A rchitectural Digest as reimagined by Sid Vicious?
Well, not quite. But "Punk House," a new book from Vermont photographer Abby Banks, offers an atmospheric glimpse into the shared homefronts of the country's musicians, artists, and anarchists and brings front and center an aesthetic and lifestyle typically - and deliberately - relegated to the margins.
For the uninitiated, "punk house" is no invented publishing appellation. It's a term that refers to a cheap shared dwelling, sometimes a squat, occupied by a large number of musicians or artists, often doubling as a performance space and crash pad for touring bands. The concept of the modern American punk house borrows from the hippie squats of the 1960s and took hold in the early 1980s. Some point to Andy Warhol's Factory as punk house precursor and prototype.
Though never a resident of one, Banks, 29, has long been a punk house fan and aficionado. "I really like going to house shows and visiting friends in shared living situations," Banks said recently by phone while in New Orleans on a book tour. "I've always appreciated the aesthetic of those places."
Some things the aesthetic is not: austere, minimalist, static, rule-bound. Punk houses are deliciously chaotic and colorful, packed to the gills with posters, original art, graffiti, found objects, salvaged furniture, books, records, and music equipment. A ribald sense of humor pervades, as does an anarchist bent; housecleaning is usually conspicuously absent.
Three years ago, Banks, then working three jobs while living at home with her mother in Claremont, Calif., began mulling the idea of photographing cherished communal spaces. Punk houses have received creative coverage before, most notably in legendary punk 'zine editor Aaron Cometbus's 2003 novel "Double Duce," which details his experiences living in a Berkeley punk house. But no one had ever turned a visual eye on the experience. An artist by training (she studied sculpture and art history at Goddard College in Vermont), Banks knew photography would be "what I needed to do to make this document."
Armed with a laptop and two digital cameras, Banks set off in her truck on a six-month, cross-country road trip. Although she had a list of punk houses gathered through friends and acquaintances, Banks let the trip develop organically, taking suggestions from residents along the way.
"If I was invited or found it somewhere, that was good enough," she said. "It was never like, 'This isn't punk enough.' There was no cool scale."
By and large, Banks received a warm welcome from her hosts. "Most people were enthusiastic that their places were going to be documented and that someone was interested in where they were living," she said. But there was the occasional naysayer.
"Other people thought I was a spy for the government. I was like, 'I'm sure the government doesn't care about the dirty dishes in the sink. But I care - it's culturally interesting to me.' "
All told, Banks traveled through 25 states and bunked at more than 50 punk houses. She visited feminist communes and bike co-ops, tree houses and reconfigured buses, even cheekily titled domiciles like the International House of Mancakes. At the end of the trip, Banks had more than 6,000 photos, dusky images that captured all the trappings of the punk-house lifestyle, from the decrepit bathrooms to the meticulously organized LP collections.
But Banks, now ensconced in Brattleboro, had difficulty finding a publisher. Enter an unlikely savior: Thurston Moore of the legendary alt-rock band Sonic Youth, a friend of a local bookstore owner who'd taken an interest in Banks's work.
"He totally understood my project right away and helped me go through the whole process," Banks said of Moore, who helped her winnow down the haul to 300 images. Moore, who lives 45 minutes away in Northampton, also penned the book's introduction, in which he sings the praises of punk-house residents.
"Punks are good people. At least the ones in punk houses are," he writes. "Living together is a punk-rock rite of passage into responsibility in complete disregard of social standards."
Banks was similarly enraptured.
"I didn't think that it was going to be as beautiful and amazing as it was," she said of her journey. "I met incredible characters and talented, creative people lurking in these places, just sort of hidden away."
