Glen didn’t just participate in Atlanta’s underground—he defined a large part of it, for a long time.
Thrasher passed away Saturday morning, May 3, leaving behind a secret legacy that pulses through every DIY show, noise set, and scribbled flyer that still dares to push Atlanta’s arts scene off the rails and into uncharted territory.
He was 66 years old.
In the early 1980s, Glen and co-host Ellen McGrail transformed “Destroy All Music” into a beacon of chaos and possibility over Georgia Tech’s 91.1 FM airwaves. No wave, free jazz, tape hiss, post-punk, and basement weirdness—nothing was too far out. The show carved space for unclassifiable sounds and stood as a lifeline for seekers and soundheads. McGrail and her partner Tony Gordon still co-host the show every Wednesday from 9-10 p.m., proliferating a testament to Thrasher’s curatorial nerve.
The Destroy All Music festivals that Glen and Ellen created gave a stage to the likes of Dirt, Lisa Suckdog, Freedom Puff, Col. Bruce Hampton, Tom Smith’s Peach of Immortality, Cake (Tracy Terrill), and Chattanooga’s Shaking Ray Levis—local and regional acts who existed outside the realm of mainstream music and culture.
LowLife Magazine issue no. 17.
From 1984 to 1992, Thrasher published LowLife, a Xeroxed, cut-and-paste document of Atlanta’s disreputable brilliance. It was more than a zine—it was a transmission from the city’s cultural underbelly. Fiction, comics, mail art, anti-authoritarian rants, interviews with skronk warriors and tape-traders—LowLife captured the friction and fire of a city in flux. Issue # 17 featured Magic Bone’s Debbey Richardson’s quiet smile on the cover, which is forever etched into the collective memory of anyone who ever scoured a punk distro table at any record show or zine fest.
Thrasher also played a role in the creation of Cat Power, playing drums behind Chan Marshall in the earliest iterations of the project. Glen once relayed that while playing music with Chan, they booked their first show, but did not yet have a name for the band. He called Chan who was working the cash register at Felini’s Pizza in Little 5 Points. Glen said, “We need to have a name, tell me something now or I’ll just make it up.” The customer waiting in line to order a slice of pizza was wearing a Cat Power Diesel trucker cap. She said to Glen, “Cat Power,” and the name stuck.
Thrasher later drifted north to New York in the ’90s before returning to Atlanta where he continued writing and working at A Cappella Books. Through it all, his compass never strayed from the outside path, and his critical wit never waivered.
I worked at A Cappella Books with Glen for years, where we spent long hours behind the counter, talking about politics, books, the music of Pere Ubu, Sonic Youth, the Dog Faced Hermans, Cecil Taylor, Mary Timony, and too many others to recall. He had an encyclopedic knowledge. He could be an intellectual antagonist in one moment, and a warm and engaging companion in the next. It was all in the interest of honest debate and raging against a cultural slide into right-wing politics and modern technology dulling our collective senses. “Why be any other way,” he once laughed, and it made him a true friend and mentor.
He didn’t just know where to find the good stuff—he was the good stuff. His year-end lists were impenetrably comprehensive: a treasure map for the eternally curious. I can’t count how many records, zines, or strange new ideas I encountered because Glen had the foresight—or the infectious enthusiasm—to share them.
Glen Thrasher was a beacon, a connector, a beautiful noise in a world that too often chooses silence. Atlanta’s underground has lost one of its true architects, but his work, his spirit, and his sonic fingerprints remain etched in the grooves of every misfit creation that follows.
Rest in power, Glen. The signal carries on.
Details regarding funeral arrangements are forthcoming.
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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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MELVINS (left to right): Steven McDonald, Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover, and Coady Willis. Photo by Toshi Kasai
The Savage Imperial Death March thunders into Georgia when Melvins and Napalm Death co-headline a double dose of doom, noise, and grinding intensity.
On Sunday, April 27, Melvins and Napalm Death come together for a massive display of sound and fury on the Masquerade’s Heaven stage. On Tuesday, April 29, the same bill rolls into Athens’ 40 Watt Club, bringing chaos to the Classic City.
The tour falls on the heels of the February 2025 release of Savage Imperial Death March, a six-song collaborative LP released via Amphetimine Reptile Records. The six-song release is a crushing, howling monster of an album that finds both bands playing together, seamlessly merging Melvins’ sludge-soaked throb and Napalm Death’s relentless grind.
Melvins are also touring behind their latest release, titled Thunderball (Ipecac Recordings). It’s also the group’s most recent full-length released under the Melvins 1983 moniker, featuring Buzz Osborne, Mike Dillard, Ni Maitres, and Atlanta-based abstract electronic project Void Manes.
For this tour, King Buzzo’s riffs steer the ship, backed by the dual-drum assault of Dale Crover and Coady Willis and Steven McDonald’s fuzzed-out basslines. This incarnation of the band reignites the early Melvins aesthetic with renewed purpose and fire.
Meanwhile, Napalm Death continues its decades-long campaign of sonic obliteration, riding high on the aftershocks of 2022’s Resentment is Always Seismic–A Final Throw of Throes. Vocalist Barney Greenway remains a force of nature, while the band’s grindcore assault remains both savage and surgical.
North Carolina sludge lords Dark Sky Burial—a bleak, ambient-industrial project helmed by Napalm Death’s bass player Shane Embury—and Weedeater set the tone for each night’s proceedings.
Rad/ATL 