March Madness!
Where to Head to When the Tournament Tips off well as outside with plenty of seating on their popular patio.
Mo’s Pizza
3109 Briarcliff Rd. 404.320.1258
Smith’s Olde Bar
1578 Piedmont Ave. 404.875.1522 www.smithsoldebar.com
You may know about the burrito chain with the same name, but the original Mo’s resides on the corner of Briarcliff and Clairmont Roads just off the I-85 exit. They have been serving up great pizza for over 25 years. Mo’s menu isn’t limited to pizza either: sandwiches, subs, wings, nachos and salads ensure that anybody who comes here can find something they like. Mo’s uses the freshest ingredients; they make their own dough and grind their cheese daily. Come to Mo’s to catch all the tournament action. They have a great deck to hang out on, and plenty of new plasma TVs to watch the games. Mo’s is one of the longest running pizza joints in Atlanta, come in and see why they are one of the best!
door deck in the front that offers a great view down Roswell Road in Buckhead’s West Village. They offer “Bucket Specials” of Bud, Bud Light and Bud Select. They also have a “Draft Tower” a glass featuring 120 ounces of beer. The deck will be the place to be Saturday March 14, as The Red Door holds their annual St. Patrick’s Day Blowout. It will feature green beer and Irish drink specials as well as an actual dancing Leprechaun on the bar. They are open 2pm to 3am each day and closed on Sunday. During the tournament, they will open at noon to catch those early round games.
Tavern at Phipps
3500 Peachtree Rd. 404.814.9640 www.TheTavernAtPhipps.com
The Red Door Tavern
3180 Roswell Rd. (1 Block N of Roxy) 404.846.6525 The Red Door Tavern who just celebrated their 5 Year Anniversary, has quickly become a favorite watering hole among locals in North Buckhead. They are located on Roswell Road, one block north of the Roxy Theatre. The Red Door Tavern features a large out-
Voted Best Happy Hour, Best Patio, Best Bartender, Best Looking Waitstaff, and Best Martini, Buckhead’s The Tavern at Phipps is the place to be during March Madness. They have large HDTV’s behind the main bar as
THE DEAD: Goin’ Down
the Road Feelin’ Good BY JON LATHAM
A
S THE FIRST SPRING UNDER THE NEW administration’s rally cry of “yes we can” steadily approaches, the sense of optimism and hope that brought Barack Obama to the White House brings with it the rebirth of a long-held, American tradition that spans the past four decades; the Dead is truckin’ yet again. Surviving members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart have revived the group after a four-year hiatus that sent all four musicians in separate musical endeavors amidst accounts of inner turmoil. As it seems, the bad vibes have been cleared away; the Dead first reunited to help raise funds for President Obama’s campaign in October of last year at the “Change Rocks” benefit concert in Pennsylvania. Though Grateful Dead figurehead Jerry Garcia has been gone for over a decade, the band’s cultural significance continues to thrive, most evidently in the Deadhead fan base that has grown out of multiple generations who have discovered the feel-good jams and improvisational creativity that the Dead pushed to the edge night after night through years of touring. Their influence is felt in the jam-based rock scene, heralded now by bands like Dave Matthews Band, Umphrey’s McGee, and the newly reunited Phish. Hearing them talk about their status as the Dead, it becomes clear that the music still has an impact on these four musicians that cuts deeper than the iconic, symbolic cultural importance that they have become. “Music is what we do and we do it together really well and it seemed like the right time [to regroup],” Hart explains. “We kind of cleaned out our closets and came back for the right reasons to play together.” Weir shares his enthusiasm about the level of musiPG 24 • insiteatlanta.com • March 2009
cianship in the band. “I think all of us are playing a little less and listening a little more. This is something that happens to musicians as they mature but it’s happened to us and we’re benefitting mildly from it.” “The rest of it is going to be fulfilled in the music,” continues Hart, “That’s really where it’s all at. It comes right down to the experience on stage, and I look forward to bringing the best possible version of me to the stage and I’m sure everyone else is going to do the same, so it can be really exciting, a lot of fun.” If the Dead looks like a nostalgia act, it’s news to these guys. For them, any chance to take the stage together is a chance to break ground in territories uncharted by the past incarnations of the band. “I’ve been working with my own band now for almost 10 years and the perspectives of other musicians that have come through my band have helped evolve my appreciation for [the Dead’s] music in a way that makes me want to see what’s going to happen when we get back together [on stage],” Phil shares. As for what would pull Lesh from his successful solo efforts, “A lot of it is curiosity on my part; it’s the question mark that’s really pulling me in, what’s gonna happen and the fact that we cannot predict what’s going to happen.” Coming together at this point has caused quite the
At Smith’s you will find total entertainment. The downstairs bar is divided into three rooms. The Game Room features five Pool tables, Dart boards and Golden Tee Golf. Adjacent to it is their Dining Area. They have plenty of seating where tables can be combined for large parties and generous booths surrounded by large screen TV’s. During the tournament, Smith’s will hang the brackets on the wall to keep track of your favorite teams. They have a full menu, but what are most popular are their wings, chicken fingers and burgers. Another favorite is their BBQ brought in exclusively from Fox Brothers. During the tournament ask for their March Madness specials. Next to the Dining area, holds one of the most impressive bars in the city. The room is surrounded by booths and new plasma TV’s for those looking for the perfect seat to watch the games. After the games have finished, go upstairs to watch some of the best live music Atlanta has to offer. There is live music 7 nights a week. Everyone has played here, from your favorite local band to David Bowie.
Chicago Nancy’s Pizza
Midtown 265 Ponce De Leon 404.885.9199 Buckhead 3167 Peachtree Rd. 404.842.9997 www.nancyspizza.com
Chicago conjures up images of some of the best pizza in the country and Chicago’s Nancy’s Pizza does it to perfection here in Atlanta. The Buckhead location is a full sit down restaurant with full bar. It boasts 120” flat screens which will be tuned to your favorite game. They are offering $2 Draft Beer Sunday and Thursday throughout the basketball tournament. Buckhead is also offering a “One for One” lunch combo this month. Receive a slice of cheese pizza, a small garden salad and soft drink for one low price of $6.95 (Dine in only). Midtown is offering a chance to win lower level seats to Hawks games by joining their Loyalty Club.
The Corner Tavern
East Pointe 2783 Main St. 404.768.0007 Little 5 1174 Euclid Ave. 404.521.0667 Edgewood 464 Edgewood 404.577.2310 www.thecornertavern.com
MUSIC INTERVIEW buzz among the throng of Deadheads that have been waiting since 2004 for the next go-round. The fans of the Dead, like the band itself, is somewhat of iconic proportion. Kreutzmann elaborates, “The audience is one of the most unique audiences there is and the peacefulness and love that they express for one another is probably the highest thing there is. One message that I hear really clearly from Deadheads is that we miss you guys, we wish you guys were playing again--and that really makes you want to do it.” “[We have] three or four generations of fans,” chimes in Weir. “In the shows that I’ve been playing in the past five years or so, there are more and more young people showing up,” Lesh adds. “It’s interesting because they’re all too young, or they seem to be too young, to have heard the Grateful Dead with Jerry, so somehow they found out about this music. It’s touched them in some way and they’re coming to see what it’s all about.” The ability to bring the legacy of the Grateful Dead’s music to the younger demographic is an obvious point of pleasure for Lesh. Since starting up Phil Lesh & Friends, the bulk of the material performed has been Dead tunes. “I’m personally very glad that we’re going to be able to get back together and give a great The Dead experience, from us.” Joining the four original Dead members on this trek will be Jeff Chimenti, who played keyboards in Weir’s solo project Ratdog, and jam-scene mainstay Warren Haynes, who holds two notable day jobs as guitarist in the Allman Brothers Band as well as guitar duties in his very own group, Gov’t Mule. Though such talent
winds up the line-up beautifully, the guys still keep an ear out for their fallen leader. “I hear [Jerry],” Weir explains. “I can feel him, ‘No don’t go there. Yeah, go there. No. No, don’t go there. Go there,’ and I either do it or don’t, just like I always did.” Mickey recalls fond memories of a Dead with Garcia at the helm. “He brought a nuance to [our music], besides the obvious melody and so fourth, inner workings and how it all flowed. It’s inherent in the music now because that’s the way it is. It’s all of that other stuff, the weave of it all. “He’s all over; he’s all through the music,” Lesh adds. “His presence will never diminish for us.” With a new millennium in full swing, the Dead have steered away from new studio material, but continue to release archival live material using multiple sources of output. “Since we don’t make studio records anymore, we haven’t had an occasion to be dealing with that aspect of [the] music distribution agenda,” explains Lesh. “We do have a download series that’s coming out from Rhino [Records], of older shows. So in the future I’m sure that we’re going to be offering some of these tour shows for download depending on how good they are. And so you know, we’re trying to be with it. “ And thou the election is fully behind us, it is worth noting that the Dead remain politically minded. It might not be as preachy as Bono or Eddie Vedder, but it was the hope and spirit of change that Barack Obama that brought the four together in October. As Lesh puts it, “One of the things that Grateful Dead music tried to bring, and tried to convey to everyone we play to, is hope for the future, hope and joy in life and a feeling of infinite possibility.” Older and wiser, the Dead seek to bring a sonic depth to those possibilities, so that the hope they conveyed then will find its purpose in the here and now. It might be a comeback for this legendary traveling show, but it seems far from the truth when one ventures to think that the warmth and pleasure that their music has brought for the last four decades never really stopped at all.
