The Vera Project Reopens Iconic DIY Venue Black Lodge With Help From Mackie

After the iconic Seattle DIY venue Black Lodge closed its doors during the pandemic, the people at The Vera Project knew they needed to help keep it alive.

“The people that work at Vera Project are DIY people,” said Jason Clackley, Artistic Director for The Vera Project, a local nonprofit that runs a popular venue at the Seattle Center, along with a variety of youth programs. “We are people that grew up in that culture.”

Clackley isn’t speaking figuratively—he literally booked DIY shows at Black Lodge during its initial heyday in the aughts. He has remained involved in the local scene ever since. Even in the cash-strapped world of nonprofit work, he said it was an easy choice for The Vera Project to acquire the Black Lodge space and reopen the venue.

“It's a no-brainer that we would want to help as an organization that at least has a little bit more resources and can do everything above board,” Clackley said.

Combining the original Black Lodge space with the adjoining Lo-Fi cafe, another beloved DIY institution, The Vera Project was able to re-open the venue, fully up to code and hosting all-ages shows. It’s keeping alive a tradition that helped form the culture of Seattle.

“Black Lodge has been an important space for the DIY scene for so long, for all ages music,” said Clackley. “We are so Do It Yourself in the Seattle area, like Tacoma, Seattle, Olympia—I feel like people forget that we didn't build Seattle on traditional club venues. There's a lot of really great venues, but they weren't the focal point of subculture music.”

Besides offering a community-oriented place for young people to see bands, smaller rooms like Black Lodge also play an essential role for the bands themselves. It’s not easy to find a clean, safe, reliable space to perform and build your audience.

“As far as a space in the Seattle area that can fit 150 people, it's like, there's houses, there's all that stuff—but what about somewhere you can walk out of if there's a fire or something?” said Clackey, recalling a long history of dicey warehouse shows. “That is so vital.”

Black Lodge makes a perfect companion to The Vera Project’s flagship venue in Seattle Center, a larger room that fits up to 400 people. The main venue could even serve as a step up for bands who have outgrown Black Lodge but still want a community-focused place to play.

“When you get to a place where you're almost a 400 capacity room like that, it’s bands that have like kind of leveled up from the 150 cap room, but they want to participate in the same experience, of having a youth and volunteer-driven space,” said Clackley, who handles booking bands for The Vera Project. “This is the perfect next step.”

Black Lodge was in disrepair for a period after closing. The space required an extensive remodel, including a first-class sound system donated by Mackie: two SRM215 speakers, two SR18S subwoofers, a Thump115S subwoofer, and six SRT212 speakers.

 

Mackie’s relationship with The Vera Project started with their Equip The Kids program, which gives young people access to the gear and training they need to learn audio and video production. Black Lodge was another chance for Mackie to help out. Considering how much Mackie gear has been used in DIY shows over the years, it was a perfect fit.

“Mackie is what I've used most of my life for DIY shows,” said Clackley. “The 450, the most durable powered speaker. The 1202, some of the 1202s that I own have done more popular music—AJJ, Joyce Manor. I've done all these bands on that four channel mixer. Mackie has fueled the DIY scene for a long time, whether they know it or not.”

Since reopening last year, Black Lodge has already grown beyond just being a DIY venue. The space also serves as the new home for a long-running community radio station, a record store and just a general space for young people.

“There's this record shop, Nellis Records, which serves as a sort of gathering place,” said Clackley. “We were able to get some cool community partners in.”

When asked about the future, Clackley recalled his time booking for Black Lodge when he was in his 20s. He’s hoping to foster that same experience with its new incarnation, with a new group of young people running the shows.

“The next step is to get a booking collective again, where young people book the shows themselves. It’s so important because there are bands that as a 40 year old, I just don't interact with, you know what I mean? So that's the exciting next thing, is just to get a booking collective back in there that can really build some autonomy.”

In the end, Clackley stressed that The Vera Project and Black Lodge are all part of a DIY community that is larger than both of them, with the shared goal of making creativity accessible to everyone, with or without help from the music industry.

“DIY scenes are built on the idea that we could do it ourselves, we don't need to wait around for the music industry to tell us what is cool or what we're able to access,” Clackley explained near the end of the interview. “We create the access. The collective collectively creates the access. So the Black Lodge is part of that—The Vera Project is part of that, too.”

Learn more about how to get involved with The Vera Project on their website.

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