PUNKS WITH SOUL A Window Into NOLA’s Gutter Punk Culture By Grant Varner
So what ever happened to the punks? You remember. Those angsty 20-somethings with the spiked hair and leather-studded jackets—shrouded by the aroma of cheap cigarettes and parental disappointment that dominated the underground rock scene of the 70s. Well, odds are they’re in your own backyard…as a matter of fact, so is the rest of the New Orleans Underworld.
New Orleans' gutter punk culture is hiding in plain sight
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GRANT VARNER
Imagine. You’re exploring an abandoned nursing home on the Westbank. You stroll through dark hallways, past the black-mold ridden drywall with your iPhone flashlight as your guide; the battery at a convenient 8%. The adrenaline you picked up at the door compels you to peer inside one of the vacant rooms where elderly patients once spent the back nine of their days. You find nothing but garbage and cultish graffiti like “666,” “Satan Lives,” etc. Shrugging it off, you venture outside to an overgrown courtyard, admiring intricate paintings covering the brick wall. Wait! You’ve almost stumbled into a small wire structure on the ground, seeing a fishing reel, some bracelet charms, Christmas tinsel, and…a vertebrae. Non-human, assuming…not five feet away is a wooden shrine with paganistic looking symbols painted all over. Suddenly, you hear voices bleeding from the next courtyard over. On edge, with a dash of intrigue, you emerge into a large decaying room exposed to the sky. In the center sits a seven-foot tower of empty Twisty Tea cans. “Twisty Tower,” the sign reads. You accept this cult is on some serious dope. Still, you follow the voices into the courtyard where you creep around the corner prepared for anything. Cult members? Tweakers? Ghosts? No. You’re looking at a camp of greasy looking 20-somethings with mohawks and dreads, smoking cigarettes over a barbeque. Truly, the chillest looking “cultists” you’ve ever seen. This was my first encounter with the “gutter punks” and what I would soon come to discover was just the tip of the iceberg. After several months, I submitted to my curiosity and visited the home again, but the occupants departed. I continued the hunt at the Market Street Power Plant where I found another makeshift camp occupied by a warm and welcoming woman known as “Mama.” I introduced myself and explained my quest. First, Mama tells me everything
