Athens

This Month in Athens (March):

Shopping: Epidemic in Gazi is a glamorous one-stop shop: pick out some designer-label clothes and accessories, then get your hair styled in the in-house salon (22 Iakhou Street).

Sightseeing: Pablo Picasso's Experiments in Linogravure are to be exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in Athens throughout the month (3 Merlin Street, tel: 210 364 0215).

Key areas: The suburb of Kifissia is a favourite Athens destination for both shopping and evenings out. The hub of the night-time action is Kefalari Square but exploring is sure to pay dividends.

Day trips: The Greek spring is famous for both brevity and beauty, and is best illustrated on the mountains surrounding Attica (a 30-minute drive from the city) and beyond. At the Kaisariani Monastery on Mount Hymettus you can visit the botanical gardens, while Mount Parnitha remains wild and unspoilt.

Athens News & Gossip

Athens Rockabilly

It's seventy years since, somewhere deep in big-sky Tennessee, white country boys fell for black plantation blues. Rockabilly - a mongrel blend of the aggressive beats and simple chord riffs of blues and the slap bass and pathos of the hillbilly sound - was the result. Into a fresh century and the rockabilly scene has as much traction as the blue jeans central to the distinctive rockabilly look. From Estonia to Austria, Germany to the British south coast, a new generation of hepcats and kittens are lavishing on the Brilliantine, lacing their two-tone shoes and getting down to the rockabilly sound.

Whippet-thin Anastasios Savoulidis, aka Ace Moreno, is guitarist and lead vocalist with The Rockets, an Athens-based rockabilly outfit who are Greece's torch-bearers for "an authentic rockabilly style". Now 39 and topped by a majestic quiff, he's been dedicated to the rockabilly sound and aesthetic since his mid-teens. "After the 50s heyday there was a rockabilly revival in the late 70s in the US that by the 80s had made it over to Europe," he says. "My father was part of that scene in Athens, with all the old 50s cuts, so my love grew from there, I guess." (As did his hairdo, which Ace claims is now permanently erect, after 20 years of concerted teasing.)

It's 10pm at the After Dark Club in Athens and The Rockets, bathed in a spectral red light, are tearing up the stage. Ace quavers through a kinetic take on Johnny Cash's rockabilly standard Folsom Prison Blues as lead guitarist Rockin' Pete cranks up the reverb and tremolo amp atmospherics. Meanwhile, bassist Buddy 67s straddles and grinds against his powder-blue double bass as he gets caught up in the antics onstage. The audience, mostly young Athenians and a few old-timers who can remember the 80s scene, are having as much fun as the band. Xenia Vitos (26) - dressed in a floral dress with a nipped-in waist, her hair worn in a swinging ponytail pomaded as shiny as a conker - could be an extra in Happy Days. Over the reverb, she tells me: "I love rockabilly because it makes me happy. Things are difficult for young people in Athens right now, so we need to party."

It's perhaps no coincidence that the nexus of the Athens nostalgia scene is Exarchia, the bohemian district that became notorious worldwide when anti-police riots broke out here in February last year. "Exarchia is Athens' Hoxton [London], or Williamsburg [New York]," says Exarchia café owner Alexandros Konstantinou. "It's here that young and alternative Athenians hang out; it has immense energy. But for every anarchist there's an artist." In this testosteronefuelled quarter of Athens, the macho rockabilly scene, where men are incontrovertibly men, seems a happy fit.

"Rockabilly is about a seductively simple world," says British music author Will Hodgkinson. "It came out of an optimistic era in American history, when men were bikers and car mechanics and women were curvaceous and mixed cocktails. There's been a rockabilly scene bubbling away across much of Europe since the 1970s, and it will always be there, because it offers an alternative for anyone disenfranchised by contemporary music scenes."

And rockabilly, of course, is about much more than the music. Anastasios, by day a graphic designer, is as much into the "kit" that goes with the rockabilly lifestyle as its sound. Littered with tattoos, he religiously works the blue jeans and leathers look and recently adapted his '63 Volkswagen into a "sort-of hot rod" (the modified cars that were a favourite accessory of the 50s rockabilly scene). "I souped up the engine and added wide tyres and alloys," he says with a twinkle of pride, "and dice and a swinging skull, of course." Anastasios' favourite store for his rockin' requisites is Monsterville (monsterville.gr) but stroll around the graffitied streets of Exarchia and you'll find other quirky vintage outlets, such as the girly, riotous Yesterday's Bread (87 Kallidromiou) and Blue Fox Café (91 Asklipiou Street) where scenesters also come for flyers about upcoming rockabilly parties - gigs by The Rockets' friendly competition, The Hustlers at Blue Fox Rockabilly club (Mondays, at the café) and the AN Live Club.

Much of the pleasure in rockabilly is that the individual gets to decide what the lifestyle means, says Andy Widder of rockabilly.de, a leading light of the German rockabilly scene (Europe's largest, with over 40 dedicated club nights). "In the past few years, the scene has really opened up," he says. "There are so many different people and influences that it is impossible to untangle them. Hot rods, tattoos, vintage clothing, punkabilly, psychobilly - it's the music and fashion, but it's as much about the outsider attitude." The new rockabilly fans, who Widder coins the "neos", add their own garnishes to the rockabilly lifestyle, says Widder: "They're different to the way we were 20 years ago. They have the internet - MySpace and the digital rockabilly radio stations are really powering the scene - and they're mixing it up with other retro revivals, such as burlesque and swing."

Anna, who goes by the rockabilly name of Kitti J, defines this new generation. Born in Estonia and now living in Holland, the tech-savvy 29-year-old edits top European rockabilly site www.rockabillybash.com and, in November, staged the first Rockabilly Bash festival in Amsterdam, for which she brought 72-year-old US rockabilly legend Don Woody to Holland for his first European gig. She regularly travels across Europe in pursuit of the rockabilly party scene. "This is one way new rockabilly is different," she says. "The phenomenon of 'party gangs', who meet up to travel together to parties and weekenders, often having first met on the internet. I go to High Rockabilly (in Spain) and Rockabilly Rave (in England) - the two biggest festivals - and to the teddy boy events, which are concentrated in Finland and Germany."

Back at the After Dark Club, The Rockets are beaded with sweat as they power through material from their debut album, Hot Rod Boogie: Blue Jean Bop, in the classic teen jump-up vein; Lucy, reminiscent of Jailhouse Rock; and the instrumental Sweet Magnolia, which hangs on its mournful guitar strains. I try my best hepcat slang on Xenia: "Hey, this is out of sight, isn't it, cat?" Above the chord licks, Xenia evidently has no idea what I'm saying. Nevertheless she smiles happily through her slash of pillarbox-red lippy and we get on with the only thing that matters: getting down.

For more on Athens rockabilly and The Rockets, visit www.myspace.com/therocketsgr

ROCKABILLY ACROSS EUROPE

ROCK SCHOOL BARBEY
BORDEAUX

This Bordeaux-based "rock 'n' roll school" has been an exponent of the French rockabilly sound for 20 years. This is one of its regular events and concerts - a biggie, with brooding rock 'n' roller Soan. 4 February; 18 Cours Barbey, France, www.rockschool-barbey.com

LIVE & LOUD
HELSINKI

Rockabilly and psychobilly with Brits The Caravans headlining, plus Finnish favourites Jumpin' Low Down Dudes and Rebound. 13 February; Heimolinna, Loimaa, 2 Väinämöisenkatu, Finland, www.myspace.com/liveloudinloimaa

PUNK-AND-BILLY BASH
COPENHAGEN

Tenth anniversary bash for this Danish rockabilly fest. All Scandi acts, including Cocksparrer and Delusions of Grandeur. 20 February; 40 Enghavevej, Denmark, www.punkandbillybash.dk

BOOK AHEAD: HEMSBY ROCK 'N' ROLL WEEKENDER
LONDON STANSTED

Despite its quirky location, this is the axis around which the UK rockabilly scene revolves and from 14 to 17 May there'll be four days of rock 'n' roll, rockin' blues and doo wop. Seacroft Holiday Site, Hemsby, Norfolk, UK, www.hemsbyrocknroll.co.uk

WHERE TO STAY IN ATHENS

UNDER €60
FAROS 1

If you'd rather spend your cash on cocktails, clubs and a nifty rockabilly outfit, check into this well-priced bolthole. Doubles from €50, book at www.hotels.easyJet.com

UNDER €75
ARISTON HOTEL

Step back in time at the city's nightclubs and then crash out at this affordable, centrally located and contemporary hotel. Doubles from €67, book at www.hotels.easyJet.com

UNDER €100
MAGNA GRECIA BOUTIQUE HOTEL

Spoil your gal by whisking her off to a Rockets gig and then check into this exclusive 10-suite luxury hotel. Doubles from €90, book at www.hotels.easyJet.com

Athens Trivia

• March: A Greek custom that still exists to this day is the wearing of the "Martis" - a bracelet of red and white twine given to children to protect them from the harsh March sun.

• February: The temple of Cape Sounion is famous for some of the world's first graffiti, which was carved onto one of its pillars by Lord Byron. It still remains to this day.

• January: Epiphany is a major holiday in Greece and is celebrated on 6 January with the "Blessing of the Waters". This involves a priest casting a cross into the sea or a lake for people to dive and retrieve.

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