Mother David Braden
David Braden ran The Mandorla Gallery on 14th at Peachtree then he opened a club, The Catacombs, in the basement. It became a gathering place for the young neo-hippie artists and such. A group created a light show as an experiment. They asked David where they could set up. He replied, “Don’t ask me! I’m not your mother! Mother David!”. But the hippies said yes you are and lovingly called him Mother David thereafter.
David Braden where ever you are, we wish you well. Please get in touch that your spiritual descendants can honor you.
Steve Cheatham adds:
My friends and I were talking about it a couple of weeks ago. Mother David has taken a beating long enough. It is simply not true about how he got his name.
We were around the Catacombs the day it opened. I was the photographer for the Great Speckled Bird and the creator of the Electric Collage light show.
Being gay in pre ‘gay’ days he and most gay people we knew were still ‘underground’. The gay community all knew him. He got the name because he was the ‘mothering type’. He had that name long before the Catacombs was opened.
How did the story told by Bucky happen? He is one of the people that David told “I am not your mother” and was being seriously scolded. David had to do that with some of the visitors to the Catacombs that he felt were not behaving correctly for the atmosphere he was creating in his coffee house.
Mother David has been badly profiled in many places. He was kind, gentle and a good person. He didn’t have a bad bone in his body and you had to be pretty rude to him to ruffle his feathers.
