Atlanta's A-List

All Hallows Eve

It was recently suggested to me that Halloween ranks second to only Christmas on the holiday rankings and I think I agree. Anything goes and if you’re bold enough it’s your chance to be the “real you.” An easy example: last year I was in the parking lot of a Chick-fil-A (please don’t ask why) and I saw a mummy with an erection carrying out a platter of chicken fingers – a dead stiff for sure (probably a lawyer too).

Halloween Shows

So sometime last summer, or thereabouts, I was meeting a friend (see Always a Friend, Alejandro Escovedo) at my favorite Atlanta shack – Daddy D’z BBQ Joint. We were planning on meeting there for some rib sauce and jazz in the summer heat. Fine.

I say, “This is sort of weird, but I told a guy I would meet him here to buy a guitar.”

“A guitar?” she says, “Really?”

I found it on Craig’s List I told her. The guy lives in the neighborhood and I told him I’d meet him here. “Okay.” she says.

I decided to buy this “$40 velvet underground style” electric guitar based largely on the on-line description that went something like this: “I’m not trying to polish a turd, but I have recorded with this guitar.” I thought to myself, okay he’s being honest about the relative value of any guitar that might be sold for little more than, say, a ticket to see, Delbert McClinton at the Variety Playhouse in December. I figured he plugged it into Pro Tools once and recorded a song for his girlfriend, or the girl who would never talk to him in high school, or his grandmama, whoever.

So I send the email: “I’ll buy it.” After a couple of calls back and forth to set up this meeting, I realize that this guy really isn’t up during daylight, (see Bloodsucking Fiends, Christopher Moore – yeah that’s book, not a song). Anyway, on the occasions that he is awake during the day, this fellow has a tendency to forget to return calls because he “just fell asleep” (again paraphrasing, but I think that was pretty close to what he said). Well, we finally decide to meet at Daddy D’z which happens to be convenient for him, and a place he likes to eat.

Sort of early into Bernadette’s show on that Wednesday night, one of the skinniest grown men I have ever seen rounds of the corner into the parking lot toting a “$40 velvet underground style” guitar by the neck. That’s my guy.

I squeeze myself from behind the table and my plate of chopped pork and work my way to the back of the room. I should note here that the room I am talking about is the front porch of Daddy D’z which resembles a room only in that it has a door and more than one wall. So I meet this fella and his friend in the back. “You Brad?” I ask. “Yeah,” he says with a smile and shot of enthusiasm that belies any amount of energy that might possibly be contained in his elongated and seemingly emaciated mop-topped frame. We swap two Jacksons for an old guitar and exchange some small talk about music, the guitar, etc. I think he even asked me if I wanted to join him because he was going to blow some of the cash on dinner right there. I tell him, “Thanks, but I’m going to go back out on the porch.” Nice guy I think to myself, but man is he skinny.

I walk back through the crowd and now I’m the one toting a “$40 velvet underground style” guitar by the neck. I may have even slung it over my shoulder as if it was an axe and I was Paul Bunyan (dork!). So at the next break, Provocateur guitarist and Bonaventure Quartet leader, Charles, asks me about the guitar. We make some kind of self-effacing joke about him autographing the guitar for me and potentially doubling its value. Well, with no Sharpies in sight, it went unsigned. That’s how I came to be the owner of that old guitar propped in the corner by the closet.

Okay, so what’s the point? Why spill all this ink? What about the Halloween shows? Well, that remarkably skinny chap with the mod haircut and the “$40 velvet underground style” guitar (I just can’t get enough of that)? That was Bradford Cox. Who also happens to be the front man for Deerhunter, the local “ambient garage” band that will be headlining Friday night’s Halloween event at the Variety Playhouse. He’s also the prolific driving force behind Atlas Sound and Lotus Plaza, was recently described in Paste magazine as “unconventionally handsome” (I’ll buy that), and one of the newest members of the A-List (involuntarily I might add). So Bradford…wanna sign a guitar?

As for the music, I have not heard all of Deerhunter’s new release, Microcastle, but what I have heard appeals to me more than last year’s Cryptograms. Selections from both can, of course, be heard on the band’s website. Click the link above. I like “Never Stops.” Bradford and band will be joined by Matador Records label mates, Jay Reatard (a little more pop than Deerhunter) and Times New Viking (a little more punk than Jay Reatard – and possibly one of my top ten favorite band names of all time).

The after party for the Deerhunter show will be at Star Bar where, if you skip the Variety, you can catch a full-on Halloween bash and a guaranteed dose of weirdness with The Spooks – a side project of Atlanta’s own Black Lips.

If you would prefer something a less punk and more soulful then take short walk down Euclid Avenue and stop in at the Five Spot for Laura Reed and Deep Pocket. I might reach classify Laura as part of the new generation of psychedelic soul – a sound I have always loved in every incarnation (see Everyday People by Sly Stone, Purple Rain by Prince, and of course Crazy by Gnarls Barkley) but she goes a little more Caribbean and a little less electric than each of those sounds. Her sweet vocal is usually backed by Hammond organ, funk guitar and ringing wood rhythms but on Friday night she will be joined by a 16 Bar Hip-Hop Orchestra. I don’t know what that is but it should prove for an interesting show.

Finally, there are always a bevy of Halloween parties – hosted and otherwise. I may make my appearance at Scary Party 8 at Twisted Taco and hosted by my friends at Atlanta Illustrated. AC/DC cover band Hells Bells will be offering the background noise, but you really want to stop by to see hostess Jen, who will assuredly be disguised in something that will compel nearly all the men who see her to propose on sight. (Don’t be ashamed boys…I think she’s used to it). My costume is undecided as of press time…mostly because I still don’t know who the “real me” is.

That’s Atlanta’s A-List and farewell Angelina.