Painted Black

Introduction

Photo found on Reddit.

When I was 13 years old, I went to my first show at the Masquerade. I was the guitarist for a band I formed with some friends, called Sunday Mourning. Being in the local music scene, I’d heard a lot about this venue that sat at 695 North Avenue in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, but I had never been there before. I remember seeing the building for the first time—there was something spooky about how this large, old, all black exterior building stood out during daylight. The building looked like it should only exist at night, but once the sun set, the behemoth looked even more ominous as it gradually camouflaged in to the evening. Underneath floodlights and a marquee that had the venue’s name written in cursive purple neon, groups of black shirts gathered to get their nicotine fixes in between sets. They were like vampires in dress, as well as for being out while the rest of Atlanta slept.

Rumors circulated that the place was haunted by a former worker from when the building operated as a mill. Supposedly, the phantom of the Masquerade would turn the heavy guitar stacks upside down as roadies lugged in the equipment. There was also something eerie about the name “Masquerade.” The word evoked a sense of decadent history, when people covered their faces with Venetian and domino masks to not be seen while they indulged in hedonism.

The name of the rooms were spiritual motifs that acted as a memento mori. When you walked through the black front doors of the building, which resembled medieval chamber doors with crosses cut into them, a small bar area called Purgatory was to your left. Across the hall from Purgatory was a larger room, called Hell, which looked the most cavernous and was typically reserved for themed dance nights or small live bands. If you continued straight from the front doors, you would go up a staircase to the largest room in the building reserved for major bands, called Heaven—yes, there was a Stairway to Heaven. The inside of the Masquerade felt like a medieval church or castle. It had large wooden walls built into stone that made parts of the building resemble a cavern. From the outside of the property to the inside, one would find large, antique machine parts scattered. While the strange tools may have seemed misplaced against walls of stone and wood, the aesthetic blended together to be a literal representation of “goth industrial.”

 I saw that first concert in 2005 when MySpace was the leading social media platform. For those not around during that era, MySpace had a “Top 8” feature on each page where one arranged their closest friends, or favorite bands or venues, in whatever order they deemed—this, of course, caused some arguments amongst friends or significant others about why they were placed lower than others. I remember the Masquerade’s Top 8 reading like a list of 90s alternative music royalty, featuring (in no particular order) the Misfits, Down, the Genitorturers, and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. The number one spot on the venue’s account was reserved for a band called the Impotent Sea Snakes, a group whose music and stage shows featured men dressed in drag and S&M bondage imagery, and was endorsed by celebrities such as the wrestler Goldberg and Motorhead front man Lemmy Kilmister.

MySpace had a messaging feature, and as an arrogant teen spurred by Sunday Mourning’s growing popularity in the Atlanta suburbs, I reached out to the Masquerade asking what the band needed to do to get booked. Rather than being given a show date, I was given advice to keep playing smaller venues to gain a larger following and to keep practicing—I believe this latter piece was a genteel way of saying we sucked (we did). This response was signed without a position title or even a last name in the signature—it simply read, “Dean.”

Between the time the Masquerade opened in September 1989 to when the original location closed in November 2016, nearly every goth, punk, longhair, metalhead, hipster, hippie, misfit, and every other group included under the umbrella term “alternative,” in Atlanta had stepped into this local mecca of the arts scene. Yet no book or piece of research has been written at length about the building’s history or the Masquerade’s cultural significance to the city. It is my intention to fill that void and examine the trends of Atlanta’s modern culture and social-political dynamics such as economic cycles, urban planning, revitalization, market trends, and gentrification, through studying the evolution of the building that sits at the corner of North Avenue and present-day North Angier Avenue. In just over a century, this property has worn the face of an excelsior mill, a restaurant, a comedy club, a cinema, and one of the most significant concert venues in southern history.[1]

In writing a history about the property at 695 North Avenue, multiple themes and concepts emerge allowing us to gain a better understanding of Atlanta history. The most obvious is a look at Atlanta’s modern music scene, which has been analyzed in Mark Kemp’s Dixie Lullaby and Regina Bradley’s Chronicling Stankonia. However, both of these books cover the entire South, not focusing solely on Atlanta, much less on one building.[2] These books also cover only southern rock and hip-hop, respectively, leaving the genres that the Masquerade became associated with–such as punk and metal–absent. This is certainly not to say that the Masquerade didn’t welcome southern rock and hip-hop acts—in fact artists such as Kendrick Lamar gave their first Atlanta shows at the Masquerade. However, it was niche rock genres outside of mainstream music that the venue became synonymous with. A book that addresses one of Atlanta’s less mainstream scenes, nightlife, and music, is A Night at the Sweet Gum Head. However, Padgett’s focus is on the city’s LGBT scene during the disco era.[3]

As mentioned, one of the most essential concepts to understanding the Masquerade’s later history and the current status of the property at 695 North Avenue is gentrification. Within the last five years, several books have been released that explore the politically charged patterns of gentrification including Newcomers, How to Kill a City, and Pushed Out.[4] While these patterns can be identified in Atlanta, the city is not a case study in any of these books. Anne Gray Fischer specifically addresses Atlanta gentrification in a chapter in The Streets Belong to Us, but her study of gentrification as it affects race and gender understandably overshadows its effect on a concert venue.[5] Articles about the effect of gentrification are bountiful, found in both mainstream and alternative newspapers and blogs, as well as scholarly journals—many of which are cited in the footnotes of this website’s sections. In the future, I would love to see more in-depth analyses of Atlanta gentrification, however the intent of Painted Black is to tell the story of the Masquerade as a building and business at the forefront, with the effects of the city’s gentrification in the background.

Other crucial themes to understand the property at 695 North Avenue are historic preservation and shifting industries. Here again, many books have been written, but few that address Atlanta’s identity struggle between historic heritage and modern city—and even fewer that address the antiquation of excelsior. This lack of scholarship on Atlanta’s complicated relationship with gentrification and historic preservation is understandable as it is still happening. Admittedly, using a building to address these topics may seem like an odd choice, however the Masquerade is the perfect symbol to do so.

Nightclubs and venues that served similar clientele in a similar era that have gained wider recognition than the Masquerade—for example, CBGB in New York and the Viper Room in Los Angeles—have also been profiled limitedly in historic publications, aside from occasional memoirs and “pop histories.”

Source material for this website relied heavily on local newspapers, including the mainstream Atlanta Journal Constitution, the alternative arts journal Creative Loafing, and Georgia State University’s student newspaper Signal. Oral histories with people instrumental to the various stages of 695 North Avenue built the rest of my apparatus. This includes interviews conducted with the staff of the building’s predecessor, as well as fans and musicians who frequented the venue. It is my hope to balance this website between being a history and as a piece of nostalgia, thus large portions of correspondences and interviews with bands are included under the “Interviews” section of this site.

This website is divided into nine chronological parts, called “Circles,” intended to be reminiscent of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and to pay tribute to the Masquerade’s three stages: Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell. The first three circles trace 695 North Avenue’s infant stages before becoming the Masquerade. The next three explore the Masquerade’s early years during the 1990s. The final three describe the biggest challenges the venue has faced, ultimately resulting in its move to a new location.

The first circle opens by describing the history of the Old Fourth Ward, the neighborhood in which 695 North Avenue falls. This circle then provides a history of Frank DuPre, the man who started the DuPre Excelsior Mill and moved it to 695 North Avenue to be closer to Atlanta’s railroad system. To provide context for the popularity of excelsior (also known as wood wool), the circle briefly discusses the 1895 Cotton States International Exposition which contributed to making Atlanta the industrial center of the South. The circle then investigates the local competition in excelsior manufacturing, while providing biographies of the generations of DuPre’s inheritors. The First Circle closes just after World War II, when excelsior became obsolete, leaving 695 North Avenue abandoned.

The second circle focuses on two brothers: Rocky and Michael Reeves. These brothers, as well as some friends of theirs, were oxymoronically business savvy hippies with years of experience working in Atlanta pizzerias. They opened a local chain of psychedelic-themed restaurants, called Mellow Mushroom, under the moniker Home-grown Industries of Georgia. After gaining five years of experience with Mellow Mushroom, the brothers pivoted to a more upscale dining experience by purchasing 695 North Avenue and turning it into the Excelsior Mill Restaurant. This circle then focuses on the repurposing of the building, the live entertainment provided, and the restaurant’s philanthropic initiatives in the community.

The third circle examines the later years of the Excelsior Mill Restaurant in the mid-1980s. As Home-grown Industries opened more Mellow Mushrooms in Atlanta, it became too difficult to maintain the large, over 80-year-old building at 695 North Avenue. At the same time, rock music became popular in the city’s nightlife again, after the brief flash of disco was over. Michael Reeves became less interested in food and more interested in music, deciding to leave the Excelsior Mill Restaurant to start a concert venue. As these other endeavors took precedence to the brothers, they looked to sell 695 North Avenue to new buyers.

Briefly recapping the resurgence of rock music as described in the previous circle, the fourth circle begins with how this popularity led to the growth of fringe genres in Atlanta, especially punk. This circle focuses heavily on local punks who lived the lifestyle to the extreme, as well as hangouts such as Pershing Point— “the Chelsea Hotel of the South.” A newly emerged faction of punks is introduced, called “deathrockers,” who wore black clothes and heavy black makeup. As the circle progresses, detrimental moments happen in the local punk scene, including increased drug use, a rise in Nazi skinhead punks, increased violence between punk factions, and a murder within the scene. The circle then describes the factors that shut down Atlanta’s alternative music venues, leaving a void in the city waiting to be filled. At the same time, a group in Tampa were starting a venue in Ybor City called the Masquerade. Looking to expand, representatives from signed a lease to move into 695 North Avenue. The circle ends as the 1990s eclipse the 1980s.

The fifth circle opens with the new Masquerade location in Atlanta, operated by the three founders: Brian McNamara, Berta Ochs, and Dean Riopelle. The circle describes the conversion of the building from upscale restaurant to dark and grungy concert venue that the staff painted black inside and out. The circle then details the “golden years” of the Masquerade, when it became a notorious alternative music venue that hosted a slew of bands now considered royalty of the 1990s. This list includes Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and so many others. It closes by discussing the Masquerade’s early association with philanthropy and sexuality, as well as challenges faced in Atlanta and Tampa’s nightlife scenes that the company had to overcome.

Zooming out from Atlanta and Tampa, the sixth circle opens at the turn of the millennium, when various rock subgenres started to replace hip-hop and pop on “Top 100” charts—specifically, emo and pop-punk music. In addition to describing the history of these genres, the circle also discusses the youth community built around them and how it spread via MySpace. Three national events in the early 2000s that affected local venues are also addressed. These are 9/11 and the ensuing fear of another terrorist attack being committed, the E2 Nightclub Stampede in Chicago, and the Station Nightclub Fire that led to 100 deaths in Rhode Island. As safety guidelines became increasingly strict for venues, part of the Masquerade collapsed, resulting in several injuries. Just as this was repaired, the City of Atlanta started to enforce an old law restricting alcohol sales on Sundays, and later imposed an earlier last-call resulting in several bars and nightclubs going out of business. This circle ends with Dean Riopelle’s decision to sell 695 North Avenue in the midst of the 2000s real estate bubble.

The seventh circle starts by giving a history of early attempts to gentrify Atlanta—especially the Old Fourth Ward. A Georgia Tech student’s master’s thesis proposed a project called “the BeltLine” in 1999. This was an effort to repurpose Atlanta’s former railroad tracks to become a light rail system surrounded by public parks. In 2005, the project came to fruition during the real estate bubble which allowed the city and other interest groups to purchase properties along the tracks. As the BeltLine was manifesting, large condos, boutiques, and trendy restaurants sprouted in the Old Fourth Ward. Just one block from the BeltLine’s eastside trail sat the Masquerade, whose owner—Riopelle—was looking to sell. Initially trying to do so clandestinely to a developer, the media released the attempted sale to the public, and an ensuing debate about historic preservation began. The circle ends with the legal decision that the building at 695 North Avenue had to remain and could only be repurposed. This led to the Masquerade being sold in 2006, right as the housing market started to crash, resulting in the new property owners to allow the venue to remain as they focused on their other interests.

The eighth circle is dedicated to the mysterious circumstances surrounding Dean Riopelle’s death. It begins by providing a biography of Riopelle from his birth until his death in September 2013. Afterward, a biography is given of his then-girlfriend, Alix Tichelman, a Canadian emigrant whose ex-boyfriend was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for administering a lethal “speedball” to a friend. The circle then explores Riopelle and Tichelman’s tumultuous relationship, which ended with Riopelle dying of a heroin overdose—a drug that those closest to him said the wealthy, successful businessman would never touch. Upon Riopelle’s death, Tichelman moved to California where she became a sex worker on the website “SeekingArrangment.” This is how she met Forrest Hayes, a wealthy Google executive. On November 23, 2013, Hayes invited her to his yacht, where security cameras caught Tichelman injecting him with a fatal dose of heroin. She later plead guilty to manslaughter, but was released after two years and deported to Canada. The eighth circle closes by discussing the Fulton County District Attorney’s decision to reopen the Riopelle case, resulting in the grand jury indicting Tichelman for distribution of heroin, distribution of oxycodone, and two counts of felony murder. A warrant was issued for her arrest and the Fulton DA is working with Canadian authorities to extradite Tichelman back to Atlanta to face charges.

This website’s final circle discusses how the Masquerade adapted to the death of their leader. After a decade of impending doom, the new property owners finally asked the Masquerade to vacate 695 North Avenue in 2016. However, as the Masquerade attempted to find a new home in gentrified Atlanta, neighborhood developers took legal action to keep them out. The Masquerade finally found a new spot, and the circle describes the farewell concerts and festivals held at the property before the move. The last half of the ninth circle describes the four years of success at the Masquerade’s new location, which was cut short by the COVID-19 Pandemic. The circle then details the impact of the pandemic on the Masquerade, and on Georgia’s live music industry in general. It ends in August 2021, when the Masquerade reopened.

The story of the Masquerade is not just about music and a building, it is also one of community, city identity, and most of all resilience—resilience against city officials, real estate developers, a pandemic, and the loss of their leader. This property at 695 North Avenue has long been at the precipice of Atlanta’s past and future.

[1] A discussion on word choice is necessary here. The property at 695 North Avenue actually holds multiple buildings, though the one on the most western side of the property is the most essential to this website. As a result, the phrase “the property at 695 North Avenue” will frequently be used to discuss the property as a whole. Later, the “DuPre Excelsior Mill” or the lowercase “excelsior mill” will be used when in reference to the property’s tenure as a literal manufacturing mill, whereas the capitalized “Excelsior Mill” without the DuPre surname before will be used to differentiate the building when it acted largely as a restaurant. Lastly, “the Masquerade” can mean either the physical concert venue, or be used to discuss “the Masquerade” as an entertainment entity—its context when used I hope will make sense.

[2] Mark Kemp, Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race, and New Beginnings in a New South, (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006); Regina Bradley, Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021).

[3] Martin Padgett, A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta’s Gay Revolution, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021)

[4] Matthew L. Schuerman, Newcomers: Gentrification and Its Discontents (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019); Peter Moskowitz, How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood, (New York: Bold Type Books, 2018)

[5] Anne Gray Fischer, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022)