“It’s the people, not the place,” said the caption laid over photos on Instagram eulogizing a south Minneapolis punk house that for at least two decades has been known as Disgraceland. An era ended when the owner announced plans to sell the home and the last punks moved out on April 30.
Over the years, it has hosted live music, sheltered touring bands, and housed countless individuals within the local DIY and punk communities. The exact timelines and quantities of shows, housemates, and pets are blurred by time, cheap bee, and a lack of formal documentation, but the lore of the house in the Phillips neighborhood precedes even its final name.
“The institutional memories are kind of chaotic, but I think it’s been around for closer to 30 years than 20. But it’s been through different names in that era,” said Bryan May, ex-resident of Disgraceland. “There are so many people who’ve lived in the city whose parents were punk, who will be like, ‘yeah, I was there when I was a kid’”.
Grace Birnstengel, another former housemate, estimated that the house emerged as a more communal living space as early as the late 1980s or early 1990s…