All for One

The Garlic House collective follows in the footsteps of giants.



They’re clovely: Garlic House’s (back row, from left) Megan, Tim, Colin, John, (on couch) Dan, Josh Jaworski, Josh Mosh, Jene, Jen, (on floor) Ted, Rafie and Jon.

Like the cliché Philadelphia lawyer, Philadelphia’s DIY collectives have raised the bar, if you will. West Philly’s avant jazz Foxhole Collective, North Philly’s Funk Dungeon of perf-artists, punks and politicos, organizations like the Robot House and famed show promoter/venue Stalag 13 (before it became 4040), to name a few, have all been more than places to hear adventurous music. These havens of guerilla empowerment and insurrectionist ideals have tried to create social change through communal choices in music, art and outreach. Whether "houses" where people live and work, lofts or basement gig spots, the "collective" is dedicated to approaching human possibility by committee. They seek the same direct involvement within a neighborhood — whether booking local punk acts or maintaining active roles in neighborhood policy — that they seek from relationships within the house.

Add West Philly’s Garlic House/show collective to the list.

"Bringing friends together to collectively live doesn’t always have to be political," laughs Josh Jaworski, one of Garlic House’s booking guys who used to stay at Robot House. "Sometimes it’s just about being away from home for the first time and being with new friends you like a lot. When we leave the house we leave the house together. I eat every meal with them. I go everywhere with them. It’s an odd sense of family."

Garlic is an acronym for Guerrilla. Anarchist. Revolutionary. Liberation. Insurrectionist. Core/Corps. "And we eat a lot of it," says fellow booking guy Tim Insect, a member of the band The Great Clearing Off. "It stops us from getting sick." Begun at the tail end of last year, the house near the University of Pennsylvania at 927 S. St. Bernard Street — three stories of dignified dilapidation that only West Philly can make beautiful — functions as a real independent, all ages, drug- and alcohol-free showspace that is not affiliated with Penn. It’s something that they cannot stress enough — both in terms of a musical standpoint and an anti-University one. "We are interested in booking DIY bands only. Rock stars need not apply," says Insect. "Our party ideal: to lay down our souls to the gods of rock and roll."

There are more or less 15 people who live/participate in the Garlic House show collective. Some are former members of other houses like Castle Greyskull, Robot and Kirkwood Vegan Militia HQ. But this is not a continuation of any previous house. Each member — usually between the ages of 19 and 23 — is integral. Meghan works at Corned Beef Academy and is the pet wrangler. Jon goes to Gordon Phillips Beauty School and does video work for bands and is also a member of The Great Clearing Off. Jen does photo work. Ted G. goes to Community College and promotes shows. Dan "reanimates the dead" and does "ninja shit," as does Jaworski. Newest member, Agent X, is an electronic vigilante. ("We don’t know much about him, he masks his face.") Josh Mosh collects rent. Colin books shows and is "responsible for rockin’ like Dokken." Poe Hel Dumpsters food for the house. Cold Snake, 36, is lead singer for metal band Snake. Cool Breeze cleans the kitchen and thrashes hard. Lisa just lives there. Raffe Potroast is a "gypsy baby stealer and he’s in bands." No job at Garlic House is less or more important, even if you don’t have one.

What drives Garlic House is what drives so many in punk rock: Thrive in a non-corporate environment, maintain peaceful equal co-existence among races and classes, enjoy hard fast music played by contemporaries. These are things they fear have been lost since Stalag 13 closed — morphing into 4040 at Penn’s Rotunda — and the gentrification of the neighborhood began.

"Look, we’re white kids from the suburbs — an irony that certainly adds to the dilemma," says Jaworksi. "But there’s a community that’s being ripped apart because the houses are nice and it’s convenient to Penn. They’re not a college. They’re a corporation that sucks the life out of communities because it can." Top that off with what Jaworski and his housemates see as the usurping of punk rock into Penn’s corporate whitewashing and what you get is insurrection rooted in emotion and memory.

"There was a really beautiful couple of years when Stalag 13 was open," says Jaworski. "There were shows nearly every day of the week. Anywhere from 10 to 200 kids would come and just hang out. It didn’t matter who you were and what money you did and didn’t have. It was a decent place to be." Yet they insist that since Stalag closed nothing has recaptured that feeling. None of Garlic House’s inhabitants are trying to dis what Sean Agnew does over at 4040. "It’s just that they’ve lost their DIY ethic," says Jaworski. "4040’s not a political organization. There’s nothing personal or intimate about it."

Punk rock offered a glimmer of hope to people like Jaworski, disassociated types who felt unwanted and uncomfortable in the corporate world. "Punk rock may be a silly word but it offered hope — a niche where I and other people fit in — an alternative system of thought. What Garlic House seeks to do then is make like-minded people comfortable again, to present punk rock as a positive, intimate experience. "We want to welcome people into our home so they can experience the happiness we have together regardless of money and such. That’s why the living room’s my favorite room — it’s where we all are most of the time. Its where we hope to welcome more people."