Move Over, Mormons! Mesa's Going Punk
When the Leeper family pitched the idea of opening a punk/goth clothing & collectibles store smack in the middle of conservative Mesa's Main Street, there were a few raised eyebrows. "They wanted to know if it would be another Nile," quips daughter Amanda Tucker, the seamstress behind a few of the shop's playful dress-up clothes.
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| Amanda shows off a sweet gun sculpture by Eddie Schenck, made from a 1930's typewriter. |
She's referring to the notorious Nile Theatre nightclub, which was featured in a 2000 Dateline NBC expose on raves. It was also the site of one murder, a couple of stabbings and countless drug, alcohol and firearms violations.
The Leepers assured the city that their plans were far more innocent, and up sprang eVeRmOrE NeVeRmOrE - a cute and funky little shop in a historic brick building that's rumored to be haunted. More on that later...
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| I see your Schwartz shirt is as cute as mine... |
Owner Bob Leeper, his wife Deb and daughter Amanda have slowly been adding fun goodies ever since the store's soft opening last week: comic books, leather bracers and chain maille made by local artisans, Steampunk sculptures, corsets, fun t-shirts and various odds and ends. The official line on the name Evermore Nevermore is that it's a nod to Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, because crows/ravens gather unusual items for use in their nests just as Evermore's owners hunt down treasures for the store.
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| Vintage tattoo-inspired flasks and leather accessories. |
While all that's certainly true, the "story behind the story" is that the owners sourced some discarded Verizon Wireless sign lettering through Craigslist and had to make something out of it from the letters they got.
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| Detail of "Zombie Death of Supergirl" by Arthur Suydam |
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So they know how to deal with zombies, but what about ghosts? Since the Leepers took over their Main St. storefront, strange things have happened. Amanda reports hearing hushed voices in the basement. The hair on our necks stood up when we entered. And the basement door once locked behind them when no one else was there. It stayed stuck even when the hinge pins were removed. Cue creepy violin score.
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| Fem-Gor Skull sculpture by Eddie Schenck of Ed's Green Art. |
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