On July 13 a shabby, 114-year-old house in Avondale, named Animal Kingdom by its tenants, hosted a concert in its backyard. Animal Kingdom had been an unlicensed DIY show space since summer 2012, and though this was far from its biggest event—that distinction belongs to an Independence Day bash in 2013, which featured 20 bands and a record fair and attracted hundreds of people—it would be the one that finally brought the house to the attention of 33rd Ward alderman Deb Mell. The complaints Mell heard from Animal Kingdom’s neighbors might’ve put a stop to the music for good—that is, if the house hadn’t already been as good as dead before the bands played their first note.
It’s not clear who started the page, but at least one person, Terri Boyce, posted on it repeatedly from a personal account. I managed to reach Boyce, or at least someone with her name, after finding a cell-phone number attached to a likely looking bio online. (I also found an e-mail address with the user name “boyceterri” attached to a CAPS community complaint made shortly after the July 13 Animal Kingdom show, which alleged “illegal parties which violate noise ordinances, occupancy and safety ordinances for the area.”) She had no comment when I finally spoke to her on the phone, declining to confirm or deny her identity.
Nothing found the DIY scene in Chicago after moving here in 2008 to attend North Park University, where she majored in economics. She fondly recalls biking to Little Village to see Rabble Rabble at Mortville, which closed down in summer 2012. “That’s like a DIY space on a whole ‘nother level. It just blew my mind—they would make these art installations and they would redo them, make new things, every three months,” she says. “It was just these people who did it ’cause they wanted to do that, and I was impressed by that. It takes a lot of work, motivation, and creativity.”
Numbers like that can turn a scene into a great incubator, but they can also be detrimental to its future—as a general rule, the more people who show up to a DIY venue, the more likely they are to be a party crowd, not particularly interested in pitching in with the hard work and creating something. “Those spaces become community hot spots,” says Skolnik. “That can be amazing for nurturing artists, and it can also be really difficult in terms of sustainability. Once a space attracts a certain amount of interest, it’s going to disrupt the community around it.”
Financial difficulties and red tape drive DIY organizers underground—and into some disgustingly suboptimal living spaces. All six Animal Kingdom tenants shared a single bathroom; their oven didn’t work, the shower had no water pressure, and at one point they lost heat. Frankel fixed a broken window in his bedroom with Styrofoam and coats. “It was freezing cold in my room,” he says. “You were either in my room and under the blankets or you weren’t in my room at all.”
Nothing has yet to appear in court for that ticket, so she’s thinking of selling T-shirts to pay off the fine. She postponed her original date, on September 2, because she was on the road with the Funs selling merchandise, and she’s not sure when the rescheduled date will be—she’s between living situations, and has a feeling she’s missed a lot of mail. Nothing still wants to keep her dream of an all-ages show space alive, and she’d like to do it in her own community. “We shouldn’t have to be pushed to Garfield Park. They’ll probably tear down Animal Kingdom and build a nice condo,” she says. “I just hope that we can cut the red tape in Chicago and decriminalize DIY.”
