Ophelia's Electric Soapbox Sells, Will Close for September

Ophelia's Electric Soapbox is playing a new tune.

The adult bookstore-turned-live music venue at 1215 20th Street is now owned by Eric Pirritt, the founder of ENDIT Presents and former president of Live Nation's Colorado branch; Edible Beats, the company founded by Justin Cucci, recently sold Ophelia's to the longtime concert promoter, who left Live Nation last October.

"The first night they opened, I went to the club and fell in love with it," recalls Pirritt.

Cucci says that he and Pirritt had been discussing a possible deal since January. Pirritt had been a partner with the venue through its exclusive booking with Live Nation, "so we've been collaborating with him for years now," Cucci says. "So there was already a synergy between myself and my group and his group, because we had done shows for a number of years, and he had always expressed loving the place, so it came about organically."

"When this opportunity came up, I couldn't say no," Pirritt says. "It's a club that I've loved since day one. I would put it up against any club of its size in America. It's the nicest, best place to play a show, and I'm excited to call it my own."

Cucci's decision to sell the place came about slowly, and the pandemic had a lot to do with it. "Really, as restaurateurs, the music business is a whole other business we were trying to learn and adopt," Cucci says. "But post-COVID, so many things had changed that we were looking into some ways that we could evolve Ophelia's. ... [Pirritt] expressed interest and we talked about it with the board; it was a hard decision, but we felt that it would be a potential win-win, because we didn't want to see Ophelia's close, and we thought somebody who has their hands in the music business and has been successful in the music business is exactly who needs to take over."

The sale will close on Friday, August 30, when Ophelia's will have its last show before shuttering until the last weekend of October (Random Rab's September run will be rescheduled). Pirritt won't do "anything close to an overhaul," he notes, because "as a venue itself and as a restaurant itself, there's next to nothing to change except for the mindset," which has focused on being more of a restaurant with live music than a music venue with food.

"The main thing is to continue doing what Ophelia's is really good at and add in the talent portion," Pirritt says.

That's where Randall Frazier enters the picture; he designed the sound system for Ophelia's when it opened in 2015 in a building that started life over a century ago as Kopper's Hotel and was more recently Diamond Lil's Emporium, an adult store. Frazier will take over booking and sound for the venue alongside production manager Will Umphrey, whom he's worked with for seventeen years, most recently at Levitt Pavilion. They're bringing most of their Levitt production team to Ophelia's, as well.

"When Ophelia's first opened, I designed and installed the sound," says Frazier. "And then I was the buyer and chief sound engineer there until COVID happened."

Ophelia's used the COVID shutdown as a time to further renovate the interior and didn't reopen until April 2022. Frazier, meanwhile, taught audio production at Warren Tech High School during the pandemic. "And then as soon as concerts started happening again, Ophelia's was still remodeling," he says.

Frazier was the first sound engineer Levitt hired when it opened in 2017, and he continued to work at Levitt after the pandemic. Then late last month, Pirritt gave Frazier a call and told him that he was buying Ophelia's. "I didn't hesitate," Frazier says of his decision to join the new team.

"I've worked with Eric previously because we've both been in the concert industry for forever. He's a great person to work for in the concert world," Frazier says. "What's awesome about him is he also has booked concerts in the past, so he knows what the job's about."

After the venue closes at the end of the month, "we have to retool the sound system and fix things that are not functioning — things that didn't really get taken care of after we all left," Frazier explains. "So we're going to fix it up and get it back into ace, tip-top shape. When it's running correctly, it's the best-sounding room in the city."

There are some other moving parts to deal with, he adds, such as getting admin access to the website and social media. But in the meantime, "I'm already starting to book shows," Frazier says. "They're just not on the website." 

Frazier, who has been the tour manager for DeVotchKa and got his start booking for the Mercury Cafe, the Walnut Room and Globe Hall, will maintain the booking philosophy that he's had for more than two decades: Any genre is welcome. "I don't like to stick with one type of music, because you're selling yourself short by doing that," he says. "I try to keep it open for everybody and let everybody have a turn to come in there and enjoy it."

His history in the local scene is definitely a plus. "The bands know me, I know the bands," he notes. "I'm no stranger."

Same goes for Pirritt, who is "a champion of music," according to Frazier. Pirritt started in the industry working for Nobody in Particular Presents at the Ogden and Bluebird theaters before starting ENDIT Presents, which does shows for the Boulder Theater, Mishawaka and more.

Before COVID hit, Pirritt would often come to Ophelia's, and he "was always giving advice to the previous owners and was trying to make it a better place and make it more functional and just a better experience," Frazier recalls. "There was always sort of this feeling that it had the potential it wasn't able to reach. I certainly felt that."

And Cucci would agree, it seems. While he'll be focusing on his other restaurants, including Root Down, Linger and El Five, he says he is excited to see what comes of this venue, nearly ten years after he opened it. "Part of what makes this exciting to us is, as opposed to selling it to some corporation or some group of people that we have no connection with, we're connected with Eric, and we're invested in seeing Ophelia's be better than it ever was," Cucci says. "He's not changing the name; I don't think he's changing the decor. I think what we have there is a really beautiful venue for independent music, and I'm not sad that we couldn't do it. I'm more happy that it's going to be in Eric's hands, and Randall is a great talent buyer. We're just excited about it."

Frazier believes having more music-minded ownership will bring Ophelia's to new heights: "The way I like to think of it is, we're going to bring Ophelia's back to its full potential."