AN OPEN LETTER TO THE NWHC COMMUNITY CONCERNING THE DAMAGE & GRAFITTI THAT JEOPRADIZED OUR USAGE OF THE WEST SEATTLE LEGION HALL.

On August 14^th there was a show @ The West Seattle Legion Hall for XIBALBA / ALPHA & OMEGA / POWERTRIP etc... About 160 people paid and it was a great show. We did the show in the small room, expecting it to be a smaller turn out because it was on a Tuesday. I was expecting about 120 to attend and ended up with closer to 190 with band members. Due to the large amount of people and the aggressive nature of the music, several holes were put in the walls. This was my oversight. This show should have been in the large room.

During the course of the evening, 4-5 graffiti artists bombed the adjacent business in the alley next to the Legion Hall, covered one of the company box trucks with tags on the windshield and hood and continued around the block tagging and bombing work vans and trucks. At first glance I assumed it was one of the touring bands leaving their mark, but on closer inspection I realized I knew these tags. All were done by Local NWHC folks, most of whom, are in local bands. I have seen these people do the very same tags in person before. I appreciate the anonymity of Graffiti and the purpose of this letter is not to name names.

The West Seattle Legion Hall has been a consistent show space for our community for ten years now. Bands like Damnation AD, Mental, Internal Affairs, Ceremony, Outbreak, Gaza, Hope Conspiracy, Have Heart, Wisdom In Chains, Trapped Under Ice, Pressure Point, Down To Nothing, Death Before Dishonor, The First Step and the list goes on… have all played inside it’s walls. Most of these were HUGE shows, and miraculously most of them never ended in damage and especially never covered in graffiti. In ten years of booking shows at this space Matt and I have never seen or heard the kind of diatribe we received from the Legion Hall Manager. We were accused of being anti-veteran among other things and our entire generation was accused of disrespecting veterans. I was told multiple times during the course of the night that we would never use this space again. We have had holes in the walls many times before, but we have always shown up to fix them the next day or paid the legion hall to have their person come fix them.

In the end, I had to pay twice the Legion Hall’s rental fee just to get them to consider letting us keep the show going. We also had to agree to contact the neighboring business and clean up the graffiti.

At the show a collection was taken and the people that donated the most were the people that had been moshing all night long. They took responsibility for their actions and donated money to help repair the damage they had likely caused. Even with the collection taken, $200 that would have gone to bands had to go towards the increased rent for the evening. These things happen, but we should all be aware of our actions and the spaces we are in as well as the fragile relationships we have with buildings willing to host hardcore shows. Our community functions on it’s own terms. We create and carve out spaces for our shows that do not typically happen in clubs and concert halls. The money taken from the door at these shows isn’t going to promoters and middle people. It is going to the bands. Any money going to the legion hall covers their costs to run and operate their building. I know it is 2012, but punks and hardcore folks are still a pretty menacing bunch, to have a hall consistently open their doors to us for ten years is pretty cool and should show how respectful and responsible our community has been while using this space.

The graffiti is a serious problem. The legion hall felt like we couldn’t even police our own group when they saw the graffiti and called into question whether our events needed paid security. What is so fucking annoying about this to me, is that 4-5 LOCAL hc kids put our community’s use of this space in jeopardy; people whose bands have played there before. I think we can all agree our music scene is anti-authority, and I am not trying to take an authoritarian approach here, but I truly believe that the people responsible for the graffiti disrespected our entire group. I believe our use of the space is more important than not addressing the issue of graffiti in and around our show spaces. I would encourage the people responsible to admit that they did it to Matt Weltner or I and amongst themselves come up with the $85 that it cost to buy primer, painting supplies and exterior paint. We reached out to the people we knew for sure were involved. One fessed up to it and is willing to work with us. One flatly denied any part of it. I am not against graffiti or anything like this. I just think our community can be above lying about shit and use common sense and think about our actions before negatively affecting the whole group.

We paid for the paint supplies with money we had been keeping aside from my Legion Hall shows in a fund that is eventually going to be purchasing a nice PA for the shows we all do around Seattle. It would be cool if the individuals responsible paid this money back so we can eventually make that happen.

If you can’t be honest about this and take responsibility, I don’t think your bands need to play any shows or show spaces that we have a hand in. I don’t think this is being a cop or a fascist if you clearly don’t have any respect for our community. At this time, the NWHC community does not have use of the West Seattle Legion Hall. We are trying to fix this. Thank you

Respect each other

Brian Skiffington