Punk Rock Houses

(now called DIY venues)

“In the field of human endeavor, things that seem mundane at first glance can, if you persevere, give birth to an endless array of insights.” --Haruki Murakami 

I’ve lived in three different “punk houses” in my life. For those squares who have no idea what I’m talking about, this is when a group of young, broke, scumbag musicians get together to rent a place that otherwise couldn't be afforded in order to inspire each other, listen to records, hang out, party etc.

There are little to no rules in these autonomous abodes. The dishes are rarely done and there is almost always a guy (or girl) living in a closet or growing weed. Everyone here is in a band, was in a band, or knows someone in a band. The basement is relegated for band practice and the occasional punk show (3 dollar door charge, which no one had because they usually spent the last of their dough on a 6 pack) and if your band wants to practice there you have to run it through the guy living among the spider-infested equipment, gig flyers and beer-soiled rugs.

Yes, our neighbors hated us.

 I met a friend on the steps of the very picture above about 20 years ago. He was a skinhead of the non-racist variety, (but still as cunty and violent as the racist variety) and had the ubiquitous tight black, cuffed jeans with 12 hole-shitkickers, a wife beater, and a shaved head. I was headed to meet my girlfriend at a coffee shop when he approached.

“Hey…did you tell my friend yesterday to get the fuck off your porch?” 

I remember the guy, he was the human equivalent of a ham sandwich. 

“Yeah, I did. I don’t know the guy, but apparently he’s too much of a coward to fight his own fights.” 

I never saw the ham sandwich again, but Bruce and I became friends that very day. He died in 2010 after doing a hotshot of heroin on a freezing cold night and passing out on the street not more than 4 blocks from that staircase. He never woke up. 

***

The current (no doubt multi-millionaire) residents will never know that another young lad died directly under the stairs depicted  in that strangely conventional but macabre picture of a yellow house. His name was Chris and he was from San Francisco. Chris played (blew?) the hypnotic tones of the didgeridoo, and sort of resembled Al Jourgensen of famed industrial band Ministry. He was in a well known punk band and sounded smarter than the rest of us if you were buzzed and half-assed listening. None of us could figure out if his demise was by suicide, a heroin overdose, or suicide by heroin overdose—but the party kind of felt like it was over after that. Spuds MacKenzie had left the room. I mournfully watched the paramedics wheel his body away, unidentified under a white sheet, and that was that. We thought it was odd that he hadn’t left the basement in three days and now we knew why.

This gig was particularly insane. I’d have to believe over 200 people showed up.

We were all in our 20’s and the shit was getting a little too heavy to compartmentalize for our barely fully-formed brains. We were acting like tough guy nihilists when we were simply artists and alcoholics from the suburbs and backwater shitholes. To an outcast with strange musical tastes this house was tantamount to being a pig in shit, and the drinking and drugging were taken to astronomical levels.

In the end, we were simply consumers of an underground postmodern culture whose interests did not divide art and music into the high and the lowbrow. Most people see the world as a fixed reality, but we were living on its edges, hopelessly and naively trying to fight off the hamster wheel of capitalism and the theater of mediocrity for as long as we could; but despite our efforts the ivory tower did not collapse–and some of us even moved in. 

***

I accidentally walked by this house on a warm summer day and was astonished to remind myself that I hadn’t laid eyes on it in almost 10 years. Strangely, it had turned from an inanimate object into a being with personality and a presence in the world. I’m much older now and maybe just a tad bit wiser…or so I’d like to think. When I write, I usually don’t sit down with a single-minded, monastic purpose, but as I watch these words appear I feel like they have been a long time coming. In order to put the pieces together from that era I had to put pen to paper for it to feel tangible instead of like a hazy dream hiding on the periphery of my mind. 

It reminded me that the duality of life and death is a beautiful thing. Everything dies. Everything changes. And still we do absurd things and lie to ourselves in order to fill the void or imbue meaning. What a strange ride, indeed.