Cityscape

Atlanta is a city of festivals. There’s the Dogwood Festival at Piedmont Park, Pride Week, the return of the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Downtown Festival and on and on. Our favorite is the NATIONAL BLACK ARTS FESTIVAL, which transforms the city for 10 days each July into a cultural haven, where dance troupes, musicians and artists pay homage to the African diaspora. This year’s highlights included performances by Grammy-nominated composer and trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe and the Forces of Nature Dance Theater Company. In addition, there was the Pan-African Film Festival and an eclectic artists’ market.
www.nbaf.org.

With rapid construction overtaking Atlanta’s already jammed streets, there’s no better way to escape than to cruise down to CUMBERLAND ISLAND. It’s Georgia’s biggest barrier island, and it can only be reached by ferry, making it a subtropical oasis for a plethora of animals, including egrets, pelicans and wild horses. Walk along the secluded beach, with its backdrop of smooth, white dunes, and you might catch a glimpse of loggerhead turtles laying eggs. Or venture under the island’s canopy of massive live oaks to spot anything from painted buntings to armadillos. Be sure to check out Plum Orchard, the remnants of the Carnegie family’s Tara-esque mansion, built in the 1890s. The island’s serenity is constantly threatened by politician-led schemes to turn it into a tourist trap. For now, however, it remains the crown jewel of Georgia’s “Golden Isles.” If you visit, go between now and April, because the island’s wildlife also includes sand gnats and mosquitoes.
912-882-4336. www.nps.gov/cuis

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Ever the fair-minded, we excluded CL’s own columnists for critics’ consideration in this category. But that shouldn’t detract from our admiration for AJC Editorial Page Editor CYNTHIA TUCKER. Tucker sometimes is dismissively tagged as the daily’s liberal columnist (which anyone might be, compared to GOP shill Jim Wooten). But those who’ve read her with an open mind over the past 20 years knows her as a remarkably independent voice of reason. She produces timely and often courageous columns that dare to expose the clay feet of such local idols as Cynthia McKinney and the King family. Yet she’s no bomb-thrower; she chooses her words carefully, her tone is moderate, her arguments are persuasive and her positions have been remarkably consistent. She was among the first to publicly call out Bill Campbell; she never wavered from that opinion and darned if she wasn’t proven to be right on the money. We are a stronger community on account of her.
www.ajc.com.

Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Tift Merritt, Del McCoury, Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett, Alison Krauss — don’t you wish there was a great country station in town that had artists like those on its playlist? One of the best examples of how disconnected country radio is from its fan base came a few years back when the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack was the No. 1 album on the country charts with virtually no airplay from country stations. Although it doesn’t entirely overcome that shortcoming, our favorite local station is EAGLE 106.7 (WYAY-FM) because of Hall of Fame disc jockey Rhubarb Jones and because of the station’s willingness to dip into the past and play such artists as Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard on weekends.
www.wyay.com.

We know it’s won several years in a row, and we like to vary our picks when possible. But the INMAN PARK FESTIVAL proves it’s special every single April. There’s no better place to browse booths filled with modestly priced rustic art, plants, handmade jewelry and kitsch. The neighborhood’s elegant Victorian homes make the scenery awesome. The crowd’s diverse. The music’s great, and very varied. And unlike most neighborhood fests, the three-day Inman Park event takes place under the leafy shade of narrow tree-lined streets. What really sets the festival apart, though, is its opening day parade, which features colorful floats, grinning politicos and, of course, the Feed and Seed Marching Abominable Marching Band.
www.inmanpark.org/festival.

TERMINUS 100 may not be quite finished yet, but when it’s completed in the spring, the 26-story glass-and-steel high-rise will bring a Fifth Avenue vibe to the intersection of Peachtree and Piedmont roads. The Buckhead tower, designed by Duda/Paine Architects of Durham, N.C., is the first of five planned by Cousins Properties on the 10-acre site. It will be anchored by two floors of retail space set up against the sidewalk, with a glitzy, Vegas-style restaurant plaza around the side. A stunning example of Atlanta’s mixed-use building renaissance, Terminus 100 is certain to bring a new jolt of energy to a rapidly changing part of town. The high-profile address and highfalutin architecture already has roped in a high-profile tenant: Cousins itself plans to move from the suburbs into the Buckhead building. That’s certainly making a statement.
www.terminus-atlanta.com

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Back when RADIO FREE GEORGIA, WRFG-FM (89.3), went on the air in 1973, people who listened were like a secret society. The signal didn’t go far outside the perimeter — of Little Five Points, that is — and the uninitiated usually discovered the station by channel-surfing or from a friend in the know: “Hey, have you checked out Radio Free Georgia?” Even the station’s name suggests its counterculture leanings. WRFG has the most eclectic playlist in Atlanta: blues, Zydeco, Americana, bluegrass, music from India, doo-wop, jazz, Latin and hip-hop. Today, Radio Free Georgia broadcasts at 100,000 watts, but it’s remained true to its roots of playing the kind of music you’ll never hear on commercial radio.
,a href=”http://www.wrfg.org”>www.wrfg.org.

Year after year, as other radio stations fall in and out of favor and change formats and call letters, ALBUM 88 never seems to change. Year after year, it just plays great, cutting-edge, alternative music. The only drawback is that the Georgia State stalwart, WRAS-FM (88.5), doesn’t broadcast on the Web — it’s been trying since 2003, but refuses to comply with federal regulations that would threaten the station’s fierce independence to play exactly what it wants to play. Thankfully, the station has a booming 100,000-watt signal. You first heard R.E.M. and U2 and the Police on WRAS. Today, it is where you’ll first hear tomorrow’s stars: Jennifer O’Conner, Sufjan Stevens and Silversun Pickups. We don’t know what the institutional formula is for Album 88’s success, but we hope the station’s managers never lose it.

www.wras.org

For continuous whitewater fun within a couple of hours of a major city, it’s hard to match the OCOEE RIVER. Just north of the Tennessee line, the Ocoee’s most famous as the site of the 1996 Olympics whitewater course. But it’s also an incredibly accessible stream for half-day and full-day guided rafting trips. The Class III-IV rapids aren’t super dangerous, but you definitely don’t want to try them without an expert. An added convenience: The Ocoee’s dam-released flows ensure a good ride even in the driest days of summer.
Nantahala Outdoor Center, 888-905-7238, www.noc.com; Wildwater Limited, 800-451-9972, ,a href=”http://www.wildwaterrafting.com”>www.wildwaterrafting.com.

He stumbles over words. He screws up his PSAs. He’s a total spaz. And he undoubtedly grates on some listeners’ nerves. But those people are just jealous they don’t have the charm, energy and personality of WRAS-FM (88.5)’s MARVIN EVANGELISTA. Evangelista hosts several Album 88 programs, including “Soul Kitchen.” In endearingly awkward fits and bursts, he offers hilarious commentary and witty criticisms of his own shortcomings as a DJ. And in an impressive attempt to prove he can walk the walk as well as talk the talk, Evangelista wiped the floor clean in AccessAtlanta’s 2005 air guitar contest. His re-enactment of AC/DC’s “Problem Child” would make even Bob Pollard proud.
404-651-4488. <a href=”http://www.wras.org” target=”_blank”www.wras.org.

“Rock is dead, they say,” was the Who’s infamous proclamation in the ’70s, and they may have been more prescient than they realized. It’s no coincidence that most rock stations in Atlanta now have classic rock formats. All old, all the time. They may be dinosaur bands but a lot of them still put out new material, which never gets played on the radio. Without the Internet, would anyone have even heard of one of the most important albums of the year, Neil Young’s Living With War? That’s why we like the freewheeling format of DAVE-FM (92.9). There’s an interesting blend of old and new, and Mara Davis has the spiciest tongue on the local radio scene. Long live rock!

www.929davefm.com/.

There’s no suburb in Atlanta where you’ll hear Vietnamese, Somali, Urdu and Serbo-Croatian as commonly spoken as it is in CLARKSTON. The town popped up in the 1830s, when railroad workers laid tracks to connect Atlanta to Augusta. Because the railroad made it easy to commute to Atlanta for work, Clarkston became one of the first suburbs in the South. It fell on hard times in the 1970s and ’80s, but retained its quiet, modest charm. Then, refugees who flocked to Clarkston for public transportation and affordable housing transformed it into a vibrant, eclectic hamlet, and now a new generation of commuters is fixing up old homes and building new ones. How many other quaint neighborhoods have 4-bedroom, 2-bath houses with a backyard for $145,000?
www.cityofclarkston.com

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Check the playlists at some of the urban stations in the A, and it’ll seem as if the program directors are stationed in New York. But take a listen to HOT 107.9 (WHTA-FM) and you’ll immediately hear the difference — Hot 107.9 keeps it dirty. In addition to the hit parade, you’ll hear unknown local/regional hip-hop acts, no matter the time slot or the on-air personality. The station has a history of breaking out new artists, and Hot 107.9 is responsible for launching a bevy of musical trends such as bass, bounce, crunk and (these days) snap.
www.hot107atl.com