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Destroy! The influence of punk.
“Alex McDowell: design is a sharp knife.”
The work of acclaimed narrative designer and world visionary, Alex McDowell, has probably touched every corner of our lives. Beginning with an early career at street-style magazine i-D, he quickly moved on to music videos for Depeche Mode and Iggy Pop, record covers for Siouxsie and the Banshees, as well as game design for the BBC, and continues to fall forward even today.
The incident that started it all was when he put on one of the first-ever live shows by the Sex Pistols at the Central School of Art in London, in 1975. This “transformative” moment has taken him from working with Vivienne Westwood to collaborating with David Fincher on his groundbreaking film Fight Club, as well as devising a window into the future with Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report.
“I'm always drawn to something that's going to be disruptive, and seeing the Sex Pistols on stage for the first time immediately reverberated. I’m here now because of that night.”
Never one to sit still, he also teaches World Building at the University of Southern California, encouraging students to imagine an uncharted and unknown future.
In 2006, McDowell was named Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA, a design society, and was appointed Visiting Artist at the MIT Media Lab. In April 2015, McDowell was awarded the BritWeek Business Innovation Award.
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4. "Anton Corbijn: imperfection is perfection."
42:49||Season 1, Ep. 4At 17, inspired by the defiant spirit he saw in the various music magazines of the day, Anton Corbijn picked up his father’s camera and never looked back. By 1979, he was in London, capturing a photo of his beloved Joy Division at Lancaster Gate tube station. A year later, Ian Curtis’s death would transform the image into an icon, and cement Corbijn’s place in photography’s rock-n-roll hall of fame.“ I like people finding my work somewhere, that’s what I always liked about magazines, you accidentally meet your work if you publish in magazines, and I’ve always liked that.”Throughout his career, with a camera always as his cover, Corbijn has built countless profound relationships with artists and musicians of every kind and creative persuasion, capturing their essence through his raw, unfiltered reportage style. None are more profound than his 40-year collaboration with Depeche Mode, a deeply prolific relationship that began in 1986, which has propelled both Corbijn and the band into cult-like heroes. Today, continuously pushing himself forward, his relentless vision and unwavering ambition have made him a pioneer in image-making and visual storytelling. From album covers to set design, and music videos to filmmaking, he is constantly pushing the boundaries of his craft, always inserting his unmistakable personality into every project and idea; leading him to fertile collaborations with legends like George Clooney, REM, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and U2, and establishing him as one of the most influential creators of the 20th century.Follow us on Instagram @destroypunkpodcast for the latest updates.https://shows.acast.com/destroy2. “Stephen Mallinder: the journey of the beat.”
54:41||Season 1, Ep. 2Stephen Mallinder has been pushing the boundaries of music since he cofounded Cabaret Voltaire in 1973, long before punk even opened the door. The band’s influence has reached far and wide since those early revolutionary days inspiring many of the music industry’s most creative artists, including, Nine Inch Nails, and Depeche Mode, and helping set up musical “signposts” for house music, techno, and hip-hop to follow. “We were influenced as much by film and television as anything else. We saw ourselves as modernists, as people looking to the future. As part of the machinery of the modern world.”1. "Peter Saville: the epicenter of nowness."
53:52||Season 1, Ep. 1Peter Saville is arguably one of the 20th century’s most important artists. Growing up in 70s Manchester, inspired by the influence of punk, Saville seized the opportunity to change the world. Cofounder of legendary Factory Records, his groundbreaking design work for New Order and Joy Division inspired generations and influenced culture for decades. "I saw my work as signposts, where I thought things were going, my work was not actually about music, the music was the pulse beat of the moment and I tried to make a visual analogy as I heard it.”"Yobs" - Launch Teaser
01:02||Season 1On December 1st, 1976, the Sex Pistols appeared on English national television cursing and swearing obscenities. The “Bill Grundy incident,” riled a nation, incensed one man to destroy his TV, and inspired multiple generations of aspiring cultural revolutionaries to change the world."England" - Launch Teaser
00:28||Season 11970s England: societal decline, civil unrest, riots, striking miners, mountains of rubbish, mounting inflation, no power, a 3 day work-week, and no jobs - punk.