This is the current state of the Figure 8 wall, the wall used for Elliott Smith’s fifth album cover, in a picture taken by Autumn de Wilde. The wall is adjacent to Solutions, a small audio repair shop where many musicians bring their electronic broken parts.Above it is the way it used to look
This is really depressing, as today is the 7th anniversary of his tragic and still unexplained death. Since October 21st 2003, fans have written sentences on this wall, deposited flowers, candles and letters, and it had been the location where they have been gathering at this time of the year to pay homage. I am sure they will be doing it tonight too. But in the last 3 or 4 years, it had been the target of many graffiti, and despite efforts to clean it and repaint it several times, the ugly tags kept coming back.
Lately, some fans have tried to raise money to restore it, they even created a webpage, a facebook group, and raised the $500 necessary, really fast, just to see the owner of Solutions say to them last week he did not want to go through with a restoration. The reason is not very clear, but since I have talked to the guy a few times, I can say he is a little bit on the eccentric and lame side at the same time. Since 2003, he has said he wanted to do something to honor Elliott around the wall, a statue (weird idea when you know a little about Elliott), a coffee shop (there is a room behind the wall which was occupied by a small recording studio last time I checked), but nothing has ever been done. Instead fans have these huge black-purple-pink-yellow graffiti to commemorate Elliott’s death.
I certainly don’t like death anniversaries, but each October 21st, this wall represents some landmark for Elliott Smith’s fans, and its degradation is one more of all the sad things surrounding his passing.
