Underneath many parking lots and high-rise condo developments lie forgotten chapters of Atlanta history. The following images dig up just a few of those chapters to reveal some ghosts from Atlanta’s musical past (use the interactive sliders to see how the spaces have changed). Like most great nights out, the details on the exact locations and dates can be a bit hazy, especially since Atlanta’s neighborhoods have changed so dramatically over the last few decades. Many interviews were conducted with former servers, managers, promoters, regulars, and partygoers to consider where we’ve been and where we are now.

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The Great Southeast Music Hall

Piedmont Road and Sydney Marcus Boulevard

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THEN: Johnny Rotten sneers for the camera during the Sex Pistols’ first American show at the Great Southeast Music Hall on Jan. 5, 1978. The venue was one of the city’s prominent rock clubs of the era, hosting performances by Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, and more. It closed in summer of 1978.

“After the show I was sitting at the bar with Johnny Rotten and we had a conversation about anarchy. He seemed a little upset that no one in the crowd made it up onto the stage that night, and that people seemed kind of subdued. ‘Back in England people in the crowd practically hurl each other at the stage left and right!’ I said, ‘Anarchy? This is America, sweetheart ... You do know that most people who came out for the show drove there in their parents’ cars — hell, their parents even filled up the tanks with gasoline for them!’”
— Doreen Cochran, former server at the Great Southeast Music Hall

NOW: Lock your doors and hide all valuables. The location of the once Great Southeast Music Hall in Lindbergh Plaza is now a parking lot for Home Depot, FedEx, Starbucks …

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Lenny’s Food and Spirits

307 Memorial Drive

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THEN: Lenny’s Food and Spirits was a grimy beacon for local music and hangouts on Memorial Drive in the early to mid aughts. Bands such as Black Lips and Deerhunter cut their teeth at the dive bar and rock club.

NOW: The Leonard! An architectural testament to the live-work-play revolution. Two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments start at $1,430 per month.

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Backstreet

845 Peachtree St.

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THEN: Located in a very different Midtown than we know today, Backstreet was a utopia for 24-hour party people to meet, dance, and get loaded. It closed in 2004 after nearly 30 years in business.

NOW: A parking lot for the block-long Viewpoint condominiums now stands approximately where the mighty disco inferno once was.

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12 Gate Coffee House

10th and Spring streets

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THEN: 12th Gate Coffee House was an intimate house-turned-music venue where Atlanta’s hippie scene often congregated. Everyone from Ravi Shankar to the Hampton Grease Band was spotted hanging out here. Pictured above is a handmade ad taken from the Great Speckled Bird for Little Feat’s Atlanta debut performances at the 12th Gate Coffee House in 1970. (“Still just a buck!”) 12th Gate closed in 1973.

“I played these shows in a Hampton Grease Band offshoot that I was in at the time, called the Stump Brothers. This was Little Feat’s first time playing in Atlanta. They were still a four-piece back then, and playing those shows led to a long friendship I shared with Lowell George, which lasted until he died in June of 1979. The 12th Gate was a very small place, but it was one of my favorite places to play. It was a little house, and it felt like you had walked into someone’s living room. And a lot of really great bands played there: McCoy Tyner, Weather Report played there. I’d never been to a place that felt so much like being in someone’s living room, and you could just sit on the floor and hang out with your friends and hear some really great music.”
— Glenn Phillips, guitarist and founding member of the Hampton Grease Band

NOW: Domino’s Pizza now stands on the corner of 10th and Spring streets.

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Club 112

Cheshire Bridge and Lavista roads

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THEN: Club 112 was the Saturday night hot spot for Atlanta’s hip-hop elite, including Dr. Dax (left) and Goodie Mob’s Big Gipp (far right). “Saturday is off the heezy fo’ sheezy, you can find me up in one-tweezy” — Jermaine Dupri ft. Ludacris, “Welcome to Atlanta”

“‘Welcome to Atlanta’ was a true story. From Monday to Sunday, everything I talked about was actually the club that you should hit or the No. 1 hot spot in the city. Saturday was the night for Club 112; that was the main night. Every Saturday I was there and most of the time I wouldn’t come out until like 2 o’clock in the morning. That’s when the club would be packed — till like 6 or 7 a.m. It was crazy.”
— Jermaine Dupri, So So Def label founder

NOW: The approximate former site of Club 112 is now home to a Publix/Pet Supplies “Plus.”

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The Yellow House

Moreland and Seaboard avenues

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THEN: The Yellow House was the final incarnation of a long-standing house show venue in Reynoldstown. It was “a musically talented and creative trash bag,” as one concertgoer put it in last year’s Music Issue. Designer plays a show (above) in Ben Jackson of Warehouse’s bedroom at the Yellow House in the summer of 2014.

NOW: The house was recently demolished to make way for a new mixed-use development. Don’t believe the corporate branding exercise: Elan Inman Station will be planted firmly on the edge of Reynoldstown.

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Lenny’s (second location)

486 Decatur St.

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THEN: Lenny’s redux! The new Decatur Street location opened in 2006 and continued the Lenny’s tradition of underground hip-hop, garage punk, and PBR in Old Fourth Ward.

NOW: The building that once housed Lenny’s second coming is now a great place to buy boxes!

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The Great Southeast Music Hall (second location)

3861 Peachtree Road

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THEN: Shortly after leaving Lindbergh Plaza, the Great Southeast Music Hall reopened in Brookhaven’s Cherokee Plaza in summer of ’78. Eric Clapton (left) joins B.B. King and Diana Ross on stage at the venue’s second location.

“Diana Ross had performed a Las Vegas-style concert in the round earlier that night at the Omni Downtown and decided after her show that she had to come see B.B. Along with her were her current boyfriend, Ryan O’Neal, and his daughter Tatum, Kool and the Gang, William Bell, and dozens of others, including Diana’s sister. B.B. was delighted and I started snapping away. Then, what do you know, out comes Eric Clapton! Sheesh. My cup runneth over!”
— Ron Currens, founding editor of Hittin’ the Note magazine

NOW: A much needed parking lot for Kroger shoppers.