Corner Kid

Curio Museum

Eudora June

Nomen Novum

Opposing Suns

New Terminus

Sneaky Hand

A.Grimes

Order of the Owl and Spirits and The Melchizedek Children

Hi!

Order of the Owl and Spirits and The Melchizedek Children merge their set at Strange Daze Festival 2011 from Nadia Lelutiu on Vimeo.

Yo, yo, yo! It’s been a while.

This year marks year 3 for the Strange Daze Music and Arts Festival. Just a toddler, but toddlers start to get really interesting. So, this is a great age and this year’s festival reflects a renewed focus pertaining to this gratifying, diverse, and saturated music scene of ours in Atlanta. Wait! Listen to this while you read:

Strange Daze Festival 2011 by themoonandpluto

This year, I put together a group of bands that really caught my attention throughout 2011. As it goes, these bands fall into several genres, including indie rock, hip hop, blues, experimental, psychedelic, metal, garage rock, and some cross-germinate.

Initially, it was going to be another 2-day fest, but then I nixed that idea. This year was going to be one big party on one fine night. What better place to throw a party than in the cozy quarters of the Old Fourth Ward?

The energy is so right at Noni’s and The Music Room. In a lot of ways, it feels like Lenny’s used to feel…meaning, anything goes. And anything shall go this year at Strange Daze! Especially considering the line-up:

Sneaky Hand, A.Grimes, Spirits and the Melchizedek Children, Order of the Owl, Nomen Novum, Eudora June, New Terminus, Big Heed and Alien, Opposing Suns, Mind Creatures, Curio Museum, and Corner Kid, who is making his much anticipated debut performance at Strange Daze.

There are a few more details, courtesy of Latest Disgrace, if you’re interested in some Strange Daze highlights.

It is free to attend Strange Daze. We just ask you to bring the zeal and the zest. The bartenders will handle the rest.

Schedule

~Nadia

Artlantis is bringing emerging Atlanta artists together for an all day festival on Saturday, June 4. With 50 artists and 8 bands, Artlantis presents a slew of work from creative minds, focusing on the artists that push boundaries and refuse to settle into a mold.

James McConnell, along with co-founder Mark Basehore began Artlantis two years ago,  throwing together a festival in a couple weeks with 8 bands and 20 artists. Since then, the interest and excitement surrounding the festival has grown and so has the amount of art!

McConnell, who runs Beep Beep Gallery was able to hand-pick the artists for this year, half of which are artists that have previously shown at Beep Beep, while the others were found through submissions. McConnell says, “We were looking for stuff that you wouldn’t find at other festivals, something more unique, expressing something interesting.”

Among the myriad of Artlantis artists will be a couple of McConnell’s favorite local record labels, Double Phantom and Pretty Ambitious Records, as well as some artist organizations, such as Dashboard Co-Op. There’s a puppy booth for anyone wanting to get cuddly with a bunch of adorable puppies. And then there’s the music…Lucy Dreams, Adron, Lyonnais, Social Studies, The Clap, Chandu’s, Mule Skinner MacQueen, and Magic Apron.

The art will run you anywhere from $5-$500, but most of the artists are bringing smaller stuff, prints, and art made specifically for the festival. McConnell hopes that Atlantis becomes a regular summer tradition in Atlanta and plans to stick with it as long as it keeps growing.

Artlantis Arts and Music Festival happens Saturday June 4 10am – 7pm in the parking lot of Druid Hills Baptist Church 1085 Ponce De Leon Avenue Northeast

Folks interested in volunteering, contact artlantisfestival@gmail.com

P.S. Immediately following the Artlantis festival is a Ponce Crush art opening featuring Louis N LaPierre and Sanithna Phansavanh. Beep Beep Gallery, 7pm.

Spring is in the air and there is plenty of fun to be had in Atlanta. May brings with it a slew of entertainment with a musical backdrop, starting with an array of Cinco de Mayo parties, followed by beer festivals, art showings, and of course, music. Here’s the lowdown on all of the May events you won’t want to miss in Atlanta.

Cinco de Mayo Parties

Cinco De Mayo Fest 2011, Thursday May 5 at Loca Luna Restaurant and Bar 550-C Amsterdam Ave NE Atlanta near Piedmont Park 4pm  $10 advance, $15 door

This outdoor festival boasts a roaming mariachi band, an inferno taco eating challenge, sexiest senors and senoritas in Atlanta and live music by Yacht Rock Schooner. Loca Luna is known for their tasty tapas and they will have plenty to offer with your margaritas and cold beer! http://www.loca-luna.com/

Virginia Highlands Cinco de Mayo Celebration & Block Party Thursday May 5 in the parking lot between Pozole & Limerick Junction 5:00pm – 11:00pm $5

This is the 4th annual Cinco party hosted by the Virginia Highlands
community. With live music, authentic mexican grub, a beer and margarita bar, and contests to smash the pinata and speed eating hot peppers, you would be remiss to miss this.

Beer Festivals

East Atlanta Beer Festival, Saturday May 21 in East Atlanta Village’s Brownwood Park 1:00-6:00pm, $35 advance tix

This is the 8th year for the EABF, which features a wide selection of beers, food, and music – all the reasons we love going to East Atlanta Village! The price of admission gets you samples of over 150 beers and access to live music by bands and DJs. The main musical entertainment will be provided by Burt & The Bandits with their honky tonk cover tunes, as well as the circus antics and gypsy style of The Imperial Opa.
http://www.eastatlantabeerfest.com/

Brew at the Zoo Saturday May 28 5:30 – 9:30pm $40 advance tix

You get animals and specialty beer all at once during Brew at the Zoo! Fred Schneider of the B-52s will also be spinning the dance tunes.
http://www.zooatlanta.org/home/article_content/brew

Art Festivals

Pancakes & Booze Art Show Friday and Saturday May 6-7 at The Goat Farm 1200 Foster Street Atlanta $5 8:00pm – 2:00am 21+

What started as an underground art show in LA has made it’s way to Atlanta. This event will serve as the third installment of the only art show with a free all-you-can-eat pancake bar! Between stuffing your face with flapjacks, enjoy live body painting, audio and visual performances, and live music from Toy Devils, Vegan Coke, The Sneaky Hand, and other Atlanta acts. Art League Atlanta will dual to the death in a Live Art Battle on both nights. That’s a lot of entertainment for $5. Pancakes & Booze Art Show

Art-B-Que Saturday May 7 11:00am – 10:00pm, Sunday May 8 12:00 – 7:00pm Franklin St. Avondale Estates, GA

You can’t go wrong with art and BBQ. Top that off with music from Atlanta artists such as Adron, Tiger! Tiger!, and Noot d’ Noot along with a bonafide kids zone and car show featuring art cars, the Art-B-Que sounds like your best bet on Mothers Day weekend! http://artbque.com

Decatur Arts Festival Memorial Day Weekend May 28-29 in Downtown Decatur Square 11:00am – 6:00pm Free

This is the 23rd year for the Decatur Arts Festival. In addition to the artists market, the festival holds an ArtWalk all around downtown Decatur allowing local shops and restaurants to act as hosts of a city-wide art opening. Music will continue throughout the 2 day festival, featuring various acts including Delta Moon and Day Fool. http://decaturartsfestival.com/

Music Festivals

SpringFest Saturday May 14 at Twain’s 211 East Trinity Place Decatur 1:00pm - midnight $10 (goes entirely to Atlanta Community Food Bank)

Looking for family fun and local music? Don’t miss Springfest at Twain’s. Featuring a kid’s DJ and the Imperial Opa circus act all before naptime (2:30pm), the kids can get what they came for before the bands hit the stages, inside and outside the bar. Music from The Shathouse Rats, Mermaids, Abby Wren and What It Is, Blair Crimmins and the Hookers, Gentlemen Jesse and His Men and others give you all the reason you need to come early and stay late.

Atlanta Jazz Festival Memorial Day Weekend May 28-30 at Piedmont Park Free

It’s amazing that the City of Atlanta has kept this event free for the past 34 years. You have no excuse not to head out to Piedmont Park during Memorial Day weekend and check out both the jazz legends and newbies.

Local Album Release Shows

Keeping up with new music from Atlanta bands is a daunting task. These are just a handful of the most anticipated local album release shows happening in the ATL in May.

Dead Rabbits release A Record to Break Friday May 6 at Drunken Unicorn with The Grenadines, Mountain Lion 9pm $8

Stokeswood play the entirety of In the Field of the Vibrations Saturday May 7 on the rooftop of the W Hotel 45 Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard 6pm $20 (official album drops May 21)

Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun release Wildfire Saturday May 7 at The Earl with Sealions, Moonlight Bride 9pm $5

Balkans release Edita V at Drunken Unicorn Saturday May 14 with Predator, Mood Rings 9pm $5

A Fight to the Death release Keep Warm Saturday May 21 at Star Bar 9pm $8

Misc. Fun

Decatur Green Fest Saturday May 7 in Decatur Courthouse Square 3:00 – 9:30pm Free

This festival will showcase green products and services, along with organic food and drink. Live music is not left out of this sustainable affair, featuring Nerd Parade, Copious Jones, and Please Please Rock Me on the 92.9 Dave FM stage. A kids zone and artists working with recycled materials are two other great reasons to check out the Decatur Green Fest. http://www.decaturgreenfest.com

PurgeAtl & Gorehound Productions Present: Friday the 13th at The Basement (under Graveyard Tavern) 1245 Glenwood Ave Atlanta 9:30pm $10

The Mayor of Ponce and Tom Cheshire are the MCs during this event on the unluckiest night of the year. The music line-up can’t be beat, with Royal Thunder, Barreracudas, Cousin Dan and DJ black Sunshine providing the soundtrack to this party. Facebook

Many of The Moon and Pluto readers know that I started writing for Creative Loafing’s Crib Notes last week. Since then, I haven’t posted anything here on TMAP. It wasn’t making sense to try to bust ass doubling up on posts just to keep content coming out on this blog, when the Crib Notes blog gets 1000 times more views than this on any given day. Besides, I’m only one person and time is a thief.

That brings me to the point of this commentary: the blog. I never actually wanted to run my own music blog. That’s why I tried writing for established print and online publications. I wanted to help bring more Atlanta music to the attention of the local public. I wanted to highlight the diverse, talented musical groups in town. And I wanted to do it in a substantial manner, whereby the music and the artists were recognized for what they contribute and how they create. I wanted to help create excitement about the music in this city.

I wrote for The Silver Tongue Online, but the audience and content were not geared toward an Atlanta base. I wrote for Performer Magazine, but being a national monthly in print, I had only a limited opportunity to contribute pieces on Atlanta music. I wrote for Target Audience Magazine, but it is released quarterly, which again doesn’t allow for a consistent focus on the dynamic Atlanta scene.

Because I wasn’t finding a platform from which I could do what I really wanted, I created my own, here on The Moon and Pluto. However, like the Atlanta Roundtable 2010 proved, there are a lot of other people doing the same thing. And I love those bloggers: Davy from Ohmpark, Moe from Latest Disgrace, Denton from Little Advances, Adam and Chris from BeAtlanta…they all do a stellar job of regularly posting on new and interesting Atlanta music.

Since we teamed up for that year-end Roundtable (and actually even before that), I had a vision of teaming up with the other bloggers in a worthwhile attempt to bring our writing to a wider audience. After all, the goal for me, personally, was to get more people to notice more Atlanta music. However, I could never contemplate a way to make that work without each blogger infringing somewhat on the others. There would need to be a hierarchy that is non-existent when you run your own blog. There would need to be a schedule, which is self-determined when you work for yourself only. We would need to agree on a name, a website, and many other things. There would need to be commitment. My vision floated around these things, with no answer pertaining to a fair solution. Then there was the more important issue: would the other bloggers even want to do this?

The bloggers also began getting the same promotional emails from bands after the Roundtable went out. These emails are addressed to all of us at once, and though I understand the concept of fishing, it puts the writers in a predicament. We don’t want to put up redundant content, we don’t want to steal the content of another, but we don’t know who’s going to grab it, either, or when it will pop up online. Teaming up would eliminate these types of concerns, too. Again, it’s up in the air how that would work.

I suppose I could also try to recruit writers and build up my own blog. But, this is really an impossibility for me – day job, kids, and sometimes I try to sleep, too. In any case, when the opportunity arose to write for Crib Notes, I had to jump on it. For one thing, it has the widest audience and keeping my purpose in mind of focusing on a breath of Atlanta music that more people should hear, it offered the best course toward that goal. Yes, I’m allowed to write on what I choose. Amazing. I also like the fact that there is more than one voice, allowing readers to be exposed to a variety of musical tastes all at once. I’ve complained about the versatility and narrowness of content on Creative Loafing in the past, but it has really improved in that respect in the past year.  They have a group of contributors with an array of musical tastes that are posting these days, and I’m really excited to add to this flow on Crib Notes.

Someone I respect once told me, (and I paraphrase) “When there are too many, it all just becomes noise.” There is some truth to that, but I think each blog offers a unique style and perspective, making each valuable. This facet helps dilute the concern of content redundancy, since each blog may cover the same band in their own way. But then, the more blogs there are, the more each blog’s audience gets diluted. Crib Notes is another blog in this mix, it’s just got a more massive (in comparison) budget and more contributors. The same pressure exists among all blogs to post on certain music before the others do, gain the attention of an audience, and keep posting, posting, posting. It’s awesome that Atlanta has so many enthusiastic and eloquent music lovers. And there’s plenty of music around here to love.

I don’t know how I’ll use this space from now on. It will stay and I will use it, but my inspiration hasn’t focused in on how. I expect there will be a thing or two that I feel is better suited for this blog, rather than that blog. This is only the beginning. I have no clue what’s in store. In the meantime, I’m working on this summer’s Strange Daze Festival.

To all my fellow bloggers, I commend you for putting yourselves out there, sacrificing your spare time to listen to and write about Atlanta music, and being fervent seekers of the diamonds in the rough. Look forward to working together again and visiting your domain!

Nadia

Bang! Arts Management and Promotion has announced a handsome line-up for their Spring Fest 2011 scheduled for May 14 with music going all day on two stages at Twain’s.

Gentleman Jesse and His Men are the main attraction on the outside stage, with Blair Crimmins and the Hookers closing out the night inside. All proceeds from Spring Fest go to the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Tickets are just $10 and check out the line-up:

Abby Wren and What It Is
Atomic Rockets
Shathouse Rats
Mermaids
Willie Heath Neal
Bareknuckle Betties
The Stumblers
I Want Whisky
Villain Family

Mind Creatures get down in the kitchen to make some slaw. And they sound pretty good doing it.

Mind Creatures – Cole Slaw from Fresh Start Productions on Vimeo.

There’s another music show at the barber shop tonight! And this time, a little comedy is thrown in there, too.

Chicago’s Nude Sunrise will be stopping in Atlanta, after being in Austin for SXSW, to play a show at The Cut with Nerdkween, Hungry Hungry Humans, and the comedic storyteller, Karen Hilton.

Nude Sunrise sound like playfully psychedelic noise rock. You can check out the tunes on their Bandcamp.

Lean Love
Nude Sunrise – “Lean Love”

The Cut 166 Stovall St SE, Atlanta 30316

Tuesday, March 22 $5, All Ages

Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun is dropping a new record called WILDFIRE on May 7.  They’ve released the first single, “We Were Wild” on SoundCloud.

It’s more of the great electronic pop rock we’ve come to expect from TTM, TTS! If you like Metric, you’ll love this.

CD release show is at The Earl on May 7 with Moonlight Bride and Sealions.

We Were Wild by TodaytheMoon

Tonight’s the night of the first local music blogger’s showcase ever! Join me, Latest Disgrace, BeAtlanta, and Shot From Guns at Picaflor for a RockScience Music sponsored event with Imagination Head, Qurious, and Shathouse Rats.

If you haven’t been to Picaflor, you should. If you haven’t been to a RockScience event, you should. If you haven’t heard these bands, you should. And if you want to know why, here you go:

Imagination Head Moon Beams Spotlight, Latest Disgrace review and Beatlanta interview.

Qurious free album download, Latest Disgrace review, and Beatlanta interview

Aurora Borealis from Qurious on Vimeo.

Shathouse Rats Moon album review and BeAtlanta interview.

Friday, March 18 at Picaflor Studio 195 Arizona Ave, Suite 3

9pm-The Shathouse Rats
10pm-Imagination Head
11pm-Qurious

Doors open at 8:30pm and the CASH ONLY cover is $5. ! Booze is cheap, fun is guaranteed.