The Garage Bar cranks up Whitesnake and Cinderella tunes at tonight’s Big Hair Unleashed outing. The weekly tribute to ’80s metal even includes popular beer-bong races all night long. “We really roll it back,” says DJ Maria, a WMMS-FM 100.7 jock who hosts the bar’s two-hour blast from the past. “The music brings back a specific memory. People say, ‘I remember my first Poison concert.’ It invokes a real happy time for them.”

Maria has spent every Wednesday of the past three summers at the bar, spinning songs and sharing stories about the huge-coiffed artists she’s interviewed. “We have people that were not even old enough to experience the music firsthand,” she says. “But they know their stuff because it’s something their parents or older brothers and sisters used to listen to.” She admits there’s a special place in her own heart for the music of Great White, Winger, and other hair-farmers. “It was a fun time for me,” she says. “The whole attitude then was about having nothing but a good time. I’m a rocker, and it’s OK to be a rocker.”
Wednesdays, 9-11 p.m. Starts: Aug. 29. Continues through Sept. 5

This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2007.