The Variety Playhouse is an intimate theatre and nightclub located in Atlanta's colorful Little 5 Points district. We present live concerts featuring top national acts representing Roots Rock, Indie, Jazz, Folk, World Music and more.
The Variety features flexible seating and standing arrangements and the best sound and light systems in Atlanta.

Variety Playhouse favorite Aimee Mann returns while touring on Smilers, her newest album. She's bringing the record's producer, Paul Bryan, on bass and with Jay Bellerose on drums and Jamie Edwards on keyboards, Aimee has "formed a band that was perfect for this project and stuck with it" and we're very excited about having them on our stage. With a repertoire a mile long, no one ever leaves her shows disappointed.

After a Grammy nomination, and top 10s in The New Yorker and Time Magazine, Tift Merritt took a hiatus with a piano in Paris and came home with her best and most personal songs to date. Her new album Another Country was released February 26 to rave reviews.
“This is a happy record,” Teddy Thompson says of his new Verve Forecast release A Piece of What You Need. “Well, maybe not happy, but upbeat. Actually, maybe not upbeat, but it does have some up-tempo songs! Anyway, it's as close as I've gotten to making the record I've always wanted to make.”
Indeed, happy or not, A Piece of What You Need — Thompson's fourth album overall and his third for Verve — is the London–born, New York–based artist's most ambitious and accomplished effort to date, showcasing his formidable vocal, songwriting and guitar talents while venturing into rewarding new musical and lyrical territory.

The Yard Dogs Road Show is cabaret, vaudeville and rock and roll.  In the enchanting land of stage show entertainment ours is both pleasant and formidable terrain.  We require a sensitivity to the subtle and the absurd. We lead the modern hobohemian on a visual and sonic journey through part of history that may or may not have existed – followed by an ambitious return to the emotional challenges of our punch-drunk contemporary world. It’s a true story on stage: sword swallowers, dancing dolls, fire eaters and sunset hobo poetry - all animated by the live sounds of the Yard Dogs cartoon heavy band. Yard Dogs Road Show is pure visual and sonic voodoo.

Silver Jews are an indie rock group, formed in 1989 by writer David Berman along with Pavement's Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich. Sometimes regarded as a Pavement side project (Pavement drummer Steve West has also been a member of the band), in fact "The Joos" were formed before Pavement, and 1996's The Natural Bridge featured none of the Pavement musicians, offering listeners a quieter folk album without the inimitable influence of Stephen Malkmus' guitar and vocals. The Silver Jews were always a conduit for David Berman's brand of sardonic, countrified indie rock, and Berman has remained the only constant member. The band has gone on to release several full-length albums, including the latest Tanglewood Numbers, released on October 18 2005 (Drag City). Berman's sophisticated lyrics have come to dominate the band's music and critical reputation. Berman had long been steadfast in his almost complete refusal to play live, and so surprised the indie world when he announced their first ever tour in the spring of 2006. Berman is also a published poet. His collection Actual Air was released in 1999 and received favorable reviews from The New Yorker and GQ.

These days - when membership of the rock army can be symbolised by the simple purchase of a Ramones T-shirt - dedication has become a debased currency, subject to the hyper-inflationary dictates of fashion. Raw recruits sign up for the short term, soon surrendering their affections to whichever sexy “scene” might spring up next. Unswerving commitment to rock's righteous cause is rare; it demands a troop of seriously single-minded dudes with their collective heart and soul fixed on one goal - to bring the noise.

Scottish five piece Mogwai formed in 1995 and debuted a year later with the single “Tuner/Lower”, released on their own Rock Action label. They've since gone on to develop their distinctive style of apocalyptic, yet deeply humanised noise across four albums, establishing the transcendentally effective quiet-loud/quiet-loud dynamic as their very own and spawning a generation of imitators. Usually tagged a post-rock band because of their slow-build, instrumental workouts and the neo-classical majesty of their more ambitious songs, Mogwai are rather a bunch of a-rockers, drawn to whatever serves their cause - be it the stripped-down delicacy of Erik Satie or the boiling rage of Big Black. Mix light and dark together, Mogwai understand, and you make magic.

Maybe more than any of his previous albums, Xavier Rudd’s new album Dark Shades of Blue is a balance of darkness and light. That’s what the Australian singer-songwriter/one-man band/didgeridoo virtuoso hears in the disc. Plenty of each went into making the disc. Dark Shades of Blue is the first Rudd album in several years to be recorded in Australia. As a result, it bears the joy and peace of mind that comes with an often-touring artist that gets a chance to catch his breath. Produced by Rudd and mixed by Joe Barresi (Tool, Queens of the Stone Age), Dark Shades of Blue finds Rudd at his most assertive, heavy and psychedelic. Dusky and cool, the disc’s guitar-driven jams expand on a sound only hinted at on previous releases, as distortion often supplants the pretty jangly guitars heard on earlier work, like 2007’s White Moth. While Rudd’s signature didgeridoo remains, along with the myriad of instruments and voices featured on other records, the results are less “world music” than they are the makings of a truly global record. The disc’s opener, “Black Water” emerges from a “Voodoo Chile”-like beginning, before rising and falling like a mighty sonic wave. The title track is equal parts tempered, fuzzed-out funk, unrestrained Ben Harper and Tool-ish swirls of a groove threatening to explode. There’s tension, yes, but also lonely beauty in songs like “Shiver.”

Rootsy folk-rock sextet Donna the Buffalo formed in 1987 in Ithaca, NY. The group's three vocal harmonies, backed by fiddle, guitar, accordion and percussion add layer upon layer of diversity to the group's eclectic and often socially conscious sound.

The simple mention of a Louisiana or Texas roadhouse conjures up images of a crowded dancehall filled wall-to-wall with rabid music fans rocking to a hotter-than-hot band playing a smoldering blend of swampy R&B, jumping blues and heart-wrenching ballads. Pianist/vocalist/songwriter Marcia Ball brings that spirit to every concert she plays and every song she records. Her music is mixed with equal parts of simmering soul fervor and two-fisted piano pounding. Between her deeply emotive vocals and her incisive, often poignant songwriting, Ball is in a class by herself. Her groove-laden New Orleans R&B and driving Gulf Coast blues have made her a one-of-a-kind favorite of music fans all over the world. The Boston Herald says, “Piano pounding Marcia Ball plays masterful, red hot tracks from the Texas-Louisiana border. Her voice can break your heart with a ballad or break your back with a rocker.” The Austin Chronicle heralds her as “a class act whose soulful, horn-laden swamp pop and murderous honky-tonk make her a stellar example of musical artistry.”

Gogol Bordello has been breaking down musical barriers since 1999 with a supercharged music based on a brutal gypsy two step rhythm that sounds like an Eastern European cousin of ska, augmented by punk, metal, rap, flamenco, roots reggae, Italian spaghetti western twang, dub, and other sounds generated by gypsies and rebels from across the globe. This is intense transglobal rebel rock, not light headed world fusion pop. It's about believing that music and art can transform negative energy to positive and inspire individual intelligence.

From his days as the lead singer of seminal punk rock band Black Flag, to his years of fronting The Rollins Band and during all of the television and film projects he has been involved with, Henry Rollins has seen it all. And now he’s going to talk about it. Henry’s spoken word performances are legendary. Part rant, part monologue and part stand-up comedy, Henry tells it like it is and makes you laugh and think.

Combining an inclination for melodic '60s pop with an art rock aesthetic borrowed from Krautrock bands like Faust and Neu!, Stereolab were one of the most influential alternative bands of the '90s. Led by Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier, Stereolab either legitimized forms of music that were on the fringe of rock, or brought attention to strands of pop music -- bossa nova, lounge-pop, movie soundtracks -- that were traditionally banished from the rock lineage. The group's trademark sound -- a droning, hypnotic rhythm track overlaid with melodic, mesmerizing singsong vocals, often sung in French, is deceptively simple, providing the basis for a wide array of stylistic experiments over the course of their prolific career. Throughout it all, Stereolab rely heavily on forgotten methods of recording, whether its analog synthesizers and electronics or a fondness for hi-fi test records, without ever sinking to the level of kitsch.

The Kooks are a Brighton, England quartet comprised of singer/guitarist Luke Pritchard, lead guitarist Hugh Harris, bassist Max Rafferty and drummer Paul Garred. With only two records released, they are now regarded as a classic British song-writing outfit, able to stand alongside The Kinks, Oasis, Coldplay or any number of others you care to mention, simply because they understand what makes pop music great. The Whigs, from Athens, open this great evening of music.

Born in Las Vegas in early 1977, singer/songwriter Jenny Lewis is one of indie rock's treasured saints. Lewis' talent is a near match for classics such as Loretta Lynn and Petula Clark as well as contemporaries like Neko Case. She has also lent her vocals to albums by the Good Life, Cursive, and the Postal Service. In the midst of the release of Rilo Kiley's third album, 2004's More Adventurous, Lewis began working on her debut solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat. This enchanting set featured vocals by Kentucky-born singers Chandra and Leigh Watson -- thus the moniker Jenny Lewis With the Watson Twins was born. Additional contributions by M. Ward, Ben Gibbard, Conor Oberst, and Jason Boesel are also included on Rabbit Fur Coat, which was released on Oberst's Team Love label in early 2006. Lewis' second solo album, Acid Tongue, will be released in September.

Singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith brilliantly straddles the boundary between folk and country music, with occasional nods to the mainstream rock audience. Whether performing her own poetically evocative material or the compositions of her influences, friends, and peers, Nanci Griffith possesses a powerful gift for inhabiting the songs she sings - for communicating unspoken intimacy and heartache through her tender voice and lilting, delicate phrasing. At the outset of a career that has now spanned nearly three decades, Griffith first emerged as a writer of startling depth and subtlety, crafting sparse uncluttered vignettes that revealed a wealth of emotion in even the most humble of characters and settings. With her gifts as a songwriter lending invaluable insight, Griffith has also grown into a formidable interpreter of other people's songs, as demonstrated on such albums as the Grammy® Award-winning Other Voices, Other Rooms.

Joan Osborne is best known for asking the poignant question "What if God was one of us?" over a glistening guitar riff. But truth be told, the pop sensibility Osborne displayed on "One of Us" was out of character. For most of her career, she's striven to be a Janis Joplin–style blues-rock mama. From the bright pop of Relish, the 70's soul sound of How Sweet It Is, or the country tinged effort Pretty Little Stranger, Joan Osborne has been a musical chameleon. She has even put in time with jam bands like The Dead and Phil Lesh and Friends. For her latest release, Little Wild One, Joan collaborates with partners Rick Chertoff, Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian, who last worked with Osborne on her 5 million selling, 6 Grammy nominated debut album, Relish. Little Wild One will be released September 9.

Bono called their music ‘genius’.  Hip producers like the Dust Brothers and Stephen Lironi worked with them early on, even before millions of fans screamed their names and critics applauded them. But for Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson, it's always been about the music, and there's always been a message in the music for those who were really listening. On Hanson's fourth studio album, The Walk, the messages are more direct. “It's the first record in a decade that we made completely from scratch as an indie”, Taylor says. “We've stepped it up a notch creatively, writing songs that connect to really personal experiences and recording them live ‘from the floor’” (playing together in the studio as they would in front of an audience). It’s a further exploration of the sound that prompted New York's ‘Village Voice’ to proclaim Hanson as simply “the best straight-up rock band in America, now sowing sonic oats as independents”. And it’s the independence in the approach to both recording and releasing their music that fans and critics alike will appreciate about The Walk.

Once upon a time, mentioning surfing and music in the same sentence conjured up sepia-toned images of the early ’60s. But thanks to artists like Donavon Frankenreiter -- who, unlike most of the old-school “surf-rockers,” knows his way around a wave as well as he does a fret-board -- those images have been updated radically to focus as much on musical adventure as on the spreading of good vibes. Over the course of the past half-decade, the California-bred Frankenreiter established himself as one of the more original voices on the acoustic-rock scene, through tireless touring and the innate catchiness of songs like “Free” (which became a Triple-A radio staple upon its release two years ago). In order to more fully explore different aspects of that personality, the Laguna Beach-based singer-songwriter decided a change of scenery would do him good. After releasing his self-titled debut on Brushfire Recordings -- the label run by longtime friend and collaborator Jack Johnson -- Frankenreiter chose to link with Lost Highway for the release of  his second album Move By Yourself. His latest, Pass It Around, will be released on Lost Highway on August 19.

Hailing from London, Hot Chip entered the picture with the release of their 2000 debut, Mexico. The EP was released by Victory Garden Records, a label owned and operated by members of London's resident lo-fi psychedelic rock institution, Southall Riot. The Mexico EP was a hypnotic wash of subtle -- nearly subliminal -- pulse-like techno beats, acoustic guitars, and plinky pianos, but the vocals were the true star of the show (no small feat in a musical climate overrun with disaffected Lou Reed-esque mumblers and bland Eddie Vedder impersonators). The voices of Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard are a fine study in contrast. Taylor offers dreamy, effortless falsettos that cut to the heart of the beauty of performers like Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake (minus any of the pretentiousness of Radiohead or even Coldplay). Meanwhile, scattered throughout the record (and in the occasional duet), Goddard offers a tone that sounds a bit more world-weary and at times almost gruff in comparison to Taylor, calling to mind Damon Albarn's cool monotone tendencies. 2002's self-released Sanfrandisco E-Pee showed the band dabbling in more playful sounds, from the beatbox dubbing of the title track to the closing notes of "Fanta," in which Taylor pleads with the listener to "make sounds of the summer." There are moments of gorgeous melancholy as well, but on the whole the album feels a bit more hopeful than Mexico had. The group signed to revered N.Y.C. record label DFA in 2005 and released the Over and Over EP, as well as the excellent 2006 release The Warning. Their latest album is 2008's Made In The Dark.

At age 18, the Worchester England native Dave Mason teamed up with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood to form the legendary band Traffic. At 19, Mason penned the song "Feelin' Alright". This song has since become a rock and roll anthem, having been recorded by well over 48 artists, the best known version being Joe Cocker. The group's profound influence over rock music remains unquestioned even today.  Mason departed from the group after their second album. In 1969 Dave headed for the USA to pursue a solo career. He struck gold with the album Alone Together, which is considered a rock classic. This was followed by five albums for CBS/Sony including Dave Mason and Mariposa De Oro, four of which received gold albums. Let It Flow, which has gone well over platinum, contained the classic "We Just Disagree", a top-ten single. In addition to performing to sold-out audiences, Mason performed on a number of albums such as The Rolling Stones' Beggars's Banquet, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Paul McCartney's Listen To What The Man Said and Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland. One of the songs from the Ladyland album, "All Along the Watchtower", featured Dave playing acoustic guitar. This song, written by Bob Dylan, remains a big favorite in Dave's live show. In October of 1993, Dave Mason formally joined the legendary group Fleetwood Mac and spent two years touring with them around the world. The band completed an album for Warner Brothers called Time, which was released in October 1995, and features Dave's lead vocals on songs including "Blow By Blow" and "I Wonder Why". Dave Mason's career spans 40 years and has encompassed producing, performing and song writing. Not to mention being one of rock's great guitar players. Along with his induction as a founding member of the group Traffic into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, Dave continues his non stop solo touring and is working on a new solo record.

Down home roots, rock and soul artist JJ Grey and his band MOFRO’s newest CD Orange Blossoms will be released on August 26 on Alligator Records. While his song-writing inspirations range from Bill Withers, Van Morrison, and Dan Penn, JJ Grey’s songs are always his own, oftentimes relating to the loss of his natural surroundings and the marginalization of the Southern culture he grew up in. Orange Blossoms will be the follow up to their Alligator debut, the critically lauded 2007 release Country Ghetto.