The swirling waves of black and red that appeared on the cover of Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 album, and which became the unofficial memorial to the late singer-songwriter after his suicide in 2003, is gone now. Well, half of it anyway. It was reported last year that the mural would be cut away to make room for a new bar, and now it has happened.
Photography by Dean Reid
Early pictures are trickling onto social media, which now show an enormous coke bottle glass window where the original Solutions! Electronics mural was. But not all is lost for Smith fans. The bar itself, which is from the same gang behind Highland Park’s delightful Birdie and Grand Central Market’s Horse Thief BBQ, is named in honor of one of Smith’s most popular songs: Bar Angeles. As Smith himself once sang: “Drink up baby, stay all night.”
We will, man. But we’re gonna cry a little bit, too.
