Kirkwood Ballers Club is a monthly experimental open forum occurring at eyedrum art & music gallery every third Thursday. Celebrating its 19th year, the KBC has evolved, traversing various venues such as the old Lenny’s Bar, the Highland Inn, 11:11 Teahouse, Star Bar, and more, even extending its reach to Brooklyn’s Zebulon Concert Cafe. KBC remains an Atlanta-based gathering, with its unique ethos deeply rooted in the city’s cultural fabric.

In its various incarnations over the years, Kirkwood Ballers Club has created an environment where generations of avant-garde musical energy and talent has flourished throughout periods of existence and inactivity.

During its early years at Lenny’s, a parade of local punk, hip-hop, jazz, and indie rock musicians would sign up to perform including everyone from garage punks and avant-garde musicians Cole Alexander of the Black Lips and Bradford Cox of Deerhunter to Grammy-winning saxophone player Kebbi Williams of Tedeschi Trucks Band. All utilized the format to create music in-the-moment that expanded upon their typical repertoires.

“The Kirkwood Ballers Club was always a place of pure freedom,” says Kebbi Williams, who often showed up with large ensembles of musicians who lit up the room with an explosive free-form skroking jazz set. “I learned from Kirkwood Ballers Club at Lenny’s and from the scene at Eyedrum how to be free,” Williams goes on to say. “I saw some of the most original and provocative things at the Kirkwood Ballers Club, and it totally affected my life as an artist.”

WHEN: Every Third Thursday of the month from 8-11:30pm

WHERE: eyedrum art & music gallery 515 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd, Atlanta, GA 30312 – eyedrum.org