The Black Lodge Is Back
The wall outside the Black Lodge. (Photo by The Vera Project.)
It took stepping into the building to feel it was real.
It looked different, of course. On a Sunday night, day two of the Black Lodge’s official reopening, we were gathered in the lobby of the old LoFi, a place as prone to disco revival nights as punk and metal shows. It felt odd at first to mingle in a dark open room with black walls instead of a grimy hallway festooned with old band stikers and graffiti. The counter that used to serve as a bar was completely dry, a crucial element of the venue’s new all-ages status. Instead of the well-worn dance floor, a brightly-lit record store housed an eclectic selection of vinyl and a series of books on philosophy and world history.
Yet though the digs had changed, the spirit was undoubtedly there. The previous night, the venue hit capacity so quickly that a reported 100 people were turned away. Tonight was relatively calmer but still jam-packed with faces familiar to the DIY venue’s decade-plus of existence. In the crowd, I caught a pair of local musicians whose set I had caught at the venue years before, and we exchanged grins. They couldn’t believe it either.
We were there ostensibly to catch the night’s two acts, experimental jazz-fusion act sunking and pummelling rock act J.R.C.G., along with the mortar-like DJing of KEXP host Larry Mizell Jr. But we were also there to simply bask in the achievement, which had likely been hard-fought from the outset. Cities tend to have a contentious relationship with spaces like these, and Seattle could be even worse than many, but here we were, in a place that seemed gone for good.
I can’t speak for anybody else, but when the music finally happened, it was exactly what I needed at that very moment. The night’s sets were actually quite fitting. Mizell’s been a figure of the local hip-hop scene since the 90s, and Rob Granfelt’s dedication to Seattle’s DIY goes back to BIG BLDG and The Moon in SODO. J.R.C.G., meanwhile, featured Jason Clackley, a member of the organization responsible for the Lodge’s revival and a longtime volunteer in its heyday. Each set felt special for these reasons, but it also can’t be understated how good each band sounded in the space. From the side of the stage, J.R.C.G. thundered with a primal intensity, its two drummers in lockstep while its other five musicians wove noise and sound into a sonic textile: a continuation of a tapestry that had once been left unfinished, seemingly forever, on the floor.
Little Venom playing to a packed house on the new Black Lodge stage. Photo by Brittne Lunniss (@britttakemypic).
Sandwiched in between the dancier LoFi and the proving ground of the Victory Lounge, the Lodge contributed to a go-to destination for fans eager to revel in the unique joy of underground music. It was unique, however, in that it functioned as an “event space” rather than an official venue with an alcohol license, which made it a key part of the DIY touring circuit and a crusty, benevolent habitat for young punks. Then the 2020s hit, and the pandemic’s catastrophic effect on live music threatened the existence of nearly all the city’s venues. The Victory Lounge and the LoFi capitulated, closing their door in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Meanwhile, the Black Lodge remained dormant; though no official word was issued about its closure, it was safe to assume the Lodge was gone for good: yet another bit of scenery in the fallow fields of Seattle’s music scene.
So it’s a miracle that the space is still alive, and it owes its resuscitation to the passionate folks at The Vera Project. Seattle’s bastion of licensed all-ages shows since its founding in 2001, the Vera is one of the few organizations with both the drive and the wherewithal to head such an undertaking. Over the last two years, they spent around $165,000 and thousands of hours of collective effort renovating the space and preparing it for its new era.
“I'm surprised I still have hair in my head after getting it open,” says Vera production coordinator JJ Johnson, who (along with artistic director Clackley) were frequent participators at the old Black Lodge. Johnson’s connection to the venue runs deep; under Clackley’s wing, Johnson booked and worked tons of shows for both the Lodge and the Lounge, oftentimes contributing unpaid labor on top of working two jobs. Johnson also used to live on the premises for years: “We found out it was technically not illegal, but was definitely illegal that people were living there.”
DIY spaces like the Black Lodge are projects of passion; they run on good graces and shoestring budgets. “Everybody that worked the shows there, nobody made money,” Johnson explains. “The venue took a little cut, that's how they sustained the space, but only the bands took money.” When COVID hit, that meager trickle of sustainability was cut off, forcing the building’s leaseholders, Brian McClelland and Lis Di Angelo (of the hardcore band Filth is Eternal), to seek a more affordable living situation around the tail end of 2020. No one else in the space could afford the building, so Johnson approached Clackley and Vera director Ricky Grabowski with the idea of taking over the space. After months of consideration, they pulled the trigger.
The original plan was to renovate just the Black Lodge space; the LoFi wasn’t yet part of the equation. At the time, the only big headache was the building’s “crazy” electrical issues. That assessment changed when the group learned about the cost of retrofitting the building’s roof to install a fire escape, with an accompanying price tag of around $250,000, far exceeding Vera’s budget.
That’s when they learned about Scott Behrens’ plans to sell the LoFi. He wanted way less than what it would have cost to alter the roof, so they snatched it up and refocused on rebuilding the Lodge around Behrens’ space. That’s not to say the Lodge won’t find its way into the fold - it might take time, but the plan is to install practice spaces and a rentable soundstage for video productions akin to KEXP’s in-studios - but for now, the LoFi houses the Lodge’s center of operations.
Speaking of “center of operations,” the Lodge is also the prospective host for Hollow Earth Radio, a radio station in the vein of FM’s revolutionary progressive days that’s been running on 104.9 FM since 2007. Hollow Earth used to host weekend on-air shows and constant creative freeform DJ sets from its Central District headquarters, but COVID forced the organization to abandon its home in early 2022. Since then, its DJs, all volunteers, have been operating remotely.
Now, thanks to Vera, Hollow Earth not only has a new base but an increased visibility and heightened wattage, allowing them to broadcast across a larger area of the city. “We're super-grateful to Vera Project for thinking of us when they were putting the plan together,” said station president Devin Booth in an interview with The Stranger’s Dave Segal. “Once we're in there and established, Hollow Earth is going to get a lot more active and a lot weirder.”
The record store, meanwhile, is the brainchild of Brad Tilbe, previously the manager for Light in the Attic’s brick-and-mortar shop in the KEXP Gathering Space. Named Nellis Records after Tilbe’s recently deceased mother, the store soft-opened that weekend with a small but eclectic selection of vinyl; eventually, Tilbe plans to sell tapes, CDs, books on the occult, and other goods on consignment (disclosure: including WASH stickers!), in addition to the rest of his vinyl.
According to Johnson, the idea for a record store surfaced after a walkthrough of the LoFi left them wondering what to do about the dance floor. They had a few names in the running, including Taiga Dinger of Janku Land in Tacoma, but Tilbe’s proximity to Vera ensured he and the staff knew about each other. “Brad just kind of fell into our lap,” says Johnson. “He said, ‘I don't want to keep running a store when I could run my own store. I've got a crazy collection.’ Jason had a casual conversation with them, and then we all met and he came and saw the space and thought it was perfect.”
As for the Victory Lounge next door, it’ll stay decrepit and unused for some time. “Sadly, I think it'll just stay empty forever,” says Johnson, indirectly reiterating the Lodge’s miraculous recovery. The problem is the exorbitant cost of the lease, propped up by landlords deadset on pushing its cost as high as possible, which is what priced out both Behrens and Victory Lounge owner Bobby Kuckleberg. Vera, fortunately, had enough in the coffers to outlast the price hikes. “They upped the price the most that they could and we had to fight them for six months. They were trying to find the loophole in our lease to evict us or raise our rent, but they couldn’t.”
Though the Victory Lounge won’t be part of the revival, its presence isn’t lost. Turning the corner from the long narrow hallway into the main showroom reveals a pleasant surprise: the fluorescent glow of the Lounge’s iconic torch sign, now affixed to the wall. Though Vera couldn’t afford to take over both buildings, Johnson wanted a piece of the history. “When the Vic was going out, I asked Bobby [Kuckleberg], ‘If I could get the sign down, can I have half of it?’ He said, ‘You can have the whole damn thing if you can get it down. Good luck!’ And he just laughed.” Undeterred, Johnson somehow pried the sign off the building and installed it, its bright glow proudly visible from the showroom floor.
‘I sent him the picture of it being illuminated in the hallway and he's like ‘Holy shit, you did it.’”
The reopening of the Black Lodge doesn’t just mark the return of an avenue for the PNW’s DIY touring circuit. It’s also an addition to the few dedicated all-ages venues Seattle has to offer. For those unaware, the city’s contentious relationship with its music culture is baked into its relatively young history. In 1985, faced with local and police pressure about burgeoning unregulated punk and hip-hop shows at clubs, the city council instituted the Teen Dance Ordinance. Though its original intent was to curtail child abuse, the laws made it virtually impossible for venue owners to host all-ages shows by forcing a $1,000,000 insurance policy and requiring both chaperone and police presence at events. It clearly didn’t stop the music from happening, but it had to happen outside Seattle proper; the city itself relentlessly cracked down on such shows as its police force liberally defined the definition of a “dance.”
Though it was slightly amended in 1988, the TDO remained unchanged until 2002, when it was replaced with the All-Ages Dance Ordinance. The provision loosened the draconian limitations of the TDO by respecifying the term “dance,” eliminating the million-dollar insurance policy that outpriced owners across the city, and forbidding alcohol sales from all-ages events.
DIY venues, meanwhile, staggered onward. The space that would become the Black Lodge was founded sometime in the mid-to-late 2000s under different names; in the early part of the 2010s, it was known as Holy Mountain. During that time, its owners ignored the potential headache of police crackdowns, hosting BYOB parties and shows for underage patrons. “They got busted a bunch,” recalls Johnson. “It was the same people, but they thought, ‘If we just don't have alcohol and make it all ages, the cops will leave us alone.’ Imagine that.” From that change, the Black Lodge was born.
Vera’s ownership of the Lodge is as much symbolic as functional. Though it wasn’t a complete repeal, and it received ample criticism from both proponents and critics of the original legislation, the AADO allowed the framework for an organization like The Vera Project to flourish. Since then, it’s earned a ton of goodwill and become a beacon for a city with a reputation for snubbing music’s most enthusiastic demographic. That said, Vera’s leadership doesn’t intend for the Lodge to become just an extension of Vera’s headquarters — in an interview with the Seattle Times, Grabowski vocalized an intent to stay laissez-faire and keep it a community-run space.
“The main goal,” attests Johnson, “was to show the country that, sure, it took us $100,000 and countless hours of our lives to actually get this done, but it is possible at a smaller budget for other spaces to become street legal and figure out what to do to preserve that pocket.” It’s impossible to understate the enormity of the accomplishment - recall last year, when even an established for-profit venue like The Showbox was in danger of succumbing to rent hikes. That the Black Lodge’s resuscitation was even feasible is staggering, and its role in bolstering Seattle’s underground music community will hopefully be even more vital than its previous incarnation. After all, there’s as much history to preserve as there is a future to carve.
“It was crazy for me,” Johnson concludes about the Lodge’s packed opening weekend. “Just to be out on the sidewalk of Eastlake with everybody in between the bands like the olden days, it was just kind of like...wow, things are actually back. I can't believe we did it. It’s real.”