The punk house is a curious and sometimes beautiful habitat, the expression of a music scene and do-it-yourself culture that went underground decades ago, in an attempt to opt out of just about everything that smacked of the mainstream: cities, clubs, bars, alcohol, processed foods, agribusiness and the record companies, for example, not to mention all media larger than a photocopied zine. With its roots in old-fashioned counterculture communes (like Findhorn in Scotland, but really messy, and with a thrash-hardcore beat), the punk house is a multifunctional dwelling: typically a place for like-minded males in their 20's to live and to make and hear music. This is not to say that there aren't all-female punk houses (there are) or ones with girls living among the boys. As with punk itself, the punk house eludes a tidy definition. "Punk Is (Whatever We Made It To Be)" is the title of a song from the Minutemen, a punk band in the early '80s.

Also Thurston Moore was once sneered at in a Minneapolis punk house for wearing "a nice winter parka."

Anarchy Rules: The Dishes Stay Dirty [NYT]