As a child, I always loved stories. My favorite ones were the ones like “The Wizard of Oz” or “Alice In Wonderland”. A child escaping her humdrum town and landing in a magical world of the bizarre and mystifying all while having the absolute time of their lives with some seedy and unique characters. Fadia Kader’s CMYK show hosted by Atlanta based musician, Bosco was just that for me, except I’m not sure if Alice or Dorothy were offered PBRs during the duration of their adventures.
I walk into The Basement venue and instead of a yellow-brick road, I was confronted with assortment of colors on the floor paving a strategic path, streamers hanging from the ceiling and balloons swallowing the room, leading through the venue into a backroom filled with Fresh.i.Am merchandise. It felt like I was in East Atlanta’s answer to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. I definitely wasn’t in Kansas, anymore.
Vacant of cowardly lions or mad-hatters, the artists lit up the stage and really set the high-intensity for the night. Premiere indie brands like Art Nouveau and Slumerican kept the night like something out of an underground fairytale. Al-King rocked the stage with his infectious sing-a-long raps accompanied with a violin player that intensified the performance. Micah Freeman got the crowd hype with crowd favorites like “The Elephant” and Ben Carson could have been mistaken for a black Kurt Cobain with his grunge-y ballads of love and loss. The host, Bosco, even felt compelled to perform some jazzy, soulful material with quite the rocker’s edge after Atlanta’s wheelchair-bound hero, Ethereal, took the stage with his special brand of hazy, psychedelic Hip-Hop that can more profoundly be found on Abstractica.
Despite the great performances that really can define Atlanta’s independent scene, the night really belonged to two people, the crowd and the DJ. Slumerican’s vixen of a DJ Speakerfoxxx, handled the ones and twos like a pro. Melting together dope boy hood classics with 60′s and 70′s standards all while scantily clad, legs bare, and wearing a blazer and tie like a lost member of the Soprano family, just more funky. The crowd filled The Basement with weed smoke, the unmistakable stench of spilled alcohol, sweat, and friendliness that is not often seen in Atlanta’s indie scene. For a few hours, Atlanta’s coolest elite came together sans ego or stiffness. Everyone was there for a common goal; to hear some good fucking music and get a bit sloshed.
A few PBRs, joint passes, and laughs and I finally find my ruby shoes. Greeting the attendees was a large ice-cream truck filled with frozen (legal) goods. There were shorts, meshed patterns, beautiful woman, charming men, laughs, and Djarums suffocating East Atlanta. There’s no place like home.
Photos by GREATeclectic
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I’m an artist (by the way of writing and creative direction in music and fashion) born in New York City, currently living in Atlanta, Ga that enjoys being observed and exploited, so I’m hardly a rarity.
