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Old East Hill Celebrates Culture and Art at "Night on the Tracks"
by Brittany Misencik Lauren Anzaldo, volunteer for Pensacola's 309 Punk Project, vividly remembers Old East Hill when the world shut down in 2020. Musicians were playing free concerts on patios. Residents decorated their century-old porches with paintings, creating makeshift art galleries. The creativity was contagious, and neighbors strolled around wide-eyed with admiration over their neighbors' crafts. Anzaldo hopes to recapture that feeling of wonder with a new event, Night on the Tracks. The night will span a series of unique attractions from east to west along Wright Street from 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. Dec. 3. The event is intended to encourage folks to get out and experience the unique businesses, people, art and culture of the area. "It's kind of a quirky, eclectic neighborhood,” Anzaldo said. "I wanted to really celebrate those places.” Read More |
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Staying Punk and Getting Emotional with Cristy Road
By C. Scott Satterwhite To say that Cristy Road is a prolific artist would be an understatement. This past year alone, Road has released an album with her punk band Choked Up, designed a T-shirt design for Kathleen Hanna’s charity Tees4Togo and created a set of her own unique tarot cards. As the latest Artist-in-Residence for the 309 Punk Project, Road will bring her talents to Pensacola for a week that culminates with an artist reception at the punkhouse in Old East Hill. In this interview, we talk about her art and culture, along with the artists who have influenced Road over the years as she returns to Pensacola. INWEEKLY: You’re pretty prolific and multifaceted in your work. I don’t want to pigeonhole you, so how would you describe yourself as an artist? ROAD: I guess the pigeonhole is a little helpful sometimes. I would describe myself as a first-generation Cuban American artist of the illustrative punk rock queer feminist persuasion, maybe. I think it’s always context. I’m an illustrator, but I’m also a songwriter and a graphic novelist, and all those things are important to me. I’ve been referred to as a Latina artist, a queer artist, a figurative artist, a punk rock musician. They’re all valid, and I think elevating specific elements is sometimes necessary to let people see my relevance. Read More |
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Artistas latinx comparten su trabajo en Pensacola
(La Costa Latina) Durante los próximos meses, 309 Punk Project albergará a dos artistas latinos reconocidos internacionalmente para su programa de artistas en residencia. Cristy Road y Julia Arredondo, ambas artistas visuales y literarias, se unirán a la organización cultural sin fines de lucro en sus esfuerzos por apoyar a las comunidades artísticas internacionales punk y DIY (hágalo usted mismo). El 309 Punk Project, fundado en 2016, lanzó su programa de artistas en residencia a fines del 2021. Road y Arredondo se unirán a una larga lista de artistas que se han hospedado en la residencia, ubicada en 309 North 6th Avenue, cerca del centro de Pensacola. Road llega a Pensacola a mediados de octubre y organizará varios eventos presenciales durante su estadía de una semana, que culmina con una recepción de artistas el 21 de octubre. Originaria del sur de Florida, Road se describe a sí misma como “una artista cubanoamericana de primera generación” y músico que usa la ilustración, la escritura y la música punk rock como sus medios preferidos.” Mientras su estadía en Pensacola, Road dijo que exhibiría una combinación de obras antiguas y nuevas y organizaría pequeñas reuniones artísticas. “Su arte tiene mucha ferocidad y energía,” dijo Lauren Anzaldo, amiga de Road desde sus días trabajando como activistas en el sur de la Florida. “Tengo curiosidad por su obra moderna, que tiene mucho que ver con el misticismo,” dijo Anzaldo. “Estoy emocionada de ver lo que traerá a Pensacola.” Read More |
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Julia Gorton and the DIY Punk Aesthetic
By C. Scott Satterwhite Since the 1970s, Julia Gorton has photographed some of the biggest legends in the punk and post-punk scenes of New York. The impressive list of luminaries includes Lydia Lunch, Richard Hell, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop and many more. Starting in the early days of punk, Gorton has remained true to her DIY aesthetic throughout the No Wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, creating zines and collage art, while developing a stunning fashion line. A professor of art at The New School, Gorton is the director of the AAS Graphic Design and Printmaking program and was recently listed as one of the 15 most important art professors in New York City. A few years ago, Gorton was invited to the Pensacola Museum of Art for an exhibit and held talks and zine workshops at the University of West Florida. This month, Gorton returns to the “Zine Churning City by the Sea” as a visiting artist with the 309 Punk Project, where she plans to continue to photograph subjects in Pensacola and hold a public exhibition of her work. Read More |
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A New Day Rising with Skott Cowgill
By C. Scott Satterwhite Skott Cowgill was a longtime fixture in the Pensacola punk scene from the mid-1980s until he moved to San Francisco in 2000. For years, most Pensacolians knew Cowgill as the lead singer for Headless Marines and Woodenhorse, as well as the author of the zine “Smell of Dead Fish.” During this time, Cowgill was also beginning another part of his life—as a painter. After 20 years, Cowgill has returned to Pensacola as the artist-in-residence of the 309 Punk Project. In this interview, we spoke with Cowgill on the front porch of 309 about his art and what it’s like to return to Pensacola after so many years. INWEEKLY: How’s it being back here in Pensacola? COWGILL: It’s beautiful. The town hasn’t changed that much, but the changes I see are mostly positive. It’s just that the people here are just so great. A long time ago, when I was booking bands and playing shows, I would always treat the bands like gold because that’s really just how you should treat people. I didn’t know that’s not what you just normally do. In other cities, when you’re touring, not everyone is so kind-hearted and outgoing and helpful. It’s just sort of a Pensacola thing, so it’s really nice to be back and get treated just like those touring bands. Read More |
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Punks Celebrate Pensacola’s 1970s Underground Press
By Jeremy Morrison Before punks published zines, the subculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s blazed a trail with newspapers of the so-called underground press. These publications—represented in Pensacola by the Gulf Coast Fish Cheer—served as both an alternative to mainstream media and a venue for heralding viewpoints on issues such as the war in Vietnam and women’s rights. “No one would have really expected Pensacola to have an active enough scene to publish a newspaper like that,” recalled Patricia Bint. “We had a collective of people. We didn’t have any titles. Nobody was the editor or anything. We had a core group and a lot of sort of floating people who were in and out.” Read More |
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Mallory Luana and the Revolutionary Blood Energy of Art By C. Scott Satterwhite Mallory Luana describes theirself as a Haitian American Black Indie artist whose work is strongly influenced by their ancestry and activism for the Trans and Black Lives Matter movements. Originally from South Florida, Luana moved to Pensacola to attend the University of West Florida where I met them as a first-year college student. Since then, they’ve been active in the local punk scene, often selling their work at shows and fighting against racism within the larger community and activist circles. Luana was recently selected as the 309 Punk Project’s Artist-in-Residence. INWEEKLY: I remember you first as a student at UWF and then later seeing you at punk shows selling buttons and small prints. How long have you considered yourself an artist? LUANA: I think I’ve considered myself an artist since third grade. In Broward County, where I was born, raised and grew up, they annually do a “fire safety poster art contest” across the whole Broward school district. When I was in third grade, I was the winner for the entire county. I’ve called myself an artist ever since. Read More |
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PMA Exhibits a Wonderful Display of Creativity and Nihilism
By C. Scott Satterwhite On exhibit at the Pensacola Museum of Art is a small pop show entitled “We Are Not A Movement, We Are Motion Itself.” The artist, who goes by either AnArchivist or Sean Linezo, created the exhibit using gathered parts of the 309 Punk Project’s historic archives, as well as various mediums from news articles and vinyl records to a record player, typewriter and wall of televisions. Enclosed in a glass case is a small sampling of the fanzine, or zine, collection of the 309 Punk Project. The zine exhibit reflects the diversity of the handmade magazines from Pensacola and showcases a number of fanzines from a “zine challenge” that took place exactly 20 years ago. As with much of the exhibit, Linezo uses the past to reflect the present. Director of the Pensacola Museum of Art Nicholas Croghan said, “As an artist, I find many layers to engage with in the exhibit … I’m immediately drawn to the handmade qualities of the over 80 zines on display and the vintage aesthetic of the typewriter, record player and other objects from the 309 archive.” The various pieces surround viewers as they enter the exhibit through the staircase. Read More |
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New Book Shares The History Of 309 Punk House Through The People Who Lived There
Jennie McKeon (Published by WUWF 9/3/21) The 309 Punk House has meant a lot of things to a lot of people who have stayed there, played music there, cooked there, or made art there. In the book “A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309,” authors Scott Satterwhite and Aaron Cometbus highlight the people who made the punk house what it is by sharing their experiences living in the crowded and dilapidated home at 309 N. 6th Ave. Satterwhite, an instructor at the University of West Florida, has been active in the local punk scene for decades. He said the idea for the oral history came from UWF assistant history professor Jamin Wells. UWF students conducted the last of the interviews right as things were starting to go into lockdown mode last year. Initially, the plan was to archive the interviews. But Satterwhite said the pandemic was what helped turn the project into a book. “If not for the COVID-19 lockdowns, the book probably wouldn't exist,” he said. “We both had time on our hands, and we were both heavily invested in seeing the students' work finished so we could add it to the 309 Punk Project's archives. That's when we realized this could be a book. It was really done in record speed, too. In less than a year, the entire book was complete and with the publishers. I'm totally amazed that we pulled it off.” The book, which is published by University Press of Florida, is just one of a dozen academic books written about Pensacola and the only one — to Satterwhite’s knowledge — written about the punk scene. Read More |
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Connecting Stories and Communities By Scott Satterwhite Artist Sean Linezo’s exhibit “Bring Me the Head of Osceola // There is More to Remember…”—currently only on display at the Pensacola Museum of Art—is hardly a subtle work of art. Marking a series of events in coordination with Native American Heritage Month and the foundation of Pensacola’s first Indigenous People’s Day (formerly Columbus Day), the Pensacola Museum of Art (PMA) is hosting Linezo’s latest work. “Bring Me the head of Osceola” ties together regional history with the ongoing national struggles for racial justice and Native American sovereignty. Oh, yeah, there’s some punk rock in here, too. The origin story of this exhibit began when Linezo co-curated the “Punksacola” exhibit at the T.T. Wentworth State History Museum, highlighting Pensacola’s punk scene. Wandering through the museum, Linezo saw an exhibit purportedly about regional Indigenous culture. “As I walked into the exhibit,” said Linezo, “the first thing I saw were the faces and names of the first three Spanish conquistadors who began colonization in Florida in 1516.” Read More |
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Creating a ‘Living Museum’ of Pensacola’s Punk Community
By Hansen Hasenberg (Voyager, 5/8/21) Back in 2016, the owners of 309 N 6th Avenue in Downtown Pensacola were looking to sell their property. This would not be much of a story but for what that property means to several generations of local punks. The house that stood at that address, and still stands there, is one of the longest surviving punk houses in the United States. A punk house is a dwelling occupied by members of the Punk subculture. It also can serve as a space for travelling bands to sleep and as a practicing space. The house, colloquially known as the “309 house” or just “309,” has been continually used as a punk house for the past 40 years or so. 309 has many tenants over the years including Scott Satterwhite, a professor at UWF in the English department. Satterwhite, who came to Pensacola during his time in the US Navy, was involved in the local punk scene from the 1990s onward. He lived at 309 from around 1999 to 2007. Around the time that the owners of 309 were talking about selling, Satterwhite was approached by friend and fellow punk Terry Johnson about the possibility of collectively purchasing the house and turning it into a museum. Johnson, who was a member of the punk band This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb and owner of Sluggo’s, soon moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. While Johnson moved away from Pensacola, her idea for what to do with the house stuck with Satterwhite and other Pensacola punks. For the 309 Punks, the house was the “centerpiece of the Punk community,” and they didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. Satterwhite, along with fellow punks Eliza Espy and Valerie George, decided to move towards turning Johnson’s idea into reality. Read More |
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A Conversation with Sean Linezo
By Jeremy Morrison Over the next few months, Pensacola artist Sean Linezo has a number of projects planned that explore Native American history and culture, as well as the Indigenous perspective of Florida’s upcoming 200th anniversary of becoming a territory of the United States. One of Linezo’s projects, which will be present to the Pensacola City Council Oct. 5, involves a public art proposal that calls for placing a bust of Seminole leader Osceola in proximity to the bust of Andrew Jackson in downtown’s Plaza Ferdinand. Another project, an exhibit featured at the Pensacola Museum of Art, also deals with Osceola, specifically with varying versions of how he died following his capture by the U.S. government. Linezo — who serves as artist in residence at School House 4, a non-profit partner of the Pensacola Private School of Liberal Arts — also has plans for panel discussions and film screenings, including a screening of his previous Staremaster project, which was sidelined a while back. Read More |
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Mail Art Against Fascism
As a collaboration between 309 Punk Project and School House 4 Re-imagining Education, we are producing a workshop with students to illustrate solidarity. By announcing an open-call via social media and collecting postcards and protest signs in a Museum (in a small town in the Deep South), we are illustrating voices of people around the country who stand in solidarity against the violence and oppressive force being used against citizens. Send us a detourned postcard or use a sharpie on a cereal box... This is not a competition and everything will be exhibited, so feel free to keep it simple or to be as creative as you have time and energy for. Read More |
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"Makers" unite for inaugural, creative experience
By Brandy Gottlieb, with contributions by Thomas Asmuth Thomas Asmuth, UWF associate professor of art, has worked to inspire his students to create innovatively and collaborate artistically across disciplines. Asmuth is a transdisciplinary artist whose practices are influenced by the intersections of art and science, identity and robotics. Asmuth began his interdisciplinary practices, as a participant with the first Maker Faire in 2006, during his graduate studies at a Silicon Valley institution. On November 16, Asmuth’s initial encounter with the Maker Faire will come full circle with the launch of the inaugural Pensacola Mini Maker Faire. Asmuth and Dr. Joe Piacenza, UWF assistant professor of mechanical engineering, along with a strategic planning team and more than 90 ‘makers,’ will bring the Pensacola Mini Maker Faire to life. The experience is described as a “gathering of fascinating, curious people who enjoy learning and who love sharing what they can do,” or, the “Greatest Show and Tell on Earth.” Read More |
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Can Pensacola's 'Punk House' Be Saved?
By Troy Moon Organizers behind the 309 Punk Project are turning to GoFundMe to raise money to buy the long-standing "Punk House" at 309 Sixth Ave. and preserve it into a permanent punk archive of the Pensacola scene. Late last week, organizers started a GoFundMe page, hoping to raise $11,550 as a down payment on the house that has been a gathering place, home and artistic nurturing environment for many members of Pensacola's long-running punk and underground music and art scene. In the first five days of the GoFundMe campaign, the effort collected $3,271 of its goal. "We need to buy the house,'' said Scott Satterwhite, a 309 Punk Project board member. "Or at least have something firm in place by the end of the year." Read More |
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Punksacola: Pensacola's Punk Past Illuminated
By Rita Johnson Many, if not most, of the residents of Pensacola are unaware that Pensacola has a thriving underground punk scene, and it's not new, either; the local scene emerged in the late 1970s. A new exhibit at the T.T. Wentworth Museum entitled "Punksacola: Reflections of a Subculture," detailing the history of punk culture in Pensacola, opened July 20 to hundreds of attendees. The opening night ended with a raucous live concert with several of the bands performing also being featured were Pensacola-based, and including Company of Ghosts, Acorns, Dead Buggs and Rezolve. It's possible you may have seen some of their members around town without knowing it. The exhibit was put together in a joint partnership by the University of West Florida Historic Trust and the 309 Punk Museum Project. "Really, it was very important to have both of us working on the project," said Lowell Bassett, chief curator for the UWF Historic Trust. "This is their expertise, not mine, and it was crucial having their input and also their connections to the punk subculture in Pensacola." The 309 Punk Museum Project is a group whose main goal is to preserve the 309 Punk House, a historic site located at 309 6th Avenue integral to the history of the punk scene in Pensacola. The organizers hope to turn the house into an exhibition and artist space to commemorate and foster the punk scene in Pensacola. Read More |
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Sandspaper: A Place for Pensacola Punks
By Jeremy Morrison A short walk from the railroad tracks sits 309 N 6th Ave., an old two-story with a big front porch. For years, the house has served Pensacola’s punk community as a sort of communal hub. The venue has helped foster a scene and allowed for artistic cross pollination. Residents have included a revolving cast of local musicians and artists. Celebrated photographer Mike Brodie embarked on his career from the house’s front porch. The house was featured in the book “Punk House: Interiors in Anarchy.” Now, some former residents are looking to established the house as a museum, celebrating Pensacola’s punk culture, as well as its relationship to the larger, national punk culture. “Think about it in the 80s-sense, 70s, 80s, even up to the early 90s, none of this stuff was really played on the radio very often, so the only way that punk could travel was almost like on the old Vaudeville circuit, you know, DIY, DIY-venues. And venues could be small clubs, or they could be in people’s houses. 309 eventually became one of those hubs,” explained Christoper Satterwhite... Read More |
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Wear Channel 3: Rock On
By Hannah Mackenzie PENSACOLA, Fla. (WEAR) — Pensacola is full of history, but sometimes that history can get overlooked or forgotten. One local professor is working proactively to keep a specific era alive with the creation of a new museum. 309 6th Avenue may not look much different from the other houses on the street, but it has historic ties to an era many might not know too much about: punk rock. The house was built more than 100 years ago and since the early 1990s it's been lived in exclusively by members in the punk rock community. Punk rock enthusiast and University of West Florida professor Scott Satterwhite, said Pensacola plays a major role in punk history... Read More |
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InWeekly: A Punk Tour of Pensacola
By Christopher Scott Satterwhite “Write down the history,” he urged, with a passionate look his eye. “It’s the only thing that gives my life any meaning.” This is a line from Aaron Cometbus’s novel “The Spirit of St. Louis,” a fictional account of the old school Pensacola punk scene, despite the title. Cometbus writes the influential punk fanzine Cometbus, but also played in several Pensacola punk bands, and lived next to (arguably) the oldest continuously-inhabited punk house in the United States—Pensacola’s own “309.” In short, he’s an expert witness. The urgent moment Cometbus describes is based upon a moment in my life when the drummer for a local band heard I was attempting to compile a history of Pensacola punk. “Write down the history,” he urged. Despite the drummer’s plea, the fictional character and I had difficulty completing this onerous task. To outsiders, the history may seem trivial at best, or devoid of meaning in the larger context on Pensacola’s history or even the larger history of punk. Which was why I wanted to capture this history: to prove its importance and show that our history, the history of Pensacola punk, is an important part of the historical fabric of the region... Read More |
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PUNK HOUSE: Interiors in Anarchy
By Abby Banks, Timothy Findlen, and Thurston Moore The "punk house" may come in any number of forms. The most common type is often where a large group of like-minded punks cram into a house usually intended to accommodate two or three people, resulting in low rent and, thus, extended hours of leisure for the residents to pursue their true interests. Punk House features anarchist warehouses, feminist collectives, tree houses, workshops, artists’ studios, self-sufficient farms, hobo squats, community centers, basement bike shops, speakeasies, and all varieties of communal living spaces. In over 300 images of fifty houses in twenty-five cities in the US, photographer Abby Banks finds the already weathered face of a seventeen-year-old runaway; the soft hands of a vinyl junkie (record collector); the mohawked show-goer; the dirty dishes in the sink; silk screened posters on the wall; and many other revealing glimpses of these anarchist interiors. Features Photographs of the 309 House, available at Amazon.com |
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Cubed Raises the bar for Public Art in Pensacola
By Pensacola News Editorial Board Fall is an especially busy time in Pensacola. We have arts festivals and songwriters festivals and Egg Fest grill-offs and Blue Angels homecomings and more community events than any single family could possibly attend. But it’s worth pausing this year to give props to local artists Evan Levin and Ashton Howard for imagining, planning and executing CUBED — one of the coolest public art experiences downtown Pensacola has ever hosted. Levin and Howard pitched the idea to the Pensacola Museum of Art who won funding for it as part of the annual Foo Foo Festival. The project kicked off with the installation of four cubes in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza near the intersection of Palafox and Garden streets. The cubes were built by Fluid Metalworks, the downtown Pensacola company specializing in custom metal artistry of their own. The four accessible sides of each cube served as 64-square-foot canvases for 16 different local artists, including Levin and Howard. Each artist worked for 3 days — and nights — to complete their sides. And from the moment they lifted brushes, Sharpies and cans of spray paint, the artists drew crowds. The finished cubes have continued to attract a steady stream of onlookers, admirers and curious pedestrians throughout the week... Read More |
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No other place like it
By Troy Moon Zack White isn't the first person to show up unannounced and lugging a guitar at 309 N. 6th Ave. On a recent Sunday, just before the Pensacola band Rezolve was getting ready to practice at the two-story home, White, 22, came walking up the sidewalk with a guitar over his shoulder and a bottle of champagne in his hand. White once played with Rezolve, and he once lived in the home near End of the Line Cafe in downtown Pensacola. He's one of many — hundreds, actually — who have made what is known just as "309" into a long-standing "punk house,'' where a generation of artists, musicians, activists, scene-makers, cooks, poets, photographers and armchair punk philosophers have lived and worked their crafts since the early 1990s. Read More |