Shadebeast Expands Athens' Metal Scene With Showcase Series

“Shadebeast is like that friend who’s obsessed with music [who] saves you all the time and tells you what to listen to,” says Joe Eldridge, the owner and founder of Shadebeast, the eclectic heavy-music store and collective nestled beneath Jittery Joe’s on Broad Street in downtown Athens. Founded in 2016 as an e-commerce site, Shadebeast opened in brick and mortar form the following year in the Chase Park warehouses before relocating downtown in June. “It was something that I kind of always wanted to do,” Eldridge says. “I worked in a record shop when I was a teenager, and it was one of those dream kinds of things.” Shadebeast has often been…