Viper Room, 1994: The River Phoenix Wall

Most of us point, shoot and load our photos into Flickr. And then there are some who scan in old photos such as Alan Light.

Above is a photo taken outside the Viper Room in 1994, the year after River Phoenix's early morning Halloween death. Fans graffitied the wall between the club and what is now a cigar shop. Today, that wall is painted beige.

Almost 10 years later to the day, singer/songwriter Elliot Smith killed himself. In tribute, fans wrote (and still write) messages on the Solutions electronics wall in Silver Lake where Smith posed for an album cover. While not painted over, it does occasionally get hit with tags, unfortunately, sometimes with quite large ones.

Photo by Alan Light via Flickr